Gendernauts

An illuminating and compassionate look at the world of transgender identity, as seen through portraits of some of San Francisco’s leading gender mixers. Whether by birth or by choice, sometimes with the assistance of hormones or surgical prostheses, we meet those who blur the lines of male and female. Treut elicits testimonials from a diverse array of personalities, as well as expert opinions from sex celebrity Annie Sprinkle and the “Goddess of Cyberspace” Sandy Stone.

For over 35 years, lesbian director, writer and producer Monika Treut has been shaping queer cinema in Germany and around the world with her lustfully subversive feature films and documentaries. Born on April 6, 1954 in Mönchengladbach, she studied German and politics in Marburg (state examination 1978) and received her doctorate in 1984 with the dissertation "Die grausame Frau. On the Image of Women in de Sade and Sacher Masoch." In the same year, she founded Hyäne Filmproduktion in Hamburg with Elfi Mikesch. This was followed by an assistant theater director position with Werner Schroeter at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus. As a central figure of the independent German film scene, she went to the USA at the end of the 80s and, with her convention-critical approach and her progressive perspective on lesbian-gay sexuality, gave decisive impulses to the New Queer Cinema that was just emerging.