Every Body, EVERY Body, Every Body, EVERY Body (CREDIT: Courtesy of FOCUS FEATURES / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC)

Starring: River Gallo, Alicia Roth Weigel, Sean Saifa Wall

Director: Julie Cohen

Running Time: 92 Minutes

Rating: R for A Little Bit of Language and Nude Images

Release Date: June 30, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Perhaps the least widely understood letter in the acronym LGBTQIA is the “I.” It stands for “intersex,” which refers to individuals with biological sex characteristics that don’t fit neatly into the male/female binary. It’s estimated that about 1.7% of the population have some sort of intersex characteristics. In some cases, those traits may remain undetected, but in others, surgery may happen to confirm a particular sex assignment. The documentary Every Body focuses on the stories of three intersex individuals (River Gallo, Alicia Roth Weigel, Sean Saifa Wall) of varying physical appearance and gender identity to posit that maybe the treatment of intersex people shouldn’t be as one-size-fits-all as it has historically been.

What Made an Impression?: Gender Reveal Pandemonium: Every Body opens with a montage of gender reveal parties and their elaborate, often violent methods of introducing a coming baby’s identity. The sequence is matter-of-factly over-the-top, even without showing some of the most notoriously destructive examples of this phenomenon. The point is that society is so focused on gender, often to a comical extreme, which ultimately leads to the suggestion that ultimately maybe we could settle down a bit and replace these gender reveals with the theoretically simpler alternative of “human reveal parties.”
An Infamous Case: Perhaps the most crucial sequence of Every Body involves River, Alicia, and Sean being introduced to the story of one of the most well-known intersex persons, who actually wasn’t intersex at all. Born in 1965, David Reimer’s penis was mutilated when he was a baby by a botched circumcision. Reconstructive surgery was pretty much nonexistent at the time, so his mother followed the teachings of psychologist John Money, who believed that gender identity could be conditioned through behavioral intervention. So David was raised as a girl, but his fundamental boyhood couldn’t hide for very long. His story is presented here mostly in the form of an old Dateline episode, but his story remains vital, and the added context of everyone’s reactions justify its conclusion.
Getting to Know Them: A documentary like this one is only as compelling as its subjects, and on that score, River, Alicia, and Sean are interesting and inviting individuals. Their viewpoints of the intersex parts of their identity are deeply and firmly considered, and they’re happy to explain themselves to a cinematic audience. And chances are you’ll also be happy to start a parasocial relationship with them.

Every Body is Recommended If You Like: The concept of cura personalis

Grade: 4 out of 5 Humans