John Southard, a world- renowned and respected geologist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an open cross-dresser. A Chance to Dress follows Southard’s challenges and difficulties in coming out to his friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and also his exuberance and sense of liberation after a lifetime of secrecy. The film explores the various dimensions of identity and the diversity of gender expression, showing that Southard can enlighten us on not only the history of the earth, but also, through his own embodied self, what it means to be human.