Trans in Trumpland (TV)
Trans in Trumpland will be available on February 25th to US and Canadian audiences on Topic through Topic.com and Topic channels through AppleTV & iOS, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android, and Amazon Prime Video Channels
In watching the four episodes of “Trans in Trumpland,” which debuts on Topic on February 25, one of my main thoughts was about the idea of having to find a community for ourselves. When my family and I moved to Georgia in 1988, one of the things my parents did to help me not feel as alone as I did was to go to church and enroll me in Boy Scouts so that I could meet people, and even make friends. They recognized that I was shy, and having things like that in my life, would help me find my way in my new life. I bring this up because I wonder if the people who discriminate against LGBTQ individuals have ever had to go through that type of journey of discovery, of finding a community they would be accepted in when the one they were a part of is not available to them anymore, or worse, doesn’t accept them for who they are. Certainly my situation is not the same as that of people in the LGBTQ community, but maybe it helps me empathize with what they go through more than if I hadn’t gone through that.
Filmmaker Tony Zosherafatain goes around the United States to talk to four transgender people for a look at how their lives have been impacted in the time of Trump. The sad truth, however, is that much of what Ash and Rebecca and Evonne and Shane have gone through precedes Trump’s presidency, and will remain afterwards. The most encouraging thing is that each of these people have found reservoirs of strength and resilience, as well as a community that accepts them, even through the struggles they face from society at large. By telling their stories, Zosherafatain- a trans man himself- is both illuminating painful realities, and showing to others struggling with their journey that there is hope at the other end.
With each episode, each story, Zosherafatain is illuminating a different part of the trans experience in America. Ash is a high schooler from North Carolina, a state well known for its anti-trans legislation, most notably a “bathroom bill” that requires people to use the bathroom of the gender they were born as. Ash telling us of his experiences in school, and life, whenever people use his “dead name” is heartbreaking, but thankfully, he also has one of the strongest supporters a young man or woman in his position can have- an unconditionally supportive mother; not all of the subjects in this series are so lucky. Rebecca, an immigrant from Mexico, has a supportive mother, as well, although the process of her acceptance of her daughter took a bit longer; one think Rebecca did not have to worry about in terms of familial support was when she was taken into an ICE facility, and was denied the healthcare she required. Zosherafatain and Rebecca make a trip back to the facility to recount those painful memories, but Trump’s border wall is just as painful a reminder of how many in this country see women like her. Evonne is a black trans woman in Mississippi. In the Bible Belt South, she has it tough for every possible reason, but her strength and desire to help has led her to run the state’s only non-profit for transgender people, providing care for a the marginalized community that is sorely needed. In the final episode, we get to know Shane, the military’s first openly-transgender soldier, whose beliefs as a member of the Native American community have helped him in accepting who he is, and would be a good guide for the country at large to use to move forward.
Throughout each episode, there’s one more individual we are leaning about on a deeper level, and that is Zosherafatain himself. With each story, he shares some of his own, and what it is like for him as a trans man in Trump’s America. That he is able to find a way to tell his story, while also giving us moving stories like those of Ash and Rebecca and Evonne and Shane. Those are the stories that matter most to his series, but his individual one helps us see why he was drawn to them, and why it should matter to us that he’s telling them. The director is the last piece of the puzzle in terms of filmmaking and storytelling; in the documentary form, his perspective can provide the strongest connection for us to empathize with his subjects. In “Trans in Trumpland,” Zosherafatain’s perspective does just that.
