Ma Vie en Rose and Gendernauts

Alain Berliner’s Ma Vie en Rose explores multiple societal pressures and norms facing Ludo, a transgender, as he navigates his childhood. Although there are undoubtedly biological differences between the male and female genders, it’s not hard to see how Berliner depicts gender through social constructs or norms like the media, for example, when Ludo watches the TV show where there is obviously one man and one woman getting married and clothing, for example, when Ludo is reprimanded for cross-dressing. Personally, I don’t view gender as merely a social construct and that there is some truth in gender roles, but I did see how gender was partially a social construct in Ma Vie en Rose. Berliner really creates a strong tie between sex and gender in that Ludo’s sex determined his gender roles growing up. Given this strong tie and an apparent lack of understanding of transgenderism, Ludo is mislabeled as a homosexual and makes me appreciate the existence of all these terms we use today.

Monica Treut’s Gendernauts brought up a lot of new ideas and, to me, a radical way of thinking about gender. When doctors were described as “gatekeepers” in the sense that they altered genitalia at birth to eliminate confusion, I wondered to what extent we as a society go to create the norm that is a binary understanding of gender. I feel like the lines between male and female were very blurred in this documentary, especially when the intersex woman talked about “learning how to be male.” That really says a lot about gender as a social construct.