Trans

This was well written and honest showing lots of the fear and stress faced by transgender people and their families

This was my favorite documentary so far on this issue. People who are "normal" do not even begin to understand what this is like or why it is important. A trans person knows that who they are is unacceptable - moreover, there is no place or concept of them in most peoples ideas of the world and how it works. Therefore, from an early age "you do not exist" is pounded into them. They even think that about themselves. Most people can just wake up and be open and go out into the world and feel cared for and loved for who they are. They are comfortable, they belong, They EXIST. Not trans people. Every day is a nightmare of fighting an inner self that can get you ostracized, isolated, maybe even killed. There seems to be no hope for life. That's why there is such a high suicide rate. MUCH higher than any other group. Every day is a war zone and you are behind enemy lines trying to dress up like the other side while they scrutinize you and interact with you. Your inner gender translator is working over time while beads of sweat roll down your face so you don't get the "look" and that distancing, that ostracism for some slip of the tongue or manner that will attract the hate and the violence... going through all that for basically fake acceptance of some façade eventually wears thin and you lose hope at the hollowness of it. All you want to do then is just be in the world, to live the life of who you are. For these people, coming out is like being born again. I loved the little girl in this -- at the end where she says "I love you" and runs off -- I was crying. It's a must-see documentary. EVERYONE just wants love and acceptance for who they really are. Being trans does not mean you are weak or a freak. Everyone is different in many ways -- our brains work VERY differently -- we all see the world differently -- this is just one of the ways, a big one affecting everything.

This was an interesting documentary. It might have gone more deeply into fewer lives. But the documentary wasn’t badly done. One has to admit that the people struggling with this are courageous; there’s no doubt about that. I saw another documentary about trans men in the Phillipines. You can get killed there. But this documentary really only shows one side, the PC side. What about the botched surgeries? What about the people who are refused surgery because of mental health issues? Are they the ones who commit suicide? The documentary did touch briefly on the people who want to have their surgery reversed. I found it interesting that we don’t have data on that last one. According to Sky News (10-5-2019), “There is currently no data to reflect the number who may be unhappy in their new gender or who may opt to detransition to their biological sex”. Isn’t that odd? In a society that measures everything, that we don’t know how many there are. And here’s another little tidbit I ran across. The News, Medical, Life Sciences (10/7/2019) wrote that “NHS facilities in the UK have started to offer guidance on gender transition to children as young as 3 or 4 years old and participation in gender transition programs has skyrocketed. They now have a record number of referrals and see 3,200% more patients than they did 10 years ago - with the increase for girls up by 5,337%. Personally, I don’t care if you want to change your biological body to align with your perceived body; you should have the right to do that, but guiding kids that young? That seems likely to cause more issues that it will cure.

Rarely do I sit thru the credits of a movie. But I was just dumbfounded at the end of this movie. About an hour after watching it, I reflected on a little boy who lived down the street from me when I was growing up. As a girl, I was always obsessed with my looks. Growing up, I befriended this little boy down street who was much younger than I. He was adorable, and altho' were at least 5 years apart in age, we just hit off as friends. Very shortly, I realized why I liked him. He was very "pretty". He was prettier than I was, so I "adopted" him as my little brother. I always used to tell people "this is my little brother", and he'd tell people, I was his "big sister". We were always happy to see each other and became good friends.This went on for about 2 years and then suddenly, he disappeared. Years later, I was out somewhere, and I heard someone calling me.The person was shouting out my name repeatedly from a distance. I turned around and waited for the woman to come up to me. It was my "little brother". By this time, we were both adults. I almost didn't recognize him. I remember thinking, "OMG! he turned queer!" Back in those days, guys like him were called transvestites.After watching this movie, it hit me --- he was a girl. He was a girl, trapped in a boy's body.Honestly, I had no clue people were really BORN this way. This movie really woke me up.