Today, award-winning journalist and co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer, Katie Couric, and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Dawn Porter announced HORMONAL!, an investigative feature documentary that turns historic disparities and dismissals into a demand for change, proving that women’s health has been intentionally overlooked, underfunded, and under-researched for generations
Currently in production and slated for release in early 2027, HORMONAL! is a Trilogy Films production with Barolo Films, executive produced by Porter, Couric, and directed by Emmy award-winning director Esther Dere
For decades, medicine chose not to study women’s bodies. Women’s hormonal fluctuations were deemed too complicated and too inconvenient to include in clinical research. The result is a knowledge gap that has shaped every stage of a woman’s life, from the teenage girl told her debilitating period pain is normal, the patient who sees a dozen doctors before anyone diagnoses her, and the 75 million women in the United States who are currently navigating perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause in a medical system where only 29 percent of OB-GYNS receive any training around it.
HORMONAL! follows the entire arc of a woman’s life — from puberty through post-menopause — and reveals how institutional choices about who to study, what to fund, and whose pain to take seriously have compounded across generations into a public health crisis hiding in plain sight. It asks the questions that should have been asked all along: How do women’s hormones actually shape their bodies and lives? Where are the gaps in research, education, and care? What has it cost us as a society to ignore more than half the population? Where can women find science-backed information when they need it most? And how can we build a future that breaks this cycle?
HORMONAL! arrives at a cultural inflection point. With 8 billion views, the hashtag #OBGYN on TikTok has become the modern-day whisper network. Women across every life stage are demanding answers their doctors and health system can’t give them. While delivering life-changing information with the seriousness it deserves, the film leans into the darkly funny reality of navigating life in a body that medicine doesn’t fully understand. At its core, HORMONAL! is the film that every one of those women has been desperately seeking. The filmmakers know there’s an audience ready to watch this documentary and eager to create real change.
“I have spent much of my professional life helping people understand how they can live longer, healthier lives. So when I learned about the historic marginalization of women by the medical establishment, I knew I needed to do something about it,” said Katie Couric, executive producer of HORMONAL! “The statistics tell the story: Only 1% of global healthcare research and innovation is invested in female-specific conditions beyond cancer. It wasn’t until 2016 that the NIH required scientists to consider sex as a variable in their research. Too often, women have been gaslit by a system that for decades treated us as small men with boobs. The cost of these inequities — to our health, our families, our careers, and the economy — is staggering. This isn’t just a film about women’s health. It’s about what we lose as a society when we ignore more than half the population, and what becomes possible when we finally pay attention.”
“For too long, women have been told that what they’re feeling is in their heads, or just ‘part of being a woman.’ That ends here,” said Dawn Porter, Founder of Trilogy Films and executive producer of HORMONAL! “HORMONAL! is a film, but it is also a reckoning. We are documenting what should have been documented decades ago — and we’re inviting every woman who has ever walked out of a doctor’s office with more questions than answers to stand up, get loud, and demand better. Our bodies are not a mystery. The system has just refused to invest in and study them.”
“Blending personal stories with expert insight, the film traces the lifelong impact of hormonal health on women’s bodies and lives — asking what’s been missed, why it matters now, and what it will take to finally close the gap,” said Esther Dere, director of HORMONAL! “This is a generational opportunity — not just to make a great film, but to galvanize a movement that reshapes how we research, fund, and deliver care for half the population. With Dawn and Katie leading the charge, HORMONAL! is built to do both.”
HORMONAL! is directed by Esther Dere, produced by Shannon Gibson, Laura Michalchyshyn, and Kim Reynolds, with Katie Couric and Dawn Porter serving as executive producers. The film is currently in production. The filmmakers gratefully acknowledge the support of Olivia Walton, Sheila Johnson, Wendy Schmidt, Regina Scully, Carolyn Clark Powers, Melony & Adam Lewis, Nancy Crown, and Women Moving Millions, without whom this project would not have been possible
Join us at katiecouric.com/hormonal and share your story.
