Review: 'Always Jane' a Family Journey as a Trans Teen Transitions

Transgender teen Jane Noury is the center of "Always Jane," a four-part Amazon Prime Video docuseries that follows her as she completes high school, completes her surgical transition, and becomes a confident young woman.

Directed by Jonathan Hyde (though making extensive use of footage that Jane shoots herself; she's an aspiring filmmaker), the documentary spends plenty of time with Jane over the course of a couple of years, but also lets us get to know her large and loving family. Mom Laura and Dad David are unfailing in their support and positive messaging, telling Jane –�and us – that she deserves, and is sure to earn, everything she wants in life.

Older sister Emma, who completes her time at the Coast Guard Academy during the production, is fearlessly protective of Jane; when we hear a family anecdote about Jane being outed as trans to her entire high school as a 15-year-old freshman, it's Emma who rises to a spirited defense, basically warning the entire school not to mess with her little sister (and getting a round of applause for it).

Younger sister May is supportive, as well, though decidedly no-nonsense; when Jane and Laurie venture from their home in rural New Jersey to Los Angeles, where Jane participates in a global model competition, May hangs back in New Jersey with David and tells Hyde's camera that she's not going to be down for it if Jane some breezing back with an inflated ego.

Then there's Grandpa, Lauri's father, a widower who, at the age of 90, seemingly has zero reservations about his transgender granddaughter. He's as warm, proud, and accepting as the rest of the family. (He's also a former NASA employee who worked on Apollo 12; his name is among those engraved on a plaque that's on the Moon, a point of pride he references more than once.)

These are the people Jane tells us at the very start create a "safe space" for her, and they're the ones who have her back as Jane's date for surgery approaches. The family is frank about, and has fun with, the subject of gender transition, with May baking "vagina cupcakes" in honor of Jane's impending transition. But by the same token, Laurie and David both talk honestly about their worries and fears for Jane, and their own struggles as they adapt to the knowledge that the child they thought of as their son for fourteen years was, and always had been, their daughter.

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020 has a palpable effect on the family; locked down at home, the gang have more time tio enjoy each other's company and bake cookies. One drawback, though, is that the pandemic threatens to derail Jane's surgical schedule; when she does get to keep that appointment, pandemic precautions dictate that she has to face the procedure by herself, leaving Mom and Dad at home and giving them post-surgery updates by phone.

"Always Jane" isn't just a forthright peek into the shared life of a close-knit family; it's a glimpse at a possible American microcosm, an idea of the country at its best, in which opinions matter, but everyone has the right to be heard and no one has a right to summarily dismiss anyone else's genuine lived experience. Support, advocacy, and compassion aren't luxuries in the Noury household; they are essential staples of life. No child, whether trans or cisgender, could hope for a better preparation for the world that awaits them in adulthood.

"Always Jane" premieres Nov. 12 on Amazon Prime Video.