Little Girl

Is this the issue of our times? Back when I was young, many people struggled to accept homosexuality was 'normal' (indeed many fought hard against it and some do to this day). Now we are faced by the question of 'gender dysphoria' – are trans people real? Does it exist or is it just mixed up kids being misled by well-meaning (but, by inference, wrong) doctors? I will admit that I am open-minded but certainly not convinced...YET. If you are like me (or even if you think it is ALL wrong) then maybe this film can help.

Sasha "was born into a boy's body, but as soon as she was able to articulate such notions — from the age of two-and-a-half or three, her mother says — she insisted she was a girl" – Maryann Johanson, Flickfilosopher.

The film concentrates mainly on Sasha and her Mother, who is her main defender and advocate when it comes to school days: "If it didn’t say 'male' on a piece of paper, Mom says about the school's stubborn insistence that Sasha is a boy, no one would know otherwise. Why should it matter?" – Johanson again.

"This is a gentle work, a welcome contrast to mass media's hysteria around – and astonishing cruelty towards – trans children, which has no need to contrive any drama because conflict is built deeply into the society it depicts. Although we never see the dramatic climax with her principal or ballet tutor, we are aware of how precarious Sasha's ability to live as she desires is, dependent as it is first on her family – especially her parents – and then on her teachers, who have the power not just to take sides on transphobic bullying but to entirely veto her gender expression" – Juliet Jacques, Sight and Sound.

I would love to understand these children's problems more, wouldn't you? Come along and see what Sasha has to say...