New grad creates documentary about experiences of gender-creative families in Alberta

An Athabasca University (AU) grad has turned their award-winning thesis research into a documentary about gender-creative parenting.

What are you having? follows the journeys of three gender-creative families in Edmonton and Calgary. The documentary was directed and co-produced by Skyler Todd (Master of Counselling ’24) and focuses on their experiences and plans to use gender-creative parenting—where a baby’s gender or sex is not assigned at birth.

“The moment a child enters this world, we hold them up and we say, ‘It’s a boy,’ or, ‘It’s a girl,’ and I think that says a lot about society’s value of compulsory cisgenderism—that children must be cisgender to live happy, healthy lives, and we simply don’t agree,” said Todd, speaking in the documentary.

“Gender-creative parenting is largely about self-determination, freedom, and expanding possibilities in childhood.”

Todd said a major reason why people take up gender-creative parenting is because of negative experiences from their own childhoods and wanting to avoid similar harms for their children.

“If I was parented through gender-creative parenting … I think I would have discovered who I was much earlier, I would have had significantly less heartbreak and shame and anxiety about being a part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. I wouldn’t have been fearful to tell my friends and family, or fearful to show up in the world as I wanted.”

RELATED: How gender-creative parenting supports child gender health 

Opening people’s eyes to gender-creative parenting

Funding by TELUS STORYHIVE, Todd said one of their goals with the documentary was to share their research, but they also wanted people to understand the risks and inequities from minimizing a child’s gender health.

“I think a lot of well-meaning parents think it is enough to wait for the moment their kid comes out to them as lesbian, as queer, as trans, but the coming-out process is incredibly difficult, and people in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community know that better than anyone,” they said.

“The coming-out moment shouldn’t have to be there, and it wouldn’t have to be there if [people] understood that kids could have any number of these identities.”

Todd wants parents to know that there are other ways to explore gender in childhood and that the way most people do it doesn’t need to be the only way.

There are aspects of gender-creative parenting that any parent could use to help improve their child’s gender health, they said. That includes letting a child have all the toys, colours, and experiences, regardless of gender identity.

“I want parents to be mindful of the fact that you could have a queer child; you could have a trans child; you could have a gender nonconforming child and need to be prepared for that. You should be down to support your kid no matter how they show up in the world.”

A first-hand look

Todd and their partner and co-producer Quinn Lumsden wanted the film to do justice to the gender-creative parenting movement and to the people featured in the documentary.

“All of the documentaries and any video footage out there about gender-creative parenting are all from a very outsider perspective of ‘look at these weirdos doing this weird thing,’” said Todd.

“We wanted to make a film that highlighted the gender creative community as typical parents trying to do right by their kids and make the world a better place. I want our child to have the potential to grow into themselves in all aspects of their identity, their gender identity, and their gender expression.”

What are you having? has been selected to screen at the LA Queer Film Festival, Rainbow Fest Chicago, and the Queer North Film Festival in Ontario.

The documentary is now available to watch on TELUS Optik TV, with plans to publish on YouTube in the future.