Doc Star of the Month: Sarah Rose Huckman, ‘Changing the Game’

Michael Barnett’s Changing the Game, now streaming on Hulu, is a deep dive into the lives of three teenage athletes — Mack Beggs, Andraya Yearwood and Sarah Rose Huckman — each fighting to make their marks in their chosen sports — wrestling, track and skiing, respectively — while also having to fight for the right to compete on teams comprised of peers who share their gender identity. It’s a battle that would seem laughably nonsensical if it wasn’t so heartbreaking. This is perhaps best exemplified by the Kafkaesque vilification of Texas State Champion Beggs by the parents of female wrestlers, furious that his natural talent and uncompromising work ethic, enhanced by shots of testosterone, place him at an "unfair advantage" in girls wrestling. And Beggs probably couldn’t agree more — he’s been trying desperately to compete on the boys’ team for years. It’s only the big, overreaching government hand of the Lone Star State that’s stubbornly stood in his way. Indeed, one of the more remarkable revelations in Changing the Game is how transphobia is less a grassroots left vs. right issue than a kids vs. adults problem. All three protagonists hail from loving families in both red and blue states (Beggs resides with Trump-supporting grandparents who are also fierce advocates for their grandson) and have a close-knit community of supportive friends, schoolmates and partners. Unlike in the bad old "don’t ask don’t tell" days before the legalization of gay marriage, the only bullying these teens seem to encounter is from the so-called adults outside the classroom (and of course on Fox News). So to find out how exactly Gen Z is "changing the game" — and by extension queer rights — Documentary checked in with the politico of the film, New Hampshire’s Sarah Rose Huckman. Huckman bravely stood up to her own state’s bizarrely coercive policy that demanded trans athletes undergo gender-reassignment surgery (knowing fully well that such surgery is not even an option for kids) before playing on teams aligned with their gender identity. And she won. Which is why Documentary is especially pleased that this passionate skier, activist and policymaker agreed to add June Doc Star of the (Pride) Month to her impressive CV.

To read my interview visit Documentary magazine.

Whose Pride? (or the tyranny of heteronormativity)

Corporate-sponsored lip service. Calls for the kink community to go back in the closet for the sake of a family-friendly Pride. And now the so-called “liberal” media (i.e., The Washington Post and The New York Times) siding with the GOAL (Gay Officers Action League) cops who want to be allowed to march in uniform in NYC’s annual commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising, a civil rights event triggered by – you guessed it – police brutality. It’s enough Orwellian drama to make me want to turn in my queer card.

To read the rest of my critique of the latest ludicrous debate visit Global Comment.

“An Overt Anti-Patriarchal, Anti-Assimilationist Gesture Within the Framework of ‘Queer Refusal'”: Angelo Madsen Minax on His Tribeca-premiering North By Current

One of the most thrillingly radical aspects of Angelo Madsen Minax’s astonishing North By Current, which premiered at the Berlinale and now makes its North American debut at Tribeca, is the film’s centering of absence, of its maker’s firm belief in the idea that “a viewer is not entitled to every piece of information.” Minax began shooting North By Current upon his return home to rural Michigan after the death of his niece, a toddler whose passing put Minax’s emotionally fragile sister and her formerly incarcerated husband in the crosshairs of Children’s Protective Services (which in turn led to law enforcement investigating CPS). The life-shattering event also set the stage for another confrontation of sorts, between Minax himself and his Mormon parents who felt themselves still grieving the “loss” of their own child — a girl named Angela who’d transitioned to this stranger with a camera filming in their living room. And yet North By Current staunchly refuses to be about any of this. Instead Minax focuses on the bigger universal picture – love and the change of seasons that we all share. Ultimately, his steadfast withholding of answers allows us to discover deeper ones within ourselves. So to find out how he did (and did not) do it, Filmmaker reached out to the multidisciplinary artist just prior to the doc’s North American premiere (in TFF’s Viewpoints section).

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.