My Transgender Kid Documentary

“Actually I don’t want to be a girl. I am a girl”, says seven year-old Paddy McGuire in the ABC Documentary My Transgender Kid.

The opening line in the documentary My Transgender Kid introduces the perspective revealed in the forty-five minute picture. Aired on the ABC as part of the series Born in the Wrong Body, the documentary follows the lives of two young British transgender children, Paddy and George, and their families.

“These are normal children. They’re not some circus freaks. They’re normal children who were born with the wrong plumbing.”, says Paddy’s father Paddy Snr, in the opening scene.

The discussion surrounding the social circumstances of trans people and their rights is often a cruel debate of religion, biology and politics. In portraying the lives of such trans young children, the documentary asks us to take a more delicate look at the topic.

“If you hear me swapping from he to she, it’s because I’m trying to remember”, says Paddy’s mother, Lorna.

Paddy’s parents are not the well-spoken crusaders for the cause often portrayed, but normal people whose daughter was mistakenly known as their son for a while.  George, the other subject of the film, has experienced disconnection with his twin sister as he has moved away from his female gender identity.

“Some of our fears may have rubbed off on [Paddy], in which case…..shit,” Paddy Snr says.

In the second half of the documentary the parents of both children are portrayed looking through photo albums of their children before they were old enough to express a different gender to which they were born. In portraying their reflections the film highlights the common attitude of many transgender people and their families in their struggle with dysphoria, hatred, and adapting to a world which can sometimes not accept them.

My Transgender Kid makes a final draw at challenging stereotypes by showing young George’s introduction to Nic. Nic is a trans man who body builds, and is a firefighter. Unlike the children, Nic was not able to express his gender at a young age and instead went through “six painful surgeries to become the man he always was”.

The documentary was a refreshing look at the issues of young transgender people. It trod carefully but with purpose over the delicate of issues of such young children transitioning to a new gender identity. At a time when pieces like the 60 Minutes report on a father and daughter transition is grabbed for views, documentaries like My Transgender Kid play an important part in de-alienating the issue.