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TERRY GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. In the new series "Transparent," Jeffrey Tambor stars as a 70-year-old father who comes out to his three adult children as a transgender woman and begins a new life transitioning from male to female, from Mort to Maura. This series also follows Maura's three self-absorbed adult children who are each dealing with their own issues relating to identity and sexuality while trying to process that their parent has had a secret life. Entertainment Weekly TV critic Melissa Maerz described the series as groundbreaking television. My guest is the creator of "Transparent," Jill Soloway. The series is based in part on her experiences with her parent who came out as a trans-woman a few years ago. Soloway has also been a writer and producer on HBO's "Six Feet Under" and Showtime's "United States Of Tara." "Transparent" is an Amazon original series. The entire first season was released last month. Let's start with a scene from the second episode of "Transparent," where Jeffrey Tambor's character is forced to reveal the truth after coming home in women's clothes, not realizing that his oldest daughter, Sarah, would be there. Tambor's character is shocked to see Sarah, who has a husband and two children, kissing her old college girlfriend. Sarah is shocked by how her father looks. He tries to explain.(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TRANSPARENT")
JEFFREY TAMBOR: (As Maura Pfefferman) So I have something to tell you.
MELORA HARDIN: (As Tammy Cashman) OK. So do you guys - do you want me to leave?
TAMBOR: (As Maura Pfefferman) Yes, please.
AMY LANDECKER: (As Sarah Pfefferman) No, please. OK. No, please stay.
TAMBOR: (As Maura Pfefferman) Stay. It's fine.
HARDIN: (As Tammy Cashman) OK. Yeah, sure.
TAMBOR: (As Maura Pfefferman) So if - when I was a kid, ever since I was 5, I felt that something was not right. And I couldn't tell anybody about my feminine side. It was a different time, you know? Very different time. And, pretty girl, I just - I had to keep all those feelings to myself.
LANDECKER: (As Sarah Pfefferman) Dad.
TAMBOR: (As Maura Pfefferman) No, let me do this. Please, God. Let me do this. People led secret lives, and people led very...