Starting when I was barely two years old, I had a persistent feeling that I was not Amanda, but a man – duh. Classmates’ childish taunts seemed to agree.

Though I wouldn’t learn the word transgender for another twenty years, I insisted on short hair and boy’s clothes through sixth grade. This stubborn clarity granted me the rare experience of a relatively open trans childhood in the 1990s, much of it captured on film.

Yet there were no openly trans or queer people in my sleepy suburb. When puberty began to creep in, I couldn’t see a path to any life I imagined. Lanky and awkward, I did my best impression of a girl for the next 12 years.

This documentary traces that slow retreat into the closet through archival footage spanning my early boyhood through repressed teen years in an increasingly dysfunctional home.

A cross-country road trip from my home in Baltimore to my hometown in California serves as the film’s narrative spine. Past and present converge in verité scenes, as I process grief and growth on the open road, collaborate with trans teens on creative stunts protesting hateful legislation, and hash out unresolved conflicts with my parents, re-opened by my sister’s 2020 suicide.

Narrative interludes built from archival add nuance and humor, drawing connections among timelines. Stylized interviews with transmasculine people of all backgrounds and stages of transition serve as act breaks, as well as testament to the variations within transgender experience.

Ultimately, this is a story of reconnection – starting with the self and expanding outward to family, community, and society.

— Director, Ian Madrigal