Cassie Jaye (b. Cassandra Patricia Nelson on May 1, 1986) is a documentary filmmaker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the CEO & Founder of Jaye Bird Productions, LLC.

Her films are centered around gender issues and LGBT rights. She is best recognized for her 2016 documentary The Red Pill.

Cassie Jaye was born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma at the Fort Sill United States Army post. She spent most of her childhood in Brier, Washington. Her parents divorced when she was 6 years old and, as a result, was raised by a single mom.

When Jaye was 8 years old, she began acting in the Taproot Theatre Company in Seattle. When she was 15 years old, she moved to Las Vegas where she took film acting classes. While doing so, she graduated high school with a 4.3 GPA.

After graduating high school, Jaye moved to Los Angeles; she was 18 years old.

There, she enrolled in some filmmaking courses at a local college.

Cassie eventually dropped out after deciding to learn how to create films from her mother, Nena Jaye, a documentary cinematographer in her own right.

From 2004 to 2008, Cassie Jaye acted in numerous independent films and commercials in L.A.

However, as a result of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Jaye decided to go behind the camera to direct and produce documentaries. She started filming when she was 21 years old.

In February 2008, she founded Jaye Bird Productions.

[36] Established in San Francisco, the company was created "to provide documentary films with a balanced approach on social and political topics of our day."

Her documentaries aim to push boundaries on issues that deeply affect society and are critically acclaimed for the documentarian's respectful treatment of polarizing stories.

To this day, it is still family-owned.

Nena Jaye, Cassie Jaye's mother, often handles camera operation on Jaye Bird Productions' films.

She also provides creative support to Cassie with project concept, filming, story editing, marketing, and exhibition.

At 21 years old, Cassie Jaye made her directorial debut with Daddy I Do: a documentary that examines abstinence-only education versus comprehensive sex education in the United States. She examines the influence both forms of sex ed have on the rates of teen pregnancies, abortions, and STDs. The film also focuses on how poverty and sexual abuse play a role.

Cassie Jaye herself was raised an evangelical Christian and grew up being taught that abstinence was the only way to avoid unwanted pregnancy. She immensely supported abstinence programs growing up and tried to recruit her friends to put on a purity ring as a sign of chastity. As she grew older, she increasingly disagreed with the sexual education techniques in which she was raised.

The film was an Official Selection at ten film festivals and garnered six awards, including "Best Documentary" at the Cannes Independent Film Festival (2010), "Best Documentary" at the Idyllwild Internation Festival of Cinema (2010), "Best Docu-Drama" at the Bare Bones International Film Festival (2010).

Several universities, women’s groups, health organizations, and sex education activists have sponsored Daddy I Do screenings, as well, to encourage discussion on the future of sex education in the United States.

In 2012, Cassie Jaye released her second feature documentary, The Right To Love: An American Family. The film shared the story of Jay and Bryan Leffew, a gay couple who adopted two children (Daniel and Selena). One of the 18,000 same-sex couples that married in California before Proposition 8 passed in 2008, the Leffew Family stimulated a conversation around topics such like marriage equality, gay adoption, bullying, and suicide among LGBT youth.

The Right to Love: An American Family won four Telly Awards in 2012, including "Best Social Issues Documentary."

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At age 30, Jaye released her notable men's rights documentary The Red Pill. It became the first-ever documentary to explore the men's rights movement in detail. She started working on the film in March 2013.

Jaye spent one year interviewing and filming a total of 44 people for The Red Pill. She features influential and controversial men's rights activists along with rebuttals by leaders and scholars within the modern day feminist movement to present different arguments and a balanced outlook within the political discourse on the subject.

Moreover, Cassie Jaye mentions that The Red Pill shows the audience her personal ideological transformation. She began this project identifying as a feminist. As she learned more about men’s issues, she found a lot of value in MRAs' arguments. She reached the conclusion that men's issues need not only to be widely addressed, but more people need to dispell the misinformation about men's issues.

Casie Jaye has also directed many short documentaries throughout her filmmaking career.

These include: