Beyond Binaries

May 2024

Beyond Binaries is a full-length documentary that I researched, produced, directed, filmed, and edited, exploring the lives and experiences of nonbinary people at the intersections of gender, mental health, and care. Rooted in intimate storytelling and community-centered conversation, the film traces how nonbinary people navigate systems that often fail to recognize—or actively harm—their identities, while still finding ways to care for themselves and one another.

Rather than framing nonbinary life solely through crisis or resilience narratives, Beyond Binaries centers care as both survival and practice. The film highlights how gender-affirming care, mutual support, chosen family, and collective healing function as lifelines in a world structured around rigid binaries. Through personal narratives and shared reflection, the documentary resists pathologizing nonbinary existence and instead honors the complexity, tenderness, and creativity that shape our lives.

At its heart, Beyond Binaries is a story about becoming—beyond imposed categories, beyond systems that seek to erase us, and toward ways of living that are softer, braver, and more whole. It invites viewers to consider not only what nonbinary people endure, but what we imagine, build, and protect together.

Behind the Film: Process & Community

Beyond Binaries was created through a community-rooted filmmaking process that prioritizes relationship, trust, and ethical storytelling. Rather than extracting stories for spectacle, the film was shaped through ongoing conversations grounded in consent, care, and collaboration. Participants were approached not as subjects, but as co-holders of knowledge—people whose lived experiences function as theory, archive, and expertise.

The production process emphasized slowness and responsiveness, allowing space for vulnerability, reflection, and complexity. This approach mirrors the film’s core argument: that care is not supplemental to the work, but a methodology in itself.

Public Scholarship & Educational Impact

Beyond Binaries functions as public-facing scholarship, translating lived experience into a medium that moves across classrooms, community spaces, and public dialogue. The film continues to be screened in Intro to Gender Studies courses, where it supports conversations around nonbinary identity, mental health, disability, and care beyond binary or clinical frameworks. I am regularly invited to guest lecture alongside these screenings, facilitating discussion, reflection, and critical engagement with the film’s themes.

Through these classroom conversations and community screenings, the film becomes a living text—one that bridges academic study and lived experience, and invites learners to approach gender, care, and survival with nuance, accountability, and compassion.

Access & Community Use

Beyond Binaries is publicly available on YouTube as part of an intentional commitment to accessibility. Making the film freely available removes barriers to learning, care, and connection—allowing individuals, classrooms, and community spaces to engage with the work without gatekeeping or cost.

If you are an educator, community organizer, or advocate who would like to host a facilitated screening, classroom discussion, or event, you are welcome to reach out through the contact form. I’m always open to connecting around conversation guides, guest lectures, or additional context that may support collective learning and dialogue.