Why Empowering Stories Matter to This Producer

Growing up in Kansas, Sav, also twelve years old, relied on a DVD of Chasing Amy as a liferaft as it was the only place he could see LGBTQ people–albeit fictional ones. Like me, Sav didn't really have any LGBTQ people he identified with in his real life and needed to turn to storytelling for the closest reflection.

Working at GLAAD, the leading LGBTQ media advocacy organization, I’ve gained an acute understanding of how media influences culture. Under the guidance of Nick Adams, who's worked at the organization for 25 years and is considered the preeminent expert on transgender representation, I’ve received what I call an unofficial masters degree in LGBTQ media criticism–particularly around transgender portrayals.

I've spent over seven years unlearning the stereotypes, tropes, and clichés that both reflect society's ignorance of transgender people and reinforce that ignorance. Those portrayals, usually helmed by cisgender people, concentrate on our physical transitions to the exclusion of nearly everything else. It's not easy to confront the unhealthy media diet we've all been repeatedly fed and sometimes unintentionally regurgitate, even as trans people, but it's necessary to create and consume balanced and nourishing representation more intentionally. This ongoing and sometimes uncomfortable education makes me a better person, a better collaborator, and a more discerning storyteller.

I was struck by Sav's eagerness to learn and his hopeful sensibility and outlook–something we both share. Even though I'm selective about the projects I take on, I told Sav to let me know if he ever needed a producer. Almost immediately, and by his own admission, Sav brought me into his confidence as a trusted friend and advisor. We talked endlessly about the stories we wished existed for guys like us and the hope, humor, and light-heartedness missing in stories about trans people.

At a certain point, as Sav was struggling with how to situate his personal story into Chasing Chasing Amy, especially his gender transition, Sav took me up on my offer to come on board as a producer. While Sav was reluctantly resigned to share details about his private medical transition in the film, I challenged him about why he felt that was even necessary.

For many trans people, our physical transitions do mark significant points in our lives; however, in stories about us, those steps are typically assigned more weight and time than the profound mental and emotional development that is also taking place. By giving physical transitions so much real estate in trans stories, generally, we tend to get fossilized in them as if our lives don't continue and contain more than those specific moments.

So when Sav and I were contending with how to share his coming-of-age on screen, we deeply interrogated what would be included–was it serving the story or reflexively relying on the templates we’d already ingested in the media we consumed? Were we showing hormone shots or surgery because it was additive or because it was expected?

Ultimately, we chose to focus on Sav's interior life, showing him as a man coming-of-age who also happens to be trans. It’s also the C-storyline. While I know Sav appreciates me as a creative producer, I also know that it was the knowledge and experience I'd gained at GLAAD, including a high-altitude perspective of the patterns of trans storytelling, that was particularly appealing to him as we collaborated.

Because of the deliberate decisions we made about how to convey Sav's path to manhood, we've received overwhelming feedback about how refreshing it is to see a story that doesn't concentrate on Sav's coming out story or his physical transition–outside one specific allusion with Kevin Smith that makes our Q&As particularly emotional. Audiences notice the difference and have shared their appreciation for the way the film focuses on the many additional dimensions of Sav's life.

Sav and the team understood that simply being a trans person doesn't necessarily make you an expert on representation and that my in-depth knowledge of trans narratives would help both Sav and the film itself. As we collaborated, Sav, the team, and I were able to explore new and interesting ways to tell his personal story–at the same time, model a different way for others to portray (or not) someone's transition on screen.

What initially drew me to Chasing Chasing Amy is that even though Sav’s relationship with Chasing Amy was different than mine with Boys Don’t Cry, we are proof that stories, particularly movies, shape us. Ultimately, Chasing Chasing Amy is a meditation on growing up, and the way that relationships with ourselves, the people around us, and the media that roots us can change and take on different meanings over time.

Chasing Chasing Amy, Changing the Game, Disclosure, Framing Agnes, and Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story are the films I’ve been proud and privileged to produce so far. My hope is for the opportunity to keep collaborating, challenging, and championing stories that show people, those of us who are trans included, as fully dimensional with histories, interior lives, and as more than any one singular identity or life stage–all laced with hope, humor, and light-heartedness.