As an older cis-female, I had many questions about gender. The trans world is a little hard to understand when I have always felt female and currently don't know anyone who is in the trans community. This documentary provided answers to my very basic questions and reminded me we are all living in the same world and real people are living with misunderstanding, bias,and intolerance. I am glad I didn't rely on the incomprehensible and intolerant negative review to influence my viewing choice. Katie Couric just keeps getting better.
10 Reviews
Informative and Well Balanced documentary
jamesnayr15 April 2017
I really don't know by what basis the previous two reviewers were judging this excellent documentary, but I found it it excellent and educational. It covers a sensitive issue from every angle, including previously held beliefs that have now been discredited and talking to tragic victims of previously enforced "expert" opinions. The information presented is well-balanced and does not advocate any particular side whatsoever leaving the viewer to make up their own mind based on the facts presented. Viewpoints are taken from parents of children with gender dysphoria, children with the condition as well as adults and teenagers with the condition. I recommend watching it whether you know nothing, a little or a lot on this subject. Bear in mind also that this was commissioned for The National Geographic, which has a track-record of the highest quality educational content, add that to a multi EMMY award-winning journalist, Katie Couric, that has worked at all three major U.S. networks, you can decide for yourself.
It's complicated
bettycjung9 February 2018
2/7/18. Katie Couric serves as a tour guide for viewers as she explores the complexities of gender identity. And, she does a great job of navigating the various aspects of what it means to be unhappy with the body one is born with. You will be just as puzzled as she is trying to make sense of the ever-growing vocabulary that is being used to define the spectrum of gender identities for those unhappy with the simple male and female dichotomy. Good luck to all those in the business of generating population statistics. Interesting as only Couric can pull off.
This doesn't help the cause
kbrooks-0549012 December 2020
This movie is informative, but it feels misguided.
To see the hate hurts me. No one should have to deal with discrimination.
When I came out to my first job. I was told I had to use the only unisex bathroom. When everyone else found out that they can also use the only bathroom I can use, I was then told to go outside and use the bathroom.
You have the right to your religious beliefs but those beliefs only govern you. You have no right to push your beliefs on me.
Got upset when Katie seemed to force a mother to say that her AABM might be gay. That's a slap in the face of the daughter.
When I came out to my biological father. He said No, I had this many sons and I have this many daughters.
At that moment I wanted to get a hold of my birth certificate and have my marker changed. He also said that if I die, he will bury me with the name he gave me.
The funny thing about my birth name is in my past he said he had no choice of my name. That was left up to my biological mother and her mother.
So, I wanted to get my name changed officially so he didn't have the right.
I didn't understand my body when I was younger. But, I knew my name didn't fit me since the 4th grade. I started with going by my full first name, that didn't work. Then I started going by my middle birth name, that didn't work. Then I started writing different names to find one that fit. Then I was watching tv shows and movies about people being in the wrong place and saw something they shouldn't have. The FBI would give them an new identity and they would move to a new place and start living a new life. Then I was hoping that I would see something that would give me the ability to have my name and life changed.
My favorite holiday was Halloween. It was the one day I was allowed to wear mascara. One year my biological mother made a purple clown costume. It was my favorite costume of all.
I am labeled as a transgender woman but I don't identify as a transgender woman no more then I don't identify as a man. I identify as a woman. As in my past I was forced to adhere to the label of a man. Today I'm forced to identify as a transgender woman. None of this fits for me. I don't conform to the ideology of color to gender. In the old days heels were made for men. Make up was made for men. Wigs were made for men. And little boys use to wear dresses because it was easier to potty train in a dress. Times have changed and we don't see these social norms anymore. Most of this is because of religious beliefs being an effect on our laws and social norms. This is also why I don't believe in religion. If you look through history. You will see when a child is growing up. If they had an imaginary friend. It was ok for a certain amount of time. After a certain amount of time. If they still believe in their imaginary friend they were sent to mental hospital. This is how I see religious people. But in society if you talk to an imaginary entity, then you are not mentally insane. This makes no since to me. You can't condemn one without condemning the other.
I am labeled as a transgender woman but I don't identify as a transgender woman no more then I don't identify as a man. I identify as a woman. As in my past I was forced to adhere to the label of a man. Today I'm forced to identify as a transgender woman. None of this fits for me. I don't conform to the ideology of color to gender. In the old days heels were made for men. Make up was made for men. Wigs were made for men. And little boys use to wear dresses because it was easier to potty train in a dress. Times have changed and we don't see these social norms anymore. Most of this is because of religious beliefs being an effect on our laws and social norms. This is also why I don't believe in religion. If you look through history. You will see when a child is growing up. If they had an imaginary friend. It was ok for a certain amount of time. After a certain amount of time. If they still believe in their imaginary friend they were sent to mental hospital. This is how I see religious people. But in society if you talk to an imaginary entity, then you are not mentally insane. This makes no since to me. You can't condemn one without condemning the other.
I LOVE this film - Most up-to-date with science & medicine
stephanygator8 September 2018
My only critiques are that (a) in university housing you do NOT have to live with someone who is transgender if you do not want to or feel uncomfortable, and (b) the science doesn't go as in-depth as it could have had there been more time. For 90 minutes, it gets the best of all areas of science and some areas of advocacy.
I love the breadth of information from historical to international. It is intersectional and includes diverse presentations of genders and ages (the bench scene at the end is my favorite moment for parent/child dyads to watch!). I recommend all my clients with trans family members watch this.
P.S. Not everyone needs or desires medical intervention. I am disappointed in the hateful reviews here that have been found "helpful" and are full of disinformation.
This video affirms guidelines and statements made by the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Physician Assistants, American College of Nurse Midwives, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Public Health Association, and the Endocrine Society. Transgender health is not some "experimental psychiatric treatment method" as other reviews have espoused.
Internationally, medical intervention has been provided to transgender individuals since the 1900s. Those records were burned by the Nazis in 1933.
I worry about those who support the hateful 1-star ratings of this title.
I love the breadth of information from historical to international. It is intersectional and includes diverse presentations of genders and ages (the bench scene at the end is my favorite moment for parent/child dyads to watch!). I recommend all my clients with trans family members watch this.
P.S. Not everyone needs or desires medical intervention. I am disappointed in the hateful reviews here that have been found "helpful" and are full of disinformation.
This video affirms guidelines and statements made by the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Physician Assistants, American College of Nurse Midwives, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Public Health Association, and the Endocrine Society. Transgender health is not some "experimental psychiatric treatment method" as other reviews have espoused.
Internationally, medical intervention has been provided to transgender individuals since the 1900s. Those records were burned by the Nazis in 1933.
I worry about those who support the hateful 1-star ratings of this title.
I wrote this because I had to watch this for my diversity and inclusion class and felt it belonged here
busskat15 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Journal 10
Marcel Buss
After watching "Gender Revolution" I was honestly underwhelmed. I really loved the stories of trans people, and how heartwarming they were, but I really felt this documentary fell flat on a lot of marks. As someone who is part of the trans community and tries to regularly educate myself, I didn't like many of the ways trans people were talked about or the woman who was doing the interviews, Katie Courie.
This is not Courie's first run in with trans people. She used to hold a talk show on CBS where she had two trans women on for interviews. She wasn't exactly respectful. In the first interview, with actress Carmen Carrera, she referred to her as a man several times and asked invasive questions about her genitals. She tried to correct this mistake with her interview with Laverne Cox but fell into the same trap of asking about surgery and transition. Laverne put her in her place (If you haven't seen it, it's pretty iconic) and so it's crazy to me in this documentary how even though it's literally about educating herself on trans topics, she makes all the same mistakes.
So the second issue I had was how the transitions of the trans people featured were displayed and talked about. Katie Courie has this obsession with knowing the biology of the people she's talking to so when a new trans person was introduced it would tell their dead name and pictures of them pretransition, even if it wasn't necessary to their story at all. This made me cringe every time. I couldn't imagine someone doing that to me, I would honestly be offended. And that's not even to mention all the lowkey offensive questions she snuck in there. A few that stood out to me was when she talked to the transwoman about to go into surgery and asked what her dead name was (yikes). And then when she was talking with the teenage trans woman and her mom and asked "Did you just think your son was gay?" (double yikes). All of the people in the Documentary handled it with good grace but I was just like "Why was this necessary?". The one scene that really boiled my blood was when she was interviewing Renee Williams and another younger trans woman and she, like, pit them against each other. Like yeah, every cis person watching this needs to think that, somehow, trans youths are crazy or that older trans people have a binary view of gender. It was confusing and Courie seemed like she enjoyed pulling their strings.
The last thing, and this one was concerning for me, was the talk about "Trans brains" and how you can tell if someone is "really trans" if their brain looks cis. This is science that doesnt have a solid ground and would honestly be detrimental to trans people, and probably cis people down the road. The idea that you can find out if someone is trans or not is only a concern for cis people who are afraid of what transitioning will do to their children. So many people are afraid of trans medical care and its purely because they don't know enough about it. Puberty blockers are a safe way for any kid who's questioning their gender to use to prevent the permanent effects of puberty and are completely reversible. And any other medical care, like hormones and surgery are done later and with tons of paperwork and medical professionals sign-offs. So the truth is, while it might be easier for insurance companies to prevent extra costs or ease cis peoples minds, its never going to be that easy to determine if someone is "really trans" or not. Gender is literally a social construct so the idea that it is somehow determined in our biology sounds like Bull to me. And these studies were done of trans people who had been on hormones so obviously their brains would be more "cis" in nature. And what about nonbinary and genderfluid people? Are we just not going to provide trans health care to them? What if they scanned me, a trans person who's been socially out for 6 years, and it came back I wasn't "actually" trans? Or even a cis person gets a brain scan for something else and they tell them they're trans? It doesn't make any sense at all, and it feels like they would rather just scan us and move on than actually listen to trans people when they say they are trans. And not every transition is the same, and some trans people need different care so why should we all have to have the same "procedures" or look or act the same way? This whole brain scan sh- is pseudoscience and I didnt appreciate its presence in the documentary because it's literally not proven and doesn't have enough empirical evidence to back it up.
This also leads into the notion that, because of the increased amount of representation, that somehow being trans has become trendy and that some people are just dressing up for attention. Katie Courie interviews some trans students in the documentary and one student brought up the word "transtrender" and Courie jumped right on that all like "but wait that makes sense tho", something to that effect, while ignoring any perspective on the situation at all. Her exposure to trans people has been mostly trans people in film and on tv but she ignores all it took for them to get there, and also the lived reality of trans people. I am not cheered at when I leave my house, I am stared at and othered. The real struggle trans people face just by coming out or trying to be themselves is violence and harassment and unemployment. It just felt like this whole documentary was a vanity project for Katie Courie to "Prove she's not transphobic" and she comes off extremely insensitive. She's so worried about biology and how the physical part of transition works that she fails to see the way so many trans people have to live in the shadows just to survive.
If after reading this you are like "I dont want to show this anymore" (and like no judgement from me if you do still, its just some 101 stuff we did for a week lol) then I would recommend "Disclosure" on netflix. It doesnt talk about intersex people (and I didnt mention it above either because I dont feel I know enough but the way she talked to Brain in the documentary was Yikestm) but its a good history of trans representation in the media and how it affects trans people, and the real struggles we go through. And its made by trans people. (also I thought this was a strange pick for a journal entry because it was made by a cis person. All the other videos we watched were made by or were platforming the groups they were talking about.). In conclusion this documentary was a train wreck and I thoroughly enjoyed tearing it apart.
(Keep in mind this was supposed to be a couple paragraph journal entry)
This is not Courie's first run in with trans people. She used to hold a talk show on CBS where she had two trans women on for interviews. She wasn't exactly respectful. In the first interview, with actress Carmen Carrera, she referred to her as a man several times and asked invasive questions about her genitals. She tried to correct this mistake with her interview with Laverne Cox but fell into the same trap of asking about surgery and transition. Laverne put her in her place (If you haven't seen it, it's pretty iconic) and so it's crazy to me in this documentary how even though it's literally about educating herself on trans topics, she makes all the same mistakes.
So the second issue I had was how the transitions of the trans people featured were displayed and talked about. Katie Courie has this obsession with knowing the biology of the people she's talking to so when a new trans person was introduced it would tell their dead name and pictures of them pretransition, even if it wasn't necessary to their story at all. This made me cringe every time. I couldn't imagine someone doing that to me, I would honestly be offended. And that's not even to mention all the lowkey offensive questions she snuck in there. A few that stood out to me was when she talked to the transwoman about to go into surgery and asked what her dead name was (yikes). And then when she was talking with the teenage trans woman and her mom and asked "Did you just think your son was gay?" (double yikes). All of the people in the Documentary handled it with good grace but I was just like "Why was this necessary?". The one scene that really boiled my blood was when she was interviewing Renee Williams and another younger trans woman and she, like, pit them against each other. Like yeah, every cis person watching this needs to think that, somehow, trans youths are crazy or that older trans people have a binary view of gender. It was confusing and Courie seemed like she enjoyed pulling their strings.
The last thing, and this one was concerning for me, was the talk about "Trans brains" and how you can tell if someone is "really trans" if their brain looks cis. This is science that doesnt have a solid ground and would honestly be detrimental to trans people, and probably cis people down the road. The idea that you can find out if someone is trans or not is only a concern for cis people who are afraid of what transitioning will do to their children. So many people are afraid of trans medical care and its purely because they don't know enough about it. Puberty blockers are a safe way for any kid who's questioning their gender to use to prevent the permanent effects of puberty and are completely reversible. And any other medical care, like hormones and surgery are done later and with tons of paperwork and medical professionals sign-offs. So the truth is, while it might be easier for insurance companies to prevent extra costs or ease cis peoples minds, its never going to be that easy to determine if someone is "really trans" or not. Gender is literally a social construct so the idea that it is somehow determined in our biology sounds like Bull to me. And these studies were done of trans people who had been on hormones so obviously their brains would be more "cis" in nature. And what about nonbinary and genderfluid people? Are we just not going to provide trans health care to them? What if they scanned me, a trans person who's been socially out for 6 years, and it came back I wasn't "actually" trans? Or even a cis person gets a brain scan for something else and they tell them they're trans? It doesn't make any sense at all, and it feels like they would rather just scan us and move on than actually listen to trans people when they say they are trans. And not every transition is the same, and some trans people need different care so why should we all have to have the same "procedures" or look or act the same way? This whole brain scan sh- is pseudoscience and I didnt appreciate its presence in the documentary because it's literally not proven and doesn't have enough empirical evidence to back it up.
This also leads into the notion that, because of the increased amount of representation, that somehow being trans has become trendy and that some people are just dressing up for attention. Katie Courie interviews some trans students in the documentary and one student brought up the word "transtrender" and Courie jumped right on that all like "but wait that makes sense tho", something to that effect, while ignoring any perspective on the situation at all. Her exposure to trans people has been mostly trans people in film and on tv but she ignores all it took for them to get there, and also the lived reality of trans people. I am not cheered at when I leave my house, I am stared at and othered. The real struggle trans people face just by coming out or trying to be themselves is violence and harassment and unemployment. It just felt like this whole documentary was a vanity project for Katie Courie to "Prove she's not transphobic" and she comes off extremely insensitive. She's so worried about biology and how the physical part of transition works that she fails to see the way so many trans people have to live in the shadows just to survive.
If after reading this you are like "I dont want to show this anymore" (and like no judgement from me if you do still, its just some 101 stuff we did for a week lol) then I would recommend "Disclosure" on netflix. It doesnt talk about intersex people (and I didnt mention it above either because I dont feel I know enough but the way she talked to Brain in the documentary was Yikestm) but its a good history of trans representation in the media and how it affects trans people, and the real struggles we go through. And its made by trans people. (also I thought this was a strange pick for a journal entry because it was made by a cis person. All the other videos we watched were made by or were platforming the groups they were talking about.). In conclusion this documentary was a train wreck and I thoroughly enjoyed tearing it apart.
(Keep in mind this was supposed to be a couple paragraph journal entry)
Pay attn to the reviewer's bias
kennleeds-16 July 2021
The average rating here is pulled down by a lot of people who voted one because they don't support trans rights.
Disclosure: I have a trans son.
I found this to be a very good and journalistically sound exploration of today's world for trans people. Katie doesn't pretend to know all of the answers, and is genuinely seeking understanding. She asks the questions that many of us have, trying to sift through a new vocabulary.
The documentary covers a wide range of people, and doesn't give everyone a free pass. Hard questions are asked, and not always answered. We've watched it twice, and I found it to be entertaining, educational, and thought provoking.
Disclosure: I have a trans son.
I found this to be a very good and journalistically sound exploration of today's world for trans people. Katie doesn't pretend to know all of the answers, and is genuinely seeking understanding. She asks the questions that many of us have, trying to sift through a new vocabulary.
The documentary covers a wide range of people, and doesn't give everyone a free pass. Hard questions are asked, and not always answered. We've watched it twice, and I found it to be entertaining, educational, and thought provoking.
Resolved that unsettling last hurdle
theknownames5 January 2021
I have always believed I was accepting of gender diversity . Of course I would be kind and friendly , however , deep down , I could never quite 'get it . This enlightening documentary felt healing and addresses the (hopefully ) last hurdle .
I can't believe the negative reviews , mostly seem to be from people who don't want to or can't be open to begin with. Its the same mentality as those who forced many parents to choose genders at birth to begin with ( oh there is that too ) If you are curious or care about the now and future of our children's take on this stuff , check it out ...also watch the whole thing ..."you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone .. the times they are ..changing " Dylan
Eye-opening
lesleyparishnoyes17 June 2020
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