Yale University, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, Brown University, University of Pennsylvania

Spencer looked directly at me rather than at the camera for the first time, her pale blue eyes muted and melancholic. “To my parents, it's like losing me,” she explained, “as though the child they raised had died and a stranger had walked into their family.” I glanced again at the questionnaire, which I had developed as a guide for the interviews that I was conducting for a documentary film I was making on transgender issues, a much-talked-about topic at the time. I was intrigued on a personal level, my fascination leading me to conduct extensive background research on the subject, focusing…