Trans

Thu Feb 20, 2014 –  7:30 pm — La Casa Grande  Tickets
Fri Feb 21, 2014 –  5:00 pm — Domenico’s  Tickets
Sun Feb 23, 2014 –  12:00 pm — Club Impulse  Tickets

Community Partner:  SAGA | Beloit College

Trans
It takes a special kind of courage to be who you really are.


Trans movie poster
Category:  Family / Gay, Lesbian, BiSexual, Transgender
Country:  U.S.
Language:  English
Rating:  R
Runtime:  104
Director:  Chris Arnold
Producer:  Mark Schoen

 

 

Synopsis:

TRANS is an extraordinary documentary feature film about men and women and all the variations in between. It is an up-close and very personal journey into the transgender world through the memorable stories and the unusual lives of a remarkable cast of characters.

Here you will explore the Transgender Community, perhaps the most misunderstood and mistreated minority in America and around the world.

It begins with the story of Lt. Commander Christopher McGinn, a Navy flight surgeon selected by NASA to serve on two space missions. But, upon his discharge from the armed forces, Chris McGinn would set out upon a different mission…from which he was never to return.
Now Dr. Christine McGinn is able to tell her own amazing story, (picked up by the media on both MSNBC and the Oprah Winfrey show) and provide an entrance into a complex and dramatic world that is “TRANS.”

  • Danaan, a 7 year old MTF (male to female) who knew who she was at 2 years old and has spent the rest of her short life making believers out of her parents and the rest of her world.
  • Cris, who only recently came to the realization that he is transgendered in a college classroom and is about to break the news to his lesbian lover that he is not a lesbian.
  • Pam and Erica: they have never met before now, but they have been living the same lie for over 50 years. Now, in their mid fifties, they are undergoing surgery, and are about to risk everything to be able to live as their authentic selves.
  • We will attend Oakland and San Francisco’s Transgender Day of Remembrance and witness an entire community under siege.
  • We will learn the tragic story of Chloe, who graduated High School and left her small town with her best friend to live in a place where she could start life anew and experience the freedom and excitement of living her authentic self. There she collided with the fear that every trans person must struggle to overcome, just to survive.
  • We meet Nella, transgender survival sex worker, as she retells the events of the previous evening, when she and her transgender friend were brutally attacked and her friend was shot on the dark and dangerous streets of Oakland, CA.
  • We hear the wisdom and experiences from some of the foremost authorities in the Transgender Community and get a close look at this disenfranchised community and the fight to bring them the recognition and respect they deserve.
  • We accompany young Cris, an FTM, to the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference – a life changing experience for him. With Cris we learn about all the information and services that are available within the Transgender Community. We learn the protocols and procedures that one can follow that will lead a trans person to the life they were meant to live. And we will learn about the hundreds and thousands who suffer from this condition in silence and ignorance — not knowing what could possibly be the matter with them or what they can possibly do about it.
  • We cover the swearing in of a new superior court judge, and are with her on her first visit to her new courtroom. She is Vicky Kolakowski, the first elected transgender judge in US history.

These are the stories of boys and girls, men and woman…and all the shades in between. These are the stories that will open both the mind and the heart. Stories of extraordinary people who face fear, discrimination, ignorance and violence in the hopes they might one day be able to live…ordinary lives.

To anyone who ever looked in a mirror and wondered, ‘who they really are?’
TRANS asks another question . . .’are you brave enough to find out?’

NOTE:  Synopsis are typically provided directly by the filmmaker themselves. Often English is not their first language. We ask reader’s understanding for less-than-perfect language and grammar