Maura Pfefferman is a fictional character on American web series Transparent, created by Joey Soloway, the series creator and showrunner. Maura is a divorced, Jewish, L.A.-located retired college professor of Political Science and parent of three who comes out as transgender. The character is portrayed by actor Jeffrey Tambor. The role and Tambor's performance have received critical acclaim; among other awards, Tambor has won his first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2015 for the role, and has twice been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy, winning once in 2015.
Creation and casting The character of Maura is based on Joey Soloway's own parent, who came out as transgender at the age of 75, three years before the series started. In fact, the character's nickname "Moppa" (an amalgam of 'Momma" and "Poppa") is what Soloway calls their parent, having briefly used the nickname "Mopsy" for her. Soloway considered using their parent's transition as creative inspiration "pretty much like three seconds [after she came out]," but they "couldn't deal with it emotionally or creatively at all for the first year." Soloway and their older sister, Faith, finally committed to basing a project around their parent after observing that, as their "Moppa" was transitioning, and their stepfather was dying, "One was losing his voice while the other was finding hers. My sister and I were both like, 'We've got to write this shit down.' It was cinematic and it was funny and it was sort of like, If this isn't a TV show, I don't know what to do with these feelings." Amy Landecker, who portrays the character's eldest daughter on the series, explained that Soloway cast Jeffrey Tambor as Maura "from a very personal place", as "in [their] mind, [they] would see Jeffrey through the years and he reminded [them] of [their] father and I think [they] felt very deeply that he was the right actor for this part."
Controversy over casting The series has been criticized for the casting Tambor, a cisgender man, as a transgender woman, even prior to the series' premiere date. Soloway has noted in response that the show's treatment of transgender issues extends beyond its protagonist. Additionally, prominent transgender artists Laverne Cox and Jennifer Boylan (who consults for the series) have praised the casting for being representative of older transitioners. Landecker defended the casting by saying, "This show is great in large part because of him, and I think what Joey tried to do — look, the truth is: he's one of the greatest actors, he wanted to play this, they [Soloway] feel connected to him, [and the character's] also pre-transition when we start the show."
Storylines
Season 1
1994 The first season features multiple flashbacks to Maura's life in 1994, when she was living as Mort and married to Shelly (Judith Light). Her interest in femininity is only known to Shelly as a "sex thing". While admiring the models on the cover of a pornographic transgender magazine, Mort meets Marcy (Bradley Whitford), a transvestite who gives her the name "Maura". They befriend each other and decide to go to a weekend-long transvestite camp together, under the pretense of going on a business trip. Although she finds the camp liberating at first, Maura is disturbed by the transvestites' institutional transphobia of rejecting one visitor who started taking hormones. She and Marcy (who is implicitly interested in Maura) have a bitter falling out over Maura's interest in a transvestite's wife staying at the camp. Upon returning from the camp, Maura reveals the truth about the camp to Shelly, who is devastated by the news and asks for a divorce. Despite the end of their marriage, Maura remains firm friends with Shelly.
Present day Maura has started participating in a transgender support group, but she has yet to come out to her children. However, Maura is forced to come out to her oldest daughter Sarah (Landecker), when she accidentally runs into her while in full female garb. After a botched attempt at coming out to her son Josh (Jay Duplass), Maura decides to come out to her younger daughter Ali (Gaby Hoffmann). Ali and Sarah, while drunk, reveal that Maura is transgender to Josh, who reacts badly, claiming his parent must have dementia. In an effort to introduce her children to her world, Maura announces she is going to participate in a transgender talent show with her friend Davina (Alexandra Billings). However, Maura's children abandon their seats at the talent show, causing her to become upset. Maura reignites her friendship with Shelly, and helps her give an overdose of Percocet to her comatose, dementia-addled second husband, Ed. At Ed's funeral, Maura arrives with Davina ostentatiously late in limo, dressed in a showy outfit; she takes advantage of the following shiva to talk about her transition. She and Ali get into a bitter fight about Ali's canceled Bat Mitzvah (Maura took advantage of Ali's cold feet to go to the transvestite camp) and Ali's lack of ambition.
Season 2
Flashbacks Season 2's flashbacks deal with Maura's tragic family history: her grandfather Haim had gone ahead to America to work, leaving his wife Yetta to work on getting visas for herself and their children, Gershom and Rose. Gershom had become a patient of Magnus Hirschfeld and was living at his clinic, allowed there to express her gender identity under the name Gittel. Rose, fed up with Yetta's fatalism and Haim's absence, accepted Gittel and went to live at the clinic until its destruction by the Nazis. Although Rose was able to escape and joined Yetta in emigrating, Gittel was taken away and never seen again. In spite of her disapproval of Gittel, Yetta gave Rose a keepsake of Gittel's: the distinctive and unattractive Pfefferman family ring. They eventually arrived in Los Angeles and found Haim living with another woman. A few years later, Rose gave birth to a baby, a biological male, in spite of Rose's husband, Moshe's, prediction that she would have a girl.
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