By now, we are attached to Laura Jane Grace, lead singer of the punk rock group Against me!
Not long ago we told you about her fascinating story (which, if you haven’t done it yet, we suggest you to read it immediately), this time, however, Laura herself will take the floor through a documentary, or better a docu-serie, that we absolutely recommend you see.
“My earliest memories were of gender dysphoria. I felt lost and at times like I couldn’t survive. It took until I was 31 to publically come out as a transgender woman. Nothing has been the same since.
While on the road I’ve met gender-variant people from all walks of life, all at various points in their journeys. Hearing their stories and then being able to relate myself to it is what I need right now.”
Each one of the ten episodes of “True Trans with Laura Jane Grace” starts with these words, a series produced and created by AOL Originals and broadcasted from October 2014.
The documentary was shot while Laura was on tour with her band: little by little she traveled with Against Me!, she met a lot of people in lots of different places , joined by different experiences of transsexuality and this series was born from these conversations.
The peculiarity of the documentary is that it’s not just a simple open-hearted confession by Laura, in which she tells her personal matters (something that obviously happens), but the fact that from the meeting with these people, a discussion started. Everybody tells their own story and shares their own experience with Laura and the audience. All this is accompanied by the music of Transgender Dysphoria Blues, the last record of the band that focuses entirely on the themes of gender dysphoria and transsexuality.
There are ten episodes that deal with a series of themes concerning the gender transition, presented in chronological order like the different stages of the walk of life of those who let their hair down: from the difficulties of living with the dysphoria throughout the childhood and adolescence, when you don’t even know that the “something” you feel inside has got a very specific name, to the very moment you become aware that in the world some people called transexuals do in fact exist. It talks about the choice of coming out and the difficulties linked to the path of transition, it talks about how this means calling into question one’s whole life and one’s relationships, what being transsexual parents means and how one can achieve an acceptance of their own identity and body thanks to the change that had been made and the new life that one decides to embrace.
An important thing to remember is that besides having a personal and biographical character, the documentary has also got some brief moments when some more “technical” concepts regarding transsexuality are explained to the public, for instance, what gender dysphoria means. Statistics are also reported and they try to give a critical and objective analysis: for example, suicide attempt rates for transsexual people is 41%, why does this happen? Or again, it’s a common belief that a lot of people who suffer from dysphoria are drug and alcohol users, so they try to understand why this happens, discussing it with the ones who share their own experiences.
Something else is pointed out: the fact that the word transition, from which the words transsexual and transgender originate, has got a very specific meaning : transition is not an event, but a path. It has a duration and a “arriving point” that is different for everyone.
All these moments are extremely important. The aim of this documentary is, in fact, to give people the chance to understand what being transsexual means and how this world works. Everything is explained to the audience in a very simple, clear and engaging way.
Indeed, transgender people are portrayed in a very inaccurate, exclusively negative way. We started seeing positive models just recently.
To give voice to this reality bringing on screen happy-ending stories, like most of the stories of the people who go through a path of transition but usually don’t find someone ready to hear them, it’s the only effective way to try building a world where people stop using stereotypes and prejudices when thinking. A world where discrimination and violence, assaults and abuse do not exist. A world where everyone has the possibility to express what they are, what they feel and what they want to be.
The call made by a boy at the end of the documentary is: “Do your research, google, ask questions, don’t assume, please don’t assume!”
For Laura, listening to the stories of the people she met was a way to find her own voice and with it the courage and determination to use the exposure she has to talk to people in order to spread her message. As she says in one of the episodes:
“I hope that people watching this realize that you know the people I’ve talked to in this series could be your brother, could be your sister, your mum, your dad. You can classify someone as trans and gender queer or whatever you want, but when it comes down to it, they’re just PEOPLE.”
And again:
“I hope what the audience realizes is that while the specifics of being trans they might not being able to relate to, then when it comes down to the feelings of isolation, alienation, depression and just struggling to exist in the world are really universal things that everyone deals with”
Considering that what we do at Bossy is try to go beyond stereotypes, we can’t do anything but sincerely suggest that you watch this docu-serie, with the hope that it may entertain you, tell you beautiful stories and maybe even explain you things that you didn’t know before.
What can I say to conclude? True Trans is nominated at the “News and Documentary Emmy Awards”, whose awards ceremony will be held in New York on the 28th of September.
Laura, we’re rooting for you!
P.S. We would like to remind you that Against Me! will be playing in Brescia at the Radio Onda d’Urto party. Bossy’s team will be there and we will have the pleasure to interview Laura. Stay Tuned.
