Being Me
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Being Me

2015, Sexuality  -   38 Comments
8.28
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Ratings: 8.28/10 from 174 users.

It's breakfast time in the Langley home. Located right outside of Melbourne, Australia, the Langley family is the very picture of domestic normalcy. Naomi and Andrew, both successful and attractive professionals, are doting parents to two lovely and precocious little girls. Patty, age 8, and Isabelle, age 11, share words at the table about which of them can claim the Barbie dolls as their own. If an outsider were to view this scene as an ideal - the perfectly happy and healthy family unit - they wouldn't be far off on their assessment.

They could be any family, or at least who we'd like our family to be. Like all families, though, they face unique challenges. In the case of the Langley's, one of those challenges came in the form of an identity crisis. Isabelle, their oldest daughter, was actually born a boy.

Being Me is the sensitive and insightful exploration of Isabelle's revelation, and her quest to realize her true identity through gender transformation. Her story is mirrored by many other pre-teens all across the world. Like Isabelle, these young souls must endure painful doubts about their future, and many of them either turn to suicide or self-harm as a release from their torment. Thankfully, Isabelle's parents are vigorously committed to supporting their daughter with an open heart and mind. "We've only got one job here," her mother Naomi expresses during the film, "and that's to help her create a future that she can thrive in."

Isabelle was born Campbell, and from the start it was clear that she wasn't attuned to the typically masculine identity markers. Weeks before her tenth birthday, she told her mother she didn't feel like she belonged in her own body. Was it just an awkward pre-adolescent phase? To be certain, Isabelle undergoes a thorough examination by no less than five medical professionals. Once a firm diagnosis of gender non-conformity is established, Isabelle begins a lengthy treatment regimen which will assist her in realizing her true identity for the first time in her young life.

Through her story, and the stories of several other young people just like her, Being Me dramatizes the need for open dialogue and acceptance, and the rapidly evolving social perceptions which are just beginning to give children like Isabelle a new lease on a brighter future.

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Louis Ward
Louis Ward
3 years ago

If this isn't child abuse I don't know what is, the parents need serious psychiatric help encouraging the disfigurement of their children like this.

Simone
Simone
6 years ago

Well done to the families for showing their kids love unconditionally!
Trans is a subject lots of people have an opinion about and I think will for a long time -as it's hard to fit into a box. But LOVE, the family support, that's what I loved seeing in these stories! Love and support is worth so much!
I take my hat off to these girls admitting their truth for being brave enough to live it ??
May they have long and happy lives ??

Lily
Lily
6 years ago

May I just say that whether people are transgender or not, it doesn't honestly affect you in any way at all. Little kids all look sort of alike anyway in terms of gender; if you shaved their heads, you'd have a hard time telling them apart anyway. It's the easiest thing in the world to say 'Oh, I'm sorry for calling you he, my mistake. You prefer she, correct?' Or they, or any other pronouns. People who are transgender look like the gender they identify with. So it shouldn't be some huge burden you have to carry. If you think you're the one struggling, put yourself in their shoes. They deal with so much more.

jedi
jedi
7 years ago

When we make our selves the locus of everything and define everything from there; we can go as many directions as there are the number of us on the planet. Somewhere along the way we have to forge norms or we cannot survive as a speci.

Wayne Elliott
Wayne Elliott
7 years ago

Randy, what an interesting post you have shared. I have always held the view that religion has little to do with God. We are not here to live as others expect us to be, but to live the authentic life of who we actually are.

I am gay because I was born that way. I didn't wake up one day and "decide" to "choose" to be gay - just like my twin did not "decide" to "choose" to be straight. The only choice is whether to live the truth of oneself or to live a lie.

Ignorance and bigotry are choices. So is religion.

Seal
Seal
8 years ago

'Imagine being a young boy and fearing the fact that you might grow breasts and have a menstrual cycle' - that just changed my whole view on what transgender means.

Randy
Randy
8 years ago

I think that this is one of the most important documentaries that I have watched. I live in Utah nd grew up Mormon. I was even a missionary years ago. Dealing with being gay was truly difficult, to say the least. With recent events, such as same sex marriage, the dark side of religion can really put a person down if he or she isn't careful. Christians only think of the God who made man and women. There was a good video about inter sex people. After watching it, I don't see how people can keep the same beliefs or why they do not use their brain to see that things are very different than we were raised to believe. I posted it on Facebook so all my Mormon family and friends could watch. I wonder how many di watch it. Mormons and other Christians will often avoid things that will disturb their reality or beliefs. if I try and say something about God or religion, I almost always get silence in return. As far as they are concerned, we have no beliefs.

I want to thank all those who shared their stories and lives. Wow! What amazing kids and their parents are wonderful! We all have the right to define ourselves and our lives. There are a lot of people who still need to learn this! Think about all the pain and unhappiness that does not need to exist in this world! I do believe that we came from somewhere. I don't think we need to know everything or have all the answers. That is the problem with religion. These things should have been learned a long time ago. Life is fascinating. Again, I think we should thank these children for their courage to define their own lives and open up a world that has never existed before!

theMajor
theMajor
9 years ago

im sorry theres a lot of pseudo science going on. im glad awareness is here. i just hope it shakes peoples definitions of wrong and right.

PTA mom
PTA mom
9 years ago

This is confusing. I think this overly pro-lib Pro LGBT society is actually more damaging to young children for this exact reason. I find it weird that people talk about gender as just being social construct, I think this is more damaging to a child's sense of identity, the ability to accept themselves and adapt to life. If my daughter decided she liked to play basketball more than play with dolls does that make her automatically gay or a boy. Gender and hormones, play a significant role in how we develop physically and psychologically - it could be more traumatic to a young child to have to gauge a choice that life altering at such a young age. this child has not even been given the opportunity to go through puberty - to allow them to make such medically and psychologically critical decisions so young is almost cruel IMO. What happens if this child grows into an adult and decides they no longer want to be a girl?

Cal
Cal
9 years ago

If someone decided to have plastic surgery to fix their apperance because they have body dysmorphia, would you assume they reincarnated from a beautiful person into a less beautiful? This is on the same spectrum.

Pascalore
Pascalore
9 years ago

Is this a byproduct of reincarnation? Our soul being genderless but our past life experiences imprinted upon it as one gender for many lifetimes bleeds over into this one causing the uneasiness with the unfamiliar. As we grow older we forget, but many children recall past lives, generally the last most recent, in nearly complete detail of who they were especially noting "The Boy Who Lived Before".

Nikola Tesla had been noted as having the ability to "see" the design of a machine in his mind, build it and take it apart and even have it operate for months at a time to determine wear on bearings. Was he actually just remembering technology that his spirit was involved with in a past life?

The saddest part is that there has always been a line between men and women that divides them into two groups, one going west and the other going east and now we find that, like the highway, it is a double line and those who are neither men nor women are relegated to existing in the median with no designated pathway or direction. Perhaps this is the real future. As the lines spread wider, there is less and less room for gender specific, socially directed (controlled), "norms" for all people to fit into and we will all start just being individual people with our own likes and dislikes of our own choosing with the only overarching rule: cause no harm and keep your hands off of my stuff and go play with your own stuff.