Born to Be Human

Born to Be Human (Chinese: 生而為人; pinyin: Shēng ér wéi rén) is a 2021 Taiwanese drama film with LGBTQ+ themes, written and directed by Lily Ni. The film follows the story of an adolescent intersex boy, Shi-Nan, and explores themes of medical violence and gender identity. For her performance in the lead role, Ling-Wei Lee won the Yakushi Pearl Award at the Osaka Asian Film Festival 2021, where the film premiered.

Born to Be Human
Chinese	生而為人
Directed by	Lily Ni
Written by	Lily Ni
Based on	An autobiographical account by the director
Produced by	Tung Ting An Kevin Yi
Starring	Ling-Wei Lee Vera Chen Chao-te Yin Yao-Jen Chang Yang Chen Cheng-Mei Chuang Alice Lee Hsing-Wen Li Zi-Cheng Li Bonnie Liang Yu-Hsien Lin Hsiao-yuan Wang Frances Wu Chung-Min Yin
Cinematography	Po-Hsiung Huang
Edited by	Yi-Men Tu
Music by	Yi-Wei Chen Book Chien Jia-Shen Yang
Release date	11 March 2021 (2021-03-11) (Japan)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	Taiwan
Language	Mandarin

Plot

Shi-Nan appears to be an ordinary 14-year-old—he plays video games obsessively and bristles when his mother calls for him while he's masturbating. His life shatters when severe abdominal pain strikes, followed by blood in his urine. Initially dismissed as an infection, medical tests later reveal Shi-Nan has a disorder of sex development: he is intersex, with outwardly male anatomy but internal female reproductive organs (including ovaries and a uterus), a condition that remained undetected until that point.^[1][2][3]

Under pressure from the doctor and social stigma, Shi-Nan's parents consent to irreversible genital surgery without his informed consent, intending to "normalize" his body to match his XX chromosomes. When Shi-Nan awakens from the procedure, he finds himself forcibly redesignated as female and renamed Shi-Lan. The film traces his traumatic struggle to reconcile societal expectations with his own fractured sense of self, exposing the harms of non-consensual intersex medical interventions.^[1][2][3]

Cast

• Ling-Wei Lee as Shi-Nan/Shi-Lan (credited as Lily Lee)
• Vera Chen as Chen Jie
• Chao-te Yin as Lee Pei-Rui (credited as Yin Jau Der)
• Yao-Jen Chang as PE teacher
• Yang Chen as Hsu Jui
• Cheng-Mei Chuang as Hsu Tien (credited as Mu Mei)
• Alice Lee as Dr. Lee's mom
• Hsing-Wen Li as Yang Guo-Ying
• Zi-Cheng Li as Old school bully
• Bonnie Liang as Chang Tian-Qi
• Yu-Hsien Lin as Ko Hao (credited as Mo-Cheng Lin)
• Hsiao-yuan Wang as Liu Cho-Sung
• Frances Wu as Ku Shu-Chuan
• Chung-Min Yin as Wang Wei

Reception

Lily Ni won the Yakushi Pearl Award at the Osaka Asian Film Festival for her role in the film.^[4]