Meet Jheri Jones, a 76-year-old transgender trailer park matriarch looking for love in in Mississippi's Bible Belt. Jones' ultimately heartwarming story, including her emotional reunion with her four sons after a lengthy estrangement, can be seen at the Roxie Theater on Saturday, June 18, at 1:30 pm during the Frameline LGBTQ film festival. Earlier this year, the documentary screened to a sold-out audience at the New Mission Theater during the San Francisco International Film Festival.
The film, directed by Moby Longinotto, a heterosexual British filmmaker who'd never met a transgender person before filming the movie, was made possible by grants from the San Francisco Film Society and from Frameline.
"The Joneses is a beautiful look at an unforgettable Southern matriarch and her enduring bond with her adult children, offering a rarely-seen perspective on class, family, resilience and acceptance," said Des Buford, director of exhibition and programming at Frameline.
Filmmaker Longinotto, who makes television documentaries in the UK, heard about Jones through a mutual friend, John Howard, who met Jones while researching his book, Men Like That: A Southern Queer History, published by the University of Chicago Press in 1999. With a grant from Britdocs, Longinotto made his first trip to the Bible Belt. "As soon as I met the Joneses five years ago, I was captivated by Jheri and her family, and knew I wanted to get their story on film."
For Jones, the idea of appearing in a film was decidedly unappealing. "I never liked the idea" of being filmed, said Jones in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. "I thought, 'This is my personal life. I'm not going to share it with the world.' But Moby wore me down with his persistence, and I reluctantly went along with it."
But when she saw the 80-minute film at its international premiere with Longinotto last spring in San Francisco, "It was one of the most moving moments of my life. The response of the audience absolutely floored me." After the two appeared onstage and received a standing ovation, "People rushed up to hug me, many with tears in their eyes, thanking me for doing the film."
Longinotto was also happy with the reception. "This is one of those projects you don't make for the money. I just want people to see the film," he said.
Jones' early years began with an "idyllic childhood" on the 60-acre family farm in Smith, Miss. Jones, born Jerry Ray, was one of six children, and remembers "an absolutely wonderful childhood." Jones married at 19, got a bachelor's degree in education, and settled in rural Mississippi, where she got a job teaching elementary school. "I loved my job. But I'd been running away from feelings that something was really wrong in my life, not sure exactly what it was."
When Jones became attracted to one of the male teachers, "I thought, 'OK, maybe I'm gay.'" Finally, at age 36, "something snapped," she said. "I realized that I wanted to live my life as a woman, and also realized it would mean giving up my wife and my teaching job."
Much to her shock and disappointment, it also meant giving up her relationships with her children, when her ex-wife refused to let her have any visitation rights. "That, of course, was the toughest part," she said. "But at that point, there was no looking back.
"Transitioning in Mississippi back then was very tough," she said. "For a number of years I was crossdressing, but initially I didn't have any medical people to help me with the process. It was a difficult and scary journey."
In the early 1990s, when Jones was in her 50s, she fell in love with a straight man, and the couple had a six-year relationship. "We were in love, but it turned out he was actually very homophobic," leading to the dissolution of the relationship. Shortly after their breakup, Jones' children, now adults, contacted her, and they reconciled. Much to Jones' surprise, two of the boys came out to her as gay. "We've been a family again for the past 22 years," says Jones, noting that she and her gay sons are involved in a local LGBTQ rights organization.
Finally, in her 60s, Jones saved enough to complete her gender confirmation surgery. As for romance, Jones says there have been a couple of relationships with straight men. "It's difficult," she said. "It's been my experience that heterosexual men have a difficult time with transgender women. I suppose they're scared.
"I'm still looking," Jones said. "But I'm 76 years old now, and there aren't that many shopping days left."