Headscratchers / Normal (2003)

• Reverend Dale Muncie tries to help Irma and Ruth with the latter's gender problems by insisting that Roy is trying to be masculine and feminine by himself while he should let Irma release his feminine side. However, despite the Reverend's suggestion, Irma never mentions any of this to Ruth. If Irma was still unaware of what gender dysphoria is, why doesn't she talk with Ruth about this?
• Once Ruth starts wearing earrings at work, why do her co-workers immediately realize that she is transgender and not effeminate? Cisgender men can wear earrings regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Bikers often wear them. What if maybe Roy just wanted to wear earrings because he thought he looked cool with them?
• How do all the church chorus members become aware of Ruth's transition? Only Reverend Muncie, Irma and Ruth's boss Frank fully knew about her gender identity and her intentions to get sex reassignment surgery.
• If Reverend Muncie eventually gives up helping Ruth solve her gender problems and has her kicked out from the church, then why does he allow her to attend a mass only to kick her out in the middle of the ceremony? Shouldn't it be easier to ban her from entering the church from the beginning?
• Irma gets worried at one point that Ruth may desire to sleep with men following her transition, but Ruth insists to her wife that she is faithful to her. However, Irma later sleeps with Frank. Doesn't this make her hypocritical? On the other hand, Frank mentions that his wife can't have children but doesn't mention that he told her about what he will be doing tonight. So is Frank unfaithful to his wife as well?
• At the end, when Ruth pays a visit to her father, whose Alzheimer is worse than before, she tells him that he doesn't have a son despite the fact that Roy Sr. is still able to remember the fact that he had a son. Ruth doesn't tell him that she was her son but that she transitioned. So what was the purpose of visiting her father and introducing herself as a daughter Roy Sr. didn't know he ever had without any explanation? Does Ruth only come to troll her father and taunt him for only having daughters?

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