A personal perspective. . .
I am a woman, who happens to be transsexual. I am married (yes, married) to a wonderful man who I've been with since 2002, even while I was pre-op. Finally I got a chance to watch this movie tonight.
My husband and I watched it together, and it hit home in more ways then one. My husband was appalled at the disregard for privacy, and human life in general. He realized that had the wrong people found out about our own relationship, he could very well have been Barry.
The scene where Callie was standing in front of the mirror with her robe opened was extremely moving for me. It brought back many memories of how I had hated seeing myself in a mirror, the utter disgust at my body being what it was. Lee Pace did an excellent job of portraying that same disgust to the viewer. Or perhaps it was something only seen by people who knew what that situation felt like. I'm not sure exactly. My husband could recall seeing that same look in my eyes whenever I caught a glimpse of my body when I was pre-op.
I really wish that this tragic situation had been used more to spread information about transsexuality rather than homosexuality though. I know that Barry was murdered because he was perceived to be gay; and indeed, perhaps he was but didn't realize it himself yet. We will never know. I don't personally believe he was, though. If the passion between Troy and Lee on-screen was even half of what it was between Barry and Callie in real-life, I don't think anyone could mistake them for a gay couple. There was just too much of a mixture of raw masculine/feminine/man/woman/boy/girl passion there to mistake it for anything but. It was clear that Barry made Callie feel like a total woman, regardless of what might still have been between her legs. I know that my husband, accepting me as 100% woman, helped give me the self-confidence I needed to get through every day before I was lucky enough to get the gender reassignment surgery over with.
This movie was heartwrenching. I cannot comprehend how Callie must have felt when she heard on the news about Barry's death. The thought of losing the man I love in that way is so unbearable that I am afraid to let myself think about it. What is terribly sad is that another man, who is confident enough in himself to accept a woman like Callie, and myself, and all other transsexual women out there, for the woman that she is, not the "man" that she was, is gone. In my experience, there aren't many men out there like that. Far too many wanted me because I was pre-op transsexual, and quite frankly, it was rather disgusting.