From the outside, Kristi’s childhood was not unlike most other kids growing up in the Eighties. She played on the girls soccer team and rocked a gnarly perm. Unbeknownst to her, Kristi’s parents kept a painful secret.
“I am Kristi,” Jim Ambrose, now in his 40s, says to the camera, “but this is not a trans story.”
Until he was 19 and in college, Jim didn’t have the words to describe his upbringing. His parents made him take pills to grow breasts and told him that one day he would need to undergo surgery to create a vagina. Enrolled in a feminist studies course in 1995, Jim learned about commonplace medical procedures for newborns with “abnormal” sexual organs. The research on gender led Jim to realize his own intersex identity. When he obtained his birth records, Jim uncovered that he was born with XY male chromosomes, but because his genitals were arbitrarily deemed atypical, his urologist, with the consent of his parents, castrated his testes and removed his phallus. Jim was raised as a girl.
The Secret of Me, the debut documentary feature from director Grace Hughes-Hallett (who co-produced the 2018 BAFTA nominee Three Identical Strangers), sheds light on the widespread practice of medically unnecessary interventions forced on roughly 1 in 2,000 children born with nonconforming genitals. Though Jim’s story is the lens through which the audience sees the lasting impact of intersex operations, the filmmakers broaden the scope to the modern history of the traumatic procedures. From the cruel 1960s experiments of influential psychologist John Money to the 1990s crusade against the gender ideology he expounded, the film masterfully weaves true crime tropes with deeply vulnerable anecdotes. The result is a moving call-to-action to ban the mutilation of intersex babies.
Throughout this compelling documentary, a wealth of archival footage and firsthand photos supplement the narrative. Grainy home videos instantly transport the viewers to Jim’s hometown of Baton Rouge, where he sets out to speak with the doctor who followed the supposed expert guidance and convinced his parents it would be best to conceal Jim’s gender reconstruction from him. Other documentary subjects include trailblazing intersex activists Tiger Devore and founder of the Intersex Society of North America, Cheryl Chase, both of whom were friends and mentors to Jim throughout his journey toward self-reclamation.
All considered, The Secret of Me is a meticulously crafted and thoroughly researched documentary that advocates for the self-determination of intersex folks. As bodily autonomy is under attack in many other, often overlapping, communities, this movie demands to be seen at a time when it couldn’t be more urgent.
Screens again Tuesday, March 11 and Wednesday, March 12.
The Secret of Me
Documentary Feature Competition, World Premiere
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This article appears in March 7 • 2025.