They say that when someone comes out of the closet, they
can't stop talking about it. Vancouver
not only talked she made a movie. Using archival family
footage, interviews, phone messages, and hand-drawn animation,
begins in 2000 with Steven Haworth's decision to come out to
his family about his life-long female gender identity. The resulting
auto-ethnography is not only an exploration into the
filmmaker's process of transition from biological male to female,
from Steven to Gwen, but also an emotionally charged
account of the individual experiences, struggles, and stakes
that her two sisters, mother, father, best friend and wife
brought to Gwen's transition.
Under Haworth 's sensitive eye, each stepping stone in the
process of transitioning becomes an opportunity to explore
her community's and our own underlying assumptions about
gender and sexuality. When Steven starts to wear his wife
Malgosia's clothing, she struggles with whether Steve "wants
to be with me or to be me;" when Steven changes her name
to Gwen, her father comments, that's "when I realized I lost
my son;" Haworth 's gender reassignment surgery, or vaginoplasty,
forces her sister Kim to grapple with her own experiences
in the medical establishment and raises questions about
the implications of the medicalization of gender.
In these tender and difficult moments, SHE'S A BOY I KNEW forces us to question our own assumptions about
the role that names, clothing, and anatomy play in our constructions of gender identity. As her transition progresses,
Gwen is forced to reckon with the end of her marriage and the loss of her status as son and brother. But
in doing so, she also discovers that while the nature of personal relationships may change, the love and support
present within those relationships can remain just as powerful and sometimes even more so.
At turns painful, funny, and awkward, SHE'S A BOY I KNEW explores the frustrations, fears, questions, and
hopes experienced by Gwen and her family as they struggle to understand and embrace her newly revealed identity.
Monday, February 21 · 8:00pm - 10:00pm
$6—Benefits TransOhio
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