‘Dear Noah: Pages From A Family Diary’ – an NBC OUT Documentary Short – Produced by NBC News Digital Docs
The 30-Min Documentary Short Spotlights the Family of Trans Teenager in Texas
in the Wake of Political Pressure Targeting Gender Affirming Healthcare for Minors
The Film Will Stream on Peacock and NBC News NOW on Nov. 18 Following the World Premiere at
Meet the Press Film Festival at DOC NYC
Watch the Trailer Here
(Nov. 15, 2022) – NBC OUT will debut an all-new short-form documentary, Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary, today, Nov. 15 at the 13th annual DOC NYC documentary film festival as part of the Meet the Press Film Festival showcase.
The documentary short, produced by NBC News Digital Docs, details the life of a transgender teenager and his family as they grapple with whether or not to leave their home in Texas following gender affirming care for minors becoming a target for investigation in the state.
Following the premiere at Meet the Press Film Festival at DOC NYC, the 30-minute documentary short will launch on NBC News NOW on Friday, Nov. 18 at 10:30 p.m. ET and will also be available to stream on Peacock.
The family’s story takes place against the backdrop of a growing number of bills introduced across the U.S. curbing transgender rights, educational instruction, and healthcare. In Texas, in Feb. 2022 the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a legal opinion asserting that gender-affirming medical care for minors constituted child abuse. Soon after, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a directive to the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents if their children are suspected of receiving gender-affirming care. In June 2022, the Texas chapter of PFLAG, a national network supporting transgender and queer youth, and the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Gov. Abbott.
Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary peers into the life of a Houston family with a 15-year-old transgender son, Noah, after his own gender-affirming care was temporarily paused and the family grapples with making life-altering decisions to leave Texas where Noah’s mom feels the threat of investigation and losing her son. Profiling the family’s final months in their hometown of Houston and eventual move to Denver, Colorado to keep Noah safe, Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary details the complex nature of navigating the complicated and evolving politics surrounding healthcare for transgender youth in the US, while ensuring home remains a safe place for Noah and his family.
Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary is an NBC OUT documentary produced by NBC News Digital Docs. NBC OUT is a vertical of NBC News showcasing breaking news, original reporting, features, digital video and other unique content about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
Meet the Press Film Festival, which takes place at DOC NYC on Nov. 15, bridges the gap between political journalism and film with a leading showcase of the year’s best issue-based short documentaries. This year’s festival — set in New York for the first time — will spotlight critical issues like global migration, equality in sports, civil and gender rights, and racism in the criminal justice system. The slate of films, which also features several New York premieres, underscores the festival’s growing popularity as a platform for in-depth conversations about some of the most pressing issues of our era.
About NBC News Digital Docs
NBC News Digital Docs is an award-winning collection of video journalists within the NBC News Digital organization, producing short form documentary content and feature specials distributed across NBCUniversal News Group platforms and Peacock. Previous and upcoming projects from Digital Docs include A Marriage on Trial: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, and the Truth in the Age of Social Media examining social media’s impact on the Depp v. Heard trial, Dear Noah: Pages from a Family Diary which makes its debut at DOC NYC 2022, and an upcoming documentary exploring the deep ties between social media and plastic surgery set to debut later this year.
# # #
For more information, contact:
Natalie Munio
NBC News Digital
Natalie.Munio@nbcuni.com
Richard Hudock
NBC News
Richard.Hudock@nbcuni.com
