Informative, engaging and extremely affecting, Julie Cohen’s documentary looks at the plight of people born intersex – a subject that, traditionally, has been concealed behind layers of shame and silence. The subjects, intersex activists Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel and River Gallo, give accounts of their early lives, and the brutal medical interventions and enforced gender assignments that have, until recently, been the default treatment for intersex infants. There’s also wrenchingly sad archive footage of David Reimer, a man who was raised as a girl after a botched circumcision. But heartbreaking as this story is, the picture’s peppy energy results in a film that is celebratory and defiantly upbeat.
