Seahorse

Jeanie Finlay’s  new documentary thoughtfully chronicles a transgender man’s path to parenthood. Spirited and self-possessed, Freddy McConnell dreams of raising a child in his hometown of Deal, England. With ample support from his mom and his potential co-parent, C.J., he decides to carry the baby to term himself. At first, McConnell views pregnancy as a practical choice, but once he stops taking testosterone, it prompts an unexpected reckoning with his relationship to masculinity and gender presentation. Feeling as though he’s slipping away from his own body, Freddy navigates steep clinic bills, conversational micro-aggressions, and familial strain. Yet, his resolve to start a family never wavers. Finlay rides sidecar with McConnell as an incisive observer and conversation partner, and crafts a compassionate portrait of an extraordinary journey, in which the word fatherhood comes to embody so much more than the normative sum of its parts. (Tribeca Film Festival)