Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She
| Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Antony Thomas |
| Narrated by | Gore Vidal |
| Theme music composer | Dimitri Tchamouroff |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Nancy Abraham Carleen L. Hsu Liz McLeod Sheila Nevins Antony Thomas Alex Ward |
| Cinematography | Jonathan Partridge |
| Editor(s) | McDonald Brown |
| Running time | 75 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original release |
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Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She is a 2005 American television documentary film by Antony Thomas.
The documentary explores the issue of gender and sex, beginning with transgender women dancing at a nightclub. The murder of Gwen Araujo, a teenage transwoman is described in detail by the narrator. Several acquaintances had killed her after finding out that Gwen was born male because two of them had had sexual relations with her.
Two transwomen, Calpernia Addams and Andrea James, speak about the members of their community being brutally murdered for being transgender. Addams then tells the audience about her boyfriend, Barry Winchell, who was harassed and eventually murdered by a fellow soldier for dating a transsexual woman. James talks about her life as a lesbian transgender woman.
How sex is developed in the womb is explained by the narrator and James Pfaus, a professor at Concordia University. More about how sex develops is discussed between each of the stories.
Max Beck, an Intersex person, tells the story of how he was born with ambiguous genitalia and then assigned female at birth. He was raised with many operations for which he did not know the reason until he found out that he was classified as a male pseudohermaphrodite at birth. He eventually transitioned to using the name Max and male pronouns, but still identifies as more an intersex person then a man. Max now is married with a daughter.
The next story told is about the intersex condition of Maria José Martínez-Patiño, a former Olympic hurdler, who was banned from competition after a test showed her to have XY (male) chromosomes. She eventually won her medals back and was allowed to compete as a woman after a long legal battle. There are no more chromosome tests in the Olympic Games, however, gender verification in sports remains contentious.
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