Queer Canadian filmmaker and media activist Gwen Haworth swears, “If I sit through another portrayal of victimization for the supposed purpose of ‘education and awareness’, or another image of a trans woman putting on high heels and lipstick, or another film that equates gender transition to the metamorphosis of a butterfly, I’ll vomit!”

Concerned with the “glaring lack of decent media out there,” Haworth, who transitioned from male to female in 2000 upheld that oath by filming her own family as they struggled with her transition.  The result, She’s a Boy I Knew, captures the complex, heartrending, but ultimately positive response of friends and family—including the wife she lost—to Haworth’s gender transformation. 

“It was important to me that I let my family speak their mind,” Haworth remarks.  “I recognized that we were all going through this together, we’d all have emotions and feelings to work out, and that my family would be less prepared to handle this than I.”  

Haworth calls the process of filming and editing the movie a “big post-transition debrief,” and reveals, “Editing was incredibly emotional. I came to realize how much my family loved me, regardless of their apprehension and frustrations. The film was my ode to them, thanking them, and reaching out to tell them I love them in a way I’d never risked before.”

Holding degrees in a psychology and film production, Haworth also trained as a director’s intern with the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television and served as a programmer and board member for Out On Screen—which sponsors Vancouver’s annual Queer Film and Video Festival.
Now screening her own documentary at festivals around the world, Haworth says that the reception has been “tremendous.”  In fact, the film has been selected to play over 70 film festivals and has received six audience awards—so far.  “Thankfully, the interest isn’t letting up,” exudes Haworth, who will be traveling to Iceland, Germany, US, and Brazil in the fall, and speaking at universities in the US and Canada.

Surprised by the film’s crossover success, Haworth admits,  “I’m totally amazed at how well it’s resonated with so many people—especially when you take into consideration that it’s an autobiographical film about something I kept hidden for twenty-three years, due to the shame and self-hate that grew in me from watching years of negative portrayals.”

Contending that “self-representation is a necessary step towards self-empowerment,” Haworth suggests, “As long as our community’s representation is primarily created by non-trans media makers, there’s a certain level of community empowerment that’s inherently lacking. Even the most well-intentioned allies still tend to focus on disenfranchised and disempowered representations. When these are disproportionately the images that are presented, it can’t help but negatively impact our community’s self worth and how we’re perceived by [others].”

Still, Haworth (artflick.com) believes, “We can truly change the way people see us, and consequently behave towards us, if we create our own representations along with new narratives that challenge the misconceptions. I’m not just talking about having trans actors play trans roles, but more importantly, that we increase the number of stories written, directed, shot, and edited by trans folk.”

When not shooting films, Haworth divides her time teaching film production, DJing for non-profit events and working part time at an emergency homeless shelter in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside—an area Haworth calls, “the poorest neighborhood in Canada.”

“I’ve learned a lot about the difference between acceptance and tolerance from
the trans women [at the shelter],” Haworth reveals. “Tolerance is just a veil for discrimination that quickly exposes itself when you’re considered too different.  Privilege isn’t just about opening doors, but also about whether or not you’re invisible
 in this predominantly white, middle class city.” 

“I see my work at the shelter and my filmmaking as two different forms of activism,” Haworth says.  “My work at the shelter is reactive
helping folk who are currently dealing with the discrimination and abuse that has already taken place, whereas my filmmaking is meant to be preemptive activism, attempting to help change societal attitudes so that the next generation [is] more informed and ready to embrace gender diversity.”  

Watch for She’s A Boy I Knew at film festivals and, this Winter, Outcast Films (outcast-films.com) will release the home video version.