On June 11, the documentary Every Body premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Julie Cohen directed the movie. Actor and screenwriter River Gallo, Ph.D. student Sean Saifa Wall, and political consultant Alicia Roth Weigel served as subjects. On June 30, Focus Features will release the movie to theatres. The film discussed the lives of intersex people in the United States. The Tribeca Film Festival will occur from June 7 to 18.
The festival’s main slate showcases diverse films that push for political, cultural, and social changes. The venue screens over two hundred feature and short motion pictures each year. Committees consider the projects for highly-regarded awards. The event screens television shows, audio stories, industry talks, and indie episodic series. Attendees can interact with video games and immersive experiences as well. Every Body dives deep into the history of intersex people.
Gallo, Saifa Wall, and Weigel had childhoods of secrecy and non-consensual surgeries. Each decided to come out as their authentic selves and became thriving adults. Now, they lead a fast-growing global movement. It pushes for a greater understanding of intersex people and the end of unnecessary medical procedures. Every Body’s film team made red carpet appearances.
Cohen, Gallo, Saifa Wall, and Weigel posed for group photos. Producers Tommy Nguyen, Molly O’Brien and consulting producer Shana Knizhnik joined them. In the documentary, Cohen weaved David Reimer’s stranger-than-life story into the documentary.
Riemer was born a male and had a botched circumcision. Psychologist John Money experimented on Reimer, raising him as a teenage girl. He received hormonal and surgical treatments and did not know it. Money published reports without regard to Riemer’s emotions or lack of consent. When Riemer turned fourteen years old, he learned the truth about Money’s experiments. The documentary featured Riemer’s interview clips. It showed similar artifacts from the subjects’ lives.
The film started with Gallo, Saifa Wall, and Weigel’s baby photos on a scrapbook background. The movie showed pictures with page-turn animations. Their voiceovers discussed their traumatic medical histories. Though each one was different, the activists had the same goal: positive changes for intersex people.
When Gallo was twelve years old, they learned that they were born without testicles. Medical professionals insisted on unnecessary hormonal treatments and a procedure to insert prosthetic testes. The doctors did not tell Gallo that they were intersex. Gallo’s parents told them this when they were sixteen.
“I remember writing journal entries when I was sixteen that said I would never come out as intersex. Look at me now,” said Gallo.
They have become a fierce supporter for intersex rights. In 2019, they wrote, directed, and acted in the film Ponyboi. This is the first film to feature an openly-intersex person. Recently, they supported California Senate Bill 201. This legislation would stop doctors from performing cosmetic surgeries on intersex children. Wall has a different medical history.
When he was thirteen years old, he was diagnosed with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome. This condition impairs male genitalia and secondary sex characteristics, but not that of women. Doctors subjected Wall to a gondadectomy at thirteen years old. Wall did not consent to this procedure and strongly supports the rights of intersex people.
In 2015, he joined an international advisory board for the first philanthropic Intersex Human Rights Fund. Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice established the financial effort. Currently, he is attending classes for his doctorate degree. Weigel has a different medical history as well.
Before she was born, an amniocentesis test showed that she had XY chromosomes. Despite this, she was born with a vagina and internal testes. This led to a diagnosis of Complete Androgen Insensitivity. The doctors pressured her parents into a surgery to remove the testes. A decade later, Alicia did not get her period because she had no uterus.
Her biologically-female friends began receiving periods. “I remember carrying around tampons at school to fit in,” she said. In recent years, Alicia came out as an intersex person, even to the Texas legislature.
The film showed clips of her making speeches in front of Texas senators. The GOP re-filed their discriminatory ‘bathroom bill.’ The proposed law would force transgender students to only use the bathroom of their biological sex. In her speech, Weigel presented evidence for the harmful consequences of this law.
The film featured wide profile shots with all three subjects in frame. They sat on comfortable couches in a sunny backyard. Someone off-screen asked them if the doctors ever mentioned the word “intersex.” Each subject said no. In fact, they were told to keep their conditions a secret.
The same off-screen person asked the subjects to demonstrate their feelings about this secrecy. Gallo curled up on the couch with their head in their hands. Weigel covered their face with their hands. The documentary captured their movement’s progress as well.
Gallo and Weigel chatted with the mother of a young intersex child over video chat. The child was born with an internal testes and a vagina. In 2022, the doctors did not force this child to undergo cosmetic surgery. The mother explained that she wanted explicit consent from her child for any medical procedure. “This is so different that what we went through,” said Weigel.
