Whether you’re cis, trans, intersex, non-binary, or realized you’re a-gender and off the spectrum altogether, the more you look around, the more you’ll see. And if you really look, holy **** will you see some bodies.
Bodies, bodies, bodies
In Stephen King’s horror novel Carrie, blood surges from the character at the onset of puberty. It’s a signal of their truest power coming forward. But for everyone around her, it’s a sign that she isn’t just special. She is Other. She must be contained, controlled, and if those aren’t possible — destroyed.
Just a horror story, right? But for ShiNan, it will soon be a reality.
He goes to school like most days, even though he would rather stay home playing video games. While he suffers through classes, he thinks about sleeping and girls and sleeping with girls.
He is just an awkward teenager — and then he feels a blinding pain in his stomach. When he can, he runs to the restroom. He unzips. He lets out that instantly relieving splash of urine — and then sees his horror story.
He has soaked the urinal in red blood.
Responding with horror
Upon taking him to the hospital, ShiNan’s parents discover what no one noticed at birth: their son was born with a mixed set of reproductive organs. Now at the onset of puberty, he has had his first period.
There is a word for ShiNan: intersex.
Intersex people are those born with a variation of their reproductive organs that do not fit binary definitions of male and female. Time will tell if ShiNan is intersex as well as trans, cisgender, non-binary — so long as he is given that time.
Except his parents rob him of that time.
They take from him what is most precious.
They lie to him. They do not tell him why he is being put under for surgery. They do not tell him that the doctor claims it will be easier for ShiNan if his parents turn him into a girl.
ShiNan must become ShiLan.
Born to be human
Though key elements of the movie Born to Be Human are not accurate to the reality of being intersex, the film captures the brutality of having your body, your gender, and your identity chosen for you by someone else.
Note: stream Born to Be Human for free on Tubi
Whereas many people born with intersex traits are forced through surgery as babies, ShiNan/ShiLan faces the struggle as a teenager. By forcing them to face self-discovery and surgery as a teenager, the film opens a window of empathy for people being forcibly converted into the wrong gender at any age.
In that way, the film provides a dark reversal of many trans people. As babies, intersex people are often forced to endure the very surgery that trans people are forcibly denied as adults. It’s there that the overlapping struggle embraces all people with diverse bodies on diverse journeys. Just as the direct application of care has irreversible affects, the direct denial of medical care inflicts irreversible damage.
Regardless of our age, the people around us declare that they know our bodies better than we do. When our consent most matters, those people ensure our consent will never matter again.
Maybe it never did.
And yet it’s in this encircled struggle for gender diverse bodies that we find opportunities for empathy, empowerment, and connection.
But of course you don’t need to take my word for it.
Join me for a mind-blowing discussion (also available on YouTube) with Oscar-nominated director Julie Cohen on her new documentary Every Body about the experience of being intersex, why empowering intersex people will empower everyone else, and how to build alliances between all gender-diverse communities.
Further comments
I think it’s in Clerks 2, or maybe Chasing Amy, it’s definitely a Kevin Smith movie, but at one point, Smith pokes fun at a homophobic character for saying there’s very little difference between an oversized clitoris and an undersized penis.
I wouldn’t say it like that, but it does get at the question that sticks with me.
At what point would we call a person’s genitals:
a misdirected vagina versus a cisgender penis?
Or a misdirected penis vs a misdirected vagina?
Or to discard the binary and accept an intersex person’s equally valid mix of organs and traits?
Though I later came to understand why the phrase is problematic for a lot of people, “misdirected genitals” is a great description of my medical obstacles.
Some intersex people have a mix of organs people assume only go to men vs women. Some trans men have ovaries and can give birth. Some trans women have a penis and want to keep it (or get rid of it).
Other women, like me, never had a penis. I had misdirected genitals that went far too long being denied gender affirming medical treatment.
I knew I was a girl since as young as I can remember caring one way or another. Not everyone and everyone’s body knows that — but I knew with a certainty in my physical being.
Except the people around me looked at my body and decided they knew better than me.
They decided when I was born. They decided when I was a little girl. They decided when I was a teenager. They provided or denied whatever would forcibly convert me to the gender of their choice.
It took me a while to get here, but I understand now why my body caused my parents so much confusion. I understand why it confused me, too.
Contrast that confusion against the revelatory experiences I received from the intersex documentary Every Body. By the end of the documentary, I was bawling my eyes out. I’d never felt so seen or validated.
I hope you feel the same way when you watch this documentary and this interview.
PS. If you’re a storyteller
Julie Cohen shares incredible insights on how she selects the topics and subjects for the documentaries that have won her countless awards and the enduring legacy of a person producing documentaries that deliver revelatory positive impacts.
PS2. And if you’re eager for more intersex stories
Check out these selections from the three intersex people at the center of the documentary Every Body: River Gallo, Alicia Roth Weigel, and Sean Saifa Wall
1. River Gallo: Ponyboi
Ponyboi is an intersex runaway. He works at laundromat and hustles as sex-worker. But after a mysterious encounter with a man from his dreams, he learns that perhaps he is worthy of leaving his seedy life in New Jersey behind. Ponyboi is a queer film about discovering self-redemption and love.
Directed by River Gallo — one of the three subjects of intersex documentary Every Body — and Sadé Clacken Joseph, the film is like a queer, magical-realist riff on a Bruce Springsteen ballad. Ponyboi takes the codes and symbolism of a certain strain of nostalgic working-class Americana and spins it into poetic, audacious, and unexpected directions, creating a moving paean to self-love, courage and imagination.
Streaming for free on YouTube: Ponyboi
More incredible short films on River Gallo’s website
2. Alicia Roth Weigel: Inverse Cowgirl
From Alicia Rog Weigel, a celebrated activist on the forefront of fighting for intersex representation and rights — and subject of the documentary Every Body — a funny, thought-provoking collection of essays about owning your identity and living your truth.
Buy the book: HarperCollins
3. Saifa Sean Wall: “36 Revolutions of Change” | TEDx Talks
Sean Saifa Wall takes his audience on a journey through 12-step recovery, intersex, activism, gender identity and love. Saifa weaves a complex narrative that encapsulates social justice within the human experience.
Born and raised in the Bronx, Saifa attended Williams College and has since lived and worked in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Atlanta. Currently, he is a Marie Skłowdoska-Curie fellow at the University of Huddersfield in England examining the erasure of intersex people from social policy in Ireland and England.
Saifa is committed to racial equity and a radical vision of bodily autonomy for people with intersex variations. He made history by confronting the surgeon on ABC News Nightline who performed his gonadectomy at the age of 13.
See Saifa’s TEDx Talk for free on Youtube: 36 Revolutions of Change | Sean Saifa Wall | TEDxGrandRapids
Other coverage of the documentary featuring Saifa, River, and Alicia
Every Body: Documentary Summer Release Interviews | Sean Saifa Wall’s website
The New York Times: For a Documentary on Intersex Lives, a Director Champions the Power of Activism
NPR: ‘Every Body’ documentary explores what it means to be intersex : Shots — Health News
The Washington Post: ‘Every Body’: Eye-opening documentary sheds light on intersex people
USA Today: ‘We’ve all been lied to’: The intersex community speaks out in powerful new documentary
NBC: ‘Every Body’ puts faces to the long-silenced intersex community
Links for further reading
Coverage from and work by other intersex people involved with the movie:
I’m Coming Out as Intersex After Years of Keeping it a Secret | By Shana Knizhnik
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg | By Shana Knizhnik (consulting producer for Every Body) and Irin Carmon
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