ELLIOT PAGE’S BOLD NEW DOCUMENTARY IS CHALLENGING WHAT MANY PEOPLE THOUGHT THEY KNEW ABOUT NATURE. K2

Elliot Page.Credit: Slaven Vlasic/Getty

Before he re-teams with Christopher Nolan later this summer, Elliot Page is taking audiences on a different kind of odyssey, exploring a side of animal sexuality we aren’t always taught in classrooms.

The Umbrella Academy star narrates Second Nature, an upcoming documentary that examines “the 1,500+ animal species who engage in same-sex sexual behavior and parenting, change sex, form matriarchies, and more,” per an official synopsis.

Promising to teach “everything you didn’t learn in high school biology,” the doc seeks to debunk myths that “females are ‘inferior’ and that being queer is ‘unnatural'” by delving into, as Page says in the trailer, “the full spectrum of life’s diversity.”

When he first saw a cut of the film, Page tells Entertainment Weekly, “I just absolutely loved it. I loved what I learned, and how much it expanded my thinking, and also how affirming it was as a trans person.”

As trailblazing evolutionary biologist Dr. Joan Roughgarden explains in the film, “Not only do many species illustrate homosexuality and gender multiplicity, they also illustrate sex transition.”

Examples of animals that exhibit this trait, also known as sequential hermaphroditism, include clownfish (such as Pixar’s Nemo), species of shrimp, oysters, grouper, hawkfish, and many others.

The doc also highlights animals such as albatross, penguins, and swans, all of which parent in same sex pairs, as well as our close relatives, the bonobos, who live in matriarchal societies and engage in same-sex sex on a daily basis.

Learning that these behaviors not only exist, but are prevalent in the animal kingdom, Page says, helps debunk what remains a widespread belief among certain humans that homosexuality and transgenderism are unnatural and aberrant.

Though he can think back to a time of feeling “isolated and confused,” Page says after seeing the doc, he now tells himself, “No, I’m a part of this world like everybody else, and I have every right to be, and this is a part of my journey as a creature, a human being on this planet.”

He adds, “There’s been so much focus on pointing to queer and trans people as maladaptive, as something’s wrong with you, but when we look at the natural world, that turns out not to be true. And the stories we’ve been told are not true.”

In the film, Dr. Roughgarden refers to those heternormative stories as a “quaint little myth.”

“I think that’s one of my favorite lines in the whole documentary,” Page says. “I absolutely loved the way that was put because, in so many ways, what we have been taught about how humans are supposed to be — this strict binary gender system and these roles we’re supposed to play — are just not true.”

Still, many powerful people are committed to perpetuating that myth. While the doc focuses on a number of brave scientists fighting to expand our understanding of sexuality and gender roles in nature, it also exposes a darker side of their research.

“Sadly, one scientist had to back out of the project after filming with us because they work in a country where homosexuality is illegal and even punishable by death,” Second Nature director Drew Denny tells EW. “It just felt too dangerous to speak about this topic on camera, considering consequences could range from having their research shut down to being imprisoned or worse.”

The subject remains so taboo that Denny has expressed concerns that the film could be censored in some areas. “Considering that educators have been fired for even mentioning gender in class, I think it’s possible this film will be banned. And probably in the places where it is needed most. In places where self-harm and suicide rates among youth are rising, which is not coincidentally where people who claim to care about the well-being of children forbid young folks from accessing information that can save their lives.”

Though the film is releasing for the first time this weekend, the director says she’s already facing the wrath of online trolls. “One guy with a Bible quote on his profile called me the r-word and told me I should be killed for making this film,” she says. “I was like, ‘Is that what Jesus would do?'”

Inspired by the scientists featured in the film, whom she calls her heroes, Denny has worked for over a decade to bring Second Nature to audiences. And while not everyone might be ready to accept the science, many who have seen the film, including Page, have found it deeply moving.

“Every single time we share this film, someone comes up to me and tells me it’s the film they needed — as a child, as a teenager, or now,” Denny says. “Every time we screen it, at least one person, but usually several people, tell me they have been struggling with depression and anxiety, feeling isolated or ostracized from their communities and families, feeling afraid of the government officials who are supposed to represent them, and feeling like they don’t know whether or not they belong. Then they tell me that Second Nature made them laugh, made them feel affirmed and made them feel welcome here on Earth, and that they can’t wait to share it with their friends, their families, their schools, their congregations, and their communities.”

She adds, “For every troll, there are a dozen sweethearts who say our project has changed their lives for the better and that they want everyone they know to watch.”