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: Film
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.
Film Review: Afterlives
Normally I only write about the transgender issue, but in the case of Afterlives I’ve had to make an exception, because, although it might have its heart in the right place, its head in so many wrong places, it’s mind blowing.
On a positive note, director Kevin B. Lee, chose an interesting aesthetic for the film, using his desktop to interact with film clips and his chosen talking heads, which works. What doesn’t work, however, is his piss-poor analysis of why violence indoctrinates. He starts in the right place, looking at the example of ISIS’s ‘blockbuster’ recruitment video – Flames of War – analysing it frame by frame, creating entries in a spreadsheet.
Review of documentary – Love & Rage: Munroe Bergdorf
The director of the film, Olivia Cappuccini, thanked Bergdorf for letting her into his world, which was the ‘epitome of freedom’. Bergdorf was someone we should be grateful to be in the presence of, for the joy and euphoria Bergdorf imparts onto this world was unique. Such gibberish was a sure sign the documentary was not only going to be illiterate, but also a masterclass in arse-licking.
Review of documentaries: Trans Memoria & Everywhere I Look
Introduction I returned to the BFI’s Flare Festival 2025, which is now forty years old (it began life, of course, as a lesbian and gay
The Lies They Tell 
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