This moving documentary follows transgender film-maker Jason Barker as he and his partner, Tracey, attempt to have a child. Built from intimate home video footage shot over a 15-year period, it tracks both partners’ numerous attempts to get pregnant with their own biological child. When Tracey is diagnosed with stage one breast cancer, Jason stops taking testosterone and begins various fertility treatments in the hope that, though he identifies as a man, his female body can provide them with a baby.
The practicalities and ethical issues of their medical journey are fascinating and documented in illuminating detail. “What if Tracey’s cancer was a punishment? For gender swapping? For playing God?” muses Jason, chastising his body for always feeling as if it’s letting him down. “Why not us?” he sobs in one harrowing scene, after their fiftysomething failed attempt. Still, the film plays out as a love story rather than an issue film, with the couple’s relationship soon becoming its most compelling element.
It’s easy to root for them as would-be parents too; Tracey in particular, filmed through her lover’s eyes, is radiant, funny, direct and wise, her graceful pragmatism a welcome foil to Jason’s neuroses.
