Just Gender

Director George Zuker's stirring documentary explores what the film calls the new civil rights frontier. As the film points out, the transgender population is a diverse one, and it's a mistake to assume that all of them are on their way to surgically altering their bodies to officially switch genders. That's not how it works for most trans individuals; the issue at hand, they say, is about coming to terms with their self identity without fear of societal rejection and prejudice. The individuals interviewed included an Chinese-American woman (born a man) who recalls her father saying that he'd rather have a convict for a son than a son who wanted to be a woman, an African-American male-to-female who details life as a call girl after her mother threw her out of the house, and a woman who was able to stay in a formerly heterosexual marriage to a woman after transitioning from male to female.

The interviews tell both hopeful and heartbreaking tales about life for transgender individuals, who are more likely to consider and commit suicide than others who identify as LGBTQ. But as sad as many of the fllm's anecdotes are, Zucker also imbues the documentary with a focus on moments of acceptance, like the spouses who stuck around because they loved their significant other regardless of their gender or parents who came around despite initial misgivings. Regardless of what you think you know about transgender persons, Just Gender will prove how little the majority of the population understands about those who feel trapped in the wrong body.