The life of a groomed child, laid bare.
The blurby bit
Witness the compelling story of Kai, a trans boy who boldly started his journey to press pause on puberty at the tender age of nine.
Kai’s narrative is a testament to fortitude, ambition, determination, and patience as he navigates an often uncharted path. Kai faces significant milestones, encompassing self-discovery, medical intervention, and overcoming numerous obstacles.
Join us to celebrate Kai’s courage, growth, and resilience in this intimate portrayal of his life. This is a testament to human spirit and identity, and we can’t wait to share it with you.
My Genderation is a non-profit film company, helmed by an all-trans crew that creates films exploring trans themes for a broader audience.
From Eventbrite
Introduction
Since the age of 9, Kai Windsor has been subject to public scrutiny. There have been sympathetic trans activist pieces in the Daily Mail, appearances on ITV’s This Morning and she has also been followed around by My Genderation team for the past ten years of her life. Kai began puberty blocking drugs at the age of 10, care of the disgraced Tavistock Clinic. Evidence of Kai’s malleability is abundant in the films that My Genderation have produced and it’s a wonder why no one from the Tavistock spotted the dynamic of pushy-mother and eager-to-please-daughter. Fox Fisher and business partner, Lewis Hancox, screened the forty minute documentary, most of which is already in the public domain on their YouTube channel, at a private viewing room in London’s West End. The plan had been for Kai to attend the watch party, so that they could complete the documentary that night at the screening. Due to personal issues, however, Kai pulled out. Her mother, Rachel Windsor, also failed to attend.
By way of introduction, Fox and Lewis both personally testified to the fact that they had wanted to follow Kai on her puberty blocking journey as they had both missed out on ‘boyhoods’, since puberty blockers weren’t available when they were children (Reminder: Fox Fisher is in her mid-forties). Thus, they saw in Kai the potential in what they could have become …
‘Kai (9): A Transgender Child’
Playing to sexist tropes about what boys and girls like, we are persuaded that Kai really is a boy, simply because she likes being active and outside. Most of the interview is set in a skatepark to underline this. In direct contrast to this, Kai tells her story not independently, but on a park bench in her mother’s arms, constantly giving mum Rachel positive emotional feedback and affection.
The alleged story of Kai coming out to her mother is punctuated by Rachel revealing: ‘We had a great cuddle, didn’t we?’. Dad is notably missing.
We learn that Kai is going to start hormone blockers so that she doesn’t have to have bilateral mastectomy surgery when she is older, however Kai is already developing breast tissue and thus already in puberty. Rachel describes her daughter’s developing breasts as ‘bits’ that Kai is ‘not happy with’.
‘Kai (10): Transgender kid hopes for hormone blockers’
We are in an adventure playground this time, to see Kai, post-visit to the Tavistock to get puberty blocking drugs. This time Kai looks a lot less happy when sat next to her mother, as she talks about things being ‘overwhelming’. Kai wears a ‘trans pride’ T-shirt. She reports she is finding it difficult because she has started puberty earlier than everyone else in her class, and is supposedly happy with herself but not with her body. Notably she is scared to wash, as you ‘have to look’. She is made to prance in front of the camera, again to show off her supposedly ‘boyish’ attributes, and to show there is ‘nothing wrong’ (apart from her unseen bits, obviously). We also meet her older buxom confident sister.
Mum Rachel reads out a newspaper article about Kai, presumably just published, lying next to Kai on the bed. Mum cries with emotion as she reads the article, which you know she has already read (probably approved the copy). Kai seems muted and there as an accessory to her mother’s emotions. When asked what she thinks, Kai responds: ‘Embarrassing’. Mum smothers her with kisses and cuddles.
Remember Kai is still in primary school and her ‘story’ has just been published in a national newspaper.
Next mum, Kai and sister are off to the Tavistock to get puberty blockers. She is tested first to see where she is in puberty, which reveal she in the late stages. Kai was unaware this test would occur and had had the previous expectation that blockers were pointless in such a case and that she wouldn’t have them if so. Any time to explore this? Nah. We are also told that the Tavistock only prescribe to children who are in puberty. Again, there is no interest in why this is medically the case.
I wonder if the therapists who reviewed her that day knew that Fox and crew were waiting outside to film the event? The first two documentaries were published seven years ago (when Kai was 12), so therefore this was possibly concealed from the clinic.
‘Trans Boy Kai (12) on Hormone Blockers’
The family appear to have downsized (one wonders if as a result of a divorce, still no sight of the dad) and the new town Kai’s mother has chosen is Brighton, the most LGBTQIA+ city in the UK. Kai’s voice has now dropped, as most girl’s voices do at the end of puberty, and is looking forward to the time she starts testosterone and is able to have bilateral mastectomy. She continues on hormone blockers. ‘Lower surgery’ is also on the table. All the kids at school know she is trans and this is presented as tragic (cut to an image of a teddy, to signify childhood innocence), rather than as a result of being in the papers and having videos published by My Genderation. Kai also has a girlfriend that she has been with for seven months.
We should support trans kids, Kai tells us, because they’re at higher risk of suicide. She appears to find it difficult to concentrate, shifting nervously in front of the camera – a reluctant participant perhaps?
As always, the interview is interspersed with Kai gadding about ‘laddishly’ and this time holds up the trans tricolour flag.
‘Transgender Boy: Kai, Age 14 – Filmed for 5 years’
Five years into filming, Kai now has a ‘best friend’, a fellow trans-identified female (TIF), who, at the age of 18, is relatively-speaking much older than her. Kai is still on blockers, waiting to go on testosterone. We learn a new part of the story; Kai didn’t just tell mum out of the blue that she thought she was a boy, she had been in counselling and had drawn a picture of herself with a willy, a picture which was shared with her mum without her knowledge at the time. She recalls believing that it would be the end of the relationship if she told her mum the truth and when she says, of her mother: ‘You literally made me crap myself, waiting for me to be able to tell you and you already know’. One suspects there is a lot going on in their relationship.
The friend reflects that she had been a tomboy and had been introduced to transgenderism during a school assembly and went on to watch one of the early videos of Kai. She had also been on puberty blockers. Both are wearing breast binders and want to get ‘top surgery’.
The next older trans-identified female teen Kai meets is Taylor. Another protege of the My Genderation crew. Taylor greets Kai with all the exuberance your older cousin showed when they were forced with to play with you by the adults. Taylor began hormone blockers aged 14, although she tells Kai she was 12. Swift exit to meet the creepy E-J Scott, a middle-aged trans-identified female, whose brainchild is the Museum of Transology. Scott shows them around her exhibit and tells them how lucky they are, to have both been on hormone blockers as children, whereas she had had to ‘fight what my body had already done to me’.
We also learn that Taylor was apparently a friend of Chrissi Bentley, a trans-identified male who allegedly committed suicide. Again, the common denominator appears to be the My Genderation team. Indeed, Kai credits Fox for giving her the confidence to come out.
Kai, aged between 16 and 19
The footage of Kai aged between 16 and 19 has not been shared on YouTube yet and makes up the second half of the forty minute documentary.
Covid
Aged 16, Kai appears to be struggling, reporting that she hasn’t left the house that much because of the covid lockdown. She is about to go into sixth form. Art is a release for her, one piece shown to camera she describes as being about depression, it is half a woman’s face melted.
For undisclosed reasons, we learn that Kai has not been prescribed testosterone on the NHS and therefore is having it prescribed privately. The GP is prescribing the puberty blockers. She has also recently had pubertal growth and is still wearing a binder all the time.
We see Kai and mum in the kitchen, preparing food, ‘I don’t mind chicken breasts,’ says Kai, ‘but mine can get stuffed’. Mum laughs.
Another older TIF
This time Kai is paired with a much older lesbian/trans-identified female to have an ‘open chat’ about her feelings and transition story. Again, this is a forced pairing, and the older woman shows zero interest in Kai. The woman is at least mid-30s, since she says she started testosterone aged 29. Kai, 19 now, tells her that she ‘thinks’ she started testosterone aged 17 and says it has helped her feel more positive about herself. We hear a little bit more about the apparent discord between herself and the Tavistock; she had been promised she would start ‘T’ aged 16, but the Tavistock put it off. We are not told the reason why it was delayed.
On binder-wearing, we learn Kai has been wearing one since she ‘came out’, it gives her very bad back pain, cause her to hunch over, and she finds it absolutely excruciating by the end of the day. It also makes it difficult to eat. Kai also smokes cigarettes and has, by the sounds of things, a physically demanding job. Another much older trans-identified female, one of the camera crew, enters the conversation on screen to remind Kai that after ‘top surgery’ she will be able to be half naked in the gym changing room.
Kai tells us that she isn’t ready to have a relationship until after she has had her breasts removed. In direct response to this statement, older TIF no. 1 asks: ‘Do you think you are ready to meet someone yet?’ and Kai is forced to repeat her previous statement. Her next disinterested question is to ask Kai if she would tell a potential partner if she was trans.
Rachel gets a bit more attention
A news segment describes the rough circumstances of Brianna Ghey’s murder and we see Kai’s mother Rachel again, addressing the crowd at a vigil held for Ghey. Rachel is emotional and tells the crowd Kai’s ‘coming out’ story. This time we learn that Kai apparently came out to her by pointing at her chest and saying: ‘This shouldn’t belong here, I’m a boy mum, not a girl’. In a Freudian slip and apropos of nothing, she tells the crowd that Kai hadn’t been exposed to the internet and there had been no coercing. ‘Show them love,’ she says in a half-sob, then, as she steps away from the podium, a flash across her face betraying her real emotion: triumph.
Next we see Rachel raising money for her daughter’s bilateral mastectomy, this involves going round the local hairdressers. Rachel is going to shave her hair off as a forfeit for the breasts Kai is to have removed. The hairdresser reassures her that she will look fabulous anyway.
The bilateral mastectomy
Rachel has now found a cosmetic surgeon who will perform Kai’s breast removal, they are based in Turkey and the cost of the operation is approximately £4,000. Kai had wanted to have the surgery done in the UK but it is much cheaper abroad, so that is where she is going. A GoFundMe was set up by Rachel, despite Kai being over 18 and old enough to set up the fund herself. Fox was also heavily involved in petitioning the community for donations.
Kai is reduced to tears reading out a message from one of the donors, a TIF based in Germany, who declares in her donation message an association with Fox. Mum is on hand to help calm Kai’s tears over the utterly unremarkable well wishing. ‘It’s okay,’ mum implores, welling up herself, ‘you’ve helped so many transgender children’.
Next we see Kai on her trip out to Turkey. She isn’t used to sleeping on her back, presumably due to binder-wearing, but she’s going to have to get used to it as she won’t be able to sleep on her front for a while post-surgery. In her suitcase she has lavender spray to help her sleep and multivitamins for men, ‘cos I’m a man’. Kai vlogs about the trip, telling her followers: ‘Three days and I get my tits chopped, let’s have it.’
Post-surgery we see Kai still groggy, having her drains emptied, mum by her side. Then it’s a few months later and we are at a Trans Pride event and Kai is with similarly aged TIFs, most of whom have had mastectomies. One talks about how much better things are since getting rid of her binder and is now able to undo the buttons of her shirt. Despite this girl’s slightly lowered voice, her face and body remains obviously female.
The last words of the documentary are given over to Rachel, in a flashback to one of the earlier films, Kai by her side:
It’s definitely not a phase, and it’s not gonna change, this who he is, and he wants to live his life as a boy and if he was made to carry on living as a girl, then, you know, his life- I think his life would just be completely different. [To Kai] It wouldn’t be good, would it?
A mother to her 9 year old daughter
Feedback session
Fox and Lewis wanted to know what we thought of the film, urging us to be as brutal as possible. They needn’t have worried as they received only positive feedback instead, with a member of their own team congratulating them on the hard work they had put in. Hilarious really, as, from what I can see, they simply put films 1-4 in front of film 5, with some straightforward links in between consisting of flat art animation and asinine upbeat musical interludes.
The audience was mainly of older TIFs (mostly friends I suspect) but also there were a couple of families in attendance, trans-identified daughters in tow, with the teens looking dead chuffed to be the centre of attention.
One late middle-aged TIF commented that she had started her transition very late and was therefore jealous of ‘trans kids’ but reflected, just like adults, the children also had to wait for hormones and surgeries.
One of the mothers described the film as ‘hopeful’, despite us not seeing one iota of emotional progression in Kai’s life and the only achievements we were shown were in relation to her transition. The mother thought the film needed to show ‘how transphobic society had become’ and how difficult it was for ‘trans kids’ since the Tavistock had shut, commenting ‘he [her daughter] can’t get blockers’. Fox responded she might put a very short segment in with ‘all the horrible stuff from the media’ to illustrate this.
It was felt that it needed to include a more trans-feminine and/or non-binary ‘trans-masculine’ person as well, as Kai was ‘too masculine’ and therefore potentially alienating. We learnt they had tried to get Felix Mufti (currently appearing in C4’s Sex Education) in the film for that very reason, but Mufti had cancelled on them the week before.
Felix Mufti, ladies and gentleman:
Both Fox and Lewis believe that Kai is like a typical lad, ignoring the fact that most lads aren’t tied to their mother’s apron strings aged 19. Although Kai plays a good game at acting laddish at certain points, there are moments of behaviour and other body language which is typically female in nature – like almost everything between the sexes, motor skills are also often very different.
The other mother present, wanted the film to be shown in schools to children of a very young age, so that situations, like that of the murder of Brianna Ghey, could be avoided. My Genderation has actually produced a number of films for Stonewall UK for that very purpose, which had covered primary school kids, secondary school kids and one called Living Proof, which was expressly about puberty blockers. However, they didn’t know where these films had gone and couldn’t get hold of copies. Probably incinerated by Stonewall I suspect, in advance of the inevitable probe they face.
Conclusion
The documentary is piss poor in every sense, lack of direction, lack of interest in its subject. Absolutely no nuance. Cloying animated interlinking segments. It’s like the whole thing was put together by people wearing boxing gloves. Not to mention the unforgivable pun in the film’s title. But for all that it is still incredibly revealing. There’s no hiding the grooming, nor My Genderation‘s intimate involvement in pushing Kai, and others like her, along the path of an irreversible transition.
Thank you for reading! Sign up to my blog by going to the bottom of the page.
Please share on other forums if you liked it, as I only do Twitter.
The Lies They Tell 
Sexist tropes, indeed. Mummy ishooz: “a lot going on in their relationship” – no kidding. Brighton, quelle surprise. What a bonanza transology has been for ‘social conservatism’ – the wrong sort.
LikeLiked by 1 person