Trans film wins two awards

“Amazing and wonderful.”

That’s how film director Gwen Haworth describes her reaction to winning both the People’s Choice Award for Most Popular Canadian Film and the Women in Film & Television Vancouver Artistic Merit Award for her autobiographical documentary She’s A Boy I Knew at the recently concluded Vancouver International Film Festival.

“I couldn’t think of two better jurors to receive recognition from,” says Haworth, a transsexual woman, whose film empathetically but forthrightly navigates her transitioning journey and its impact not only on herself but family, friends and partners.

While Haworth notes there weren’t any trans-positive films she could reference as a support when embarking on her own transitioning process, she says in the last few years she has begun to see a lot of films, especially from allies, that are family-inclusive, and address in “a proactive manner” how families deal with gender and sexual identity issues.

“You see the challenges that arise, and at the same time, the love and support and we, as a community, need to see a lot more of that,” contends Haworth who also hopes to see a lot more trans self-representation.

“Self-representation is really key to self-empowerment. We need to hear from ourselves because then people realize they can have more control of what happens, and not just be impacted by the society around them,” she explains.

The buzz and awareness She’s A Boy I Knew is generating has led to a demand for its screening in other film festivals in Canada and around the world, including Montreal, Madrid, Amsterdam and Cleveland, Ohio.

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

Keep Reading

Jimmy Heagarty

‘Big Brother 27’ star Jimmy Heagerty is making for great TV. It could be even better with more queer people

By very virtue of their sexuality, queer houseguests cannot have the same experience as their straight competitors

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10’ delivers a wildly entertaining finale—after a waste-of-time semifinals

It’s hard to figure out just what producers were thinking with this merge format
Andrea Gibson, left, and Megan Falley, the subjects of the film "Come See Me in the Good Light," pose for a portrait during the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in Park City, Utah.

Andrea Gibson helped me see life in the good light

Gibson’s poetry about queerness and mortality taught thousands of people how to reject apathy and embrace life
Collage of greyscale photos of a sofa, chair, shelf and the lower bodies of two people, against a purple and pink background

We need queer gathering spaces more than ever

The 11-part series “Taking Space” explores where we go next as the lights of gay bars dim