Latest news with #SamFeder
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Frameline To Host California Premiere Of ‘Heightened Scrutiny' As Trump Administration Sharpens Assault On Trans Rights
President Trump's first 100 days in office have been marked by a concerted effort to stigmatize trans people and deny them rights. A week after re-entering the White House he issued an executive order banning transgendered people from enlisting or serving in the U.S. military (last month, a federal judge blocked that order, declaring it 'soaked in animus'). In January, Trump also signed an executive order 'directing federal agencies to withhold funds from medical providers and institutions that provide gender-affirming medical treatments for people under 19,' according to the ACLU, which is suing to overturn that directive. On his very first day back in the Oval, Trump signed an executive order that has prompted the State Department to stop issuing passports with accurate sex designations for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people. The ACLU is suing to overturn that directive as well. More from Deadline Director Sam Feder's 'Heightened Scrutiny' Follows Supreme Court Battle For Trans Rights Led By History-Making Chase Strangio — Sundance Studio At Sundance, Ayo Edebiri, Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Russell Tovey & More Talk Need For LGBTQ Representation Amid Trump 2.0: 'We Have To Stay Visible' Eriq La Salle To Direct First Episode Of CBS' 'FBI' Offshoot Series 'CIA' Starring Tom Ellis For these reasons and more, the new documentary Heightened Scrutiny arrives at a critical moment. Today, Frameline – the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival – announced it will host the California premiere of Sam Feder's film at the 49th edition of the festival. The documentary, which centers on ACLU civil rights lawyer Chase Strangio's legal battle against anti-trans laws, features appearances from Oscar-nominated actor and activist Elliot Page; drag queen, artist, and activist Miss Peppermint; journalist and editor Phillip Picardi; and Emmy winner and activist Laverne Cox (who also serves as executive producer). 'Heightened Scrutiny also explores how uninformed media narratives impact the public's understanding of trans rights,' according to a release. The premiere will take place June 20, the first Friday of Frameline49. The festival runs June 18-28, a highlight of Pride Month. 'I first went to Frameline in the early 2000s and was immediately inspired to be a filmmaker. With this catalyst, I made my first feature in 2006, and since then my films have been indebted to the bold, sometimes risky, choices and craft that I witnessed at the festival,' Feder said in a statement. 'Our goal is to use Heightened Scrutiny in solidarity with, and for coalition building among, all movements of oppressed peoples. Our team is so grateful for Frameline's support at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are so viciously under attack.' Frameline49 announced a unique Pay-It-Forward initiative in conjunction with the premiere of Heightened Scrutiny. 'Members of the queer community and allies will be able to purchase tickets on behalf of others, ensuring that no trans or nonbinary attendees will have to pay to watch the film or be in community.' 'We're asking our audience and allies to show up and take real, tangible action,' commented Allegra Madsen, Frameline's executive director. 'Paired with the First Friday Party, Heightened Scrutiny really captures the spirit of Frameline49 by centering on both queer resilience and joy. With resources and support for LGBTQ+ people drying up, queer people have to show up for each other and, in particular, trans folks. When I think of using the past as a roadmap for navigating the challenges ahead, it's clear that community care, in all its forms, is the answer.' Last year, Strangio – the heart of the documentary – became the first openly trans person to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. That case — United States v. Skrmetti – centers on the state of Tennessee's ban on transgender medical care for people under the age of 18, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Strangio, a staff attorney for the ACLU, argued the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A decision from the conservative-dominated court could be handed down in June. 'The 14th Amendment is one of the Reconstruction amendments,' Strangio told Deadline at the Sundance Film Festival, where Heightened Scrutiny held its world premiere. 'We have the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments that come to the Constitution after the end, the formal end, or the supposed end to chattel slavery. And the purpose of these amendments is to bestow rights on everyone. And you can see increasingly how there are incursions into that. The overturning of Roe v. Wade; we can see within the 24 hours of coming into office, President Trump decides that he's going to end birthright citizenship. That is a bedrock in the text of the 14th Amendment. And this, too, is a question about whether or not equal protection of the law is going to mean equal protection for everyone.' Strangio added, 'If the court says that states can attack trans people, take away our healthcare with really no justification at all, then that is going to come for everyone — the right to contraception, the right to marriage equality.' The documentary – a recipient of Frameline's 2025 Completion Fund Grant — will screen at the American Conservatory Theater's (ACT) Toni Rembe Theater on June 20. The screening will be followed by Frameline49's First Friday Party at Charmaine's (the Proper Hotel's rooftop bar on Market Street). 'This is an up-to-the-minute documentary that's unfolding in real time,' Madsen, Frameline's ED, added. 'Regardless of the outcome of this case, it's important that we have space to be in community with one another — to show that no matter what queer joy is an unstoppable force.' Additional information on Frameline49's screening of Sam Feder's film:DIR Sam Feder 2025 USA 89 min A salient document of our current moment, Disclosure director Sam Feder's Sundance standoutcenters on ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, the first out trans person to argue before the Supreme Court. While Strangio fights a high-stakes legal battle to overturn Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth (United States v. Skrmetti), he and other leading activists, like Laverne Cox and Elliot Page, examine how media bias influences the public's perception of trans rights. Pay-It-Forward + Ticketing Info An actively unfolding case, United States v. Skrmetti's decision will likely be announced during Frameline49. As a community, we are bearing witness. No matter the results, we need to be in a room together. Feder's timely documentary not only provides an opportunity to gather in the same space, it also gives us a moment to show up for each other. When you buy a ticket to the screening of Heightened Scrutiny and/or the First Friday Party, you can participate in our Pay-It-Forward initiative by purchasing tickets for others. Our goal is that no trans or nonbinary person will pay to see the film and be in community. Note: Trans or nonbinary attendees must still reserve a space to see the film by selecting the complimentary ticket option and completing the standard checkout process. 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The Guardian
28-01-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘A reminder that we can resist': hard-hitting documentary takes aim at anti-trans rhetoric
A new documentary at the Sundance film festival delves into the fight to preserve access to gender-affirming care for minors via the US supreme court, with a major decision due in June 2025, and details the mainstream media's role in legitimizing anti-trans legislation. Heightened Scrutiny, directed by Sam Feder, argues that the fear-based ideology underlying bans on hormone therapy or puberty blockers for minors has been pushed not only by conservative activists but center-left publications such as the New York Times, the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal, whose articles have fixated on surgery, potential regret or risks. As the film notes, such therapies, with the same side effects and risks, are prescribed for other conditions and only raise alarms when applied to trans youths, and the rate of 'detransitioning' is less than 1%. Feder addressed the precarious moment for trans youths in the US – as of 2024, 23 states passed such measures, part of the standards of care endorsed by every major medical association in the country, up from zero in 2021 – as he introduced the film in Park City on Sunday, referring to his previous Sundance premiere, the 2020 documentary Disclosure, on the history of trans representation on screen. 'When we were here five years ago with Disclosure, we never could've imagined where we'd be today. And in particular, how the mainstream press has impacted the anti-trains legislation that we're seeing passed across the country,' he said. 'So Heightened Scrutiny is our response to that.' The 85-minute film focuses, in part, on efforts to fight the bans in the US courts. Feder follows Chase Strangio, a lawyer for the ACLU, as he prepares for oral arguments for US v Skrmetti, becoming the first openly trans attorney to argue before the supreme court. Strangio represents three trans youths and their parents in Tennessee, who argue that the state's ban on accessing gender-affirming healthcare violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment because of sex-based discrimination. The upcoming decision will have sweeping implications for trans youth across the country; the Human Rights Campaign estimates that 39.4% of trans youth in the US live in a state with some ban on gender-affirming care. The film also explores the ideological underpinnings of these bans beyond the conservative movement which views trans people as a target of the culture wars, along with books, vaccines, critical race theory and other 'woke' concerns. Media figures such as Jelani Cobb, Lydia Polgreen, Gina Chua, Samantha Irby and many others, as well as actor Peppermint and actor/producer Laverne Cox outline the surge of mainstream media coverage in the past decade questioning the legitimacy of gender-affirming care and fixating on the trans minority – about 3 million people, or 1% of the population – with particular focus on the New York Times. The film criticizes such articles as They paused puberty, but is there a cost? published on the New York Times front page in 2022, a 2019 Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled The transgender war on women and the 2018 Atlantic cover story When children say they're trans, by Jesse Singal. That cover included headlines for other, less highly billed stories, including We're not prepared for the next pandemic – the implication being, according to film subjects, that the issue of gender-affirming care was viewed as more eye-catching and pressing than pandemic preparedness. As one participant noted, there have been more articles framing trans people being a threat instead of trans people being threatened. Those articles were cited, some at length, in various legal defenses upholding state bans in court. 'There's a direct link to how our lives are discussed in the media and the formation of laws,' says Strangio in the film, which also includes an example from the Guardian. Lawyer Alexia Korberg refers to the trend as the new 'pipeline' from publication to legal defenses for bans – one New York Times op-ed titled As kids, they thought they were trans. They no longer do, by Pamela Paul, who once wrote a column in defense of vocally anti-trans author JK Rowling, was quoted in chunks by the state of Idaho in their defense of a law criminalizing gender-affirming care for trans youth, just six days after publication. 'When our identity becomes an ideology, then it becomes something that you can debate,' said Feder of the coverage after the film's premiere. 'I want people to understand the power that mainstream media has in creating pubic rhetoric, which has a direct impact on litigation.' The film also connects the arguments put forth for the bans – 'looking out' for the children, concern over the difficult road ahead and what is the 'best' environment for a child – to the logic underpinning bans on interracial marriage, which the supreme court overturned in 1967. During the arguments for US v Skrmetti, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson made the same comparison: 'Some of these questions … sound very familiar to me, [such as] the arguments made back in the day, the 50s and 60s, with respect to racial classifications.' Jackson added: 'I'm worried that we're undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases.' Jackson is in the court's liberal minority; the conservative-led court appears poised to uphold Tennessee's law when a decision is released in June 2025, overturning decades of civil rights precedent, even as the state of Tennessee relies on testimony from doctors rebuked by other judges as 'conspiratorial', 'deeply biased', 'far off' and deserving 'very little weight'. But Feder and Strangio expressed hope that better information will still make an impact. 'The judges are not immune to public discourse,' said Feder. 'And so the more we talk about it, the more people understand that the healthcare for human beings is being decided by nine people. And the more the country, the more the press, hopefully, will pick up on the fact that it is an inhumane concept. We hope maybe that the judges will hear that.' The film, Strangio added, is 'a reminder that we can resist, and it's a reminder that we have a role to play in being critical thinkers about the information that we're absorbing every day'. Heightened Scrutiny is screening at the Sundance film festival and is seeking distribution
Los Angeles Times
28-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The future of trans lives and laws explored in ‘Heightened Scrutiny'
Sam Feder and Chase Strangio stopped by the L.A. Times Studios @ Sundance Film Festival presented by Chase Sapphire Reserve to talk about their documentary, 'Heightened Scrutiny' and how media coverage of trans issues has affected the lives, and laws, of trans people.
