EVERY ONCE IN a while there is a photo shared by Humans of Dublin that Facebook users find very touching. It could be Mattress Mick’s story about his first love, or activist Jamie Harrington’s story about saving a man’s life.
Since it originally began, the stories have gone from being Facebook posts, to podcasts, to a book and now finally a documentary.
The documentary will be produced by Derek Carter, the man behind the HODcast.
It’ll tell the story of Nicole Winther who was born in Denmark. Nicole was born in a male body and only began to live her life as a transgender woman when she came to live in Dublin a few years ago.
Derek from HODcast told DailyEdge.ie about how Nicole grew up in a rural part of Denmark, without the internet or any support groups to help her understand the questions she was asking herself at the age of ten.
At an age where most kids are living their lives carefree, playing with their friends and exploring their interests and hobbies, Nicole was grappling with who she was. Did she like boys or girls? Was she a boy or a girl?
When Nicole moved to Dublin’s inner city, she finally felt confident enough to start living as a trans woman. She found that Irish people had been nothing but respectful to her. Some people had questions, naturally, but by asking the questions they made a human connection with Nicole and became more enlightened.
As she shared in her initial Humans of Dublin interview in 2015, her relationship growing up with her mother had been very difficult. Her mother worked in the military and was extremely strict. She wouldn’t allow Nicole to wear anything vaguely feminine, not even tight jeans, and said things like “don’t cry” and “stop acting like a girl”.
Despite her mother’s vocal disapproval, Nicole continued to act as femininely as she liked and eventually moved to Copenhagen as a young adult to get some space. Afterwards, their relationship got a little better.
They slowly began to talk to each other again and her mother began to understand her a little bit more.
A number of years later, Nicole’s mother confessed to her that she was a lesbian. In her Humans of Dublin interview, Nicole said that her mother had always had a short haircut and a real butch style. It finally made sense to her.
After coming out, Nicole’s mother apologised profusely and has since become her biggest idol and inspiration. She has become a completely different person whose mind is free.
If that’s not enough of a story to document as it is, Nicole will soon undergo surgery that will finally give her the body that she feels matches her identity. Derek Carter wants to follow her on this journey and document the whole thing.
Here’s a little bit of sample footage.
Jamie Carney, Facebook comedian and filmmaker has agreed to film the documentary for free.
All of the production and editing work will be done by Derek and Jamie, and Spiritual Ceremonies, who have officiated many LGBTQ marriages over the last few years, have agreed to pay for their travel expenses.
They have set up a GoFundMe to cover other costs and while Spiritual Ceremonies helped them to meet their target, they still hope to secure more funding to help promote the project, in the hopes that it can impact as many people as possible.
Their hope is that the documentary will be released in autumn of this year.
