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Amos Lassen wrote on 04/10/2010:

“CALL ME MALCOLM”

Making Peace with Yourself

Amos Lassen

I have finally been able to get a copy of a documentary that has been making the rounds of GLBT festivals for the last 2 years, “Call Me Malcolm.” It was worth waiting to see and hopefully we can get it included into our own festival for 2007. “Call Me Malcolm” is a beautiful documentary film about a transgender (female to male) seminary student and he struggles he encounters with “faith, love and gender identity.” Directed by Joseph Parlagreco and featuring Malcolm Himschoot as himself and released by the United Church of Christ, this movie is a real eye opener.
Malcolm had quite a rough childhood as a sister to two brothers.
He never felt as a sister but more like a brother yet others perceived him as a girl and he “didn’t really correct them.” He says, “It made me feel like I wasn’t there”. Confusion and self-doubt became part of his growing up process and he was constantly at odds with himself since his self perception did not jive with the perception of others. His church sent him messages that “G-d hated him”. Eventually this confusion caused him to be separated from the church he loved, from his friends and family and even from himself. Remaining strong in his faith while muddling through a major identity crisis, he enrolled in a seminary--as a girl, Miriam. It was about the same time that he became familiar with the term “transgender” and thereby began to look into the various ways to begin a process of self acceptance.
Malcolm began by dropping the name Miriam and becoming Malcolm. This major first step in accepting himself came only he found support at Iliff Theological Seminary and with this support he began his process of gender transition. The film begins as Malcolm also begins his final year of study at the seminary. This year was the turning point for him. He was about to venture out into the world, ordained, yet unemployed and without the love and support of family and friends. To test the water, he made a road trip during his senior year and began to find some of the answers to his most difficult questions.
Eventually Malcolm meets up with his past when he finds a former teacher from his high school whom he has not seen since he began his transition from female to male. Here he learns of Navajo philosophy and embraces it. When he teacher Los Angeles he meets Calpernia Addams, the transgender (male to female) star and hero of “Soldier’s Girl” and in San Francisco he meets a police sergeant who was once female and is now male and went through his transition while serving on the police force. By the time Malcolm arrives on the East Coast, he discovers that his future indeed is full of possibility.
What a brave and courageous person Malcolm is. As he goes through his transition, his pain becomes our pain and as he begins his journey to accept himself we cheer for him and hope for the best. Do not be mistaken, however, what the movie is really about. It is not about transgender or transsexuals. It is not a guide to transition. What it really is, instead, is a look at the search for acceptance; something all of us do. It is also about our relationship with religion and a very different way of dealing with the whole issue of transgender. As we go with Malcolm on his quest for self acceptance, we find may parallels to our own lives and how we cope with the issues of a society that is not sure to which segment we belong. This is a testament to self acceptance and a beautiful one at that. This is one movie that you really have to see. Shocking and beautiful, hard and tender, it is a film that you will not soon forget.