A Mom Made A Documentary About Her Teen Son's Transition. Here's What She Wants Other Parents Of Trans Kids To Know
Amy Jenkins kept a camera in her hand from early on in her kids’ lives, building what she calls her “motherhood archive” to immortalize moments that might otherwise be forgotten. She captured the little moments: birthday celebrations and her older son playing in his beloved Superman costume, unaware that these clips would someday form a moving documentary not just about her firstborn’s transition, but about parenthood and the bittersweet feeling of watching your child grow up.
The result is Adam’s Apple, a collaboration between Amy and her eldest, Adam Sieswerda, who is also the subject of the film, which premiered at SXSW this month. Pieced together from Amy’s detailed home videos, the film is a story of a family in transition through those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it final years before a kid goes to college.
“As a parent, I’ve just wanted to hold on to every single moment as it’s already slipped through my fingers,” Amy tells SheKnows of the documentary’s origins. “It’s so bittersweet and so for me to also have documented those moments, allows me to sit within the acceptance of the fact that time never stops.”
Amy films as Adam begins hormone therapy, challenges his father’s complicated emotions about his transition, and goes to a consultation to receive top surgery. However, thanks to the Jenkins-Sieswerda family’s remarkable openness, the milestones of Adam’s transition are just ordinary stages of adolescence. Adam navigates puberty, his first relationship, college applications, and arguing with his parents. That Adam is trans feels like a minor detail in a film that beautifully shows how parent-child relationships shift, change and grow through the universal stages of raising a teen into an adult.
“It’s very easy to see struggles for the trans community,” Adam, speaking alongside his mom, says to SheKnows. “But to see someone like me grow up with joy shows that trans political struggles and the tension that exists in them are not a defining characteristic. Joy can be a defining characteristic.”
Amy isn’t looking to become a figurehead for parents of trans kids, but the film does a lot to let parents know that a child’s transition doesn’t have to be painful, tragic, or contentious. “Love your child unconditionally,” Amy urges. “There are rhythms of adolescence. There are difficult moments, but it’s a reciprocal relationship. And, it’s crucial for your child’s mental health to be heard and listened to.”
“I think one of the values of this film is that all parents go through that process of reckoning with change and learning to let go of expectations,” Amy says. “And also, the importance of having open communication and respect for each other’s viewpoints.”
In a cultural landscape that sensationalizes trans kids’ existence and makes their rights into political talking points, Adam’s Apple gives them the right to be ordinary, to fit in with their peers, and be a recipient and a source of joy. The film makes no political statement; it’s simply about a teen figuring out his life.