Hart describes how she was told she would never menstruate nor have children, but the reasons were not discussed and the topic was taboo. When Hart was 17 years of age, her mother told her the family secret, that Hart had testes in her abdomen. Hart was pressured into a gonadectomy, and in the documentary she faces the traumatic emotional scars from that operation and the secrecy associated with it. During the shooting of her auto-biography, her parents initially refused to be filmed.
Career
Hart completed her film studies at the Queensland University of Technology in 1995. She has been involved in the children's programmeTotally Wild, Network Ten’s documentary unit, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Race Around the World and Fly TV. In 2009, Hart was awarded her doctorate from Queensland University of Technology, of which Orchids was a central element of her doctoral studies. This documentary took six years for the principal documenters to film, using a variety of cameras including semi-professional digital cameras, domestic VHS camcorders, and Super 8. She describes the work as a means of helping young intersex people to come to terms with their bodies: Hart is also a former president of the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group Australia.
Orchids, My Intersex Adventure is an auto-biographical 2010 documentary about one woman's struggle to understand her own intersex condition while interviewing other intersex people on a road trip of self-discovery around Australia. Director Phoebe Hart used digital cameras and a small crew including her sister, Bonnie Hart. The film won the ATOM Award for Best Documentary General.
Hart also directed and co-wrote the Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary Roller Derby Dolls about a group of women who play in roller derby. Roller Derby Dolls screened in a prime-time slot, 9 September 2008.
Peer-reviewed journals
Books and book chapters
"Making orchids – Gardening an intersex experience on videotape ", a contribution to the book Inter: Erfahrungen intergeschlechtlicher Menschen in der Welt der zwei Geschlechter, edited by Elisa Barth, in 2013. Other notable contributors include Mauro Cabral, Sally Gross, and Del LaGrace Volcano.
"All Of Us", a resource for schools produced by the Safe Schools Coalition Australia. Hart appears in a video and in a teachers' Unit Guide.
Editorial works
Recognition
Hart has received multiple awards and academic honours for the documentary Orchids, My Intersex Adventure and also academic commendation for a related thesis entitled "Orchids: Intersex and Identity in Documentary". She is a Robson Fellow of the Ormond College, University of Melbourne.
Personal life
Hart and her husband desired to start a family, and adopted a child. Hart's infertility and the stress of the adoption process strained their marriage.
