JUSTICE MATTERS

Mama Bears

Director: Daresha Kyi; Producers: Laura Tatham and Daresha Kyi
USA, 2022
91 minutes, Color
Official website

In Person: Director Daresha Kyi

For fundamentalist Christian parents of gay and transgender children, the path to acceptance and support of their child can be terrifying. They face rejection by relatives and excoriation by the Church at the center of their lives. Enter Mama Bears. What started as a Facebook group is now a 30,000-strong community for such vulnerable families. The film follows three young people whose quest to be themselves inevitably changes their parents. Smart and voluble Kai is a little trans girl who began taking her mother, Kimberly, on this journey as soon as she could talk. Kimberly shares her metamorphosis from punitive parent in denial to fierce defender of her daughter's rights (in Texas, no less). For viewers on the outside of these issues, Mama Bears offers incredibly moving entry into two worlds: the hearts of gay and transgender individuals, and Christian spirit when it is freed from dogma.—Judy Bloch