By Lisa Fernandez Mercury News
Fremont resident Shelly Prevost (Photo by Susanna Frohman/Mercury News)

Finally, everyone wants to hear the story Shelly Prevost has to tell. The South Bay filmmaker's documentary "Trained in the Ways of Men" has San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival abuzz. The story line of her film, which premieres tonight, follows the death of Gwen Araujo, the transgender teen from Newark who was beaten and dumped in the Sierra in 2002 after a group of young men discovered the attractive girl they had had sex with was anatomically male.

Prevost's 98-minute film offers a rare glimpse into what kind of evil can be wreaked upon transgenders - who often feel outcast and confused in a society where the mainstream doesn't understand or accept them. But what won't be up on the screen at the San Jose Repertory Theater are the similar life experiences Gwen shared with Prevost - both of whom grew up boys in the Bay Area grappling with their sexual identities.

"I remember what it was like to be a 17-year-old transgender, and what it's like to be lost," Prevost said earlier this week from her middle-class suburban Fremont home. "That's what I have in common with Gwen. But Gwen was a lot stronger than I was. She walked through high school and had people jeer at her, but she still dressed as herself."

Nearly 10 years ago, Prevost, who said she is 50-something, made the transition from being "Michael," a quiet man who once wore a shaggy beard, to "Michelle," a six-foot tall woman with red shimmery nail polish struggling over what to wear to her film's debut.

Though reviewers have been positive, Prevost is tense before the curtain rises. "When you put your baby out there," she said, "you're afraid of what people will say." Prevost knows rejection. She had no friends at Santa Clara's Wilcox High School. And one of her earliest memories from boyhood is getting yelled at for dressing up in her mother's clothes.

Her own pain inspired Prevost to make the film about Gwen.On the October night five years ago when Gwen was killed, the troubled high school junior went by the nickname "Lida," and wore makeup and a denim skirt. Her family later said they knew for some time that she identified as a female, despite being born with male anatomy and given the name Eddie at birth. The documentary, which took Prevost about four years and $35,000 to make while taking film classes at De Anza College in Cupertino, lays out the two Alameda County trials of Gwen's four killers, who were either convicted of second-degree murder or manslaughter.

The court scenes are coupled with in-depth interviews with Gwen's mother, the defense attorneys and prosecutor, as well as community activists and transgender experts. The film also notes societal changes spurred by Gwen's case, such as a 2006 law limiting the use of "gay panic defense" and media stylebook changes, including in the Mercury News, regarding transgender culture.

"There's a tremendous buzz about this film," said Cinequest spokesman Jens Michael Hussey, adding this documentary was one of about 160 films selected from roughly 1,800 submissions. "There were a lot of traps to fall into with a piece like this. But Shelly didn't fall into them. It wasn't a sentimental rendering, or slanted. It doesn't hit you over the head, but just lays out the facts about showing the injustice and hatred in our country and the heinousness of this crime."

Prevost hopes her film will change society's attitude and teach others that being transgender isn't really a choice; it's something you are born with, she says, like being right-handed.

As an adult who had "sex reassignment" surgery in 1998, Prevost felt she could no longer stand by silently. She wanted to do something to prevent murders like Gwen's, as well as the brutal strangling in 2000 of Alina Marie Barragan, a 19-year-old San Jose transgender. "I just realized our story as transgenders wasn't being told," Prevost said. "Then I said, `I can tell this story myself.' "

When she was in her 40s, Prevost finally came out to her wife of about 20 years, her five children, now ages 21 to 33, her employer and her Presbyterian church members. She also went to intensive therapy in San Jose to help her make the transition into the woman she is today. At the time, no one stood by her. Her church told her she could no longer be a youth leader, which she had done for 15 years as "Michael." She was laid off. Her wife separated from her. Her son and four daughters didn't speak to her for a year. Even today, they still don't know how to introduce her - as Mom or Dad?

"They usually don't call me anything in public," Prevost said, her eyes welling with tears recalling her children's initial disgust and embarrassment. Since Prevost has come out, however, she has had several successes. And unlike Gwen, who was killed in her prime, Prevost wants to serve as a role model for other transgender youths, to show them that they don't have to live in the shadows.

Five years ago, Prevost was hired - as Shelly - to be a "data visualization" computer scientist. Her earlier 10-minute film on Gwen Araujo called, "Isn't It Obvious?" won best documentary short in the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. And her children, Prevost said, now welcome her in their lives, including in the births of her five grandchildren. Most of her family is expected to attend tonight's premiere.

Hardly anyone, except for Bruce Newman of the Mercury News, who liked the film, and a small group of others, has seen Prevost's full documentary. That includes Gwen's mother, Sylvia Guerrero, who said she will "absolutely" be at Cinequest tonight. "I'm very excited and honored," said Guerrero, now living with her daughter in Tracy. "I've loved what I saw so far. And Shelly is like a family member to us. I know Gwen didn't die in vain. You can't change the world in a day. But we have to continue talking about what happened to her, so that everyone gets it."