Devised from 50+ interviews with trans, non-binary people and women and filmed remotely during the pandemic with actors nationwide for 2 seasons (and in person for the 3rd), Assigned Female at Birth follows the lives of 3 couples and their immediate families. The characters include an agender trans man who wants to get married in a dress, zir mixed race lover who is definitely not on board, a black lesbian who doesn't like her trans husband's new penis and a non-binary therapist with a diagnosis of their own working to commit to their recovering addict partner. AFAB has won 12 awards as of 2023.—Lyralen Kaye
Assigned Female at BirthA Web Series about Some BodiesCreated by Lyralen Kaye
Log line: A hybrid narrative/documentary series that tells the story of 23 AFAB people fighting everything they've been taught about their bodies never being good enough.
Genre: LGBTQ Docu-Dramedy Web Series
Structure: Documentary choruses intersperse a narrative story told in 10 minute episodes. This weave of genres resonate toward the greater LGBTQ and AFAB community.
Synopsis: The 23 characters depicted in AFAB, like myself and the 50+ people I interviewed, have been taught from birth that their bodies can never be good enough. Not able enough, not straight enough, not cis enough, not thin enough, not white enough, not gay enough, not femme enough, not butch enough, not young enough...the list goes on. All feel invisible-from the gender fluid Asian lesbian born with a fibular hemimelia disability to the trans rabbi on the spectrum who is also a cancer survivor-they struggle to be seen.
And whether the prejudice they fight is ableism or racism, homophobia or transphobia or misogyny, whether they seek healing from #metoo issues or disabilities they've had since birth, they reach for life with courage. Bold, frightened, vulnerable, ridiculously strong, they are, above all things, woke.
They are the green-haired, tattoed, pierced people at Pride, the blonde, girly femme on the dance floor, the black two-spirit lesbian who runs diversity trainings, the cis passing black trans man, the suburban mom who adopts a trans boi and helps him grow up free. They refuse to be defined by the ableist, homophobic, sexist culture that wages war on their bodies. They are the people pointing the way, suffering until they find a way to step out of every box into identities they name for themselves. And they do this, almost always, with a sense of humor.
Assigned Female at Birth, uses the words of original interviewees as verbatim as possible. Zander, the lead, is based on a real agender trans man who has D cup breasts, a full red beard, and blue hair to zir collar, and actually did wear a dress to zir wedding.
Perhaps most importantly, the characters, like their documentary counterparts, fail as often as they succeed; and are brave enough to refuse failure as a resting place. They live on the screen as the people who taught me, in interview after interview, how deeply we all need to be seen, and how willing they were to trust one of their own. They are "stars floating alone in the universe." They have never seen their stories foregrounded in film, tv or web. Until now.
