Gendernauts

Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities is a 1999 film by Monika Treut featuring Sandy Stone, Texas Tomboy, Susan Stryker, and Hida Viloria. It shows us a group of artists in San Francisco who live between the poles of conventional gender identities. Told through the narration of Sandy Stone, who acts as a sort of tour guide, the film documents the lives of a group of transgender individuals, and one intersex individual, living in San Francisco, California. The narration provided by Stone is cut with interviews that develop and illustrate the ideas and themes she discusses in her vignettes. The film is shot on location in San Francisco, with the interviews of the subjects taking place in their natural settings and surroundings including their homes, offices, and the streets of San Francisco. The film explains, through the lives of its subjects, both the social and practical changes and decisions necessary for them to endure in order to live their lives as they see fit on the edge of traditional gender roles. The idea of gender neutrality is promoted throughout the film. The film also shows how the subjects all interact with one another in the transgender subculture of San Francisco.