The most remarkable moment of the feature-length documentary The Secret of Me (Channel 4) came right at the end when a middle-aged man, Jim, finally came face-to-face with the urologist Dr Carter, who had surgically made him a girl shortly after birth in 1976. Why? Because the baby\u2019s phallus size \u201cwas nowhere near the size of a penis you\u2019d expect on an infant\u201d (so said the doctor).<\/p>\n
This was a well-intentioned decision, green-lit by the parents, but the fact that \u201cKristi\u201d, as Jim was christened, then spent years as a very confused girl because the truth was kept secret from her (under medical advice) now looks little less than cruel. Yet the confrontation between Jim and Dr Carter was notable for its civility. The doctor, while explaining why the decision was taken in the baby\u2019s best interests, admitted that \u201cin retrospect it was wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n
Jim\u2019s intensely personal story, told directly into the camera throughout this multilayered film, was the upshot of what happens when science all too readily accepts a single wonderful theory \u2014 one, as it would turn out, based on bogus research.<\/p>\n
In the 1960s the eminent academic Dr John Money\u2019s idea that an individual\u2019s core gender identity is shaped in their early years, and isn\u2019t something innate, essentially resulted in countless intersex babies undergoing these operations \u2014 ones described at one point in his film as \u201cgenital mutilation\u201d. Surgery at birth for babies with ambiguous genitalia isn\u2019t banned in most countries (including the UK).<\/p>\n
Jim, now in his fifties and hirsutely male, clarified right at the start: \u201cI know what you\u2019re thinking \u2014 this is a transgender story. But it\u2019s not.\u201d He wasn\u2019t born into the wrong body (and he has a male XY chromosomal type); he was born into the right one. It was the doctors who decided he should be female, long before he could have any say in it.<\/p>\n
With a candour that reflected the film\u2019s tone \u2014 calm but laced with anger \u2014 Jim described his pained adolescence as a tomboyish girl in conservative Baton Rouge, then the further surgery encouraged by Mum when she turned 18 to create a \u201cvaginal vault\u201d. <\/p>\n
It was the kind of confusion that deepens and expands into every aspect of an individual\u2019s life. Years of knowing there\u2019s something off about oneself, bullying remarks at school, infertility \u2014 and no clue as to why. You could only feel intense sympathy for the poor child.<\/p>\n
A Damascene moment came during a college class when the 19-year-old Kristi learnt about intersex corrective surgery, and then, tracking down her medical notes, she finally found out everything about why she had always felt more he. The director, Grace Hughes-Hallett, was fair to track down Carter, allowing him to explain his position \u2014 Money\u2019s research had led him and others to assume their approach was doing the right thing.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Read more TV reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/a><\/p>\n There is so much to unpack from this film, not least the perspective it offered on the perennial debate of nature versus nurture. Money\u2019s intransigent views on one\u2019s gender being \u201clearnt\u201d at an early age were largely based on his research on two male baby twins, one of whom was raised as a girl. Notoriously, that case ended tragically, with both twins killing themselves. But Jim\u2019s story alone presented as evidence that one\u2019s gender is hardwired.<\/p>\n Ultimately, this film was an expos\u00e9, with a streak of activism, publicising how surgical interventions on infants are still happening. It\u2019s a thorny, complex issue. By the end of all this, the closing statement that \u201csome of these children have never been told the truth\u201d was disturbing enough to make you gasp out loud. Love TV? Discover the best shows on Netflix<\/a>, the best Prime Video TV shows<\/a>, the best Disney+ shows<\/a>, the best Apple TV+ shows<\/a>, the best shows on BBC iPlayer<\/a>, the best shows on Sky and Now<\/a>, the best shows on ITVX<\/a>, the best shows on Channel 4<\/a> streaming, the best shows on Paramount+<\/a> and our favourite hidden gem TV shows<\/a>. Don\u2019t forget to check our critics\u2019 choices to what to watch this week<\/a>, and browse our comprehensive TV guide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most remarkable moment of the feature-length documentary The Secret of Me (Channel 4) came right at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-381860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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Available on Channel 4 streaming<\/p>\n