Queer films and censorship have a long, sordid history. We go way back, farther even than feather boas and trips to Home Depot. It started with the Puritans and religious groups like The Legion of Decency  in the 1920s. Not to be outdone, the government hired its own moral barometer, Will Hays, to be its federally mandated censor, thus starting the era of the Hays Production Code. The code was finally abandoned in 1967, forty years ago, but like all unhealthy relationships, censorship has not gone away. In 1998, local government officials in Seoul, South Korea pulled the plug on the first Queer Film Fest, going so far as to threaten shutting off the electricity if organizers tried to screen the films elsewhere. And just last year in Vancouver, a conservative lobby group petitioned the Department of Canadian Heritage to cut funding to the Vancouver Queer Film Festival because the films were considered “degenerate and degrading to humanity.” But what about here in the U.S., in the supposed bastion of freedom? In addition to the usual religious zealots and right-wing naysayers, we now have a new proponent of censorship: ourselves.

Due to its purportedly transphobic nature, The Gendercator, a short film by Catherine Crouch, which was slated to be screened at Frameline, the LGBT film festival in San Francisco (June 14-24), has become the first film in 31 years to be removed from the festival’s lineup. Pressure from the transgender community, including hundreds of emails, complaints from sponsors and 150 signatures generated from the popular left-leaning blog Left in SF  were sent to the artistic directors of Frameline, Michael Lumpkin and Jennifer Morris, and were integral in the decision not to screen the film. The Gendercator was part of the OUTer Limits program, a science fiction and experimental-themed screening, which is described on their website as follows:

“Tripped-out futuristic lesbians! Sword-wielding S&M nuns! Cannibalism! Trannies in space! Welcome to the outer limits of queer filmmaking in this series of shorts by six experimental, visionary filmmakers clearly weaned on sci-fi and fantasy films.”

The above description doesn’t particularly inspire much critical thought on pressing social issues. But that aside, Frameline’s decision to nix the film after it had been screened, accepted and put in a program with several other trans-themed films, calls into question the reasons for the dismissal of The Gendercator, which resonate more with Crouch’s politics than with her filmmaking. And if not, then why wasn’t the green monster dyke who beats up other lesbians branded internalized homophobia? Why didn’t the notion of queer cannibals raise any ruckus? Because the directors of those films don’t have this statement on their website:

“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.”

If “fostering discussion about female body modification” was Crouch’s ultimate goal, then she succeeded. People are talking about The Gendercator  - The Bay Area Reporter, The New York Blade, countless blogs, press releases, listservs, it even has an entry on Wikipedia - but no one is actually watching the film. As of today, I’m the only person who has formally reviewed it (and it’s actually more of a description than a review. You can read it here). Crouch estimates only about 250 people have seen it, which begs the assumption that the film is being preemptively judged by the negative press surrounding it rather than from the film’s content. As Crouch puts it, “it's a fear of what it is, not the reality of what it is.”

Crouch’s director’s statement falls prey to the liberal feminist idea that transgender people who surgically/chemically alter their bodies are somehow threatening to biologically male/female bodies and that instead of “working to change the world,” they are embracing patriarchal, heteronormative standards and expressions. That these beliefs exist among some lesbian (and straight) circles illustrates that more critical dialogue is necessary within our fractured communities. But the notion that the film itself has been construed as dangerous or having weighty, long-term consequences seems rather exaggerated, especially considering that as a work of art, it’s mediocre at best. In response to her director’s statement, Crouch says, “I don't think my film/statement is transphobic because I don't think it is in any way about the transexual people. The film is to women/about Sally and the statement is from me to women about women.”  While some of Crouch’s opinions are outdated and offensive, the current campaign to stop her film from being screened at future venues (LA's Outfest, Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and the Michigan Womyn’s Musical Festival) is a form of censorship doing little to change these kinds of misconceptions and misunderstandings about trans issues.

A synopsis of the film is as follows:

It’s 1973 and a group of hippie dykes are celebrating Billie Jean King’s victory over Bobby Riggs. The protagonist Sally, who’s a sporty simpleton, passes out under a tree only to awaken 75 years later to discover that sisterhood isn't so powerful after all. Sex roles and gender expression have reverted to caveman times and are enforced by law and medical intervention. Sally’s short hair and tendency to “dig” women make her a target for “gendercation,” which is kind of like compulsory gender reassignment surgery. Tork, a government official and expert gendercator, is put on the case. He informs Sally that gender and sexual conformity are mandatory and that she must choose to be either Jane or Tarzan. A few of Tork’s cronies step in to show Sally what manhood has to offer, namely receding hairlines and beer bellies. Of course, she has no real choice in the matter and is forced to undergo gendercation anyway. But, lo and behold, she’s rescued by some kind of underground lesbian mafia at the last minute. The end.

Crouch says her film is “a science fiction satire, not a prediction of the future but a comment on social phenomenon played out to logical ends. It's not true; it’s exaggerated. I think if you take it literally, that's not what it's meant to convey. I've made several films that address gender, what kind of woman I am, etc. and this is one of those films. It’s based on my own life experiences and story.”

On May 12th, a month before it was supposed to go to Frameline, The Gendercator screened at Chicago Filmmakers in Chicago to an audience of two: Sam Feder and Jules Rosskam, creators of the acclaimed trans documentaries Boy I Am and TransParent. They found the film to be hateful and were part of the impetus to censor the film. Sam Feder says, “While endorsing and aiding the bodily violation of women, the film perpetuates archaic and anti-transgender ideas that trans-people are anti-gay and anti-feminist who conspire with the greater power.” On the Trans Group Blog, Rosskam exclaims, “‘The Gendercator,’ [is] an ignorant, transphobic film by Midwest lesbian director Catherine Crouch that depicts a 1970s ‘feminist’ tomboy who awakens in the 21st century to find that some of her friends have become men. ‘They made me do it. They’ll make you too,’ a transman (referred to by Crouch as an ‘altered lesbian’) tells his friend. Transsexuality is portrayed as the evil that has taken over the world, and as a way to enforce heteronormativity.”

Not to undermine the strong reactions of Feder, Rosskam and other members of the queer community, but to advocate for the film’s removal based on one interpretation of its possible implications is troubling. If opponents of The Gendercator believe that stopping the showing of this film is going to protect the public from themselves, it is a classic case of censorship, and that this response is coming from other queer filmmakers is baffling. If it is in fact the issues the film raises that need to be addressed and not the film itself then why advocate for its removal?

Another question to consider is if it is even applicable or relevant to place literal definitions of transgenderism onto a science fiction spoof and if so, what purpose does it serve? Tork and some of the characters in the film should not be read as transgender at all because identifying them as such implies that they are complicit in their gender modification, which they aren’t. They are part of a fictional, forced government agenda to eradicate all gender and sexual diversity - no butches, no twinks, no trannies, no nothing. If one were to interpret the film literally as a political statement about fear of trans bodies, one would also have to take into account the film’s other explicitly unrealistic elements. For instance, softball has also been eliminated from the dystopian version of society. Should we chalk this up to a fear of organized sports?

Uproars about controversial works by queer filmmakers abound, from the argument that only positive images of queers should be depicted to the use of stereotypes. There are films like Hidden Führer, which explores the relationship between Hitler’s reprehensible deeds and his sublimated sexuality and self-denial. Or Heavenly Creatures, which chronicles the real life story of two teenaged lesbians who brutally murder their mother. Even John Cameron Mitchell’s real sex scenes in Shortbus have generated a good deal of media buzz. But trans people, who have only recently begun to garner greater acceptance from the broader queer community, are perhaps more susceptible to negative or contentious film representations. Queer media portrayals, however, are in no way universal or homogenous. Indeed, they are proof of the complex and variegated ways in which we are capable of expressing ourselves and how relentless we are at trying to incorporate every point of view, evidenced by the ever-growing LGBTIQQ acronym.

A strictly textual reading of the film, not of the filmmaker’s politics, presents an innocuous, somewhat clichéd, B-rated film that is garnering much more attention than it deserves. And advocating for it to be barred from future festivals is, in a way, giving the film greater sway when it would’ve most likely dropped off into obscurity a few months after its festival runs. As Feder says, “Honestly what I think needs to be addressed is WHY people are reacting so strongly - the ISSUES need to be addressed not the film itself” (emphasis hers). I couldn’t agree more, especially when a majority of the arguments surrounding the film begin, “Well, I haven’t seen it but...”

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Anna is a post-Creative Writing major and validation junky. In addition to Dramanonymous, she also writes for dykediva.com, centerstagechicago.com and does film reviews for theaspectratio.net. She uses quotation marks unnecessarily and spends entirely too much time justifying the artistic merit of limericks. You can contact her at