Trans representation in Girl

At the Film Fest Gent the film Girl by Lukas Dhont had its grand premiere with a rainbow carpet and a benefit for Transgender Infopunt on the 9th of October. Nora Monsecour, the 22 (or maybe 23 in the meantime) year old young woman whose life inspired this film and who was actively involved in the making of it, hoped the film would start a debate about ongoing transgender issues.

That's a very good idea! So let's start a debate about trans representation. Starting from this article recently published in the US concerning Girl's future release on Netflix. 'Cause the bitter, badly informed article on BeOut appears not to be concerned with analyzing the claim why fake SJWs on Twitter think it's transphobic. I say "fake SJWs" because Girl isn't even out on Netflix yet (nope, not even in the US). These social media hysterics are solely basing their anger on Into's article written by Mathew Rodriguez (check the dates: the shitstorm about Girl only started after Rodriguez' article appeared), who saw it on TIFF in September. It seems most of these hysterics aren't very internet-savvy, or maybe they're just trolling their way through puberty (which is kinda the same).

Trans Trauma Porn?

I was somewhat reluctant to link to Into's article above, but I will for the sake of debate. Rodriguez undeniably has no clue of the fact this film is inspired by someone's actual life (or, if he has, it's bad writing not to mention it in the article, since it would've been relevant to the subject matter). Also, his call-out at trans people telling them not to watch it, is downright paternalistic. But at the same time, there is something wrong with Girl. Something neither Belgian or international media and film festivals, blinded by the "trans trauma porn" as Rodriguez is rightfully calling it, are picking up on (except in the next to last paragraph of the review in ZiZo). And it's not just about the fact that Lola, the trans girl in the film, is played by a cis boy.

After I saw the film, I tweeted it lacked psychosocial depth and was too shallow. Now I want to explore that critique a bit more. Because Girl reminded me of the gay trauma films I saw as a teenager (like Brokeback Mountain, Head On, Un año sin amor, C.R.A.Z.Y. and Philadelphia). Films that were, from a narrative point of view, very touching and recommendable, but from a representative point of view they had a bad effect on my idea of what "real gay life" was like: full of emotional suffering, living in hiding and escaping into clandestine sex. The more I talked and read about Girl, the more I realized this film is actually doing something similar for trans people. 'Cause we are talking representation here. Why else make such a big fuss of the trans-aspect in both Cannes (Queer Palm) and at the FFG?

Even more so, Nora explicitly stated in an interview: "Ik ben ook heel blij dat de film aan jongeren vertoond wordt, want ik heb nooit zoiets gehad in mijn leven. Ik heb nooit naar een film kunnen kijken die exact weergaf hoe zo'n transgender personage zich moet voelen." Waw, the privilege of being depicted in a film transformed into paternalism rather fast here: a film that "exactly reflects how a transgender should feel"? Okay, she's in her early twenties and obviously had a very traumatic adolescence, so we can understand where this well-intended paternalism is coming from - give her some slack. But thinking this is a reflection of a common transgender experience, needs to be objected immediately before this false assumption that Girl is representative gets hold on people. This is how teachers, politicians, parents, journalists and other influential people create and sustain bad stereotype's. Nora's life is unique, and it has given her experience and wisdom at an early age, but it did not give her the right to suggest this is representative in any way. Before we know it politicians will be using her story to spread this false idea of how transgender experiences are, which is frustratingly counterproductive.

Being trans doesn't mean your life's representative for all (or even most) trans people

The thing is, in trauma films like this, the psychosocial aspects of a person's life are reduced to just one part of their identity. In this case: bodily discomfort. We all know how repressive it can feel to be reduced to only one part of our identity, and I assume it is even harder for trans (as well as intersex) people exactly because cis physicality is constantly reinforced as being "normal" (correct me if I'm making a false assumption here). Physicality, unlike sexual preference, is visible - it might explain the urge of many trans people to "look as cis as possible" (just like many gay people feel the urge to "act as straight as possible"). Non-binaric thinking and queer empowerment could've brought some solace here, but unfortunately, they didn't seem to be a part of Nora's adolescent life yet.

When you see this one part of your identity at center stage in a film, like Girl, it feels too reductionist, too superficial, too essentialist. It's as if the film narrows your life experience into one part of your identity and presents it as "the trans reality". Plain and simple. Just like "the gay reality" in gay trauma films completely distorted my view on how life as a gay man is like. Again, plain and simple. But so, so, so very distorted.

And yet Nora herself sees it as follows: "Voor mij was het heel belangrijk dat de transgender-thematiek als iets normaals en neutraals wordt weergegeven. In de media wordt het transgender-zijn soms als een soort circusact opgevoerd. Ik vond het heel belangrijk dat we een diepere kijk gaven op een leven van een transgender jongere. Dat is in Girl perfect weergegeven." Well, sorry to say, but this "deeper approach" to being trans, is something only Nora, the person that actually went through this particular experience, can fully grasp. She can fill in the blanks, the nuance and the ambiguity because she lived through it.

Nora is, in other words, too closely involved to see it actually is not a "perfect depiction" of being trans. It's her depiction of being trans. Which might be perfect for her, it is not for most other trans people. By suggesting it is, she's giving cis people the go-ahead to think this is good trans representation; in the meantime neglecting to stress the fact it is cishets who are responsible for a lot of gender dysphoria. Confusing a perfect depiction of being trans with your own depiction of being trans seems like a very egocentric thing to do.

Body dysmorphia or gender dysphoria?

Girl is a film that, for the bigger part, doesn't bring the psychosocial experiences most trans people have in common to the screen (like gender dysphoria). Instead, it focuses on a highly individual experience: an obsessive focus on the body caused by an all-consuming passion for ballet, which is reinforced through an (assumed, not factual!) common trans experience. The problem with this, apart from finding a young trans ballerina (which they didn't), is that this highly individual experience resembles body dysmorphia more than it does gender dysphoria. Something I really hope the endocrinologist Guy T'Sjoen pointed out on the Q&A at the FFG (but I don't know, I wasn't there). Otherwise we're just affirming the conservative, alt-right position that all transgender people are sick and suffer from BDD. As such, Girl can magnify transphobia rather than reduce it. So yes, it can come across as transphobic to trans people. Not because they're oversensitive cry-babies, but because a film like this reinforces the idea they're mentally sick. Wouldn't you be fucking pissed off about that? Or is it only okay for straight, white, cis men to bitch about things?

Nora pointed out that we shouldn't forget trans people are human like all of us, not just transgender. Although I wholeheartedly agree, and I am really glad she doesn't victimize herself, Girl is not helping in bringing this point across. For the average cis, straight person who saw this movie, trans people now seem to suffer from BDD rather than gender dysphoria.

So while the story might be based on someone's actual life, the obsessive focus on the body during the whole film is not extrapolatable to trans people in general. Just like the obsessive craving for sex or the bullying because of flamboyant traits are not extrapolatable to gay people in general (most gay trauma porn is about those so-called common experiences). Since it's mostly cis people watching the film, possibly having an epiphany about "the trans experience" after seeing it, this is rightfully labeled "trans trauma porn". Dramatic art cinema is mostly an exaggeration of life, highlighting aspects of it because of practical and narrative reasons, but isn't it doing more harm than good exactly because of that? Exactly because it exploits an extremely traumatic life story for artistic goals? If Girl wasn't promoted and used in a way that openly seeks to represent trans people, I wouldn't mind this as much. But this needs to be contradicted. It's so clearly about more than a trans girl being visible. It's about this trans girl being representative. Which she's not.

Cis point-of-view, not trans point-of-view

Cis people might go home thinking about how hard trans people's life is, hoping their kids won't have to face such difficulties. They're not realizing they are (often unknowingly) the ones making trans people's life so hard by asking when the sex-change operation is (already assuming there will be one), repeating they don't make a big deal out of it so trans people shouldn't either (forgetting their privilege), focusing on female and masculine traits (reaffirming cis normativity), associating jobs, skills and emotions with biological sex (confusing statistics with causality), trying to find out what their "original" sex or name is (social illiteracy), etc. They've not been confronted with the fact that being cis is just one possible way of being. A way which we have priviliged for centuries on end through very strict definitions of what femininity and masculinity are supposed to be or look like.

The traumatic experience of Girl gets assimilated into the cis' view on the world: trans people are having a hard time because of who they are, not because of how cis people talk and act. It doesn't make cis people reflect on how they themselves maintain a binary world, which they are policing every day. This binary world not only forces trans people into a figurative straitjacket, but makes cis people act in disciplinary and obedient ways towards their own gender as well. Seeing a total lack of this awareness in the film, it should come as no surprise that the director is cis himself.

Girl might not be representative, alternatives do exist

We need to stress the fact that representation through only one film is impossible, so we need to stop pretending (and expecting) it can be. That being said, we also need to acknowledge that Girl is the kind of representation that depicts the opposite of what trans awareness is trying to achieve: it's actively creating and sustaining a stereotype ("the body-tormented trans person") based on a dangerous entanglement between body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria. It's like depicting gay people as degenerates, as they so often did throughout the 1970s and 1980s. LGBT+ communities should learn from their past instead of allowing the same mistakes to be made again. We've already turned our backs towards trans communities more than enough.

If you're looking for more interesting, empowering and inspiring depictions of trans people, try the shorts by Jake Graf (like Dawn), Calamity, Tonight It's Me and Prisoner of Society, films like Una mujer fantástica, Tomboy, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Saturday Church, Morrer como um homem, 52 Tuesdays, Nånting måste gå sönder, Tangerine and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, docs like Paris Is Burning and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson and series like Transparent and Sense8. Of course, this is coming from a cis man, so I might project wrongly. If that's the case, please don't hesitate to dispute my (bad) view on trans depictions.