ABOUT

UnAids recognized that transgender children are most vulnerable and creating a safe enabling environment requires changing the hearts and minds of their caregivers. We needed to create a tool that could be used to sensitise parents, children and the wider community. The film, ‘The Mirror’, shows a young boy in a private moment, applying makeup and dressing up as a girl. Moments later, his mother and his grandmother catch him dancing and the music stops with everyone frozen in dread. A beat later, the women smile and join him. The child is not beaten or expelled from the family, yet we assume he will be. With the shock twist - the film holds a mirror to the “normalisation” of violence towards trans-children. The humane and uplifting story gives children hope of a new reality, while sensitising communities to both the inherent violence LGBTQI children face at home, and the humane and simple solution to this problem. A first of its kind film, it travelled organically to over 50 countries, 500 doctors pledged to use this as training and counselling material . Shared widely by opinion leaders, it was used in churches, schools and the medical community as a sensitization tool. Cultural reference Children feel distressed when their gender identity differs from the sex they were given at birth as what they experience clashes with their own reality, so much so that they can start closeting as early as age of 2. This impacts children’s growth negatively. LGBTIQ children are more likely to drop out of school, run away from home, face physical, mental and sexual abuse, and more likely to harm themselves. At 41% trans kids have the highest rate of suicide attempts across the world. The problem starts at home, starts with parents and its starts early, yet no one speaks about trans children. We needed a tool that holds up a mirror – to parents of transgender children and to society in general. It is only when we envision a new, more humane world, can we begin to create it.