Growing Up Trans: Frontline Directed By Martin Smith

The documentary that I chose to do an analysis on is “Growing Up Trans”, a film that is showed on a T.V. a series called Frontline directed, by Martin Smith. In this documentary film it goes through the life of young kids that are planning to change there identity to a different gender. While the kids plan on taking hormone blockers they are being educated by doctors at Children's Hospital in Chicago, Illinois on how the hormone blockers are processed. Some of the parents are nervous because they don’t know if there will be long term side effects that may affect their child’s health. Hormone blockers are not well researched therefore they can be dangerous. While the parent’s kids are going to this process some of them are very supportive
or going through a phase where they can’t accept the fact that their child plans on changing their sex. Not only does this documentary educated me but, it also help me what the process that the parents have to go through. In this documentary it gives the viewers a better knowledge of the process of taking hormone blockers and it also gives young kids who plans on changing their gender a better Sardon 2 understanding, because they both have something in common. Although the people that was in the documentary were young kids it could also help older people to plan on taking hormone blockers since they never had a chance when they were younger. In my opinion this documentary was very helpful and easy to understand. It help me expand my knowledge in the process of transgenders. The filmmakers were able to reach out to the audiences feelings by providing interviews of their parents emotions and thoughts on their kids changing their gender.
In the documentary John, who identifies himself as a boy has a hard time having a difficult relationship with his father. One of the reasons why John’s father did not want to accept his situation is because of his religion views. He believes that when someone is born they should live as their natal gender. The other reason why John’s father did not accept his daughter decision to change her gender is because he said that he felt like he is losing his daughter and it felt as if his daughter was morphing into another
person. One of the reasons why I believe that children wants to be a transgender is because of there upbringing by their parents. In the documentary Ariel’s mother and grandmother raised him like a girl. She said that her mother and grandmother would not treat her different and they raised her like any women should be. For an example her grandmother would write princess names on the calendar every month and what she will call Ariel. By Ariels upbringing her decision was easy and felt natural because of how she was raised. What she did made her happy but maybe in the future she could change her mind on her gender identity. Sardon 3 The filmmakers directed a formal tone because it did not show any bias in the documentary.
They provided stories and opinions from the children. All of the transgender kids in the documentary were dealing with a problem or depression. The kids describe what they had to go through school and how their parents views on the situation. In the documentary the doctor said “we don't have all of the answers, there haven't been much research in this area. Hopefully theres going to be more research and some of those unanswered questions, hopefully this will begin to be answered and we could give families legitimate options.” This will be a great opportunity for the kids and parents to save stress and bring more relief in future decision makings. If they researched more in the area I believed that they could find a way to avoid the side affects in the long
term. This documentary helped me better understand on what these young transgender kids have to go through in their life. After watching this film I would listen to my children in the future but, I will also make sure they will have therapy prior to committing to this decisions to take hormone blockers. If I was a parent I would have a serious conversation with my child because this is a life changing decision. No matter the outcome of my future child’s decision I would always support them through every step they take. In the video it showed John’s father not accepting him and it seemed like that he wants to lose a relationship with John. For me I could never see myself doing that in the future, we should always be backbone to their life and a good role model.