Most boys and girls want to live normal lives, like Romy, a beauty queen hanging out with her fellow contestants. But everyone lives through situations that aren’t normal. Romy, along with three other boys Liron, Ofri, and Noam have to grow up in a society where there are codified symbols of gender. Things are more complex for them since their bodies have some organs reminding them of their birth genders. Liron has to go to the hospital when his ovaries have cysts. And there’s a curiosity when it comes to Romy, who can’t have certain surgeries before she turns 18.

Hilla Medalia’s truncates her five part miniseries into a 101 minute documentary. And a lot of the things she includes is the titular kids’ experiences with the medical industry. The boys and the one girl don’t have access to bottom surgery but they can undergo top surgery. Their surgeries also involve their parents and grandparents who support them financially. The documentary, then, subjects its viewers to abusive conversations between these children and their elders who reluctantly accept them. Acceptance comes, mostly, but those efforts just takes the spotlight away from the children and gives it to their ignorant families.

The rest of the scenes are more bitter than sweet, like one where Ofri prays at the Western Wall, a place he wouldn’t have had access to due to his birth gender. Or another scene where Ofri tells his fellow boy scouts that the strong protect the weak, regardless of race, religion, and gender. I wish the documentary wholeheartedly followed that ethos instead of picking and choosing. There’s a lack of intersectionality here, especially when it comes to tackling issues like the IDF. Other activist movies tackle many issues with a shorter running time, why can’t this one do so?