Gender Trouble

Filmmaker Roz Mortimer's half-hour-shy Gender Trouble consists almost entirely of interview clips featuring four intersex women--all British, though one is Anglo-Indian--who speak directly but with a quiet dignity of their hermaphroditic experiences. The emphasis is on the clinical, with the subjects--whose ages vary, though the range appears to be 20-50--discussing in revealing detail how their condition was diagnosed and medically treated. While the approaches differ, the effort to eradicate masculine features and normalize feminine ones to the greatest possible extent is a recurrent thread, as are the concomitant physical pain and psychological distress that frequently accompany treatment. Gender Trouble--a title, incidentally, to which one of the women modestly objects, noting that while her condition might trouble others, she has certainly learned to live with it--would have benefited from more detailed introductory and background context (a better general overview can be found in the excellent Nova episode Sex: Unknown [VL-5/02]), and the rather saccharine music and transitional animation serve to undermine the piece rather than strengthen it. Still, the women are articulate and compelling, and the film brings to light a condition that is little understood and far more common than one might think. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)