I’ll be tabling at Portland Community College’s in-progress screening of G. Chesler’s documentary about the ways trans people have / continue to face the pandemic and experience Long Covid! Find me from 5-6pm before the screening starts, tabling with copies of I’m Having Top Surgery: An Illustrated Guide For You And Me and Covid is a Labor Issue!
Here’s a little bit about the film:
G. Chesler’s new documentary feature presents eight portraits of trans, postgender, and genderqueer people who share their experiences of cultivating, sustaining, and joining communities in this pandemic. These trans community creators center experiences of Asian American people facing violent racism as the pandemic began in late 2019, Black Americans rising in opposition to white supremacist police-state violence in mid 2020, and the exclusion many people who are disabled feel from a society that—despite grave and massive loss—still refuses to habitually protect itself at large.
G. Chesler’s film highlights how COVID-19 and Long COVID have impacted trans people disproportionately. This is not a new story for a community that faces violent loss, less access to health care, criminalization, and whose freedoms are legislatively restricted by transphobes forcefully. But it is one that must be heard and understood. Trans and queer people have built a culture undergirded by mutual aid. This became a model for resilience and care in the pandemic for those who listened.