Gender Rebel focuses on three biological females at odds with their feminine form and its built-in cultural expectations and limitations. They use various words to describe themselves, including genderqueer and gender fluid, but not transsexual, transgender, or lesbian. Like a lot of gender/sexuality documentaries I’ve seen, I found the film’s description to be more compelling than most of the movie itself: Director Elaine Epstein's captivating documentary explores the lives of three biological females who reject the conventional concepts of gender and see themselves not as female or male, but as something in between. The camera follows these individuals as they encounter challenges at every turn -- from the strain on their relationships to confrontations with communities intolerant of their way of life -- and find a way to cope with social alienation.
Sounds good, right? And it was, I guess; it just wasn't great.
I think part of my indifference also springs from the subjects’ young ages—the oldest, Kim/Ryan, is 25, and Jill and Lauren are both 22. Jill’s burden throughout the film is to come out as genderqueer to her mom; she is already out and accepted as a lesbian. She’s so earnest, talking about her mom’s “right to know” that she’s genderqueer, yet, she herself states that she doesn’t mind being female; she just wants to be perceived as a guy, and to that end, she wears only guys’ clothes and she binds her breasts. So, this “coming out” truly is kind of redundant—her mother sees how she dresses, sees how she presents herself to the world, you know? I like her, and I end up thinking she’s sweet, but this quest just reeks of privilege, all this pathos over naming what her mother already sees and accepts and loves.
Lauren comes off a little bit like those young, passionate, political dykes who recognize the folly of a dichotomous system of gender and sexuality and battle this by choosing an identity, much as someone chooses a uniform for a job, consciously turning the system on its head as a political statement. Kim, on the other hand, seems to be responding to something that emanates from within her more than a desire to challenge cultural norms. I find her journey the most compelling.
I think I’m also a little put off by how inarticulate the two younger subjects are, especially Lauren, when discussing their “genderqueerness” with other people. Lauren’s partner Liz, also genderqueer, has an aunt who identifies as lesbian. The three of them are sitting at the aunt’s small kitchen table talking about the wonder that is genderqueerness when Lauren and Liz each declare that they feel neither male nor female; the aunt says in exasperation, “Well you only got two choices!” And boom, right there, our young genderqueers have a chance to open this woman’s mind to the idea that there are not just “two choices,” and they could then enter into a dialogue about culturally-constructed notions of gender and …
Anyway, that isn’t what happens, and the aunt is left just completely perplexed and kind of defensive, too. Further, she seems concerned as she wonders if she, a lesbian, doesn’t get what these young genderqueers are up to, then how will the rest of the world? There are lots of moments like this, where I, too, am exasperated with the two young rebels—Lauren moreso than our earnest young confessor, Jill.
On the other hand, Kim/Ryan gets top surgery and starts T-therapy, and I have to say that even though I typically believe that such radical body modification is ill-considered, this young (wo)man truly flourished after his surgery. I saw him relax into his own body, and it was so beautiful. And he was articulate about his emotions and perspective—the other two gender rebels just repeated a lot of catch-phrases and never really seemed capable of participating in the sort of dialogue that would lead to their being understood. To a certain degree, Lauren and Liz seemed to use their poor communication skills as evidence of other people’s closed-mindedness.
Ryan’s story is absorbing, particularly in how his transformation affects his relationship with his girlfriend, Michelle, who struggles with questions of her identity—is she still a lesbian? She does not want to be perceived as straight, and she is concerned about being alienated from the lesbian community. Ryan is 5’9” and looked a lot like a goofy-looking guy before surgery and T-therapy. Now, the T is lowering his voice and changing his musculature and he’s working out a lot and… Michelle sees him as a man. And rightly so, huh?
Is perception everything? Whose? Our own? Or that of those with whom we interact? Of those who have power over us, those from who we wish to gain something, those who we are loathe to disappoint?
Despite my initial misgivings, there are moments that do remind me of the ways that I am connected to each of these gender rebels. During Jill’s long-dreaded trip home to come out to her loving and adoring mother, photo albums come out, and the mother suggests, supposedly jokingly (though those of us who are bio females who present as masculine know better), that her daughter go put on the prom dress that the mother has held onto for six years, and as the camera cuts to Jill’s face, I saw it—and I really don’t know if I have ever seen it before—but I saw it: the anguished look of “I cannot believe you see me as something so completely foreign to how I actually am” coupled with the agony of “I cannot believe I am so alien.”
Still, my absolute favorite part of the film comes during this same trip home, as Jill struggles to confess her genderqueerness and decides to bring up the subject when talk of her discomfort and avoidance of going to the gynecologist comes up:
“It’s just … I look like a boy.”
“Noooo, you dooon’t. I don’t think so,” the mom answers, sweetly, as a mom will.
“Kind of,” Jill sort of passively insists.
“Not really,” the mom responds.
“Yeah, but I dress and act like a boy. That’s kind of the look I’m going for.”
“Oh, you’re going for a little boy look?”, the mom asks, gently puzzled.
Jill nods and says, softly, “Little boy charm…”
“Little boy charm,” the mom says, looking at her daughter, thinking it over. “Well, you still need a pap test, little boy. I don’t really see the thing that you’re uncomfortable about.”
“Does it bother you that I dress like a boy?”
“Does it bother me that you dress like a boy?,” the Mom ponders for just a moment, “Well, I just never thought of it as boyish,” she continus, “I just thought of it as bad fashion.”
Fucking awesome.
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