Resource Library

Filmed over five years in Kansas City, Transhood chronicles the lives of four young people (aged 4, 7, 12, and 15 at the start of filming) and their families as they navigate growing up transgender in America’s heartland. By sharing personal realities of how gender expression is reshaping their lives, the film explores how these families struggle and stumble through parenting, and how the kids are challenged and transformed as they experience the complexity of their identities.

Directed by Sharon Liese, produced by Sasha Alpert (Autism: The Musical), and executive-produced by Kimberly Reed, Transhood offers a long-range understanding of transgender youth through the nuanced and authentic stories of Jay, Avery, Leena, and Phoenix.

While every journey is different, these families share their honest and varied experiences as the young people display incredible resilience, facing rejection from their peers and escalating political rhetoric that strives to invalidate LGBTQ+ lives. All the while, the older kids navigate the minefield of adolescence. Sharing their most vulnerable moments, the parents reveal their ambivalence, doubts, and missteps as they themselves transform over time.