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Gendernauts

2000, Movie, NR, 86 mins

Gendernauts: Review

GENDERNAUTS
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Meet the gendernauts, category-defying transsexuals who've left more than their hearts in San Francisco. German filmmaker Monika Treut's past documentaries (DIDN'T DO IT FOR LOVE) and fiction features (MY FATHER IS COMING) have explored some of the less-traveled avenues of sexuality. In this journey to the "sex capital of the planet," Treut interviews a group of people who, through surgery, hormone treatments or natural genital ambiguity possess bodies that beg to differ with conventional male/female distinctions. Providing the framework for this fascinating-but-nearsighted film is transgendered cultural theorist Sandy Stone, who argues that there are many genders; we only see "male" and "female" because that's what we've been taught. To illustrate the various shades between pink and blue, Treut interviews several male-to-female "gendernauts" (Stone's term), exploratory artists and performers who — with their deep voices, facial hair and most unladylike deportment — push the envelope of traditional gender definition. They include video artist Texas Tomboy; multimedia performer Jordy Jones; Hida Vilario, a female-identified intersexed person (read: hermaphrodite); and Max Wolf Valerio, a transsexual featured in one of Treut's earlier films, FEMALE MISBEHAVIOR. They're an engaging bunch with a lot to say, and their discourse has an intriguing sci-fi inflection. Stone, in particular, blithely describes her fellow gender-surfers as "cyborgs," humans made complete through an assemblage of identities. Oddly, for people dedicated to embracing their natural sexual indeterminacy through often-risky artificial means (removing body parts, soaking in testosterone, adopting a caricature of male swagger), many seem anxious to escape the body as locus of identity entirely, opting for the shape-shifting environs of cyberspace. This is one of several contradictory attitudes Treut leaves unexplored, and may point to a greater ambivalence on her part toward the gendernauts' endlessly manipulated bodies than her somewhat shallow celebration cares to admit. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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