Our film
We want to tell the story of the transgender community right. We do it by following ordinary people and sharing their life stories. Not everybody has access to proper care, therapy, medical procedures and most importantly, not every trans person is even accepted by their closest family and friends.
Acceptance and understanding is key to survival. The suicide rate among transgender people is tragic, they are forced to live a lie every day just to get jobs, housing or even if they want to serve in the military. They have to pretend they are somebody else...
The trans people we are following are just ordinary folks that come from all different social backgrounds. They live and they love. There is lots of love. They range from 16 to 70 years old and their very different experiences demonstrate the need to educate the society about their lives and struggles.
We hate what we don't know. This film should help everyone get to know these people, understand their struggles and help them survive by being accepting.
We Need Your Help
To show everybody's perspective, we chose to tell the story of 7 people. We filmed 4 of them so far.
One of our men is going to have his sex reassignment surgery this summer and we would like to travel with him and document his progress and recovery. Two of the girls are in Texas and we still need to film their lifestory.
Your generous donations will help us continue working with our crew and cover the travel expenses to get all the footage we need. We don't want to tell just half of the story. Please help us make this happen. You too can make a difference by being part of this film.
Every $5,000 we raise lets us share another person's story with you. More lives we show, more people will be able to identify with the community. No donation is too small. Every help gets us closer to little part of our goal.
These Are Our Experts
Thomas Satterwhite M.D.
Dr Satterwhite, a Diplomate of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, obtained his Bachelor’s Degree and Medial Degree at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Dr. Satterwhite’s expertise is in all aspects of gender confirmation surgery for transwomen and transmen.
Helen Grusd PhD
PhD Helen Grusd is Los Angeles based therapist that offers her services and expertise mainly to transgender clients. She deals with depression, anxiety disorder, stress management, trauma etc.
These Are Our Characters So Far
1) Nicole
Maines is 18 year old student at
University of Main. Together with her identical brother Jonas and her family,
they have been figthing for transgender rights since she was 5 years old. In
2009 her family filed a lawsuit against her former school for discrimination,
which they won in 2014. In 2015, Pullitzer Winning author Amy Ellis Nut wrote Becoming Nicole, book about her Nicole’s
transition. Nicole is the spokes person for GLAD on trans issues.
2) Lisa Foster and CJ Foster
After
coming out at her 20s as transgender, Lisa
didn’t feel the society was for ready for her. She lived as Ron, went to
military, got married and raised children. When her spouse passed away, it was
finally time for Lisa to start living the life she always wanted. She started
hormone therapy and had both her top and bottom surgery done.
CJ came out as lesbian early on but never felt true to herself.
When CJ finally came out to his family as transgender, he started his
transition to becoming CJ. He is now happily married to Lisa and awaits his
bottom surgery this summer.
3)
Lindsie Carlsen is 70 years old
and retired. She worked her whole life in a film lab, married, had children and
lived the all American life. With only only exception. She was a female, living
in a male body. After the divorce from her second wife was final, Lindsie was
ready to come out. She now enjoys life as wonderful transsexual woman in
Hollywood.
The Impact
We are putting this project together to prevent further discrimination and
constant violence toward the trans community, and shake the staggering number of
suicides among these men and women.
By highlighting everyday accomplishments and struggles of the main characters, the film hopes to bring the
transgender community closer to the general public and encourage its mainstream
acceptance. The filmmakers hope to feature the little things in life and basic
human happiness as connecting factor between transgender community and those
that don’t have opportunities to relate and be in similar relationship. Each
and everyone of the featured characters will become your best friend at the end
of the film as one cannot help themselves but fall in love with their human
kindness, bravery and passion to live ordinary lives.
We will use the finished film for
activism and we hope to help change some of the current standing laws as well as health
insurance policies regarding transgender procedures. We want to screen at schools, we want to educate students, teacher and their parents. We want to get this story our there, and with your help, we can.
The Filmmakers
Director:
Ester Brym
Not
Your Skin (working title) is
Brym’s 3rd feature documentary. Her first film Butterflies profiling the lives of YouTube celebrities have received
numerous festival awards and have been broadcasted all over the world. Brym’s
2nd film guided viewers through the travels along USA historic highway Route 66
in her award winning Autumn of Route 66.
Brym works as an editor in Los Angeles.
Executive
Producer: Tom Duty
Duty’s career as a producer and online editor
bring technical expertise as well as passion for every untold story. When not
working on Keeping Up with
the Kardashians, he ventures
out into the independent film world and makes movie magic happen.
Other Ways You Can Help
Besides financial donations, there are numerous other ways you can help us bring this project to the big screen:
- Share the link to our campaign with 5 of your closest friends. Email them.
- Join our Facebook page and ask people to LIKE.
- Tweet about this project and share our teaser with your followers.
All perks to be delivered in 2017 unless stated otherwise.