Hart describes how she was told she would never menstruate nor have children, but the reasons were not discussed and the topic was taboo. When Hart was 17 years of age, her mother told her the family secret, that Hart had testes in her abdomen. Hart was pressured into a gonadectomy (sterilization), and in the documentary she faces the traumatic emotional scars from that operation and the secrecy associated with it.[2][3] During the shooting of her auto-biography, her parents initially refused to be filmed.[3][4]
In 2009, Hart was awarded her doctorate from QUT, of which Orchids was a central element of her doctoral studies.[5] This documentary took six years for the principal documenters (sisters Phoebe and Bonnie Hart) to film, using a variety of cameras including semi-professional digital cameras, domestic VHS camcorders, and Super 8.[3] She describes the work as a means of helping young intersex people to come to terms with their bodies:[6]
One of the goals I had in telling my own story in a documentary and publically [sic] revealing me as intersex to a global audience was to change minds and show how our lives are not so unlike anyone else. In particular, I wanted to create a positive frame for young people with intersex variations, who I hoped would not have to go through what I experienced. I had to hide who I was from others, and was constantly terrified of being excluded for the monster and freak I had come to believe I was.
Hart co-directed a documentary series called Downunder Grads on the condition of Australian higher education for the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), screened in March 2008.[5]
Orchids, My Intersex Adventure[8] is an auto-biographical[2] 2010 documentary about one woman's struggle to understand her own intersex condition while interviewing other intersex people on a road trip of self-discovery around Australia. Director Phoebe Hart used digital cameras and a small crew including her sister, Bonnie Hart. The film won the ATOM Award for Best Documentary General.[9][10]
Hart also directed and co-wrote the Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary Roller Derby Dolls about a group of women who play in roller derby.[5]Roller Derby Dolls screened in a prime-time slot, 9 September 2008.[11]
"Making orchids – Gardening an intersex experience on videotape [In German - Orchideen Züchten. Eine inter Erfahrung auf Film]", a contribution to the book Inter: Erfahrungen intergeschlechtlicher Menschen in der Welt der zwei Geschlechter, edited by Elisa Barth, in 2013. Other notable contributors include Mauro Cabral, Sally Gross, and Del LaGrace Volcano.[12][13]
Hart has received multiple awards and academic honours for the documentary Orchids, My Intersex Adventure and also academic commendation for a related thesis entitled "Orchids: Intersex and Identity in Documentary". She is a Robson Fellow of the Ormond College, University of Melbourne.[1]
Hart and her husband desired to start a family, and adopted a child. Hart's infertility and the stress of the adoption process strained their marriage.[2]
^Barth, Elisa, ed. (2013). Inter: Erfahrungen intergeschlechtlicher Menschen in der Welt der zwei Geschlechter (in German). Berlin: NoNo Verlag. ISBN978-3-942471-03-9.
