Dawn: A Charleston Legend
Genres
Overview
In 1968, Gordon Langley Hall claimed he was a woman misdiagnosed as male at birth because of a genital defect. To correct this, Gordon underwent one of the first sex reassignment surgeries in the United States. Her subsequent marriage to a black auto mechanic and the mysterious birth of their daughter Natasha sent Charleston, SC society into a fury and cast serious doubts on the truth behind Dawn’s story.
Details
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Runtime
34 min
Release Date
2022-06-16
Status
Released
Original Language
English
Vote Count
0
Vote Average
0
Dawn Langley Simmons
Self (archive footage)
Alexia Jasmene
Dawn Langley Simmons (voiceover)
Mildred Simmons
Self
Natasha Simmons
Self
Stephanie Riggio Bulger
Self
John-Paul Simmons
Self (archive footage)
Christine Jorgensen
Self (archive footage)
Pierre Berton
Self (archive footage)
0.0
Trans
Trans is a 1982 Venezuelan documentary short film that offers an intimate look into the lives of a group of trans women and drag performers in Caracas, exploring their experiences in a society marked by transphobia and homophobia. Through interviews and performances, the documentary highlights the resilience and dignity of these women in the face of widespread discrimination and violence. Premiering at the Venezuelan National Cinematheque in 1982, Trans is considered a pioneering work in the representation of the trans community in Latin American cinema.
1983-07-06 | es
7.0
Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner
Lies can kill. Transgender Nuclear Suicide Sojourner is an exploration of propaganda, lies, and the overwhelming urge to end it all.
2023-07-28 | en
3.0
Lily: A Transgender Story
Filmed over five years, we follow Lily Jones, 20, as she transitions from male to female, leaves her seaside home for the city, undergoes gender reassignment surgery and finds love.
2020-12-08 | en
8.0
Casa Susanna
In the 50s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskills, a small wooden house with a barn behind it was home to the first clandestine network of cross-dressers. Diane and Kate are now 80 years old. At the time, they were men and part of this secret organization. Today, they relate this forgotten but essential chapter of the early days of trans-identity. It is a story full of noise and fury, rich in extraordinary characters, including the famous Susanna, who had the courage to create this refuge that came to be known as Casa Susanna.
2022-08-31 | en
0.0
Love & Rage: Munroe Bergdorf
Focuses on one of the most talked about and important issues of our time – how to find yourself and your truth. It follows model and transgender activist Munroe Bergdorf’s journey and provides hope for those facing similar challenges.
2025-06-10 | en
7.4
Re-Births
A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…
2017-12-01 | fr
4.0
I Don't Know
A truly major work, I Don’t Know observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender person who prefers to be identified somewhere in between male and female, in an expression of personal ambiguity suggested by the film’s title. This nonfiction film – an unusual, partly staged work of semi-verité – is the first of Spheeris’s films to fully embrace what would become her characteristic documentary style: probing, intimate, uncompromising. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.
1971-11-09 | en
0.0
Edhi Alice: REVERSE
Edhi and Alice intimately follows two transitioning women, Edhi and Alice, as they explore the fluidity of their gender identity, in the face of the the disapproving gaze of South Korean society.
2024-11-16 | ko
7.2
Laerte-se
In this film, Laerte conjugates the body in the feminine, and scrutinizes concepts and prejudices. Not in search of an identity, but in search of un-identities. Laerte creates and sends creatures to face reality in the fictional world of comic strips as a vanguard of the self. And, on the streets, the one who becomes the fiction of a real character. Laerte, of all the bodies, and of none, complicates all binaries. In following Laerte, this documentary chooses to clothe the nudity beyond the skin we inhabit.
2017-05-18 | pt
6.7
The City of Pirates
A film director faces a complex situation in the production of his new film: Laerte, the protagonist of the story, begins to renegade her former characters, the Pirates of the Tietê. Lost in this situation and determined to be faithful to his whims after seeing the approach of death, the director decides to tell his drama mixing his persona with the story, creating a chaotic labyrinth between fiction and real life.
2018-08-17 | pt
4.6
I Am the Queen
In Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, the Vida/Sida Cacica Pageant brings together members of the Puerto Rican community to celebrate its transgender participants. I Am The Queen follows Bianca, Julissa and Jolizza as they prepare for the pageant under the guidance of Ginger Valdez, an experienced transgender from the neighborhood. These trans women share stories of their transition, their relatives’ varying reactions, and how they find support from within the community. Family dynamics, cultural heritage, and personal identity all play a part in how the contestants face the daily struggle that comes from being true to themselves.
2011-02-18 | en
5.5
Kelet
Kelet is a twentysomething black trans woman, whose greatest dream is to be on the cover of Vogue magazine. For the Finnish-born and Manchester-raised Kelet, such models as Naomi Campbell and Iman served as role models giving her strength – and during the darkest times, kept her alive. After coming out, then 19-year-old Kelet was cut off from her family and she moved back to Finland on her own.
2020-01-29 | fi
6.7
The Stroll
The history of New York’s Meatpacking District, told from the perspective of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked “The Stroll” for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights.
2023-01-23 | en
0.0
The Contestant
Argenis, Yanvaldo, Carlos, Eduardo and Javier have something in common: they will compete in the Miss Gay Venezuela, a trans beauty contest where the man who most resembles a “Miss” wins. For several weeks, we follow them in their preparations for the final night of the contest, seeing how that illusion is built: that of being a beauty queen for one night. The event is the excuse and the ideal setting to find ourselves with wishes, fantasies and the search for a dream come true. They look for the beautiful and feminine to achieve a desire: to be admired and recognized as the most beautiful trans in the contest.
2021-10-01 | es
0.0
Enigma
Two legends contested their identities as women in the court of public opinion: April Ashley, who was immortalized as a trailblazer by embracing her transgender history; and Amanda Lear, who has consciously denied and obfuscated her history for decades. Their divergent paths reveal disparate but intertwined legacies.
2025-01-28 | en
0.0
Liminal
A trans paranormal investigator and their team search for the connection between the queer and the strange as they explore the mysterious and magical world of the rural south.
2024-05-05 | en
0.0
Pronouns in Bio
Through a collection of video diary entries spanning more than a year, Pronouns in Bio delivers an offbeat and charming reflection on transness and identity. Part documentary, part video essay and part musical, the film follows director and star Lucy Rose Shaftain-Fenner, a recently out transgender, autistic woman, as she navigates the first year of her transition. Note: Lucy uses the name Frankie during the film but has since started using the name Lucy.
2023-01-07 | en
1.0
My Transparent Life
My Transparent Life chronicles the journey of one trans man, one trans woman and a trans couple as transition from the sex they were born with to the sex they identify with.
2022-10-04 | en
0.0
Brianna: A Mother's Story
Brianna: A Mother's Story - Esther Ghey tells the powerful and emotional true story of her daughter Brianna, a sixteen year old trans girl who was groomed by a murder obsessed classmate.
2025-03-27 | en
6.0
Bambi
Bambi was born Jean-Pierre Pruvot in a tiny Algerian village in 1935. Even as a child, she refused to meet the expectations of her extended family, choosing instead to find a way to become the woman she always knew herself to be. A Cabaret Carrousel de Paris performance in Algiers in the 1950s proved to be all the encouragement she needed to emigrate to the French capital, assume the stage name of ‘Bambi’ and lead the life she longed for on the music-hall stages.
2013-02-11 | fr