[rating=8.00]
Knowing what we know about American society is a little overwhelming. On the one hand, we have a budding revolution. Race, gender, and sexual preference are beginning to define people less as individuals everyday, leaving room for a larger conversation to be had. If this next generation can finally move past these self taught little lessons, then surely they can focus on bigger picture issues. For instance, how do we save the planet from ourselves?
On the other hand, a seething hatred still burns in the embers of a dying breed, those three little issues impeding their very existence. They need to know what your race is, what you have between your legs, and how you like to use it. The difference in the two groups is stark, and for most the higher ground of the two is easily visible from the horizon. But for the rest, films like TransMilitary exist to show you exactly why those three little questions you’ve been trained to ask don’t mean a damn thing.
Premiering at SXSW, TransMilitary is an exploratory look at what is happening to the trans identifying individuals currently serving in or who have retired from the military. We are given an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of four trans soldiers who either currently serve, or recently have served, in the military.
Initially, we learn about their lives through the lens of having to present as the gender they identify with. But quickly things take a turn when the reality of the issue sets in; none of these active military personnel have the rights their brothers and sisters in arms are freely granted.
Captain Jennifer Peace, born a man and identifying as a woman outed herself in order to stand up for herself and those like her. Staff Sergeant Logan Ireland would rather work in an active war zone for the rest of his life than come back to a world and government that refuses to acknowledge the obviously male soldier as such.
His fiance Private Laila Villanueva has a hard time even trying to make herself masculine anymore, getting in trouble at work for having feminine features, a byproduct of literally being a woman. Then there’s Captain El Cook, a trans male who keeps his hair long in case he’s asked to present as more feminine.
From an outsider’s perspective (i.e., the population of America who has never knowingly interacted with a trans person) when presented with the gender these four identify with, they wouldn’t know they were born in the wrong bodies. That in itself is where a huge issue lies. There’s a stigma related to having to present to society as the gender someone looks most closely like. It’s brought up several times throughout the doc, and remains one of the biggest points of contention for trans people.
Wonderfully laid out, the film serves as a powerful reminder that there are over 15,000 trans people currently working in the military and living in fear of what will happen if the government deems them undesirable. Imagine losing 15,000 people putting their lives on the line because a facet of the population doesn’t like the way they live their lives. Who will replace them?
TransMilitary is the movie you show your homophobic aunts and uncles who want to make America great again. It’s the doc you send to your neighbor when they use words like “tranny” and think it’s ok. It’s the start of both normalizing a natural occurrence, and of understanding a world in which many live but few outsider can ever truly see.
