Girl on Film

Forty people are in a church to watch a movie about transsexuals.

Tonight's showing is part of a weekly film series at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church. The sanctuary smells like popcorn; plastic jugs near the entryway await donations.

It's mid-November, and tonight's screening is Kansas City filmmaker Lisa Marie Evans' The Same But Different.

In it, Evans profiles four people connected by one label. The fact that her subjects are transsexuals is about the only thing they have in common — transsexual, as it turns out, is a big-tent gender.

In the church's pews sit three of the film's four stars.

There's Jaron, a stocky, silver-haired man with a well-manicured goatee, who used to be a woman.

There's Claven, a slim-looking guy with dark facial hair who is both a fundamentalist Christian and an anarchist.

There's Andrea, a graduate student at the University of Kansas, who was born male but dresses female on the days his calendar is marked pink. (On the blue days, he's a man who goes by Pooch.)

The fourth, a male-to-female transgender comedian named Nicole, isn't here.

Evans, dressed casually in blue jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt, introduces her film with self-deprecation. A 29-year-old with olive-colored skin and hair that curls tightly like black licorice, she hawks DVDs for $20, telling audience members that their cash will go toward finishing The Same But Different.After four years of filming, Evans is still tweaking the movie.

"I hope you enjoy it," she says.

Things don't go smoothly. The film starts without sound. The audio wire is unplugged. Then the disc skips.

Evans grabs a copy from her box of DVDs. Unflustered, she rips off the shrink-wrap and restarts the film.

In the movie, Claven dives in Dumpsters for discarded food to feed homeless people. Pooch (aka Andrea) explains his political leanings in a scene that always shocks viewers: He's a Republican. Jaron shares his search for a spiritual mate. And Nicole, the foxy, redheaded ex-truck driver, reveals that one year she spent $4,000 at McDonald's.

Their private lives unfold on the screen. Jaron shares his dating difficulties on Dr. Phil. Pooch transforms into Andrea, applying makeup and strapping on a bra. Claven laments his inability to find an accepting church. Nicole reveals her fear that her children will consider her an aunt instead of a parent.

With the camera rolling, Claven talks about the physical changes his body has endured. To demonstrate, he drops his drawers. The camera pans down to reveal the growth of Claven's clitoris, which has developed a small, penislike head.

It's the stuff of medical journals, but Evans doesn't exploit it; she treats it as Claven's reality. And the audience accepts it. It's a holy shit moment in the film, but no one gasps. No one giggles. Claven keeps his dignity; Evans keeps her credibility.

After the film, Evans and her stars field questions. Audience members open up. A woman says she was born without an anus. Someone asks what's changed since the film was made.

"I am still a Republican," Andrea says.

"And I'm still an anarchist," Claven chimes.

They give each other high-fives.

But the story doesn't end there. Evans is considering filling in a few of the blanks, especially when it comes to Claven. At the end of the film, Claven says he has heard a message from God telling him to end his effort to become a female. The audience doesn't know that testosterone injections nearly killed Claven; a doctor told him that if he hadn't stopped taking the hormones, he'd have blown a heart valve and died.

As it is, the film won the Best Feature Film award last April at the 2006 Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee, an annual showcase of local independent film. At the 2003 Jubilee, Evans won local acclaim for the animated short Box This, a collaboration with fellow filmmaker Kirby Cobb in which a stick figure smashes the boxes in which people put one another.

Watch some of Evans' work, includingBox This:

Embedded in her film is a visual activism. The Same But Different makes the case that everyone is unique, no matter how they're labeled.

"You know what? I feel like sometimes people judge me for merely doing this film," Evans tells the Pitch. "I can feel it. It touches upon a glimpse of what people in the movie might feel. And that's good for me. Everyone should feel outcast a bit in life."

It's a feeling that Evans knows well.

Evans' next documentary, she hopes, will be about trying to find her biological father.

Larry Tebben married Kathy Thelen in 1976. Lisa Marie was born on May 27, 1977. Her parents' marriage dissolved shortly after that.

Her mother remarried in 1978 to Mike Evans, who adopted Lisa. She took his last name and still calls him dad.

Evans' mother never told her much about her biological father. She knew that Tebben played college football. She knew that he was a country boy from a family of farmers. And she'd heard that he had a temper. When she was in high school at St. Thomas Aquinas in Overland Park, Evans asked her grandmother for a photo of Tebben. Her grandmother gave her a picture from her parents' wedding. It was the first time that Evans had seen her father's face.