Pink Boy

Pink Boy is a verite-style documentary profiling the challenges of raising a young gender non-conforming child at the moment of transition growing up in a conservative area of rural Florida.

Six-year old Jeffrey (who now identifies as Jessie) likes nothing better than to put on a gown and dance for their two lesbian moms, who adopted Jessie expecting they would raise a boy. Mom BJ successfully avoided dresses and girls' toys her entire life and admits she initially had a hard time when her child expressed feminine interests.

"Pink boys" have their unique challenges: they do not neatly fit into a single gender box, and instead create a space between genders, which this film explores. They like to dress in girl’s clothing and play with girl toys, but still identify as boys. These children often face widespread ignorance and shaming, sometimes from their own families. They often live with daily threats of bullying and violence and are at high risk for depression and suicide as they reach their teens.

Pink Boy’s verite-style allows the viewer to experience life through Jessie's eyes. Thanks to supportive parents, we see her confidently move between masculine and feminine in dress-up time at school, a rodeo in Georgia, and the ultimate holiday, Halloween. As Jeffrey increasingly wishes to be publicly identified as a girl called Jessie, her parents must learn both to accept and to navigate when it is safe for her in an often hostile environment.

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30 MINUTES OF SPECIAL FEATURES
Outtakes & Extended Interviews with Jeffrey's moms and school principal

• Adopting Jeffrey
• The First Hint
• Reactions to Jeffrey Dressing Up
• Jeffrey's School
• Getting Ready for Halloween
• Mom Sherrie Interview

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FILMMAKER'S STATEMENT: "As a gay man who grew up in a different era, I experienced what it was like to be in the closet. I was inspired to make this film when I started hearing stories of families whose children expressed their gender differences at the earliest age. It made me start thinking about what would it be like if you grew up and you were never in the closet. And how would that affect your identity and your confidence and how you approach the world? So I had this vision of an entire generation of kids someday growing up that way. When I met BJ, Sherrie, and Jeffrey (now Jessie), I felt that I had found the family that could best tell this story.”
- Eric Rockey

Preview link available upon request. Contact support@videoproject for more information