Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“Ellie’s transition brought us together because it was a choice we made together, something we had to do together,” Ellie’s mother Vanessa Ford told Hollywood on the Potomac at National Geographic’s DC Premiere Screening of Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric. “We thought we had a son who really liked dresses. On our son’s fourth birthday I told our child ‘you are my favorite princess boy’ and he looked at me and said, Mom, I’m a girl in my heart and my brain. “We live in Washington, DC in the Brookland-Woodridge area. We have a beautiful daughter Ellie who is almost six,” said Vanessa’s husband JR who have been together for eleven years and have a really strong bond. “We wanted to participate in the documentary because we felt that we could share our story and portray a good understanding of what it means to be transgender – our story as parents with a transgender kid.”
RJ and Vanessa Ford
Katie Couric sets out to explore the rapidly evolving complexities of gender identity in Gender Revolution which airs on Monday the 6th of February on the NatGeo Channel. Couric, the Executive Producer, traveled across the US to talk with scientists, psychologists, activists, authors and families about the complex issue of gender. While it’s complicated, the documentary certainly enhances our understanding of the spectrum of gender identity.
Ellie Ford
“We also have another child,” said Vanessa while explaining why they decided to participate in the documentary. “We have a cis-gender, or non-transgender son as well and talk about us as a family unit, so that people can see us and say, hey, they’re playing and roughhousing and putting kids to bed, and getting them to school, and really help people learn. When we learned that this documentary was really an educational piece that was looking at all prurient science around gender, we felt really confident that people would have some big a-ha moments. And with those moments, they become more respectful and hopefully, then allies. Especially given what we’re about to do, I think the documentary will help kind of explain how she could know that. Just like if you ask a five or six year old non-trans child. You don’t wait 15 years to be like, let’s just see if you’re a girl in fifteen years. We’re not talking about sexuality. We’re not talking who she’s going to be attracted to someday. It’s not about her body. It’s who she was on the inside.”
Mara Keisling
Mara Keisling is the Executive Director of the National Center For Transgender Equality. “Our organization helped a little bit, helping them find some people to talk with. We’re very honored to be here tonight to help out. For me personally, to see the film for the first time. Just knowing that it’s going to save kids’ lives. They’re going to be kids and families who watch this, and understand just a little bit better. Accept their kids just a little bit more, and kids will feel just a little bit more welcome. I once had, I think it was an eleven years old who was on Oprah. I asked him why he did Oprah. This was fifteen years ago and he said, ‘A year ago I was failing school and was very unhappy and I just didn’t want to be around anymore. Then I saw a transgender kid on TV and I realized that’s me. It saved my life and I feel like if I go on TV maybe I can save some other kid’s life.’ That was from an eleven year old. For me to be able to do it in my age is such an honor and something I wouldn’t miss for a minute.”
Katie Couric
We asked Katie if she discovered anything that she wasn’t expecting when you did the interviews. “Everything because it was really new territory for me,” she told Hollywood on the Potomac. “I mean, I knew obviously, I was somewhat informed but I had not really met too many transgender individuals. I’d never met someone who I knew was intersex, and so every person taught me a little something, whether it was an anthropologist who talks about other cultures, or a scientist who’s looking into the biological underpinnings of gender identity, to families, who helped me understand what they went through to help their child, so I’d say I was pleasantly surprised at every turn. And you know, I was also surprised that schools and camps and other institutions are way ahead of us as a society in terms of welcoming and integrating transgender kids and making them feel comfortable and part of their families, their extended families. I think the mental health of your child is paramount, and when you consider that the suicide rate for transgender individuals is 41% versus 4.6% for the general population, you want your child to be alive and healthy and so, I think that is, certainly when it comes to my daughters, my primary consideration. I feel for these families it is a shock initially and probably requires a lot of compassion and a big adjustment. But I really admire their courage and strength in helping their kids lead the healthiest life possible.”
We also asked her what it was like being the Executive Producer. “It’s a lot of responsibility, because it’s a delicate subject. It’s a highly charged subject. It’s a highly sensitive subject, and you want to make sure you’re giving people accurate information in an evolving field of study. And you also want to make it accessible, understandable, and yes, entertaining too. So all those things were an enormous responsibility but as a self-proclaimed control freak, I was happy that [it worked out].”
“The January issue of National Geographic Magazine is all about the gender revolution,” Editor-in-Chief Susan Goldberg told us. “The issue is 100% devoted to the discussion about gender. A couple of years ago, I had started out wanting to do an issue about the state of women and girls all around the world. So we started reporting that. Then as we did, some of my colleagues came to me and said, ‘You know, being a boy is really a complicated thing. And the journey from boyhood to manhood is increasingly [difficult]. We should include boys, and do a story about gender,’ and I said, ‘Great.’ And then when we started reporting that, it became very clear, quite quickly, to really do an inclusive issue, we needed to also address the subject of transgender and the gender spectrum. So that’s really how the issue came about. I don’t actually think it is off the beaten path, because at National Geographic, for 129 years we’ve done stories about history and science and cultures and people, and that is exactly how we’ve approached this. How gender is being interpreted around the world, both in a traditional boy-girl way and in a non-traditional gender spectrum way is really changing how cultures are operating and how people are living. I think our job is to tell people what’s really going on in science, and in cultures and among people. Then people can use that information. One of the things our story does turn up is how discriminated against transgender people really are, and much, much more likely to be a victim of sexual violence, of domestic violence and as you say, even more likely to be at risk of suicide. I think that’s a problem for our society.”
The Scene:
