Madison Young — Director | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

Madison Young (they/she) is an award-winning filmmaker, curator, author, community

activist, and performance artist whose work dismantles boundaries between art, politics,

and the body. A true multi-hyphenate force in contemporary independent media, Young has

spent more than a quarter of a century crafting a radical and deeply human body of work

that has been studied in university courses on feminist and gender studies at institutions

around the world.

At the forefront of Young’s filmmaking practice is Submission Possible, the LGBTQ+ travel

documentary television series Young created, writes, directs, produces, and hosts, currently

streaming on Revry TV. The series brings Young’s signature blend of intimacy, politics, and

wit to queer travel and community storytelling — threading the personal with the political

across every frame. Young also serves as Executive Producer under their production

banner, Empress in Lavender Media.

Young was one of the pioneers of the feminist porn movement of the early 2000s — a

groundbreaking era of image-making that reclaimed erotic filmmaking as a site of feminist

resistance and joyful self-determination. Their contributions to that movement are

documented in the academic text The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing

Pleasure (The Feminist Press at CUNY), as well as in Pornography Feminism: As Powerful as

She Wants to Be (Zero Books) and America Unzipped: In Search of Sex and Satisfaction

(Broadway Books). Young’s essay “Authenticity and Its Role in Feminist Pornography” was

published in the Routledge Porn Studies Journal, released by the University of Sunderland.

Young’s fearless artistic vision extends to the stage. Their off-Broadway solo theater

performance Reveal All Fear Nothing — developed in collaboration with legendary artist and

activist Annie Sprinkle — toured the United States from 2016 to 2019, following a celebrated

Off-Broadway run at The Tank NYC. The show also received national television exposure on

Viceland’s Slutever. Academy Award-nominated actress Maggie Gyllenhaal called the show

“Radical” and “Inspired,” while musician and television personality Dave Navarro described

it as “A Provocative and Brave One Woman Show.”

Young is the author of three books. Their memoir Daddy (Rare Bird/Barnacle Books), which Academy Award winner Diablo Cody praised by saying “Madison Young goes deep and brings some universal truths to light,” has been adapted into the film By the Roots. The memoir was also translated into Spanish as Papi (Melusina). Young’s subsequent titles

include The Ultimate Guide to Sex Through Pregnancy and Motherhood (Cleis Press) and

The DIY Porn Handbook: Documenting Our Own Sexual Revolution (Greenery Press). Their

writing has appeared in anthologies including Coming Out Like a Porn Star, Rad Families: A

Celebration, and Subversive Motherhood, as well as in feature publications including

Playboy, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Romper, Bustle, and Vice.

Across every medium they inhabit — film, television, the stage, the page, the gallery —

Madison Young’s work is defined by an unwavering commitment to authentic storytelling,

radical visibility, and the transformative power of telling one’s own story on one’s own terms.