Whisper Leigh (2008)

• 70%
• 2008
• Vertna Bradley

You feel like you're a girl, but to everyone else and on the outside, you're a boy. You go along with it, just to not make waves, but then during puberty you develop breasts. Eventually, you marry as a man and even father children. Until one day, you decide that enough is enough. Born an XXY male, 61 year old Leigh Smythe has always been "in between" male and female. Leigh lived as a man for over 58 years, but always felt like there was a woman trapped inside. Although she yearns to live 24/7 as a female, currently, she must bounce back and forth between being a woman and a man. She lives her social life as a transgender activist and aspiring drag performer (competing against contestants less than half her age); and his work life as a man delivering newspapers (the only job he can find). Watch as she/he speaks candidly of her/his inner struggles of living with dual gender identities. Vertna Bradley's "Whisper Leigh" questions the notions of the strong and hard socially constructed and widely accepted definitions and characteristics of what it means to be male or female as it reveals the slippage of identity that can occur in defining gender.