Original subtitles

[heartbeat]

* [lullaby playing]

KATIE COURIC: It used to be so simple.

You were a boy or you were a girl.

Girls wore pink, boys wore blue.

Girls played with dolls, boys played with trucks.

Girls played house, boys played sports.

But that was then...

and this is now.

MAURA PFEFFERMAN: My whole life,

I've been dressing up like a man.

This is me.

*

WOMAN: The next battleground, transgender rights.

REPORTER: Gloucester School Board has been ordered

by a court in Virginia

to allow Gavin Grimm to use the same restroom as other boys.

MAN: What happens if your baby is born with the anatomy

of both a boy and a girl?

ASH CARTER: Transgender Americans may serve openly.

REPORTER: A transgender staff member

now works at the White House.

REPORTER: The question is whether this athlete should run

in the men's or women's race.

SARAH MCBRIDE: Will we be a nation

where everyone has the freedom to live openly and equally?

TRACEY NORMAN: It's good to be back,

and it's really good to be me.

JAMES CHARLES: I am a new Cover Girl.

REPORTER: Unisex baby names are totally trending.

Girls are getting names like Riley, Mason, and Taylor.

ANDY DEROIN: My name's Andy DeRoin.

I use they, them, their as pronouns.

REPORTER: DeRoin identifies as gender non-binary,

or neither male nor female.

MAN: My generation says that gender is fluid,

and that it's more of a spectrum.

CAITLYN JENNER: This woman has lived inside of me all my life.

It's time for her to live.

KATIE: It's all happening so fast,

but thanks to planes, trains, and automobiles,

I set out to explore

the changing terrain of gender today.

What is gender

and what determines it?

How can someone's sex at birth,

their anatomy,

be different than

their gender identity?

And what if gender roles are rejected entirely?

And what about people who don't consider themselves

men or women?

So many questions as we find ourselves

in the midst of a Gender Revolution.

* Shoob dooby dooby doo wop wop *

* Shoob dooby dooby doo wop wop *

I was born in 1957

and raised in a culture that made one thing perfectly clear.

The world was divided into two categories.

Male, like my brother Johnny, and female, like me.

And every message in popular culture reinforced that notion.

MARCIA: You're prejudiced against women drivers.

GREG: No, I'm not. Not as long as they stay off the roads.

KATIE: As I grew up, things started to change,

and I was able to do things my mom never dreamed of.

* Who can turn the world on with her smile *

Mary Tyler Moore inspired me to go into TV news

even though some of the issues Mary faced

still haven't gone away.

MARY TYLER MOORE: I would like to know why

the last associate producer before me

made $50 a week more than I do.

MAN: Oh, because he was a man.

[laughter]

KATIE: Back then, the revolution

was really about changing gender roles.

Now, it seems it's about the whole concept of gender itself.

TOM: Goal!

MITCHELL: Nice shot, Tom.

Tom used to identify as Tina.

CAMERON: [gasps] Oh, I wish you wouldn't have told me.

You know how proud I am of my gender identificadar.

KATIE: It can be a bit confusing

and pretty overwhelming.

After all, Facebook now lets you choose male, female, or custom,

which lets you tailor your gender profile any way you want.

For some people, it's too much to handle.

MAN: I come from you're either male or you're female.

Have I been living in a hole?

[laughs]

MAN: I can't imagine that there's 58 different ways

to gender categorize yourself.

WOMAN: I think perhaps there is some sort of madness going on

with political correctness.

Sometimes you just want to say what you want to say.

KATIE: So, what's a cisgender woman like me to do?

By the way, cisgender means

I identify with the gender I was given at birth.

*

Thank you. Thanks a lot.

I decided to head to a playground in New York City

to get some straight talk about gender.

I first saw Sam Killermann giving a TEDx talk,

and he got my attention with his opening line.

SAM KILLERMANN: So, I'm not gay.

[laughter]

KATIE: Sam has been studying gender for more than 10 years,

and he even wrote a book about it.

SAM: The reason why people

always assume I'm gay has

nothing to do with sexuality.

It's all about gender.

Gender and sexuality are often lumped together,

but they're two different things.

KATIE: Sam and I met up

so he could give me a lesson in Gender 101.

Let's unpack this whole gender conversation.

You use a device or a character called the genderbread man.

SAM: Person.

KATIE: Oh, sorry. Oh! Sorry, sorry.

The genderbread person!

SAM: It's okay.

I find it really helpful to think about gender

in a few different distinct categories.

Gender identity--

how you define your gender and how you see yourself.

Gender expression--the different ways that we present

or perform gender through our actions,

our dress, and our demeanor.

And biological sex or anatomical sex.

The physical characteristics that make up our body

that in many people's minds equal gender, but don't.

KATIE: So, gender expression

is the way you present yourself to the world.

So, you could be talking about the way you dress.

SAM: Yeah.

KATIE: The way you'd comb your hair or...

SAM: Or don't.

KATIE: Or use product? SAM: Yeah.

KATIE: So, everything kind of

as it relates to the outside world, right?

SAM: Yeah, yeah, that, I mean,

that's a perfect way of thinking about it.

So, even just, okay. So, this is funny.

The way that I'm sitting right now

is a very feminine expression of sitting,

because, like, how we sit is gendered, right?

KATIE: Meanwhile, I'm kind of manspreading.

SAM: Yeah, you're manspreading.

You're not even giving me enough room

to properly manspread over here.

This is the man cross, the masculine way of crossing a leg.

This is just uncomfortable for me.

It feels like so much...

KATIE: It feels good to me. SAM: Yeah?

KATIE: Yeah, it's like yoga. Okay. Now, let's do the girl.

SAM: Okay.

KATIE: So, gender is different than sexual orientation.

SAM: Yeah.

KATIE: But a lot of people get them confused.

SAM: Yeah.

Gender is who you go to bed as.

Sexual orientation is who you go to bed with.

KATIE: Got it.

SAM: So, if you haven't heard that one, that one's important.

KATIE: So, let's talk about penises and vaginas, shall we?

[laughs] SAM: Yeah, we might as well.

KATIE: Let's just go right there.

SAM: If you haven't already talked

about penises and vaginas,

we need to talk about penises and vagina,

because that's what everybody always thinks,

like, immediately, as soon as you say gender,

anybody who's walking by right now

who's hearing us say the word gender,

the first thing that's popping into their mind

is external genitalia.

They're thinking about penises and vaginas.

KATIE: So, for the purpose of our discussion,

the bottom line is your external genitalia

does not dictate your gender?

SAM: Yeah.

KATIE: Wait a second. Can you rewind that?

The bottom line is your external genitalia

does not dictate your gender?

SAM: Yeah.

I mean, that, I couldn't have said it better.

KATIE: Actually, for the vast majority of us,

our external genitalia does correlate

with the gender we identify as,

but that's not the case for everyone.

To make sense of it, let's go back to eighth grade biology.

FILM NARRATOR: Human growth begins when, during mating,

millions of sperm cells are released inside the mother.

This union of egg and sperm is called fertilization.

KATIE: So, what happens after that?

Well, we all start out looking like girls.

JOSHUA SAFER: The default in utero is female,

at least with regard to external genitalia.

But when you add testosterone, what that really is doing is

it's making the clitoris grow,

and there you have a penis.

What's also happening is that the labia grow together.

They actually fuse.

KATIE: Meanwhile, all babies have gonads,

and if you're a girl, those gonads turn into ovaries.

KATIE: But if you're a boy.

JOSHUA: Those gonads now grow down

into those fused labia that were, are now a scrotum.

KATIE: The game-changing hormones

that put it all in motion are called androgens.

Otherwise known as testosterone.

But what happens when something different occurs

during that critical window, the first trimester,

when the genitals form?

What if a female embryo is exposed to testosterone

or a male embryo isn't exposed to enough?

That can lead to a baby born intersex.

Siri, what does intersex mean?

SIRI: Intersex means relating to or denoting a person or animal

that has both male and female sex organs

or other sexual characteristics.

ELLEN FEDER: There are female children born

looking more typically male than female.

They have typical internal female reproductive anatomy.

They have a phallus, which in women we call a clitoris,

in males, we call a penis,

but they have a phallus that looks more male than female,

and they can be born with fused labia.

KATIE: So, if these babies are not clearly male or female,

what determines their gender and who gets to decide?

I wanted to learn more about what it means to be intersex

and what people born this way

might teach all of us about the origins of gender itself.

So, I came to Maryland to meet Brian Douglas,

because for nearly 50 years,

Brian was Diane.

Is it okay for me to talk about Diane,

because I know for, for some people, it's really painful.

BRIAN DOUGLAS: That's okay.

KATIE: Tell us about the condition you were born with

and what it does.

BRIAN: The condition that I have is known as CAH,

which is congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

KATIE: So, you were born, as many intersex babies are,

with what I guess is termed ambiguous genitalia.

BRIAN: Yes, they thought I was a boy absolutely when I was born.

I've had enlarged, it looked like a penis and testicles.

KATIE: At the same time, you had a womb and ovaries, yes?

BRIAN: Yes.

While in my mother's womb,

I was exposed to excessive amounts of testosterone.

KATIE: Your doctors advised your parents that you needed surgery.

BRIAN: Exactly.

ELLEN: Dating from about the 1950s,

medicine has sought actively to intervene

in normalizing the bodies of children

born with atypical sex anatomies.

That determination was made

strictly on the size of the phallus.

KATRINA KARKAZIS: This is the Phall-O-Meter,

made into a very helpful

refrigerator magnet.

[laughs]

KATIE: The Phall-O-Meter was developed in the 1990s

by intersex activists

to illustrate the arbitrary nature of these surgeries.

ELLEN: If a boy was born with a penis smaller than one inch,

he would be castrated and surgically reassigned girl.

If a female child was born with a clitoris

longer than one centimeter in length,

she would have a clitorectomy

and she would continue her assignment as a girl.

KATIE: You had your first surgery when you were how old?

BRIAN: 11 months.

KATIE: How were your parents told to deal

with this whole situation?

BRIAN: Silence.

Never a word was said

over the years of treatment that I received,

because back in the day, the doctors, you know, were gods,

and you didn't question them.

KATIE: So, you grew up as a girl, Diane.

BRIAN: Correct.

KATIE: You had the appearance of a girl,

but all the while feeling

that this wasn't you.

BRIAN: It was beautiful wrapping paper,

but that did not match the individual

underneath that wrapping paper.

And it was very frustrating,

and it took me a little while to, um, put the pieces together

and to realize what was going on with me.

KATIE: Why did it finally register?

BRIAN: I noticed that my birth certificate

had a whiteout on it.

The name had been whited out

and typed a different name over top of it.

And I called my mother and I said,

'Mom, what was my name on my birth certificate

when I was born?' And, um...

KATIE: How old were you?

BRIAN: Early 30s.

And, um, she started to cry, and I said, 'Mom, I love you dearly,

but I have the right to know,' and she told me.

KATIE: She said it? BRIAN: Yes.

KATIE: It was Brian? BRIAN: Correct.

*

KATIE: After spending most of his life

trying to live as a woman,

Brian decided to affirm his gender identity as a man.

Did you start taking testosterone?

BRIAN: Yes.

KATIE: Have you noticed your body changing?

BRIAN: Oh, yeah, yeah.

I actually have facial hair. I shaved for you.

KATIE: Can I feel it?

Oh, yeah, you do.

BRIAN: Yeah. I shaved for you today, so.

KATIE: Thank you. I appreciate that. You didn't have to.

BRIAN: Okay.

KATIE: What about your mom and dad?

Do they call you Brian now?

BRIAN: They haven't gone to the point of calling me Brian yet.

KATIE: So, what do they call you?

BRIAN: They call me D.

Yeah.

KATIE: Do you wish they'd call you Brian?

BRIAN: I do.

KATIE: Do you think they'll get there?

BRIAN: Yes.

KATIE: The protocol for operating

on intersex babies like Brian

was pioneered in the second half of the 20th Century

by this guy, Dr. John Money.

Money theorized that nurture could actually supersede nature

when it came to gender identity.

And in 1966, he found an opportunity

to test this hypothesis on identical twins.

Both had been born male,

but one had his penis destroyed in a botched circumcision.

ELLEN: This was the perfect experiment for Money.

Identical twin boys, and if he could successfully see

to the rearing of the one child as a female,

then his theory about gender malleability would be confirmed.

KATIE: Following Money's advice, David Reimer was operated on,

renamed Brenda, and raised as a girl.

ELLEN: For many years, it was believed

that the experiment was a rousing success.

And Money published many papers attesting to that success.

KATIE: But the world didn't know

that despite trying to live as a girl, he was miserable.

And when his parents told him the truth at the age of 14,

he immediately went back to being a boy.

DAVID REIMER: If I could prevent this from happening

to somebody else, you know,

maybe what happened to me wouldn't be in vain.

KATIE: For David Reimer,

this experiment turned into a living nightmare,

and he took his own life in 2004.

But by then, John Money was already considered

a world-renowned expert,

and the Reimer case had established the rationale

for operating on intersex babies

with the theory that you could impose a baby's gender

simply through surgery and parenting.

The same year David Reimer committed suicide,

a landmark study of intersex children seemed to confirm

that gender identity is biologically predetermined

and cannot be manipulated.

JOSHUA: This study is

David Reimer on steroids.

KATIE: 16 children were born with a rare intersex condition.

While they had XY chromosomes and were genetically boys,

they were born without penises.

Most had vaginas surgically constructed

and were raised as girls.

Despite the surgeries, four of them insisted they were boys,

four others initially lived as girls.

JOSHUA: But when those kids learned

what their medical histories really were,

they decided, 'Oh, that explains a lot.'

I know you've given me a girl's name,

and dressed me in pink, and given me a vagina,

and are giving me female hormones in puberty,

but actually, I'm a boy.

KATIE: Ultimately, nearly two thirds of the children

felt that regardless of their external genitalia

or how they were raised, they were boys.

What happened to the remaining children?

We don't know because the study ended.

But it was enough to convince a lot of doctors,

including Joshua Safer.

JOSHUA: So, this is not just one individual

who was treated unfortunately by the medical establishment,

but a whole group of kids.

KATIE: And Brian Douglas is living proof

that gender identity comes from deep within.

Because no matter what he was named, or how he was dressed,

or what he may have looked like anatomically,

Brian Douglas always believed he was a boy.

And in 2008, he wrote a letter to the doctors

who had chosen his gender for him.

BRIAN: I write this letter to attempt to truly communicate

and express the shame, humiliation, and suffering

I have experienced as a result of medical practices performed

because I was born intersex.

KATIE: You did get an apology.

BRIAN: I did, I got two letters of apology.

KATIE: Were you surprised?

BRIAN: I was. I was very shocked, actually.

That's basically unheard of for a doctor to do that.

KATIE: What would you say to doctors

who are still performing these surgeries?

BRIAN: Your days are numbered

as far as this being the acceptable and humane way

to practice on children.

And so, I wish that soon that the procedures

that were done on me, they will become few and far between.

And that's my desire.

STEPHANIE LOHMAN: What I thought was

why aren't they giving me the baby?

KATIE: Rosie was born intersex.

STEPHANIE: And the doctor said that she would need surgery.

KATIE: Why are doctors still performing these surgeries?

One out of ten kids feeling forced

into the wrong gender identity, that's...

MAN: Is bad. KATIE: That's a high number.

KATIE: How many babies are born intersex?

Well, no one knows for sure,

but experts say it's one in every 1,500 to 2,000 births.

GEORGIANN DAVIS: And I know thousands of people

all around the world who are intersex.

So, to me, the real issue is not how common it is,

but the way in which society views intersex.

KATIE: And those views are starting to change.

How old are you?

Four years old?

Today, the Lohmans are celebrating

their daughter Rosie's birthday.

Oh, nice, what do you think?

We hear you're a big baseball fan.

I'm a fan of the New York Yankees.

ROSIE: Boo!

[laughter]

KATIE: Rosie's dad, Eric, is a media studies professor

at the University of Wisconsin.

Her mom, Stephanie, is a registered nurse.

ERIC: Nice.

STEPHANIE: Wow, good job.

KATIE: Tell me about the day Rosie was born.

STEPHANIE: It was a perfectly normal pregnancy.

I had many ultrasounds, and they said it's a girl,

so then we had Rosie,

and it was, you know, just like any other birthing experience.

ERIC: So, when Rosie was delivered,

they showed Rosie to Steph, and she smacked me

and said that she told me

that these ultrasounds can be wrong, right?

When she looked at Rosie for the first time,

she thought it was a boy.

And so...

You did smack me, I remember.

So, I looked around the room and I saw what looked to be panic.

STEPHANIE: What I thought was

why aren't they giving me the baby?

You know, right, like, they usually give you the baby

right away and...

ERIC: It went from very exciting to sort of very scary quickly.

KATIE: And very confusing.

ERIC: Very confusing very quickly.

STEPHANIE: Yeah, very confusing.

And then the doctor came over,

it was very hard for the doctor to look at me and tell me,

he said, 'Well, sometimes babies are not quite a girl

and not quite a boy.'

And he said, 'The baby has this condition called CAH.'

KATIE: Like Brian Douglas, Rosie was born with CAH,

a serious medical condition that can cause a baby

to be born intersex.

STEPHANIE: The doc said that she would need surgery

within six months.

KATIE: What did you say?

ERIC: I was angry, I mean, I turned hostile very quickly,

you know, this is a cosmetic procedure.

What he's describing and what he did describe to us

was a cosmetic, you know, procedure.

Her body functions normally, so to make any changes to it

are by definition cosmetic.

GEORGIANN: No one should be able to sort of dictate

or tell a child or consent to a procedure

that, on a kid's body, that's irreversible

and medically unnecessary.

ERIC: She might never ever want to have a surgery

that changes the way that she looks.

I wouldn't be able to justify

saying we made this choice for you

and I hope it was the right one.

KATIE: So, why are doctors still performing surgeries

on intersex babies like Rosie?

We asked Rosie's pediatric urologist that question.

He disputes the Lohmans' version of events

and says not operating was presented as an option,

and said he's sorry if they got the wrong impression.

He also says if it had been his child,

he would've likely opted for surgery.

SUMIT DAVE: One of the things we know

with congenital adrenal hyperplasia

is that the majority of them,

90% to 95% of them, would identify themselves as females.

The trouble really lies in that five, ten

who do not identify as a female, and you operate on them,

and you didn't give them the chance

to express that gender identity.

And for that, it's, for that group of people, I agree,

it's a complete, you know, disaster.

KATIE: One out of ten kids feeling that they were forced

into the wrong gender identity, that's...

SUMIT: Is bad.

KATIE: That's a high number.

SUMIT: Yeah, it is, and it could be even higher.

KATIE: What percentage of these kids

are currently being operated on?

SUMIT: I can't give you, give you an exact number,

but if you look at the data,

about 75% to 85% of the parents would decide on surgery.

KATIE: But I guess

some would argue,

isn't that the child's decision?

SUMIT: Yes, it is.

But, you know, as parents,

we take a lot of decisions for our children.

And that's not just for medical reasons,

we do that for everything.

KATIE: Some doctors, and I imagine some parents, feel

it's just less traumatic to grow up as male or female

in this binary world we're living in.

GEORGIANN: Mm-hmm.

KATIE: Do they have a point?

GEORGIANN: Well, I think the, it's a great question,

but I think what we can think about it

is that these are human rights violations

on intersex kids' bodies.

And kids, I feel, should have their right

to make their own decisions about their own bodies.

KATIE: What if one day Rosie says to you,

'I can't believe you didn't have the surgery

when I was a little baby?'

ERIC: Yeah, that is a concern.

STEPHANIE: I'd rather deal with the fallout of an adolescent

saying, 'Why, why didn't you do this sooner?'

And I'll say, 'Well, I wanted you to have a choice.'

Than to have a teenager, an adolescent saying,

'Why did you do that to me? I never would've wanted that.'

KATIE: For now, the Lohmans are keeping an open mind

in case Rosie decides to have surgery when she's older.

They say they just want to do what's right for their child.

And that's exactly what the Ford family is doing

with their daughter as well.

I visited them in their home

in Northeast Washington, DC.

Vanessa and JR have two kids.

Ellie is five and Ronnie is six.

Both born male, but at the age of four,

their youngest son told them she was a girl.

Hey, Siri, what does transgender mean?

SIRI: Transgender means

denoting or relating to a person

whose sense of personal identity

does not correspond with

the gender assigned

to them at birth.

KATIE: I'm gonna help you guys. What are we making?

JR FORD: So, we're gonna make a feta salad.

KATIE: The day I visited,

they were getting ready to host a neighborhood barbecue.

So, tell me about when Ellie became Ellie.

JR: So, when she was in preschool,

her and her brother would dress up in costumes and dresses

and whatever they wanted.

VANESSA FORD: I mean, so many little boys did that,

they play, they play princesses.

But by the time Ronnie was four,

that was gone, like, that wasn't part of who he was.

KATIE: So, with Ronnie it was a phase?

VANESSA: Yeah, with Ronnie it was a phase.

And with Ellie, we had a different kid

when that dress was on.

We have pictures of her in snow gear,

and there's this dress over all of the snow gear.

And on her fourth birthday, we had this big birthday party,

and she stopped and she turned to me,

she's like, 'Mom, I'm not a boy,

I'm a girl in my heart and my brain.'

KATIE: So, when Ellie, who was then your son...

VANESSA: Right.

KATIE: Said that to you,

'I'm a girl in my heart and in my brain.'

VANESSA: Yeah.

KATIE: I mean, was that, was that a little scary at first?

VANESSA: Yes.

Initially, I thought how could this child know that,

what does that mean?

JEAN MALPAS: When a four-year-old cisgender child

tells you, 'I'm a little girl.'

Do you say, 'Well, I don't know yet,

let's see, let's take some time,

let's wait until you're 15 or 18 and we'll find out.'

When we're thinking about

would kids change their mind,

we have to really differentiate

the kids who are gender explorers,

gender expansive, gender fluid,

who after adolescence

will not want to transition.

What we know with kids who are

persistent, consistent,

and insistent

from a very young age

is that almost none of them

change their mind.

KATIE: So, how do young kids like Ellie

know with such certainty who they are?

Perhaps it's because

that's what their brains may be telling them.

Once again, scientists suspect

the big T, testosterone,

is playing a role.

In the second and third trimesters,

a baby's brain grows rapidly.

Higher than normal levels of testosterone in a girl

during this time, and her brain maybe wired to think she's a he.

Lower than normal levels of testosterone in a boy,

and his brain maybe wired to feel like a she,

just like Ellie.

Some people said, you know,

the parents' job is to guide their child,

and that a child basically in essence isn't old enough

to make this kind of choice.

Did you have a medical professional

kind of guiding you through this?

Because I know as a parent,

I mean, it's such a massive decision.

VANESSA: Yeah.

JR: So, Vanessa found that there's a clinic

within the Children's National Medical Center

that we sought out first.

They brought Vanessa, myself, and Ellie in.

So, that was our initial kind of intake

into, you know, what does this mean for Ellie,

what does this mean for us?

VANESSA: They asked about how she depicts herself in drawings,

what she calls herself,

and then they bring you in

for about a two-hour conference.

They met with Ellie on her own,

and then they met with us,

and they've said, 'You're doing the right thing,

your kid is who she says she is.'

And then, of course, we got Ellie a therapist,

and she's a PhD, she does assessment, she does diagnoses,

she does all of that.

And she was another affirming person who said,

'You have a trans kid.'

KATIE: Like most families,

they shared the news in a thoroughly modern way.

VANESSA: We actually have a video of her

that we posted on Facebook at the time

saying we don't know what this path is,

our son just really wants girl clothes,

and so we bought her a whole new wardrobe,

and we have a video of her coming up

and seeing the clothes for the first time.

Ready for the big surprise?

ELLIE: Yeah.

VANESSA: Look in your closet

at all the dresses that are hanging up.

ELLIE: I'm gonna wear this dress first.

VANESSA: That's the one you're gonna wear first?

ELLIE: Yeah.

KATIE: And what was the reaction to that on Facebook?

JR: Uh, phenomenal.

VANESSA: Yeah.

JR: All our family and friends have just really been

just loving and caring and just have been really supportive,

because they know us.

They know our family.

Um...

And, um...

It's just been a really good feeling

to know that people support us.

We want to make sure

that our kids are healthy, protected, loved.

So, any way that we could support them, we will do it.

KATIE: Do you want to try to put some lipstick on me?

ELLIE: Yeah.

KATIE: Okay. Whoa, not too much.

Ellie is now in kindergarten,

where her mom and dad say she's just one of the girls.

And she'll be allowed to live as a girl as long as she wants to.

VANESSA: We've seen her, we've seen this progression,

and we've seen how amazing she's become

and confident in who she is, and we're okay with that.

KATIE: And they say all of this can be undone

if Ellie changes her mind, which they believe is unlikely.

JEAN: When a child transitions,

everybody transitions along with them.

That means the parents,

the classmates in school,

the teacher, the principal,

everybody has to understand what's going on.

KATIE: But for Ellie, the real challenge will happen

a few years down the road,

something the Fords know all too well.

JR: When kids get older,

you know, when they're going into puberty,

this dysphoria is heightened,

it's increased because all the hormones

are starting to come in,

and there's just this internal battle.

KATIE: You're 12 years old,

so puberty is just around the corner.

ALLY HUDSON: Yeah.

JEAN: Puberty is very stressful.

The body will betray who they are.

And once they start cross hormones,

these are permanent changes.

EJ: I'm almost six months on T.

OLIVER: Lucky.

I want to be six months on T already.

*

KATIE: What would you do if your daughter told you, 'I'm a boy?'

Or your son said, 'I'm a girl?'

And what makes someone feel

that way in the first place?

We know that scientists believe

that something happens to the trans brain

while it's developing in utero,

but there's also some evidence

from human brains examined postmortem

that seems to show trans brains are in fact different.

And ground zero is the hypothalamus,

the tiny nerve center that controls your heart rate,

sleep, and metabolism.

Scientists initially believed that the hypothalamus

of a gay man would resemble that of a woman,

but what they found surprised them.

JOSHUA: Down below, we have the staining pattern of a gay man.

The picture above is the staining pattern

of a straight man.

And observe, there is no difference

between the gay man and the straight man.

However, over here in this corner,

we have the staining pattern for our transgender woman,

and observe that even though her external body parts at birth

may have been male,

she has the same staining pattern

as the non-transgender, as the cisgender woman.

What it tells us is that there are areas in the brain

that correlate with gender identity

and not with external body parts.

KATIE: But it's not just hormones like testosterone

influencing how our brains are wired.

It may also be in our genes.

Why do scientists think that?

A 2012 study out of Belgium

found that among fraternal twins who do not share identical DNA,

the likelihood that if one twin is trans,

the other will be is very low.

But among identical twins, the likelihood shoots up to 40%.

What does that mean?

STEPHEN ROSENTHAL: Well, what that says to me

is that your DNA is playing a role here,

because the identical twins essentially share the same DNA,

whereas the non-identical twins don't.

JOSHUA: We don't know if this is one gene or eight genes

or a group of genes

that are affected in slightly different ways,

but I absolutely do believe that we will have a day

when you can do either a brain scan or a blood test,

and we will be able to say that, yes,

your kid has the biology in their brain

for the opposite gender identity.

KATIE: After all, according to one estimate,

the number of people in the US

who identify as trans has

doubled in the last five years.

Now, up to 1.4 million Americans.

JOSHUA: So some people have the sense

that the number of transgender individuals is increasing,

but of course, if this is biology,

then it wouldn't make any sense that that would be true.

Rather, what's happening is people who are transgender

are coming forward now more.

KATIE: As more and more children,

often under the age of five, are identifying as trans,

some parents are left feeling dazed and confused.

JEAN: There's no manual for parenting to begin with.

But when your child comes with a whole other territory,

with other references,

with other needs that you've never had to think about,

it is really, I think,

shocking and disorienting,

and where you need a lot of help.

KATIE: What's it like to be one of these families?

How do you prepare for this?

And what kind of help are they getting?

That's what I was hoping to learn

when I went to meet Ally Hudson,

a 12-year-old transgender girl,

on a day when she had another visitor as well.

KRISTINA OLSON: So I'm going to tell you

about two kinds of kids,

and I want you to decide which one you're more like.

Does that make sense?

ALLY HUDSON: Yeah.

KRISTINA: My name's Kristina Olson,

and I'm the director of the TransYouth Project.

So what we're doing is a 20-year longitudinal study

of hundreds of young transgender and gender nonconforming kids,

and we go and visit them every about two or three years

to assess basic gender development.

Would you want to be friends with a boy

who wears nail polish?

ALLY: Definitely.

KRISTINA: One of the questions

that we're working really hard to try to answer

is this question that nearly every parent asks us of.

Is this is a phase?

Is my child gonna grow out of this?

And so the way that we're trying to answer that

is to get a lot of different kids

in a lot of different situations

and look at what their later development looks like.

KATIE: So, Ally, how did you feel about being in the study?

ALLY: I like it, because I want to pave the way for other kids,

to make it easier for them and not have it as hard as I did.

KATIE: On the surface,

Ally seems like any other 12-year-old girl.

She loves music, art, and basketball.

But she hasn't always been this comfortable in her own body.

She was assigned male at birth.

But for as long as she can remember, she felt like a girl.

ALLY: In no way should anybody think that this is phase.

We've been this way all our lives

and that we've just now had the voice and the guts to speak out

and tell what we're thinking

and not just what society wants us to say.

KATIE: And Cristina, did you ever think,

'Oh, perhaps my son is gay?'

CRISTINA: We thought that our child was just very in touch

with her feminine side.

KATIE: And might be gay?

CRISTINA: Yeah, might be gay, and we thought,

'Okay, that's great. That's no problem.'

I remember even one time we went to the American Girl Doll store

with a friend of mine

who does have a gay son who also likes dolls.

And Ally gets in the car after the day

and she says, 'Mom, I'm not really like him.'

She didn't know the word gay then,

but I knew what she was saying.

She was letting me know,

'Mom, yeah, this really isn't, isn't me.'

KATIE: I wondered, Cristina, there are some people out there

who I think have the attitude as a parent,

you tell your kids what to do, how to behave, who to be,

and that this tendency to be more accepting

of transgender children is part and parcel

of a overly permissive kind of parenting style.

CRISTINA: I do get that a lot.

Like, you know, 'Wow, I don't even let my child decide

what they're gonna have for dinner,

and you're letting your child decide

that they're now going to be another gender?'

But what I say to them is, 'I didn't really have a choice.'

KATIE: Something Cristina realized

when Ally's constant anxiety had reached a breaking point.

CRISTINA: And after one panic attack,

she said to me

with a look of, of despair,

she said, 'Mom, I need you to answer one question,

because, Mom, I can't do this again.'

And I said, 'What?'

'Yeah, yeah, I just need to know, Mom.

What happens when I die?

Mom, will I be a girl then?

Will I be, will I be a girl?'

And I said, 'Absolutely. Totally.'

'You sure, Mom?'

'Yeah, I'm sure. God would never do that.

You'll, you'll come back,

and, and you'll, you'll come back how you want to come back.'

And she just sighed with relief.

And it took that, her kind of asking permission to die

to get me finally that, that next day,

I just got on it.

I think that I'd never really had the strength

to type in 'transgender children,'

and that's what it took.

KATIE: So you've, you were suicidal?

ALLY: Yes.

KATIE: At seven and a half?

ALLY: Mm-hmm.

KATIE: Now, with her family supporting her,

Ally's dealing with a challenging new stage.

JEAN: The emergence of puberty for a lot of those kids

is very stressful.

Like, the idea that the body will change,

and the body will betray,

in a way, who they are and who they want to be,

really creates a lot of anxiety.

And puberty blockers allow the body to not masculinize

and feminize in a way that's unwanted.

WOMAN: I'm starting blockers today.

WOMAN: Oh, my God, guys, I'm so excited.

WOMAN: I got my first blocker shot at the doctor's office.

WOMAN: It's like a big step, it's gonna block male hormones.

KRISTINA: Many people call them the pause button,

and what it does is it pauses puberty where it is.

WOMAN: There it is!

KRISTINA: It allows the child to develop a little bit more

without going into puberty.

It buys them a few years of decision making,

and then if they go off of the puberty blocker,

they will go just directly into their natal sex puberty.

KATIE: Ally, you're 12 years old,

so puberty is just around the corner

whether you want it to be or not.

ALLY: Yeah.

KATIE: And you've made a decision

that you will go on puberty blockers.

ALLY: Yeah.

KATIE: You didn't want to grow facial hair.

ALLY: Yeah. KATIE: Right?

ALLY: Yeah, definitely.

KATIE: You didn't want your voice to lower.

ALLY: Yeah.

KATIE: So the doctor told you you would have an implant,

is that right?

ALLY: There's a shot, there's an implant,

and I chose the implant, because it lasts for two years.

KATIE: Is that a new area?

CRISTINA: Yeah, it's not like I can...

KATIE: Does that worry you, Cristina?

CRISTINA: Yeah, that's why I love a study like this,

because I wish there was a study that I could look at right now

and say, 'Okay, let me see about a 60-year-old

that at 12 years old went on blockers and then hormones.'

But there is no study like that.

So it is a little scary,

and I know that some parents might find it hard to understand

why I am choosing this for my child.

But I believe that doing nothing could be detrimental as well.

KATIE: So you really are kind of a pioneer, aren't you?

ALLY: Definitely.

JOSHUA: Puberty blockers are relatively safe

and are relatively reversible.

And in my view, we should be using puberty blockers

for any kid who is reporting that he or she is trans

as he or she is entering puberty

until they are able to decide what to do long term.

KATIE: And you feel this is definitely

the right course of action for you?

ALLY: Yes, definitely.

There is nothing that is stopping me from being who I am.

KATIE: So if puberty blockers are the pause button,

what happens when these teens decide to hit play

and want to make their transition more permanent?

That means hormones.

This is Camp OUTdoors!,

one of the growing number of summer camps

catering specifically to gay, lesbian, and transgender teens,

and many of them are thinking about hormone therapy,

which will begin to physically transform their bodies,

bringing them into alignment with their gender identity.

MAN: Boo-yah.

KATIE: A person who is assigned female at birth

but is transitioning to male

would take testosterone.

A person who is assigned male at birth

but is transitioning to female would take estrogen.

JEAN: Cross hormones have permanent effects,

so transgender adolescents have to understand

that once they start cross hormones,

their body's gonna change.

They might grow breasts, they might grow facial hair,

their voice tone is gonna change.

But obviously, these are permanent changes.

OLIVER: In order for me to start testosterone,

my parents have to consent to it,

because I am not an adult, I'm a minor.

MAN: Oliver. OLIVER: Piper.

JOSHUA: The guidelines that are out there right now

for cross sex hormones are very conservative.

EJ: I know for a fact

that you have to have a letter from a therapist.

OLIVER: Yeah!

MAN: Very good.

JEAN: We do a comprehensive assessment.

Always make sure that

every kid in every family

has an in-depth assessment

and process to really find out

what the right pathway is for them.

EJ: I fortunately had a good therapist.

She got me on it right away,

because I talked about it so much.

She knew that I needed to be on hormones.

I'm almost six months on T.

OLIVER: Lucky.

I want to be six months on T already.

EJ: It's so, it, like, goes by like that. [snaps]

You don't even notice it.

It's cool to see different people's reactions

to how my voice is getting deeper

and will be continuing to get deeper.

Is the reason you haven't, like, started hormones

is because of your parents?

OLIVER: I think the reason why they are so resistant

is they think, I'm pretty sure they think it's a phase.

EJ: Yeah.

OLIVER: It's just upsetting.

EJ: Yeah.

JEAN: So this whole question

about who's gonna continue to be trans as adolescents and adult

is, you know, the million-dollar question

we're all trying to figure out.

We don't have an exact way to say,

'I can guarantee that this child will continue

identified this way in 10, 15, 20 years.'

But what we know is that not having this conversation

is also a risk that we cannot afford take.

You know, the suicide rate in the young people

or even in children is really staggering,

so we must have those difficult conversations.

KADO STEWART: Statistically, almost half

of trans-identified people have attempted or died by suicide.

That's unacceptable.

It's a question of do we want them to live?

MAN: What are you guys most excited about looking forward?

EJ: This is more like a personal thing,

but I'm really excited about my voice getting deeper.

[laughter]

My voice used to be up here, and now it's down here,

and, like, that makes me really happy.

KATIE: But hormones are not the final step for a lot of people.

After that, there's an even bigger decision ahead.

You decided to have surgery.

LINDA ROHR: I said, 'Goodbye, Bill.'

And she became Kate.

DOCTOR: Do you plan on undergoing

gender reassignment surgery?

MAURA: I'm gonna have to get back to you on that one.

KATIE: For some trans people, a definitive step in the process

brings them to Dr. Marci Bowers' operating room.

I wanted to learn more about Marci and her patients,

so I got on a plane to San Francisco.

*

Hi, Marci.

MARCI BOWERS: Hi, Katie, it's such a pleasure to meet you.

KATIE: It is so nice to meet you.

It's hard to find someone more personally invested in her job

than Marci Bowers, an OB/GYN who transitioned in 1998.

Marci is feisty, friendly, and very funny.

MARCI: Somebody called me the Georgia O'Keeffe of genitalia.

[laughs]

KATIE: When I met her,

she was getting ready to perform her second surgery of the day.

So it's not called gender reassignment surgery anymore?

MARCI: Well, the idea is that

really, your gender is something that you feel internally

at a very, very early age.

And so it really doesn't change.

So you're not reassigning gender,

you're, you're affirming or confirming

what you felt since you're an early child.

KATIE: Got it.

MARCI: Or I like gender affirmation surgery,

but then that stands for GAS and nobody likes gas, so.

[laughs]

KATIE: So maybe gender confirmation's a better term.

MARCI: Gender confirm, GCS seems right.

KATIE: Well, let's go see Allison.

MARCI: Let's go see Allison.

[knocks]

Hi, Allison, how are you?

ALLISON: Not bad, you?

MARCI: Good. I have a special guest.

KATIE: Hi. I'm Katie. Hi. ALLISON: Hi, I'm Allison.

KATIE: Very nice to meet you. ALLISON: You, too.

KATIE: How are you feeling, Allison?

ALLISON: Nervous and excited.

KATIE: Yeah? ALLISON: Mm-hmm.

KATIE: More nervous or more excited?

ALLISON: Mostly excited.

KATIE: Oh, good.

Can I ask you what your name was before Allison,

or would you rather I didn't?

ALLISON: I'd prefer not.

I don't like really thinking about my old name,

because it really isn't me and it never really was.

KATIE: That's something called dead naming.

I just learned that.

ALLISON: Mm-hmm.

KATIE: Explain what that is, Allison.

ALLISON: Just the idea that your old self,

who was a depressed person, is effectively dead

and gave birth to a newer, happier person.

KATIE: Well, good luck with everything,

and thank you for letting us talk to you

during what is, I'm sure, an anxiety-producing time.

MARCI: Okay, sweetheart, so we're gonna do well, okay?

ALLISON: Okay. MARCI: Okay. Bye, baby.

ALLISON: Bye.

KATIE: How many of these surgeries do you perform a year?

MARCI: Approximately 140 to 150 per year.

This is just the male to female.

KATIE: And what about female to male?

MARCI: They're more difficult surgeries to perform,

and they have more complications that are potential.

And not all female to males

seek to have gender confirmation surgery.

KATIE: And for those who do wish

to anatomically go from female to male,

Marci provides a less complicated method

which relies primarily on testosterone.

Her waiting list is three years long.

While some choose not to have surgery,

there are plenty who want it,

especially now that it's being covered by insurance

in a growing list of states.

I know that you have more and more seniors.

MARCI: Our oldest patient was 76,

and we've actually had two of those.

KATIE: Wow.

MARCI: We have someone on the schedule

apparently who's about 80.

KATIE: Really?

MARCI: And their feelings were that they did not want to die

in their birth-assigned gender.

They wanted to die as the person they felt themselves to be.

KATIE: From Mills-Peninsula Medical Center,

I took the long and winding road to Fort Bragg, California.

I was first introduced to the Rohrs

when I watched a piece about them by the Washington Post.

KATIE: For Kate, transitioning has been a lifelong journey.

And unlike many other transgender people,

she's very comfortable talking about her past.

Bill Rohr was born in Fanwood, New Jersey, in 1946.

KATE: When I was three or four, I knew something was wrong.

People talk about it,

and it's been written about being in the wrong body.

I never thought of it that way.

I just knew something was wrong.

My mother had this habit every year

of taking the picture of the two boys to send to everybody,

you know, the two boys sitting together.

And we always had the same shirt.

And one year, I finally declared,

'I don't want to wear my brother's shirt.'

And so she said, 'Alright. Go pick it out.'

And I went over the girls' department

and picked out a girl's T-shirt.

She took it to the counter and the woman said,

'You can't buy this for him.'

She said, 'Why not?' She said, 'It's a girl's.'

And my mother had to put it back.

The message was you're a boy, and this is what boys do,

and you will live the boy's life.

KATIE: And that's exactly what he did

in the most all-American way.

In high school, he was an A student,

lettered in varsity track and was student council president.

Then it was on to Princeton and later medical school.

Just as the scientific community

was starting to recognize gender dysphoria,

Bill met a young woman named Linda.

KATE: Yeah, it was 1966.

I had just finally read the book

that says this is a medical condition.

It will not change.

It's somehow programmed into the brain,

and then along comes this woman who all of a sudden,

I'm just crazy about and fall head over heels,

and how am I gonna put this together?

So I said, 'Well, the genie goes in the bottle,

put the cork on the bottle, and I'm Bill,

and we're gonna make a go at this.'

KATIE: Did you worry about putting Linda in this position

knowing that you weren't really comfortable as Bill?

KATE: The biggest challenge I've had

through this whole transition

is a level of guilt that was just really overwhelming

for having told her that lie for all these years.

KATIE: After 45 years of marriage, two children,

and a hugely successful career as an orthopedic surgeon,

Bill finally told Linda

the one thing he'd never admitted to anyone else.

KATE: I said, 'I don't know how to tell you this,

but all my life, I've believed I'm a woman, that I'm female,

and that I am therefore transgendered.'

And I looked at her and she started crying,

and I thought, 'Now what do I do?'

You have to understand, all my life,

I believed my life would end

the moment another person discovered this.

So here I'm sharing the secret,

but I'm thinking, and now she's starting to crying,

and I'm thinking, 'This is it. It is over.'

She said, 'Well, if you told me you had cancer,

you were gonna die, how would I deal with that?'

She said, 'If you told me you were gay

and really had an affection for men,

I have nothing against that,

but where would I fit in that picture?'

She said, 'But this is, you still love me?' I said, 'Yes.'

LINDA: Or an affair.

I was afraid you were having an affair

and you were gonna tell me you found another woman

or something like that, things that would end our marriage.

And the reason why I was crying was more out of sadness

for the struggle that she had lived her whole life

and that she kept it from me and from the family

and sacrificed for us to give us a really good life.

KATIE: I think people have a hard time, in general,

understanding what it's like to be transgender.

KATE: Mm-hmm.

KATIE: And I think they have a hard time, Linda,

understanding what it's like to be a partner of someone

who decides to transition.

LINDA: Sure.

KATIE: They are like, 'Wait, you all are staying together?'

LINDA: Mm-hmm. Yeah. KATE: Happily.

KATIE: How do you explain it to them?

LINDA: Well, the way I kind of look at it

is that we all are given challenges in life,

and this is one challenge that I felt that I could deal with.

I didn't come to this conclusion overnight.

This is something that I had thanked Kate,

had time to deal with after this big revelation.

Um, I had to say goodbye to Bill.

I had to grieve Bill, and it took me a year to do that.

And Kate gave me that time that I needed.

It was very important to her

that she would not go forward with a transition

until I was comfortable with it,

and this was something that we were going to do together.

I just woke up one morning after praying about it

and asking for guidance,

and I woke up one morning

and I said, 'Okay. I'm ready. Let's do it.'

And I was gung-ho, and I said, 'Goodbye, Bill.'

You know, Bill's gone, and she became Kate in my mind.

And that's how I've looked at it ever since that day.

KATIE: I know you talked to your son in a very manly place.

KATE: Oh, yes, of course.

KATIE: In the parking lot,

in the parking lot of a Home Depot.

LINDA: And it was on Father's Day!

KATE: Yeah. KATIE: Oh, my God!

LINDA: Kate has impeccable timing.

KATIE: Matt Rohr lives with his wife

in Manchester, New Hampshire.

You're lucky.

I've never seen two people who love each other

quite as much as your parents.

MATT: They definitely do.

And I'm, you know, I'm definitely blessed

to have my parents, um...

KATE: He gets emotional.

KATIE: That's okay.

LINDA: But that's Matt. He's a crybaby.

[laughs]

MATT: Yeah, I mean, you know, my parents are inspirational,

regardless of the transgender stuff.

That is just one small piece of our family,

the transgender piece is just one part of it,

and that's the new normal for us, and that's great.

*

[click]

*

LINDA: They don't have a whole lot of smell,

and you wouldn't know

because your, your sniffer doesn't work well.

KATE: Well, it works better since the estrogen.

There's no two ways about that.

All of a sudden, everything smells different.

KATIE: You decided to have surgery?

KATE: Yes.

KATIE: Um, why? Why was that important?

KATE: If you're as trans as I am trans,

and probably as far on the pole as trans as one can be,

the genitalia are a marker of something that's not you.

It's something you come to sort of detest.

But once I have the surgery,

they can't take Kate away from me anymore.

LINDA: How is she doing?

MARCI: She's a girl.

LINDA: She's a girl. MARCI: Yeah.

KATIE: Linda, you are a heterosexual woman.

LINDA: Yes, I am heterosexual.

I am not attracted to women.

The fact that my partner now is a woman

and I have loved her for 48 years

doesn't change my sexual orientation.

That doesn't change.

I know people will look at me and say,

well, because you're in a relationship now with a woman,

that changes your label or...

KATIE: Or are you gay?

LINDA: Or are you gay?

No, I'm not, because I am not attracted to other women,

and I would not be in another relationship with another woman.

You know, you may not have the traditional way

of pleasuring each other when you are as a man and a woman,

but you, you just find different ways

of, you know, having that pleasure,

and it would be the same if someone had an accident

and couldn't even perform anymore.

But some people, again,

that is a very important part of a relationship.

And I can understand that.

And it was very important to us for 45 years,

and it still is important to us, but it has changed.

KATE: I've always loved women.

I'm still attracted to this woman.

I would not replace her with anyone else.

Sorry, that's just the way,

you know, I just am intensely in love with her.

LINDA: I think that love doesn't necessarily have a gender.

It doesn't have to be sexually oriented.

If you love someone, you're willing to do what it takes

in order to make that work.

SABEL SAMONE-LORECA: Even in everything

that's being done today,

I've been a victim of a hate crime.

KATIE: But no battle is more contentious

than the controversy over public restrooms.

GAVIN GRIMM: It's the Supreme Court.

I mean, this could go really well

or it could go really wrong.

KATIE: If you want a sign of how much things have changed,

just look at the popular dating app, Tinder.

Tinder is now acknowledging gender,

allowing users to choose designations beyond the binary.

WOMAN: It lets trans people feel

like they're a part of society.

They're human.

WOMAN: Having trans people integrated into the world.

WOMAN: You know what?

I can have what every other

person is deserving of having.

KATIE: And Tinder is just the latest example

of how trans has become more mainstream.

You may think given the avalanche of media coverage

and greater visibility,

the trans people feel more protected now.

But in fact, many transgender people

continue to live in the shadows,

poor, unemployed, and often the target of violence.

SABEL SAMONE-LORECA: Even in everything else

that's being done today, trans women are being killed.

I've been a victim of a hate crime,

but a lot of us don't even have the strength to go to the court

or the strength to report a crime that has been done to us

because we're constantly being

pushed down by society

and stating that we're,

we are less than.

KATIE: In 2016, more transgender people were murdered

than any other year on record.

And the unemployment rate among them in this country

is twice the national average.

For trans people of color, it's four times the national average.

But someone is trying to change that.

WOMAN: Yes, I did two.

KATIE: Michaela Mendelsohn,

a trans woman who owns six El Pollo Loco franchises

in the Los Angeles area.

She's been making a concerted effort

to hire trans workers at her restaurants.

MICHAELA MENDELSOHN: I realized how lucky I was

to have transitioned as a boss.

You know, what I saw was that trans women,

their self-esteem was so low

because of the way they were treated,

that they were starting to accept this as, as normal,

that they were starting to almost believe they deserved it.

And this just wasn't right.

That's when I decided to start helping trans people get jobs.

KATIE: At the restaurant I visited in Central LA,

a third of the staff is trans.

KATIE: Both of you worked in other fast food restaurants.

What about you, Kristy, and what was that like compared to this?

KATIE: So, you got fired?

KATIE: And what did he say?

KATIE: Your nose was broken by a customer?

KATIE: Really? JESSYE: Mm-hmm.

KATIE: Because of your, your gender identity?

MARIE: We work hard and we have struggled from day one.

And here, I could be myself.

Our customers get educated just, just by seeing us here,

just seeing her in a position of leadership,

seeing her in a position of leadership, seeing me there,

in a position where I am interacting with them,

and I'm providing a service of excellency,

they know now that we are capable of that,

that we're no longer just someone

who has to dedicate to street work.

Now, this is an individual

that is also capable of doing much more.

KATIE: What do you hope to be doing in 10 years?

MARIE: Well, I want to be a person like Michaela

who are able to empower other women like us

to be better and then to truly help this community.

KATIE: Well, I think you're doing that already.

Don't you?

MARIE: Well, we hope we are.

KRISTY: You have Melvin's Ultimate Bowl, right? Good.

MICHAELA: We get more compliments

on our trans employees than anybody else,

because they are thriving.

It's the first time in their lives

they get a chance to work as their authentic self.

MICHAELA: 25% of the trans women I've hired

have made it into management,

and it speaks of their attitude of being so appreciative

and so happy to be doing what they're doing.

KATIE: While Michaela's changing the lives

of her trans employees in California,

other states have joined the fight.

19 have passed laws prohibiting employers

from discriminating on the basis of gender identity.

But no battle is more contentious than the controversy

over transgender rights and public restrooms.

PROTESTERS: HB2 has got to go!

KATIE: The North Carolina legislature passed a law

known as HB2 in March of 2016,

stating that individuals must use the bathroom

that correlates with the gender on their birth certificate.

But in May, citing Title IX,

the Obama Administration directed public schools

to allow trans students to use the bathrooms

that matched their gender identity.

LORETTA LYNCH: To the transgender community,

we see you, and we will do everything we can

to protect you.

KATIE: 11 states then sued the federal government,

and a fiery national debate erupted.

PASTOR: This must be a movement of love

and a movement of justice!

WOMAN: I strongly believe there will be cases of rape.

JAMES INHOFE: Our nation's schools

should not be ground zero

for social experiments from liberal agenda.

KATIE: And now, one case is heading all the way

to the Supreme Court.

*

Ground zero in the fight over transgender bathrooms

is this quiet town in southern Virginia.

The unlikely face at the center

of it all, Gavin Grimm.

You're not skipping school, are you?

GAVIN GRIMM: No, I'm not, I have an early out.

KATIE: Okay. Good.

I came to meet this 17-year-old

and his pot-bellied pig, Esmeralda.

[oinking]

Hey, Esmeralda, how you doing?

GAVIN: She'll rub on your leg, so...

KATIE: She will? GAVIN: Yeah.

KATIE: Okay. Whoa!

GAVIN: There she goes.

KATIE: Yeah, she really is.

Hey, how you doing?

Getting to know you, Esmeralda.

[oinking]

Gavin was born a girl but never felt like one.

Gavin initially thought, I'm a lesbian,

but that didn't feel right either.

He'd never even heard the word transgender,

but then something on YouTube changed everything.

MAN: I am transgender, I do consider myself male.

KATIE: When you realized you were trans,

you actually went to the doctor.

GAVIN: I went to a gender therapist

who specialized in seeing transgender youth,

and it was very apparent to her very quickly

that transition had to be done as quickly as we possibly could,

because I was suffering greatly.

KATIE: You and your mom

went to school

when you were a sophomore,

you explained to the school

what was going on.

And my understanding is your high school was pretty accepting

and receptive, is that accurate?

GAVIN: I was assured that I would be respected

at the school,

I would be called exclusively Gavin

and exclusively by male pronouns.

KATIE: At Gloucester High School,

Gavin initially used the bathroom in the nurse's office,

but it was inconvenient to get to from his classes,

and since he was already using the men's room

at restaurants and movie theaters,

he asked the principal if he could do the same at school.

The principal agreed,

and Gavin says he used the boys' room without incident

for nearly two months.

GAVIN: For me, it was a matter of going in and going out

and minding my own business

as most everyone does in a bathroom.

KATIE: But then the school board got involved.

WOMAN: We do not want a policy

of biological boys and biological girls

in the same facilities where an expectation of privacy exists.

There is no state or federal law

that overrides my students' right

to his and her expectation of privacy.

[applause]

GAVIN: There was a large amount of negativity

and just rudeness and cruelty,

and just this complete abandonment of basic values

that, that people should keep,

which is, you know, your typical, be nice to people

and don't call a kid a freak, you know, that sort of thing.

KATIE: Is that what they called you?

GAVIN: Yeah.

MAN: Bathrooms are divided by sex, not gender,

not some made-up term that some organization

wants you to believe is the truth.

WOMAN: It's not fair for our students to have to be fearful

to go into their own restroom.

Put him in a separate bathroom if that's what it's gonna take,

and I will vote every single one of you off of this board

if you do not protect our children.

GAVIN: It was a lot of that dialogue,

the straw man evil transgender faker

going into hurt women and girls in restrooms,

and other arguments which absolutely held no water.

Being transgender does not make you a sexual deviant

or a criminal or a predator.

MAN: How can you tolerate a public attitude

that attacks children

who are uncomfortable with pure and simple public indecency?

Thank you.

[cheering]

KATIE: The sentiment at that school board meeting

seemed to be that you made the other boys feel awkward.

GAVIN: Um...

People will be uncomfortable

with a thousand different people in their lifetimes,

and you can't kick them out of public living

because you don't like them.

KATIE: Another argument in this community,

which is a deeply religious community,

is this is against God's will.

What would you say to them?

GAVIN: Quite frankly, I don't care about religious arguments,

because at its core,

it has no place in lawmaking

and legislation and policy making.

Hello, everybody,

I'm Gavin Grimm from Gloucester High School.

KATIE: How scary was it to speak at that school board meeting?

GAVIN: I had absolutely no idea what I was about to experience,

but I knew I had to do it.

I've been aware of who I was since I was a very young kid,

and it's taken me a very long time

to be able to be myself and be okay with that.

The person I am now, being able to have all of my rights in full

is such a massive, dynamic difference

from the person I was just last summer.

I would like to say, too,

that if the evidence said that me using the boys' room

would be catastrophic, I would not be advocating for myself.

Regardless of my personal emotions over this issue,

I look only at the facts, as one should in an issue

that requires separation of church and state

and feelings and state.

KATIE: The school board ruled

Gavin could no longer use the men's room.

Instead, they gave him the option

to use three unisex bathrooms.

Something Gavin wasn't interested in.

GAVIN: The problem is, I'm not looking for a compromise,

I'm not looking for separate but equal,

I'm looking for the same opportunities

that my peers enjoy every single day,

and that includes using the same restroom as any other student.

KATIE: When you first learned your case was going to be heard

before the Supreme Court, what was your reaction?

GAVIN: The Supreme Court aspect of it is daunting,

if only because it's the Supreme Court.

I mean, this could go really well

or it could go really wrong,

and I have to be prepared for that reality.

But regardless of what happens, the end will justify the means,

because even if we suffer a loss,

we've generated a conversation

that's moved the nation in the right direction,

and if we win, and it's after I graduate,

I'm still doing good for a lot of other kids.

ISAAC: My name is Isaac, and I use he, him, his.

MALLET: He, him, his.

MATTHEW: They, them, their.

KATIE: They, them, theirs?

My name is Katie and I use she, her, hers.

[laughter]

It's all a lot to wrap your head around, you know.

PROTESTERS: Our lives matter!

Free from fear!

BARACK OBAMA: That's why we defend people

who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

KATIE: While the battle over bathrooms

faces an uncertain future...

PROTESTERS: Hey, hey, ho, ho, HB2 has got to go.

KATIE: Some institutions are taking matters

into their own hands.

Where would you say Yale falls

in terms of being most accommodating or progressive

when it comes to these issues?

TAMAR SZABÓ GENDLER: Yale's, I think, ahead of things.

We did an inventory of the bathrooms on campus,

and we discovered that

in virtually every one of our central campus buildings,

there was a single-stall bathroom

that we could just re-mark and indicate

that it was for not one gender or the other or both,

but rather for all genders.

KATIE: What happens if a Yale freshman girl

objected to having a transgender woman as a roommate,

would you say that was violating

that transgender woman's civil rights?

TAMAR: So, gender identity and gender expression

are protected categories,

and Yale is committed to treating protected categories

in ways that the laws governing civil rights of this country

tell us we need to.

KATIE: So basically, you would say, this is the way it is.

TAMAR: Yes.

* [Pomp and Circumstance playing] *

KATIE: Yale is dealing with the gender revolution

in other ways as well.

TAMAR: One of the things that became evident to us

is that a number of schools, most schools, in fact,

were issuing diplomas in students' birth names

rather than in their affirmed names.

And Yale made a decision late last spring

to issue diplomas in the affirmed names of students

who had used those names throughout their time at Yale.

KATIE: At times, do you feel like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, it's too fast, it's making me dizzy?

TAMAR: So, universities are places that thrive

on new discovery,

and I think universities find it thrilling

to feel, like, in the face of new knowledge,

we are able to figure out

how to transform society as a consequence.

KATIE: Our understanding of gender these days

depends on how old you are.

MAN: Younger people are more open

to exploring new ideas of what gender is.

WOMAN: I think it's a lot less black and white now

than it used to be.

MAN: I don't believe in binary-ness at all in nature,

I believe that everything is a spectrum

when you really look at it closely enough.

KATIE: I realized how much things had changed,

when my college-age daughter told me she and other students

introduced themselves in some classes

with their names and their pronouns.

ISAAC: My name is Isaac, I'm a senior and I use he, him, his.

MALLET: Mallet, I am a junior, he, him his.

KATIE: My name is Katie, and I use she, her...

ISAAC: Hers. KATIE: Hers.

[laughter]

MATTHEW: My name is Matthew, and I am a junior,

and I use they, them, their.

KATIE: They, them, theirs?

What exactly does it mean to be they, them, and theirs?

PERSON: When I was first going through

the initial stages of my transition,

there was a time period where I was trying to get people

to use he, him, his.

I'm like, that was maybe less wrong than she, her, hers,

but wasn't quite right either.

So I started out trying out, they, them, theirs,

and I was just like, this feels good, like, this feels right.

MATTHEW: People are always saying,

oh, but they is a plural pronoun,

like, how can I refer

to single person that way.

But in my head, I think,

well, I am plural.

I contain multitudes, I am vast.

KATIE: These aren't just new concepts,

there's also an entirely new vocabulary,

and I decided I was going to be the student.

What is cisgender?

MALLET: It's me. [laughter]

I think it just means that

you identify with the gender

you're assigned at birth.

KATIE: In this group, you are the lone cisperson, correct?

MALLET: Yeah.

KATIE: Except for I am, too,

so, just so you don't get too lonely.

MALLET: Okay.

KATIE: What is pangender?

PERSON: Being pangender would be to identify

with a multitude of genders as opposed to saying bigender,

which literally means two genders.

KATIE: What is AFAB?

PERSON: Assigned female at birth,

so it gives you, kind of, like,

one way to define where you started from.

KATIE: Is there AMAB?

ALL: Yes. Mm-hmm.

PERSON: There's also designate,

like, people interchangeably use,

like, assigned and designated, male or female at birth.

PERSON: So DFAB, DMAB, AFAB, AMAB.

KATIE: Okay, that's helpful.

PERSON: Oh!

PERSON: I know, and I couldn't,

I actually couldn't believe it.

KATIE: And what does that, what does that mean?

PERSON: It's like this idea that trans, like, that they are,

there's a subgroup within the trans community

that are just doing what's trendy.

KATIE: But that I don't think is a totally foreign notion,

that there's a certain element of trendiness to this,

which must really gall you, I'm sure.

PERSON: I think, like, it's okay for people to question,

you know, and to decide, like, to question,

and then say, oh, no, I'm actually,

I'm cis like I thought I was.

Okay, you know, but to say that that person

is just a transtrender, you know.

PERSON: That's in labeling other people.

But, like, if somebody is calling you a transtrender,

like, if somebody told me that, I'd just be like...

KATIE: What's gender fluid?

MATTHEW: Gender fluid means that your gender expression

and identity shifts through time

on different days, different weeks.

KATIE: It's all a lot to wrap your head around, you know,

so I really appreciate you all helping me understand it,

because, you know, as a 59-year-old cis female...

[laughter]

It's tough.

Some people watching this might wonder

what the heck is going on here?

Why are we suddenly seeing such huge changes

in the way people are looking at their gender?

MATTHEW: I think the Internet

actually has a lot to do with this.

Websites like Tumblr,

they bring lots of kids together from across the country

where they can all voice their questions about themselves.

ISAAC: For me, Facebook is a source of support

that a year ago to this date, maybe, I posted a status saying,

'I'm transgender,' and that was huge, and I got like 500 likes,

and you know, people messaged me on Facebook

and were like, I support you and I send my love.

I'm really happy that I exist in the 21st century.

PERSON: But it's not sudden, it's not new.

I mean, people who might identify as trans,

they've always existed in cultures

for as long as we've had history,

and we find it now everywhere across the world.

KATIE: In fact, there are other cultures

that do not follow our Western notion of the binary.

To learn more about that, I met up with Dr. Paul Vasey,

an anthropologist who's been doing research in Samoa

for the last 10 years.

How did you get interested in studying how gender is seen

really around the world?

PAUL VASEY: The cultures I study are unique

from a Western perspective,

because they recognize

more than two genders,

so there are people in these societies

that are neither men nor are they women,

they're something else.

In Samoa for example,

there are feminine, same-sex attracted males

that are not men and they're not women,

they're called fa'afafine, which means in the manner of a woman.

KATIE: Are they men...

Well, not men, but anatomically men?

PAUL: Yeah.

KATIE: And externally sort of something else?

I'm really struggling here, aren't I?

PAUL: Yeah. That's normal.

I mean, these are, these are kind of complicated concepts

when you start mixing and matching

all these different identity categories

and gender variants, exactly.

They certainly look highly feminine.

From our cultural perspective,

we would identify them as transgender,

but that's not really a word that exists in those cultures.

In these cultures,

the individuals aren't recognized as men or women,

they're a third alternative altogether.

*

KATIE: How are these individuals treated?

Are they tolerated, are they celebrated?

PAUL: What's striking for any Westerner

is how fully integrated

these people are in the society.

So you go out and you are going to see these people

in the market.

You got to a restaurant, your server could be a fa'afafine.

In Samoa, the prime minister

is the patron of the Fa'afafine Association,

which gives you some idea of how accepted they are.

LESINA: I was raised by my grandmother as a fa'afafine.

TANIA: Most of the family over here in Samoa,

they have at least one or two fa'afafine in the family.

My family, it's about seven or more.

We still see some younger ones coming up,

and nobody can stop it.

PAUL: My research shows time and time again

how important the fa'afafine are for the family.

That important role they play in terms of sustaining

and taking care of the family

couldn't be carried out if they were tossed aside.

KATIE: But Samoa isn't the only place

to recognize a third gender.

In India, the hijra have been a part of society

for thousands of years

and are legally recognized as a third sex by the government.

And in Mexico, you'll find the muxe

from the southern state of Oaxaca.

The muxe aren't just acknowledged,

but highly revered and even celebrated

with a yearly festival.

And there's evidence that this isn't just a modern construct,

but an ancient truth.

In the Talmud,

sacred Jewish text dating back thousands of years,

there are not just two genders.

ELLIOT KUKLA: So there are six genders

in classical Jewish texts.

We don't know exactly

what these genders are,

but they doing were something

completely different

with gender.

To me, it shows that we were there, you know,

there were people that were beyond male and female,

and it also shows that they had a system

that was clearly not binary.

KATIE: What do you think about what you're witnessing

for the Western world when it comes to gender?

PAUL: I mean, I've been

so blessed, so lucky,

to get to spend so much of

my life in these other cultures

where transgender individuals

are so socially unproblematic.

And that is the pathway down which we should go.

When you integrate people into the society,

the family ends up benefitting,

and the society as a whole ends up benefitting.

KATIE: Renee, you transitioned in 1975,

but you see gender as quite binary.

RENEE RICHARDS: A binary is appealing and I like it.

HARI NEF: Men, women, boys, girls, pink, blue--

if that didn't exist, wouldn't your life have been easier?

KATIE: When it comes to gender,

it seems so much has changed in such a short period of time.

So I thought it would be instructive to talk to someone

who's been on the cutting edge of this conversation

for decades.

This golf course is huge, isn't it?

RENEE RICHARDS: Oh, it's spectacular.

KATIE: Now, are you a super good golfer?

RENEE: No. KATIE: You're not?

RENEE: I mean, it's very frustrating,

because I was a good tennis player,

and you would expect that you're suddenly gonna be just as good

at golf, and it does not happen.

KATIE: It doesn't translate?

Born Richard Raskind,

Renee Richards transitioned in 1975

at a time when transgender was not part of the lexicon.

For a year, she lived under the radar

until she entered and won a women's tennis tournament

in California.

The next day, a journalist outed her as trans,

creating a media firestorm

and turning Renee into a household name.

She was also the first transgender woman

to play in the US Open, a right she earned

only after she sued the US Tennis Association

for gender discrimination and won.

RENEE: I got a good tee for you. KATIE: Is that okay?

RENEE: Because it's pink for a girl.

KATIE: Oh, thank you.

I thought we were getting away from the pink and blue stuff.

RENEE: No, no, I'm not.

I never have and never will.

Now, take a practice swing.

There you go.

KATIE: I'm not a big golfer, Renee.

RENEE: I'm gonna give you a mulligan.

KATIE: Okay. Thank you.

RENEE: Do you know what a mulligan is?

KATIE: Yeah, a do-over.

RENEE: Oh, that's what you could say about my life, huh?

KATIE: You're a human mulligan.

Renee was the trans it-girl of her time.

So who better to join us than another trans it-girl, Hari Nef.

A successful international model,

Hari has become a fixture in fashion and popular culture.

She's also one of the breakout stars of Transparent.

Renee, you're 82 now.

Hari, you're 23.

HARI NEF: Yeah.

KATIE: First and foremost, what is it like for you, Hari,

meeting Renee for the first time?

[laughs]

HARI: Um...

It's like meeting, like, a postcard

or like meeting George Washington,

you know what I mean?

Her visibility and her advocacy has absolutely paved the way

for folks like me in the contemporary moment.

KATIE: Renee, you transitioned in 1975,

but you say that word didn't really even exist.

RENEE: No, there was no such a word then.

KATIE: But it must have been so lonely.

RENEE: It was very lonely.

And when I had my surgery, there was only one person who knew,

and that was my cousin.

And the goal was essentially to undergo

a complete transformation and then merge into the woodwork.

We were woodworking--

a new life with a new name and a new place.

So, there is tremendous change now.

I don't think that Hari's life is a pink cloud by any means,

but I'm sure that it's different than it was in my day

with many of the same problems,

but with perhaps fortunately not all of them.

KATIE: Hari, it seems to me you see gender as something

that can evolve, and that's something that is fluid.

And, Renee, you see gender as still quite binary.

RENEE: I don't think she sees gender as fluid.

HARI: Well, I do.

RENEE: You do?

KATIE: I think she just threw you shade, Renee.

RENEE: How is it fluid?

[laughs]

KATIE: Wait, well, let's talk about that,

because you see a very distinct

male/female binary gender situation, don't you, Renee?

RENEE: I had a very happy life for 40 years as a man,

and I'm having a very happy life for 40 years as a woman.

But that doesn't mean that I'm gender fluid.

HARI: I think we're actually more on the same page on this

than it seems.

Like, it is absolutely a binary society that we live in,

but I believe that no single person is inherently gendered.

Male and female, it's just, it's just wisps of smoke,

and if something works for you in a moment,

then you can embrace it,

and if other parts of it don't, you can get rid of it.

KATIE: Do you feel comfortable with that,

because even when we were playing golf,

you gave me a pink tee,

and I said, 'Aren't we beyond the pink and blue stuff?'

and you said, 'No.'

RENEE: No, well, I'm really not

beyond the pink and blue stuff because...

KATIE: Tell me about that.

RENEE: To me, the idea of a binary

is what I think the world is, it's the spice of life,

that's what makes us keep going.

And I think that it's appealing, and I like it.

And I know that there are in-betweens,

and I know that there are all kinds of percentages

that people are.

And that's fine.

But basically, the fact is

we are born with either two chromosomes,

or an X and a Y,

and you can't undo that.

HARI: Well, you can't undo chromosomes,

but in terms of the binary, you know,

you're saying you're comfortable with the binary

and you like the binary,

but, you know, you know, you're my trans elder,

I don't want to be insolent,

but isn't the binary something

that has caused you a lot of pain in your life?

Like, if the binary didn't exist,

like, would there have been so much drama about you

in being outed, and you know, so much, you know...

RENEE: No, none.

HARI: Right, so much secrecy.

But if the world didn't have such a, you know,

pardon my French, hard-on for, like, you know, men, women,

boys, girls, pink, blue,

like, if that fetish-- and I believe it is fetish--

if that didn't exist, wouldn't your life have been easier?

RENEE: It wouldn't have been life,

it wouldn't have been real.

HARI: I guess it's, I guess it's...right.

Well, see, I'm still in my idealistic early 20s.

RENEE: That wouldn't have been real.

KATIE: So what are you hoping the future will bring?

HARI: I want a gender-chill future.

RENEE: There is no such a thing.

HARI: I want community, a society, a world...

RENEE: God help us.

HARI: ...that just chills out.

RENEE: Hari, stop it.

HARI: About the freaking gender thing!

RENEE: What you're advocating is a utopia.

It doesn't and never will exist.

KATIE: Maybe it's just a generational divide.

HARI: I think it's a generational divide.

RENEE: You know, this is education for me, too.

KATIE: Yeah.

RENEE: This is revolutionary for me to hear her.

KATIE: So we're all getting an education.

HARI: It's equally important for me to hear you, too.

KATIE: As the sun set over the Sleepy Hollow Country Club,

I realized I had finished the back nine

of my quest to learn more about this gender revolution.

I had traveled all over the country

talking to surgeons, scientists, and students,

and in the process, got quite an education.

We're all a lot more complicated than we've assumed.

SAM: If a person is a man and they're attracted to women,

they might call themselves straight or heterosexual.

KATIE: Or cisgender. Oh, no, sorry!

Wrong, wrong, sorry, sorry.

It's a brave new world, and for many of us,

it will require some getting used to.

MATTHEW: I think that radical patience

is so important on both ends.

KATIE: I heard some amazing stories.

Nice.

Stories that are very different from my own.

Do I look like the weird aunt?

[laughter]

I also met some incredible people,

people living their lives, loving their families,

supporting each other,

and paving the way for the next generation

as they share their hopes and dreams for the future.

BRIAN: There is change coming.

It is a relief.

PERSON: What I want to see in the future

is any form of self-expression

being viewed as completely normal.

ISAAC: I hope that our generation

can help this generation

of elementary, middle and high school kids

to be more comfortable in their own skin.

KATE: And someday we'll embrace it,

and hopefully we'll find we gained a lot of happier,

more productive human beings as a result.

SAM: I like to imagine a future

where we support gender creativity.

BRIAN: The bus has taken off. The world is changing.

GAVIN: It's moving towards acceptance,

and every subsequent generation,

I feel gets more open-minded and more tolerant

and more accepting

and more loving.

MATTHEW: This gender revolution didn't start with us,

and isn't gonna end with us.

MICHAELA: They're forging their own way,

so I call that the gender evolution

rather than the gender revolution,

and you ain't see nothing yet.

[laughs]