Diversity Guide

Gender and sexuality can be fluid, and today transgender issues are altering the nature of day-to-day interactions. What do you do when your seven-year-old son announces that he wants to be a girl? Or your husband of 30 years announces that he wants to be a woman? Broadcasting legend Katie Couric  takes us on a unique journey to discover the dynamics and complexities of gender in our world. To better understand this complicated social and scientific issue, Couric crisscrossed the U.S. to talk with scientists, psychologists, surgeons, activists, authors and families to learn more about the role of genetics, brain chemistry and modern culture on gender fluidity. She also speaks with a number of ordinary people who find their bodies and their lives on the front line of a rapidly changing world. 

Five non-binary people discuss their experience of life outside the simple gender binary of male and female. They tell us about the difficulty that society has with their resistance to its attempts to compartmentalize and define people.

Many people confuse the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity. Gender identity is the term describing your sense of your gender expression – do you identify as male or female or both or neither? Matt and Denise are F to M and M to F persons who are transgendered. They give insight into their transitions and their lives. Cailynn and Chris use “gender queer” and “agendered” to describe themselves. Where do you fit on the gender continuum?

Go on an intimate and eye-opening journey inside a new frontier. Told from the perspective of parents, doctors, and, most revealing of all, eight transgender kids themselves, ranging in ages from 9 to 19, FRONTLINE takes a powerful look at this new generation, exploring the medical possibilities, struggles, and choices transgender kids and their families face today.

Transgender issues today are rooted in a decades-long struggle for inclusion.