Laverne Cox grew up in Mobile, Alabama. In third grade, a teacher called Cox’s mother with a message: ‘your son is going to end up in New Orleans wearing a dress.’ That moment, Cox says, was “profoundly shaming.” Cox later attempted suicide in sixth grade. Her lonely youth started to change when she went to an arts academy for high school and then on to New York City, where she became an actor, landing a featured role in Netflix’s hit Orange Is the New Black. “I absolutely have a lot of work that I still have to do around shame, lingering shame from childhood,” she says. “It’s a struggle every day, to stay present, not to become that, you know, eight-year-old who was bullied and chased home from school.”

Jamie Ewing served in the US military for five years--until November 2013, when she was discharged for being Transgender. (The military does not allow trans people to serve openly.) Ewing is now working as a defense contractor, getting paid much more for similar work. “I would trade my current job in a heartbeat for the Army if it meant I could wear a uniform again,” she says. “It’s all about that sense of serving my country.” In her current role, she interacts with many of the same commanders she worked with while in uniform. “They know me. They know my work ethic and skill sets, and they have no issues,” the 28-year-old says. “I’m still the same person.”

Army Specialist Martinez, 26, served for almost six years (one tour in Afghanistan) in active duty and was eventually discharged on November 26th, 2014, for being discovered as Transgender. She risked dismissal from service for revealing her identity. Maya said, "I’ve gone to work scared every day that today is going to be the day that they are going to hammer down on me...for just being me.” Being openly Transgender in the military is found as a behavioral or mental disorder and they can kick you out." On July 14th 2015, U.S Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the beginning of a six-month review that would allow Transgender men and women to serve openly in the U.S. Military. The Trump administration has since reversed the progress and the United States Government will no longer accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.

An estimated 15,000 transgender troops currently serve in the U.S. military. Each has risked dismissal from military service for revealing their identity. Directors Gillian Laub and Shaul Schwarz follow the stories of Maya Martinez, Landon Wilson, and Jamie Ewing.

Nikki was born Niko. A biological boy at birth, she began at the age of 10 the complicated transition to becoming girl. With the utmost support of her family and friends, two years later, she is living happily as the person she always knew herself to be — singing, acting and dancing, often draped in pink. “I hated living as a boy,” Nikki says. “I love this life so much more.”

“I was numb. I couldn’t write; I couldn’t function. The feelings were totally consuming. I just couldn’t live the lie anymore,” says Laura Jane Grace of the punk band Against Me! before transitioning to female.

“We are still the same family we’ve always been,” says Heather, Laura Jane Grace’s wife.

After coming out to his family at the beginning of sophomore year at Manteca High School, Lee started collecting signatures to support a California bill that would ensure his right to use the boys’ bathroom and play on boys’ sports teams at his school. The measure, the first of its kind in the U.S., was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013. “People used to shove me in the hallways and call me names,” he says. But that’s changed with the new law. “People have been standing down and backing off,” he says, "because they know they’ll get in trouble.”

Paisley Currah made the decision to transition after he had already become a tenured political science professor at the Brooklyn College, City University of New York. “It’s hard to get fired when you have tenure, but even in that situation I was nervous about it,” Currah says. It went relatively smoothly, much like his childhood in the “gender-free culture” of the 1970s, when there were fewer rules about how young ladies were expected to act. Like many other trans men, he says that his path, through trying, has been an easier one than those trans women have to walk. “The culture tends to assign more authority and gravitas to men,” says Currah, noting that he gets fewer late papers now than when he appeared female. “It makes me think a lot about the pervasiveness of sexism.”

Cassidy Lynn Campbell poses with her friend Victoria Avalos, 18, who has also transitioned from male to female.

Coy Mathis, a transgender first-grade girl, was granted the right to use the girls’ restroom at her Colorado elementary school. After her parents filed a discrimination suit against the school district, the Colorado Division of Civil Rights ruled in her favor. Coy has identified as a girl since she was eighteen months old.

Abby Stein in her bedroom with her 6 year old son’s photographs hanging above her. Now a trans activist, just 5 years ago Abby was an ultra-Orthodox rabbi from a high-ranking Hasidic dynasty. Although she followed the traditional path of a young Hasidic man - Yeshiva, an arranged marriage at 18, Abby always felt different, but didn’t understand what that exactly meant. Abby's first language is Yiddish even though she grew up in Brooklyn. She had no access to the internet, TV, music, literature, so at the age of 20 she taught herself English. A breakthrough came when she used her friends tablet to connect to wi-fi and typed “a boy turning into a girl”. She quickly learned she was not alone and started to question the hermetically sealed community she was raised in. She also knew leaving would come at tremendous cost. She could lose her son. She said, "To some extent, leaving the community was even harder than transitioning. I had no idea what I was getting into. I didn't know anyone, couldn't speak the language, and didn't have an education. I didn't know how to dress. I didn't know how to talk. I remember the first time walking into a Starbucks, I was like, 'OK, what's happening here?' The culture shock is just in every level, every way...it’s like being an immigrant in your own country…It was a slow process it didn’t happen overnight.” Abby is now a student at Columbia University and sends her family a text every week wishing them a good Shabbat. They haven’t responded to her yet.