Videos

Both is a feature length narrative film based on the experiences of filmmaker Lisset Barcellos, as well as those of many other intersex adults. Available only from Solaris Films. This film is not available from ISNA.

Haunted by memories of her long-lost hermaphrodite brother, a stunt woman embarks on a quest in she discovers her sexual identity is a tissue of lies created by her parents and doctors.

Imagine growing up knowing you were different, not quite knowing why and feeling like you were the only person in the world like you. Meet Angela, David, Heidi, Tom, Mani, Cheryl, Max and Hida as they tell their stories of growing up intersexed. Share their joy at finally meeting other people who are intersexed. Be amazed as you witness intersex people speaking out for the first time in their lives!

See the review in Journal of Sex Research.

This one-hour documentary was nominated for a GLAAD award for Outstanding TV Journalism.

From the moment of birth, everybody wants to know is it a boy or a girl? This question can be complicated when a third option is introduced; one out of every two thousand children in America is born intersexual. Sometimes biology malfunctions and children are born with mixed sexual characteristics, in what is called an intersexual birth.

Many argue that the standard practice of sexual assignment by surgery in infancy should be discontinued giving the intersexual the right to chose or not to chose surgery once that person reaches adolescence. But whatever the surgical choice, intersexuals show us that gender is infinitely more complex than shape of our genitals.

On May 27, 2004, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission held a historic hearing on Intersex issues. It was the first public hearing held on Intersex issues in the United States. The hearing room at San Francisco City Hall was packed with intersex people and our allies. The hearing extended for over four hours.

You can view the hearing by clicking on the Video on Demand link below or you can purchase a DVD or a VHS tape of the SFGTV recording of the hearing directly from SFGTV. When ordering, be sure to specify that you want the Intersex Hearing from May 27, 2004. When we checked, the price was $12.50, and they required that you mail a check (they do not accept credit cards).

Through text, images and a DVD Talking back to Science provides an insight into the work of artists and scientists collaborating to explore biomedical science through performance, film and video. The artists and their contributors speak with candour, love, sensuality, poetry and intelligence about subjects as diverse as intersex conditions, osteoporosis, visual agnosia, cancer and autism. The scientists speak of the new perspective that artists can bring through their lateral and associative thinking, finding connections that a scientist might have overlooked in favour of the telescopic vision they assume out of necessity. Edited by Bergit Arends and Verity Slater.

The Child with an Intersex Condition: Total Patient Care (sometimes screened under the name “First Do No Harm”). This video tape is addressed to medical and mental health professionals, but is quite accessible to a lay audience as well.

“Intersex” is the general term used to denote a variety of conditions in which a person is born with mixed sex anatomy. It is important to note that intersex conditions sometimes involve “ambiguous genitalia” but that intersexuality is not always evident from an external examination.

In 2000, the short documentary “XXXY” by San Francisco film makers Porter Gale & Laleh Soomekh made the rounds of film festivals in the U.S. and internationally, to great acclaim. Clitorectomy and other forms of sexually mutilating genital surgery are a reality here and now for children born with a clitoris that doctors or parents think is “too big.” In this short documentary, Kristi Bruce and Howard Devore, both born intersex, talk eloquently and straightforwardly about their experience of a medical model based upon shame, secrecy, and forced “normalization.” Physician Jorge Daaboul (Director of Pediatric Endocrinology at Oakland Children’s Hospital in California) joins their call for an end to secrecy and mutilating genital surgery on intersex children.

This film is not available from ISNA. You can find distribution information from Porter Films.

View online

This video was produced by Greenstone Pictures and is now distributed by ISNA.

A documentary film that traces the life of the intersex activist Mani Mitchell (from “Hermaphrodites Speak!”). Frances Grant wrote in The New Zealand Herald: “The documentary’s strength comes from the fact that it is nearly all told in Mani’s own words. Strong and articulate, she traces the momentous changes in her life which led to self-acceptance and lack of fear in drawing attention to her ambiguous appearance… [It] is a courageous and unsentimental account of a person who has confronted and overcome extraordinary pressures and exclusion.” Also featured in the film are American intersex activists Angela Moreno and David Vandertie.