“I am made in the image of God.”

This is the powerful statement that opens The Believers, a documentary that traces the inception and development of a choir in San Francisco. But this isn’t any traditional choir.

Populated by transgendered individuals, the Transcendence Choir, as it is known, was founded by Ashley Moore, a transgendered MTF (male-to-female), who is filmed walking, alone, down a street, at the film’s start. Between tracing her personal history, and that of a select group of the choir’s members, the audience is treated to a variety of ups and downs the choir experiences on the road to receiving recognition from not only musical quarters, but religious ones as well.

Todd Holland’s film is a sprawling, occasionally unfocused mishmash of personal histories and political commentary. The collage of old photos and choir performance introduces viewers to various members of the group, as well as their reasons for making that joyful noise.

Holland packs the first 10 minutes of the film with plenty of back story, music, and people; it’s a lot to absorb, and initially works against the momentum of the film. By the fifteen-minute mark, one wonders where exactly this jumbled tale of lovable, singing misfits can go. Much as the humanity is interesting in and of itself, Holland still hasn’t anchored his theme sufficiently to engage his audience.

That changes with the introduction of Bobbie, a “tranny” who never endured gender reassignment surgery, but lives as a woman. Her trip back to Memphis gives genuine insight into the confusion and judgment that transgendered people face from family, friends, and society as a whole. The setting itself also serves as a powerful symbol. Rife with poverty and neglect, this is certainly not Elvis’ Memphis, and it’s in such scenes that Holland portrays the hardship endured by not only the transgendered community, but by an entire American underclass who are offered little in the way of hope or escape. For many, the church is their refuge.

But does the church accept the transgendered? There has traditionally been a general mistrust between the LGBT (lesbian / gay / bisexual / transgendeed) community and mainstream religion, a gulf that has grown exponentially over the past eight years or so; the former don’t feel welcomed or accepted by the latter, and the latter tend to treat the former as outright freaks - sinners on a lost path.

However, Ashley Moore, the choir’s founder, is adamant that the choir’s modus operandi is not to convert anyone; equally, she doesn’t believe that the reasons for bias coming from churches are accurate. It is within this tension that The Believers fascinates. The tension between the moralists in traditional churches and the LGBT community gives the viewer a clear sense of the struggles of both the choir and its individual members for an acceptance that seems at once distant and near, as both sides are portrayed as equally intransigent and unwilling to open the lines of communication.

Yet it’s the music that does the communicating, because in hearing the glorious singing of the Transcendence Choir, one can’t help but be moved –whatever their persuasion. And so, edited between personal histories, news stories, and member observations, are cuts of the choir, and its members, lifting up their voices in perfect harmony. Listening to their heartfelt rendition of “I Almost Let Go”, with its powerful, perfectly-suited lyrics, one senses the healing and connection music creates between both its members, and between a broader public as well.

This healing is perhaps best exemplified in the story of Moore, whose father, we learn, had sexuality issues that were continually denied (up to the present, interestingly) by Yvette, Moore’s mother, whose voice we hear at the start of film, urging her to “stay on the positive things”. That naïve, tragic statement belies the horrendously violent the details of Moore’s past. Of all the choir members, Ashley’s story is perhaps the most poignantly portrayed. If anyone has reason to not believe, it’s her, and yet she is filmed, in a variety of personal scenarios, directing the choir, discussing her past, visiting her old home, sitting with her mother, and recording the choir’s first album Holland hits stride in such moments, revealing the humanity amidst the tangle of back stories and characters that occasionally weigh down its narrative and focus.

The Believers is a film about acceptance –of self, of others, of life itself, in both its good and bad forms. Music is the binding force that connects and heals. So despite the political forays (the murder of transgendered prostitute Gwen Araujo is portrayed, along with the resulting media circus) and the jubilant pride (the group wins the Out Music Award for album of the year), this is ultimately a film about love and acceptance. Holland uses the affirmation of the Transcendence Choir by the Assembly of the United Church of Christ as a parallel to Yvette’s acceptance of Moore at the film’s end; it would appear that the two seemingly-opposed worlds, of tradition and modernity, are, in fact, one and the same, and entirely equal, in divine eyes.

The Believers screens Sunday, May 25th, at 2.30pm, at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, as part of the Inside Out Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival.

For more information, go to www.insideout.ca.