CALL TO ACTION TO ALL TRANS PEOPLE AND ALLIES: Attend THE GENDERCATOR

screening and hold the gay and lesbian community accountable!



On Saturday, July 21st, Outfest will screen THE GENDERCATOR, a film that has

been widely criticized as being highly transphobic. We, concerned members of

the trans community, call on all transpeople and trans-allies to attend the

screening and make their voices heard!



Background:



THE GENDERCATOR is a story of a hypothetical future where all people are

given the choice of changing gender, but must pick one of two rigid binary

norms. The director of the film herself had this to say about the film

"Things are getting very strange for women these days. More and more often

we see young heterosexual women carving their bodies into porno Barbie dolls

and lesbian women altering themselves into transmen. Our distorted cultural

norms are making women feel compelled to use medical advances to change

themselves, instead of working to change the world. This is one story,

showing one possible scary future. I am hopeful that this story will foster

discussion about female body modification and medical ethics."



Outfest's controversial screening of THE GENDERCATOR follows a string of

controversies around screenings of THE GENDERCATOR at other gay and lesbian

film festivals. San Francisco's Frameline chose to remove the film from

their festival while New York's New Festival faced strong criticism but

chose to go forward with the screening. Outfest, upon hearing about

controversies at other festivals, removed mentions of THE GENDERCATOR from

all its printed and online publications, but did not remove it from its film

festival. Now, Outfest has chosen to go forward with screening this film,

while giving almost no notice to the transgender community.



We feel this film and Outfest's decision to screen it raise fundamental

questions about our LGBT communities:



- Why do stories that perpetuate transphobia, racism, sexism, and other

oppresive dynamics continue to get told in the queer community?



- Why are transpeople's personal decisions continually critiqued by the gay

and lesbian community as being reactionary, patriarchal, and unfeminist?



- Why are transpeople's stories silenced, while transphobic films are given

a platform out of fear of "censorship"?



- Why do LGBT institutions continue to prioritize gay and lesbian interests

over the needs of the trans-people and other marginalized communities?



Now it's your turn to tell Outfest and the gay and lesbian community that

trans-people demand answers!



THE GENDERCATOR screening will take place ****Saturday, July 21st ** at

6:00pm, at the Village at Ed Gould Plaza. The screening will be followed by

a panel discussion moderated by Riku Matsuda. The address for the Village

is:



1125 N. McCadden Place

Los Angeles, CA 90038



Please arrive early so that we can be ready and organized.



We look forward to seeing everyone on the 21st!



Note: If you can't make the screening, you can still give input to Outfest

by calling them at (213) 480-7088 or e-mailing them at outfest@outfest.org.

I think the tone of this is not fruitful. First, I think that starting off with CALL TO ACTION TO ALL TRANS PEOPLE AND ALLIES: Attend THE GENDERCATOR screening and hold the gay and lesbian community accountable! is divisive.

There are many people - myself included - who are gay or lesbian and trans or trans allies. How do you expect people to feel then they are asked split themselves into two identity-camps which are apparently at war, and then to choose sides between the two?

If the hope is for community communication or healing, this is the wrong way to present the situation.

Secondly, We, concerned members of the trans community, call on all transpeople and trans-allies to attend the screening and make their voices heard! leaves the distinct impression that there are no non-trans lesbians or gay men who can understand transphobia and see it in a move and respond to it appropriately. There well could be many people who don't know any transpeople and don't consider themselves allies who would be down to support a group of people who are being "attacked". This isolates them, and forces them into thinking: I don't know any transpeople, but this seems bad... but I'm just a gay guy, or I'm just a lesbian... so if I go I'm going to be seen as the enemy, so I won't go.

I am going, and I hope that there are people out there - Outfest viewers, or anyone interested - who will go and who won't force themselves to fit into one or the other "trans/allies" or "L/G" camp so that we can have a deeply textured discussion which moves beyond inaccurate characterizations of the Other As Evil. Maybe we can talk about and shed light on the multiplicity of identities many of us live with and carry around in our world travels, and how our moving through them can hurt (us, others), cause pain to others (and ourselves), cause derision and misunderstanding (between friends and allies, between Us and Them, between our communities and within ourselves), foster stronger relationships and community, tear community asunder, make us feel whole, make us feel alone, and point out, hopefully to all of us, the need for deeper understanding and interdependence.

what a sick society that compels people by their self imaging and the 'perfect' model that is pushed on them by market forces, to alter, by surgery or pharma, the body they were born with when there is nothing physical that is dysfunctional. I'll never understand it.