About The Project

The Youth and Gender Media Project encompasses a growing collection of short films that capture the diversity and complexity of gender non-conforming youth. In The Family Journey: Raising Gender Nonconforming Children family members relate their transformations from denial to acceptance and finally to celebration around supporting and nurturing their courageous children. I’m Just Anneke tells the story of a gender fluid twelve–year–old girl who’s taking hormone blockers that delay puberty so she can decide if she wants to be male, female, or somewhere in–between, when she grows up. Johanna tells the story of a sixteen–year–old Latina transgender teenager living in Los Angeles whose deeply religious, immigrant mother commits her to a mental hospital against her will in order to prevent her transition to a young woman.

    The films introduce radical new concepts for many audiences, from the very idea that a young child can be transgender and have the wherewithal to fight against the pressures to conform to a binary gender paradigm, to the new and still very rare use of hormone blockers to delay puberty. However, since the films are structured around universal themes such as parenting and acceptance, identity and difference, growing up and coming of age, tolerance, love and self-esteem, they remain accessible and deeply moving even to people who are resistant to the idea of transgender youth.

    In collaboration with our outreach partner Gender Spectrum and several other non-profits dedicated to creating safe and inclusive classrooms for gender nonconforming youth, the films will be used to educate teachers, administrators, parents and students in school communities across the United States.