Transgender themed books & movies

Here are a few movies to get you started.

Soldier’s Girl
The true story of Soldier’s Girl, which takes place in Fort Campbell, KY, tells the heart-wrenching story of the life and tragic death of soldier Barry Winchell. His love for Calpernia Addams, a beautiful transgendered nightclub performer was misunderstood by fellow soldiers and eventually leads to his brutal death. The outstanding performances by Lee Pace and Troy Garity will draw you into this emotional and powerful film

Transamerica
The story of Bree (Felicity Huffman), a conservative transsexual woman who takes an unexpected journey when she learns that when she was a he, she fathered a son (Kevin Zegers), now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.

Ma Vie En Rose
Ludovic is waiting for a miracle. With six-year-old certainty, he believes he was meant to be a little girl – and that the mistake will soon be corrected. But where he expects the miraculous, Ludo finds only rejection, isolation and guilt – as the intense reaction of family, friends, and neighbors strip away every innocent lace and bauble.

Transgeneration
What is it like to be a man trapped in a woman’s body? How does a woman become a man? TRANSGENERATION, a dramatic and mesmerizing eight-part series, is a year-in-the-life look at four college students–Gabbie, Lucas, Raci, and T.S.–who are juggling the challenges of academia with their commitment to transition from their birth sex.

Boys Don’t Cry
Based on a true story, this drama was adapted from the life of Brandon Teena, born Teena Brandon, a woman who chose to live her life as a man and suffered tragic consequences as a result.

You Don’t Know Dick: Courageous Hearts of Transsexual Men (1996)
Lyle, Max, Michael, Steven, Ted, and James: a photographer who lifts weights, a cop, a mechanic, writers, an artist; one is gay, at least three are in serious relationships with women; one was in the seminary; one has three children from a previous marriage. All six were born female, and all are female-to-male (“FtM”) transsexuals.

Gendernauts (1999)

A valentine to a local transgender community, a leisurely stroll through a specific marginal community at a specific time: San Francisco’s “gendernauts” at the end of the twentieth century.

Venus Boyz (2002)
A film journey through a universe of female masculinity. A legendary Drag King Night in New York is the point of departure for an odyssey to transgendered worlds, where women become men – some for a night, others for their whole lives. What motivates them? What changes take place? What do they dream of? The drag kings of New York meet in clubs and change lustfully into their male alter egos, parodying them and exploring male eroticism and power strategies. In London we see women experiment with hormones to become new men and ‘cyborgs’. Masculinity and transformation as performance, subversion or existential necessity

 

 

Southern Comfort (2001)
Documentary about a trans man and his rural Georgia family and friends won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. FtM Robert Eads lives in self-described “Bubbaland,” and the film follows him in the year that he is diagnosed with what he considers a cruel joke, ovarian cancer. More than twenty doctors refuse to treat him..

 

 

Sir: Just A Normal Guy (2002)
Jay Snider is a 30 year old woman transitioning to a man. This film documents that process and includes interviews with him as well as his ex-husband Dave, his queer pal Sean Doig, and Kari his lesbian girlfriend.

 

 

XX to XY: Fighting to Be Jake (2003)
Interview with “Jake” a young transgendered Brit who is undergoing the process of changing from female to male.

 

 

Just Call Me Kade (2002)
The inspiring true story of Kade Farlow Collins 14, FtM (female to male) transgendered, and living with an incredibly understanding family in Tucson. Arizona.

 

 

The Opposite Sex: Rene’s Story (2004)
Rene, 31, a female-to-male gender reassignment candidate took hormones for years and “passed” as a man for all of his adult life. Married to his high-school sweetheart, Wona, a heterosexual woman, for 12 years, no one would guess Rene was biologically a woman. Living under a veil of secrecy and lies, Rene and Wona’s lives seemed fine until someone “outted” the couple at their beloved church and everything they knew was destroyed. The public revelation of Rene’s secret starts to unravel his marriage to Wona. Through all of it, Rene continues to hold on to his lifelong obsession to become a biological male and goes on a cross-country search to find the best transgender surgeon, only to discover that the current surgery options are flawed. At the last minute, Rene finds a surgeon who has created an experimental procedure, which will be seen in The Opposite Sex for the first time.

 

 

Boy I Am (2006)
While female-to-male transgender visibility has recently exploded in this country, conversations about trans issues in the lesbian community often run into resistance from the many queer women who view transitioning as a “trend” or as an anti-feminist act that taps into male privilege. Boy I Am is a feature-length documentary that begins to break down that barrier and promote dialogue about trans issues through a look at the experiences of three young transitioning FtMs in New York City—Nicco, Norie and Keegan—as they go through major junctures in their transitions, as well as through the voices of lesbians, activists and theorists who raise and address the questions that many people have but few openly discuss.

 

 

Call Me Malcolm (2004)
A documentary feature about a transgender seminary student, and his struggle with faith, love and gender identity.

 

 

A Boy Named Sue (2000)
Julie Wyman’s compelling documentary chronicles the transformation of a transsexual named Theo from a woman to a man over the course of six years. A BOY NAMED SUE is one of the best videos to date on female-to-male transsexual experience. The film successfully captures Theo’s physiological and psychological changes during the process, as well as their effects on his lesbian lover and community of close friends. Taking full advantage of the unlimited access she received into an extraordinarily personal process, Wyman carefully composes a moving story about gender identity, relationships, and how even things that seem permanent can change.

 

30 for 30: Renée – Renée Richards T*female tennis star

 

20 Centimetres

 

The Aggressives – 6 Women Difficult to Label

 

Bambi – Transgender music star

 

Beautiful Boxer

 

Becoming Chaz – Chaz Bono documentary

 

Becoming Julia – Australian T*female filmed for 2 years

 

Creature – T*woman with ultra conservative parents

 

Cruel & Unusual – Transfemale inmates

 

For the Bible Tells Me So – Scripture vs. Human Rights

 

Gender Rebel – 3 GNC bio females

 

Just Gender – Excellent educational documentary

 

Ladyboys – about Ladyboys

 

Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She

 

My Prairie Home – T* singer/songwriter Rae Spoon

 

Mr. Angel – Transmale pornstar and act

 

Paper Dolls – Trans* Filipinos working in Israel

 

Paris Is Burning – “Strike a Pose”

 

Prodigal Sons – T* filmmaker returns home

 

Red without Blue – Twins, one T*

 

Screaming Queens: Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria

 

She’s a Boy I Knew – T*male documents transition

 

Still Black – Portrait of black transmen

 

Trained in the Ways of Men – Murder of Transgender Teen

 

Trans* The Movie – Insights into lives of T*s

 

Transvisible – Bamby Salcedo, a T* Leader: A Portrait in Resilience

 

Trinidad – Colorado clinic and Dr. Bowers

 

Two Spirits – Explorations of Gender Fluidity

 

The Adventures of Sebastian Cole

 

The Crying Game

 

The Iron Ladies

 

Tomboy

 

Priscilla Queen of the Desert

 

M. Butterfly

 

Romeos

 

Breakfast on Pluto

 

 

 

 

Always open to new titles and suggestions for Transgender themed books & movies 🙂

 

Please send them to rachaelg@themeltzerclinic.com