Skip to main content

Uncle Gloria: One Helluva Ride!


  • Robyn Symon, Director/Producer

About the Project

At age 66, Bernard "Butch" Rosichan, a Jewish, balding pot-bellied and homophobic owner of an auto wrecking business undergoes a risky sex change operation and is reborn as "Gloria Stein" and becomes an advocate for transgender rights.

But unlike many transgenders, Gloria (think Carol Channing meets Joan Rivers) didn't feel as though she was born in the wrong body. Butch who some described as "meaner than a junkyard dog" had early encounters with cross dressing but the tipping point was legal trouble during an ugly divorce when he was held in contempt of court and decided to go into hiding as a woman. He made that choice permanent in 2001. My Uncle Gloria and it's stranger than fiction cast of characters - Gloria's female to male partner Dan and recovering drug addict nephew Steven is an outrageous, heart-wrenching and deeply intimate journey spanning more than two decades challenging our notion about love and gender. While there are many stories about how a sex change rips a family apart, My Uncle Gloria is a remarkable story sending an important message that you're never to old to be who you want to be and by being true to yourself you can heal old family wounds.