Some good documentaries work as an empathic window to human experiences and conditions quite different from ours, and documentary film “Every Body”, which is currently available on Netflix in South Korea, is one of such exemplary examples in my humble opinion. Focusing on a sexual subject not so familiar to many of us, the documentary provides not only enlightenment but also empathy and understanding, and it surely widens my knowledge on sexual identity a bit more than before.
The documentary mainly revolves around three intersex figures: Sean Saifa Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel, and River Gallo. They all had each own personal struggle on sexual identity due to their intersex status, and their personal stories are often intercut with how intersex has been socially and medically misunderstood and mistreated for many years.
It can be said that the physical/psychological predicaments of these three people and many other intersex people our there were originated from the medical research on intersex by an American doctor named John Money, who was regarded as a pioneering expert in the field during his time. As studying various cases of intersex, Dr. Money concluded that intersex is a physical abnormality which had to be corrected by surgery or hormone/behavioral treatment, and his seriously misguided medical research, which is based on that conventional binary definition on sex, still exerts a considerable influence on his field even at this point.
Dr. Money’s most famous case is a guy whose story I incidentally came across via a book on human chromosomes in 2002. Although he was a biologically male, the patient was raised as a girl due to a very unfortunate castration incident which happened not long after birth, and Dr. Money often wrote about how his patient was perfectly fine as a girl despite his original sexual identity. That was certainly the main highlight of his medical career, and it certainly solidifies the common misconception among doctors on intersex.
However, this famous case of his later turned out to be quite distorted by Dr. Money himself. In contrast to what he wrote in several journal papers of his, his patient was not happy at all with his newly assigned gender identity even when he was just a little kid, and, what do you know, he actually became all the more comfortable with himself then before when he finally received another gender transition and then married a woman. He even willingly came forward for a TV interview for getting his real story known more in public, but, sadly, his life was subsequently ended due to his suicide in 2004.
Wall, Weigel, and Gallo also went through a lot of difficult moments due to each own sexual identity issues. As reflected by his initial physical condition, Wall was more drawn to maleness from the beginning, but it took some time of him to accept his sexuality identity and then begin a new life as a man. During her high school years, Weigel had to pretend to have a menstruation just like many of her schoolmates even though her body had testicles instead of womb or ovary. In case of Gallo, they was born without testicles, and they certainly felt confused a lot about their sexual identity despite being raised as a boy.
All of these people were put into sex-change medical treatments without their agreement just like many other intersex people out there. It is more accepted these days that intersex kids should be allowed to wait more for deciding on their adult sexual identity later, but many parents of intersex kids often tend to make their children have totally unnecessary sex-change medical treatments mainly out of fear or concern. Sure, most of them do not mean any harm onto their kids, but it is still wrong to force a gender identity upon their kids without any agreement, and the documentary certainly makes a strong point on that.
Nevertheless, intersex people have gradually come out in public as a part of the LGBTQIA group during last several decades. As a matter of a fact, they actually made a public organization in 1996, which subsequently became more prominent as more intersex people came out and then fought against those misconceptions and prejudices against intersex people.
And we see how Wall, Weigel, and Gallo are quite active about their life and civil rights as being totally comfortable with being themselves. Wall and Gallo express a lot of themselves more via artistic activities, and there is an interesting moment when Gallo plays an important female character in one certain Shakespeare play. Weigel becomes a notable representative of the intersex community, and she certainly tried really hard and then succeeded in stopping that blatantly discriminatory gender bathroom law in Texas.
In conclusion, “Every Body”, directed by Julie Cohen, is quite informative as well as compelling for its many touchingly human moments. It is certainly one of the better documentaries of last year, and, considering how it can be educative to many inquisitive young people, it is really a shame that the documentary is rated 18 here in South Korea just because of its main subject and a bit of full-frontal nudity. Yes, I am still clumsy in case of typing they/their/them in case of referring to non-binary persons, but I am willing to learn and open my eyes more at least, and I sincerely hope that there will be more movies and documentaries about intersex people out there.
