I Am a Woman Now (2011)

Directed by: Michiel van Erp | 80 minutes | documentary

The name Georges Burou will not ring a bell with everyone. However, the French gynecologist has played a crucial role in the lives of hundreds of transsexuals. In 1956 he started a clinic in the Moroccan metropolis of Casablanca where anyone who wanted to undergo sex reassignment surgery could go. He did not ask any questions, and psychological examinations were also omitted. He performed the operation and that was that. For many men he has made a dream come true. Finally they were a real woman, with all the trimmings. Although… The documentary ‘I Am a Woman Now’ (2011) by Michiel van Erp shows that transsexuals still have doubts even after their operation. Having children as a woman born can, remains a utopia for them. With every relationship they enter into, the past continues to haunt them. The secret they carry with them, that they were once born as a man, they cannot keep to themselves forever. In his documentary, Van Erp seeks out the women who fulfilled the pioneering role for countless other transsexuals and who came to Burou’s clinic from 1956 onwards. They are now sixty-five, seventy or sometimes even eighty years old. How did the surgery change their lives?

Van Erp found the women scattered all over Europe. The journey of the Flemish Corinne to Casablanca is a common thread. In Casablanca she wants to visit the clinic where she was operated on forty years ago. Meeting Burou is not easy, he died at the end of the eighties as a result of a water sports accident. His son will speak. He meets April Ashley, the first British person to openly speak of transsexualism and one of Burou’s first patients. She danced in Parisian nightclubs with other pioneers such as the now deceased Coccinelle and Bambi. It is a time that is now far behind her. Even after 50 years of living as a woman, she still regularly experiences rejection. The story of her childhood is candid and shocking. “In service they wondered what that girl was doing here.” Her very own mother ignored her, and when she couldn’t ignore her anymore, she rejected her child. An encounter with her from her estranged father, late in her life, manages to move to tears. “I’ve always known,” he said on his deathbed to his son who had become his daughter.

Another recurring theme is loneliness. A German woman says about it: ‘I never thought of myself as an old lady; that was not part of the fantasy’. The same lady was married to a woman before her operation. “When I suddenly stared at a dress in the shop window and wondered how it would look on me, I knew it would never end.” Later, as a woman, he would have a relationship with a Japanese, who unfortunately died at a young age. Her grief is still palpable. Aging is also an issue for the transsexuals in Van Erp’s film. ‘When you go gray, you are invisible’. A Dutch beautician explains that she fully understands that her boyfriend has exchanged her for a younger one. She doesn’t say it in so many words, but it can be seen in her eyes that she is very sad about it. Van Erp gives the women plenty of space to tell about their lives and their loves, their happiness and their sadness. Sometimes the women allow him in at very personal and sometimes confrontational moments. He confronts us with Corinne who finally reveals her big secret to one of her best friends. And she clearly has a hard time with that; She doesn’t say straight-up. The girlfriend is logically quite upset after the revelation, but the friendship will most likely not have deteriorated.

In Michiel van Erp’s documentaries, the director himself is never far away. Also in ‘I Am a Woman Now’ you can hear him asking emphatically questions, but these are often the questions you want to ask yourself at that moment. He approaches the women calmly and respectfully and gives them the space to say what they want. The eighty minutes that the film lasts fly by, because you hang on the lips of these women. All their lives they have had to fight against the evil outside world (because people have their opinion very quickly), in addition to the internal struggle they have had in accepting their own identity. For them, Doctor Burou was a lifesaver, a man who wanted and was able to fulfill their deepest wish. Thanks to him, they could be who they wanted to be. The operation has brought peace to many of them. Of course, their life after the surgery did not always go smoothly and they continued to have doubts and insecurities. But don’t we all have that? ‘I Am a Woman Now’ is a fascinating film about brave and admirable women who have dared to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes moving, sometimes confronting, but always fascinating.