Drew Burnett Gregory is back at Sundance bringing daily updates on the best of LGBTQ+ cinema and beyond. Follow along for more coverage or read her review of Heightened Scrutiny below.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t know about transness. But I did know I cared deeply about gay rights. I watched the results of California’s prop 8 banning gay marriage like a personal loss. I made a PSA for my high school about anti-gay bullying. I launched a failed campaign to get a gay assembly speaker during our opposite-of-radical Acceptance Week.
That failure sunk me into a deep depression. I’d spent weeks meeting with my school principal, going door-to-door to classrooms to pitch every teacher on signing my petition. I even used my knowledge from stats class to put together a survey that would prove anti-gay bullying was an issue at our school. None of this was enough. It was still deemed too controversial. Exhausted and sleep-deprived and totally without hope, I got the flu and missed several weeks of school.
Sam Feder’s documentary Heightened Scrutiny is about Chase Strangio in the months leading up to his historic argument in front of the Supreme Court this past December. It’s also about a 12-year-old trans girl named Mila who speaks up on behalf of herself and other trans kids during a school board meeting and then gives a speech to a supportive crowd outside the Supreme Court on that historic day.
This has been a very hard week to be trans as Trump has announced daily executive orders targeting our lives. I’m not a cryer — maybe blame my Capricorn sun, maybe blame hiding emotions as a survival tactic during my “male” adolescence — but I spent most of Heightened Scrutiny crying into the arms of my partner. I especially cried when Mila was on-screen.
It just felt so unfair. Every time a child speaks up at a school board meeting or to a state legislature, the internet applauds their bravery, using this child as a beacon of hope for the next generation. But they shouldn’t have to be brave! They shouldn’t be our beacon of hope! They should be allowed to just be kids.
I know I’m projecting. I know I’m doing another version of the very thing I’m criticizing. But I can’t help but remember how damaging it was to fight for my rights as a kid even when I didn’t know they were mine. I was praised as precocious, praised for my tenacity, but inside I just felt so lonely and scared.
Even though he’s a famous adult lawyer, I also felt angry on behalf of Chase. I’m so grateful for the work he does, so grateful for his willingness to go into court and respond to stupid, bad faith arguments. But alongside that gratitude is an anger, an albeit immature anger at the not-fairness of how prepared he has to be while his opponents get to be clueless. I have never quite moved on from my adolescent view of right and wrong, my frustration with a world that operates on greed and hate rather than empathy and logic.
Alongside these dual portraits of Chase and Mila, the film also does an excellent job breaking down how we got to this moment in anti-trans discourse and debunking several anti-trans talking points. Interviews with journalists and cultural figures reveal the journalistic malpractice of publications like The New York Times and The Atlantic and how their faulty reporting has led to the right-wing attack on trans lives.
I hope this documentary is viewed by people with the potential for sympathy who have been brainwashed by these very same publications. And, as a trans person, there’s a comfort in hearing the facts laid out so clearly and with such feeling.
As I cried to my partner after the film, talking about Mila and Chase and my own adolescence, they reminded me of Mila’s supportive mom, of her supportive little brother, of her supportive friends, of the moment outside the Supreme Court when she’s smiling and dancing to Charli XCX. They reminded me that they have Chase as a friend, as a mentor, as a trans adult to look up to and see how happy and powerful and steadfast we can be. It’s not fair that Chase has to take on this visibility and fight in a broken system. It’s not fair that Mila has to argue on behalf of her rights as a child. But the loneliness I recall from my own childhood and adolescent fights is nowhere on display in this film. Mila has a strong community. And even trans kids who aren’t as lucky can still watch Chase on TV.
It’s not enough. This is still a scary time. As lawyers, as journalists, as people, we are fighting losing battles. But Heightened Scrutiny is a reminder that we have each other. We don’t have to fight alone.
Heightened Scrutiny will be released later this year. While you wait, read this article to better argue on behalf of trans rights.
