An invitation into the routine of an American family of three where respect prevails, and the youngest member is smoothly transitioning from female to male. This smart, sensitive documentary, written, produced, and directed by Sandy Jaffe, tells the story of her transgender son.

Through video footage filmed since the child was a baby, viewers get involved in an act of sharing while watching what may be an uncomfortable topic as it is known and  mentioned.  However, the way things are narrated isn´t distressing at all.

Parents Sally and Jay travel to China in 1999 to adopt their only child, a girl, and whilst growing up the kid practiced ballet, piano, singing, and karate too. The child understood the difference between softball for girls and baseball for boys as confirmation of the established separations among children.  At school, acting in theatre felt like home because the performing arts offer multiple interpretive possibilities. That girl, being a teenager and moving from high school to college, became an out trans man named David, after his father.

In the film, narrated by the mother, we learn about the familiar context and her struggles, since the transition was harder for her.  As a Court judge, Father accepted the child´s decision unconditionally and supported it.  It’s interesting to watch the reactions from the grandparents on both sides, the godparents’ endorsement, and a little of the cultural context in the second decade of XXI Century America.   

The transition, is it a choice? Ever since conscious memory, David knew he was a boy; wisely, he answers: you don´t choose to make things difficult.

Although trans rights are human rights, the world doesn´t feel like a safe place for David, her mother declares.  Making the film is her way of processing, and it shows, as good as it is, her work supporting parents of transgender children nowadays.

David Blitzman, closing the film, says he graduated from Smith College with a Master’s in social work and plans to work as a therapist with youth.