MIDDLE SEX
Sunday June 4, 2006 at 10pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld

On an October night in 2003, four young men drove their pick-up deep into the forests of Northern California.  Wrapped in blanket at the back of the truck was the body of seventeen year-old Gwen Araujo.

According to later court testimony, two of the young men in the forest that night had had sexual relations with Gwen in the months before the murder.  All hell had  broke loose at a party, when someone blurted out that Gwen was a transsexual, "a boy faking it as a girl".   This was no surprise to Gwen's lovers, but the moment the news spread the wider group, they snapped.   With one of them screaming  out: "I can't be gay.  I can't be gay", Gwen was kneed, punched, beaten over the head with an iron skillet, and finally strangled with a rope.

They dumped her body in a shallow grave, and crushed it down with rocks.   "Hate kills" says Gwen's mother Sylvia, "and it killed my daughter".

The story of Gwen Araujo is the dramatic opener to Middle Sex, a provocative and deeply moving study of human sexuality by award winning film-maker, Antony Thomas.

At the heart of Thomas' programme are the powerful personal testimonies of people, aged from eight to eighty, who have suffered because they are "different".   As these stories unfold, a radically new view of human sexuality begins to emerge.  With the help of contributions from some of the world's leading experts as well as access to their latest research, Middle Sex examines the key influences that shape sexual identity and sexual orientation .  The conclusions are startling.  In the words of neuro-biologist, James Pfaus:  "There are as many sexual orientations as there are faces."

"To suggest that the simple categories, male/female, hetero/homo are adequate to describe the whole range of human sexuality is to ignore science and the evidence of nature."

"One thing we have to remember from Darwin to Kinsey to any great thinker about sexuality," says sexologist Professor Milton Diamond, "is that variation is the norm.  Biology loves difference.  Society hates it."

Filmed in eight countries - from the Americas to the Far East - Middle Sex is also a fascinating study in repression and denial, revealing how culture and religion shape (and frequently distort) our attitudes to sex.

While the scope of this programme is hugely ambitious, it remains intensely personal from start to finish.  The trust shown all the participants as they share their most intimate feelings and experiences is unforgettable, and makes Middle Sex such a profoundly humane and profoundly disturbing experience.