Disclosure Review (6/19/2020)

The past few weeks - let's face it, decades, really - have been especially tumultuous for the transgender community. On the one hand, we have the Supreme Court declaring it unconstitutional to discriminate against gay and transgender individuals in the workplace. On the other, we have the Trump administration overturning federal protections for transgender people towards medical discrimination, and one of the most popular authors on the planet speaking out against us. There's no mistake that the transgender community has it rough, and a big part of that is because we're almost never allowed a voice when it comes to the narratives produced about us.

Disclosure: Trans Lives On Screen is a revolution documentary now available on Netflix. Directed and produced by Sam Feder, and starring Laverne Cox, Alexandra Billings, Jamie Clayton, Chaz Bono, Alexandra Grey, Yance Ford, Trace Lysette, Mj Rodriguez, Angelica Ross, Jen Richards, Sandra Caldwell, Candis Cayne, Zackary Drucker, Lilly Wachowski and Leo Sheng, among many others, Disclosure is perhaps the largest collection of actual trans people ever put to film, and with this cast it smashes down barricades and dispels myths and false narratives about our existence.

Disclosure primarily focuses on the history of transgender representation and narratives in Hollywood and on television, and naturally there's a lot about the transgender struggle and trans history that is not covered here. But this is a subject that's more important than many realize, and Disclosure makes the case perfectly; most people don't actually know trans people, and so the only point on reference is what they see on television and on TV, and if those images are primarily negative ones, they will inevitably develop ingrained negative ideas of what trans people are really like.

The documentary contains a staggering amount of information coming from all sorts of angles; from men crossdressing being used as a gag, to the more recent trend of tragic transgender narratives produced by cis people, to the intersection of Blackness and trans identity to the relative invisibilty of trans-masculine stories and experiences. Each and every one of these stories is told by a trans person, and we also see how the transgender community relates to these portrayals and the harm they can have, both on trans people's view of themselves and the public's feelings towards them.

As a transgender person myself, I cannot express how much this means to me, and how validating it is to see all of these beautiful people on screen talking about their lives and success. So much of the common images of trans people fall into cliches that I can't see myself fitting into, but here we have trans women of all shapes, sizes and colors, all looking beautiful. It's not just trans women either - there are plenty of trans men as well here to tell their stories, and those can be quite different from those of trans women.

There is one area in which it falls flat, and that's when it comes to nonbinary characters. The nonbinary community is a huge subportion of the transgender community, one that is becoming rapidly more important and sizeable. Though there are nonbinary people in the film, the film doesn't really ever give them many opportunities to speak out about their unique expeiriences, and the whole film seems to take a more binary look at things. Again, this is my only complaint, but it's a big one - we as a community need to do better by them, and there are really no excuses.

Still, I think the importance of this film cannot be understated. That a documentary about trans experiences and narratives made entirely by trans people is now available for anyone to watch on Netflix is huge, and even scrolling through twitter last night I saw countless cis people watching and reflecting on their pre-conceived notions of trans people and their previous lack of empathy for the community. This is the kind of film that acts as a battering ram for boundaries, breaking them down and leaving nothing left, allowing future trans filmmakers to tell even more of their stories, and representing a huge turning point in the experiences of trans people in the media.

Even as a trans person, there was a lot in this film that I didn't already know - and also quite a bit that nearly brought me to tears. From talks about the lack of acceptance from one's friends and family to the sheer joy brought on by an era where transgender people are increasingly being shown more kindly and favorably on the big screen, the film is full of countless emotionally engaging stories told by the people who should have been telling them in the first place - trans people.

Disclosure is not entirely perfect, and it's certainly not the end all be all of trans issues and experiences. But it is so, so important that we finally got a film like this, and not only does it shine a light on the reality behind the lie that Hollywood has perpetuated about trans people for so long, it also works as a commentary for how imagines in media can shape our biases and beliefs. I truly believe that everyone should watch this film, especially cis people. It's a landmark of 2020, and one of the best documentaries I've seen.