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Overlooked & Underrated Docs & Features
(click on broll or dschwartz for all his posts)
Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities
Released in 1999, and distributed by First Run Features, “Gendernauts” is filmmaker Monica Treut’s portrait of several transsexual individuals and a survey of the transsexual culture in San Francisco, in the late 1990s. Treut interviews transsexuals, an ‘intersex’ person (we are told that term replaces ‘hermaphrodite’) and those who support them. The majority of interviewees are female-to-male... uh, conversions.
Our host is Sandy Stone who appears between segments sharing deep wisdom on both gender identity and human identity. She provides the psychological and philosophical foundation for both the physiological and cultural phenomena.
Like the original Star Trek series’ Mr. Spock, I find this subject ‘fascinating.’ Amongst the many questions evoked is the wondering, ‘Is there an alternative to pharmacological and surgical approaches to dealing with this mind-body discord? One which those with it would choose and find useful and meaningful? To be acceptable that answer would have to address the seemingly single=minded focus and passionate intensity those with this discord seek and accept physical intervention.
In any case, Treut’s film is an excellent introduction to this world, and, like any well-done documentary, it evokes as many questions as it answers—if not more.