Putting the crude offensive ignorant jokes aside...I think this episode does shed a little light on the family's perspective of a transgendered individual. I like what Ida said to Glenn "I had the advantage of thinking about this for years. For me it was easy: Do I want to be happy the rest of my life or miserable?" Yes it's an oversimplification, but it has some truth, those who are transgendered have had their whole lives to adjust to their feelings.
The part that gets me is how the commentary is always about the struggle of the trans person, you rarely hear about their family. So I think this episode gave a bit of insight into that part of it - especially from a son's perspective of a father transitioning to a woman. For a boy, you look to your father to teach you to "be a man" so I can't imagine it is easy to see someone you looked to in order to shape your own gender and life, go through gender reassignment surgery. It would definitely throw me into a bit of a tailspin.
I do like that in the end you can see that Quagmire and his father/now Ida have a pretty solid relationship because they were able to forgive each other after their fight and Quagmire was able to be supportive of Ida.
The part that gets me is how the commentary is always about the struggle of the trans person, you rarely hear about their family. So I think this episode gave a bit of insight into that part of it - especially from a son's perspective of a father transitioning to a woman. For a boy, you look to your father to teach you to "be a man" so I can't imagine it is easy to see someone you looked to in order to shape your own gender and life, go through gender reassignment surgery. It would definitely throw me into a bit of a tailspin.
I do like that in the end you can see that Quagmire and his father/now Ida have a pretty solid relationship because they were able to forgive each other after their fight and Quagmire was able to be supportive of Ida.