air is important to 18-year-old Jay, from Kansas City, Mo. Before the age of 12, he was severely bullied in school for having long hair and wearing clothing typically marketed to boys. “Cutting my hair was one of the biggest things that happened to me through the transition because it made me feel like I am me,” he says. “I am Jay.”
The new HBO documentary Transhood, out Nov. 12, follows four transgender children and their families over the course of five years. In the film, viewers see how Jay expresses his identity, particularly in two scenes with his barber, who is also a trans man. It’s these scenes that help to normalize, for viewers, the transition process for children and young people, emphasizing that it is a social process first, during which they may alter their hairstyle, clothing or pronoun preference before considering medical changes.
The four young people director Sharon Liese followed in her hometown between 2014 and 2019 show different facets of what it can mean to be trans or gender fluid. Viewers follow Leena, 15 when filming began, and her family as they navigate her later adolescence, the disappointments of her first relationship and her goal to have gender confirmation surgery when she turns 19.
Liese also follows Avery, who was 7 when filming began, as she sits for a portrait for the cover of National Geographic’s 2017 “Gender Revolution” issue and faces the pressure that comes with media attention. And in the story of Phoenix, who was 4 when Liese started filming, we see how children’s relationships with their gender identity are not always clear-cut. Phoenix initially says they are a “girl-boy” and later identifies as a girl, before identifying as male at age 7, and Transhood follows Phoenix’s parents as they respond to their child’s evolving identity.