Kimberly Peirce

Kimberly Peirce is an American filmmaker who developed Boys Don't Cry (1999) as her graduate thesis project at Columbia University, first as the 1995 short film "Take It Like a Man" before expanding it into the feature about the life and murder of Brandon Teena, a transgender man in Nebraska -- a film that won Hilary Swank the Academy Award for Best Actress and became one of the most important American films about trans identity ever made. Peirce has described herself as "a trans butch" and has said she was discovering her own queerness while making the film, requiring her to be schooled in both filmmaking craft and gender and sexual identity. She also directed Stop-Loss (2008) and Carrie (2013). Boys Don't Cry remains a defining work of queer and trans cinema, though its depiction of Brandon Teena has also been the subject of debate about trans representation.