‘Every Body’ Paints an Expansive Portrait of Intersex Beauty and Resilience

Certain documentaries have stuck with me. Especially those about people who’ve survived physical violations only to suffer mental and emotional violations in their fight for justice. I’m thinking of 2012’s The Invisible War, about the handling of sexual assaults in the military, and 2015’s The Hunting Ground, about survivors of on-campus sexual assault. Both left me with a burning pit in my stomach long after the credits rolled.

I was reminded of that sensation while watching the brand new documentary, Every Body. At times, particularly towards its end, the new film — all about the ‘I’ in LGBTQIA — leans hard into themes of hope and optimism. But Every Body’s core does such a good job of explaining the litany of wrongs historically done to American intersex people that a deep sense of injustice is hard to shake off.

At the center of Every Body (directed by Julie Cohen, who was also responsible for 2018’s excellent RBG) are three enormously charismatic and likable intersex folks. There’s Sean Saifa Wall (he/him) who was born with an ambiguous gender, but surgically forced into a female-appearing body in infancy. It was a decision made by doctors to, according to medical notes, “protect [Wall’s] parents’ emotional wellbeing.” Wall is clear here that he felt like a male from day one and has been living with the consequences of that early medical intervention ever since.

Then there’s Alicia Roth Weigel (she/they) who was born with XY chromosomes, but always outwardly presented as female. Alicia was born with internal testes instead of a uterus, but grew up being told to keep it a secret from everyone in her life, including her own brother. (At one point here, she admits to carrying tampons in her purse during her teens in order to avoid scrutiny about her lack of a period.) Weigel first came out publicly in 2017 when she testified before the Texas Congress, arguing against the state’s controversial bathroom bill, which was ultimately struck down.

Finally, there’s River Gallo (they/them), who was raised as a boy — and is still misgendered by their own mother — despite being born without testes. Gallo was given prosthetic testicles in their teens and had almost no say in their medical treatment whatsoever. (Gallo also received zero professional psychological support at the time.) Despite a somewhat confusing upbringing, Gallo has since learned to fully embrace their intersex qualities. And they are all the more radiant for it.

Wall, Weigel and Gallo’s individual stories are compelling and intimately told in a way that, even if Every Body had only focused on the trio, it would still have been an essential portrait of intersex lives and realities. Where the film goes above and beyond, however, is in how it explains the history and rationale of the medical professionals who, for so long, forced unnecessary surgical procedures on intersex infants and youth. One gets the distinct impression that these monumental decisions — attempting to force intersex children into the gender binary — were often made casually and, in many cases, without much parental input. One also gets the unsettling feeling that they are probably still happening in more places than they should be.

Every Body traces the roots of these damaging practices back to a psychologist named John Money, who argued that gender identity could be fashioned externally and via social constructs, and was not in fact, self-directed. Money’s treatment of one particular patient in the 1970s, David Reimer, can only be described as an unmitigated, gut-wrenching disaster. Reimer’s story may be agonizing to watch now, but it contains essential lessons around the importance of allowing individuals — all individuals — to self-identify their own genders.

One is struck at the end of these engrossing 92 minutes just how misunderstood intersex people remain in 2023, and how much their stories — searing and impactful though they are — have been neglected thus far. Every Body very effectively seeks to rectify that. Once you watch it, you’ll never forget the ‘I’ in LGBTQI ever again.

‘Every Body’ opens in Bay Area theaters on June 30, 2023.