Lambeth Libraries have made the documentary shorts of The Youth and Gender Media Project, an initiative founded by filmmaker Jonathan Skurnik, free to view for library members and invited him to talk on the topic. Skurnik started the project because he wanted children who didn’t conform to ‘gender roles’ to feel valued, the upshot of which is that he was probably the first filmmaker to spread uncritical information about medical and surgical transition for children across North America. He made four films on this subject, as part of the Youth and Gender Media Project, over a ten year period, starting in 2010.
Category: Culture
Q&A with Sam Feder, director of ‘Heightened Scrutiny’
Feder described the first time she met Mila as ‘so organic’. This was at the school board meeting, which appears in the documentary. Feder claimed she attended it as a ‘concerned adult’ and that 12 year old Mila approached her, coming out of the crowd ‘like a parting of the sea’, explicitly telling her: “You have my permission to film me.”
Documentary review: Heightened Scrutiny
Beginning with portentous music and court scenes, Heightened Scrutiny follows the story of pip-squeak lawyer, Chase Strangio, a trans-identified female working for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), as she attempts to persuade the courts – and us – that GnRH agonists are, in fact, life saving healthcare for pre- and -pubescent children. A vast array of talking heads are employed throughout, who are mostly media persons, all onside the trans activist narrative. The main message: Bodily autonomy, first. Of course, the nebulous-sounding ‘trans bodies’ are under attack and the threat of violence and suicide ever present.
Review: Trans Mission – A Solidarity Concert
For the benefit of the Fox Killer’s coffers. My review I came, I saw, I conkered (quite literally the most spelling mistakes evs). Not everyone
In conversation: Petra Lord and Juno Dawson
When Dawson wrote Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, he was looking for a new magical world, because he felt one particular magical world was no longer accessible to him as a trans person (that’s right, a full grown man crying about an author’s personal views outside of her fantasy series). This tragedy lead to him thinking about magical schools which had had a massive influence on his life prior to Hogwart’s, and has realised that The Worst Witch books by Jill Murphy were actually a lot more influential on him. So nurr.
Are you kink curious?
Kink play is an ’emotionally rich’ but ‘confusing terrain’ to be in. This was due to ‘social taboo’, of course, rather than normal psychological responses we experience in response to danger. For example, when engaging in ‘blood play’ and other types of dangerous BDSM, we needed to think ‘about our triggers’ and ‘how to keep things grounded’ (which is a contradiction in terms and surely laying the foundation for making yourself vulnerable to coercion).
The Lies They Tell 
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