For many, the first introduction to transgender identities comes not through personal relationships but through media. News reports, interviews, and cultural commentary can challenge misinformation and provide context about the social, medical, and legal dimensions of trans lives. Educational campaigns and online platforms amplify this effect, offering resources that connect awareness to action.
When transgender people appear in media, it provides an opportunity to humanize and normalize diverse gender identities. Authentic portrayals help dismantle stereotypes, while harmful depictions can reinforce stigma and misunderstanding. Positive representation can affirm the identities of transgender people themselves, offering mirrors where they might otherwise see only erasure.
Heightened Scrutiny
Directed by Sam Feder (2025)
Producers: Amy Scholder, Paola Mendoza
Executive Producers: Laverne Cox, S. Mona Sinha, Bill & Ruth Ann Harnisch, Lisa Freeman, Sara Hinkle
HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY follows Chase Strangio, ACLU attorney and the first out trans person to argue before the Supreme Court, as he fights a high-stakes legal battle to overturn Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth (United States v. Skrmetti).
Trans in America: Texas Strong
Presented by the ACLU and Little by Little Films. Released in partnership with them (2018)
Directors Daresha Kyi | Cary Cronenwett
Producers Lindsey Dryden | Shaleece Haas
Executive Producers Molly Kaplan | Chase Strangio
An intimate portrait of Kimberly and Kai Shappley: a mother rejecting her community’s beliefs as her 7-year-old transgender daughter navigates life at school, where she’s been banned from the girls’ bathroom.
Real Boy
PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY Shaleece Haas (2016)
A moving and intimate story of a family in transition, Real Boy follows the journey of trans teen Bennett as he navigates adolescence, sobriety, and the physical and emotional ramifications of his changing gender identity. Through the process, his mother Suzy makes her own transformation — travelling a difficult road toward accepting that the daughter she raised as Rachael is now her son Bennett.Filmed over the course of four years, Real Boy is a love story about a mother and son who rediscover connection with each other and find support from their communities, reminding us that families are not only given, but chosen.
Pink Tiffany
SHAKTI PICTURES presents "PINK TIFFANY" featuring MEGHNA LAMA, LAXMI LAMA, PARBAT LAMA.
Producer MIRANDA MORTON YAP
Director & Cinematographer SOPHIE DIA PEGRUM (2017)
Though a legal recognition of a third gender highlights Nepal as a leader in transgender rights, in a culture that often values sons and daughters very differently, transforming into a daughter is fraught with obstacles. Meghna Lama shares the story of her quest to gain family acceptance and to become the extraordinary entrepreneur and activist she is today.
A MAP OF GENDER-DIVERSE CULTURES
PBS Independent Lens
August 12, 2015 Updated Oct, 2023
Throughout recorded history and since time immemorial, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as transgender, gay, or bisexual are Western constructs that often assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as three sexualities (gay/straight/bisexual), and only two genders (man/woman).
How Ancient Mythologies Defy the Gender Binary
PBS FATE & FABLED
Season 1 Episode 8 | 8m 50s (Aired 2022)
Creation, transformation, and the quest for self-knowledge – these are universal themes that appear across world mythology. But there’s another common thread within these tales: gender fluidity. It’s not only commonplace in many mythologies, but an essential aspect of some important mythical figures: from androgynous creators and fertility deities to warriors and prophets that defy the binary.
Gender beyond the binary
The Guardian
Irene Baqué and Freddy McConnell (2017)
Five non-binary people discuss their experience of life outside the simple gender binary of male and female. They tell us about the difficulty that society has with their resistance to its attempts to compartmentalise and define people.