Filmmaker River Gallo first created Ponyboi as a theater piece. By 2019, Gallo grew their exploration of Salvadoran heritage, Jersey life, and intersex childhood into a short film.

Following the 19-minute short, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson signed on as executive producers for a feature film, which debuted at Sundance in 2024. The Ponyboi feature won Best Narrative Feature of 2024 at NewFest, New York's LGBT Film Festival, positive reception at Sundance, and continued publicity for its craft and subject matter.

By summer 2025, a partnership with Fox Entertainment Studios and GATHR brought Ponyboi to U.S. theaters.

It started deep in the depths of New Jersey. It started out of a desire to want to express the different ways in which I felt like an outsider in my life through different intersecting identities — being intersex, being Latinx, being from New Jersey, which, I think, has a special liminal relationship to reality. —River Gallo, Sundance blog, 2025