“Impossible Hermaphrodites”

Being transgender is not the same thing as being intersex, but the two groups have some things in common: They have faced a medical system that have tried to force them into the gender binary, as defined by the “professionals”.

In this 13 minute long documentary, Impossible Hermaphrodites,  Porter Gale and Laleh Soomekh look at people born with ambiguous genitalia who had the misfortune of having their sex surgically decided for them as infants. 

“The most fascinating documentary, and my pick for overall winner, is XXXY (which consists of interviews with two intersex people). The film points out that 1 in 2000 people is born with genitalia neither completely male nor completely female, and the film examines the pressure the medical community puts on intersex people and their parents to undergo surgery to fit them into a male or a female mold. The film, although at times a little too distant, is effective because it avoids cloying sentimentality and focuses clearly on a specific aspect of its subjects without avoiding other issues.”
- The MIT Tech, June 8, 2001