ComingOutCinema continues its series of LGBT movies. Last Saturday, November 15 2008, we have touched upon the issue of transgender.

Note: transgender – сcollective term denoting the phenomenon of discordance of one’s social (gender) role with one’s biological sex. There are two main types of this phenomenon: transsexuals - persons considering themselves to represent the opposite sex; and cross-dressers (transvestites) - persons with necessity to dress in opposite sex’s clothes and play a respective opposite gender’s role. Some psychologists also include androgynes, bi-gender persons and hermaphrodites in this category.

THe choice of the topic for the movie is no accident – November 20 is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, dedicated to those victims of xenophobia towards the transgender people. On that day, various human rights, feminist and LGBT organizations of the world carry out street manifestations, lectures, seminars and traditional candle lighting. The purpose of these events is to attract world’s society attention to the fact that transgender people fall victims of violence and psychological pressure much more often compared to other minority groups.

At the entrance to the movie hall, the audience saw the installation of black painting and lit candles dedicated to the memory of transgender Cleopatra, violently murdered on September 7 of this year in St. Petersburg. This tragedy has shown that LGBT issues in our city remain pressing and acute social conflicts.

And once again, all seats in the movie hall were occupied - we have gathered around 100 persons, only about half of which was present at the pervious show. Such popularity illustrates the relevance of the project and gives hope that this undertaking could be further developed.

KinoVykhod has shown two Russian features:

●I Am a Woman, directed by Natalia Zhuravleva, documentary, 2003, Russia, 19 minutes. Stalker Film Festival has awarded this feature a prize of the Royal Embassy of the Netherlands, “for height and purity of moral views”.

The movie’s main character is a regular provincial woman. We see her with a backdrop of everyday life moments: cows in the barn, haystacks, teasing boys running. Stop. This is where we realize the unbearable village life of this pleasant young woman, (and daughter of a passionate communist to make matters worse) who happened to be a transsexual. The merit of the director, treading in dangerous and problematic waters is in keeping her confidential tone along with the composed mood like her character. In fact, her main character is completely opposite to that widely popularized shocking image, aiming mainly at shock and provocation. She wants nether to shock nor to provoke us. During hr life she is merely trying to fix the mistake of nature, understanding however, that i is practically unachievable. This is why she only can live fully in her sleep.

● The Alien Body, directed by Maksim Zirin, documentary, 2008, Russia, 47 minutes. This feature was shown on October 4, 2008 at the closed show of the Side by Side 1st International LGBT Festival, where it acquired the Audience’s Sympathy prize.

Hw would you feel if every day, looking at yourself in the mirror, you would see a completely different person, not the one, which you feel yourself to be on the inside? Conflicts with relatives, lack f understanding in society, deserting friends and constant thoughts of suicide - this is but a part of what a person deciding to change his sex is going through. The film The Alien Body tells the stories of those who have been living new lives for a long time, in which only the closest friends or relatives know their secrets. It also has stories of those who recently realized what is going on with them. Who are the transsexuals and what do they have to go through to come to themselves?

After the show there was a discussion of the transgender phenomenon in present day’s Russia. The discussion moderators were the chairman of the board of Vykhod, Valery Sozaev, and invited guests included Polina, MtF-transsexual; Sergey, the organizer of the International DanaFest, Elena Ioffe, assistant professor of the Psychology department of Herzen University, the member of the Gender Relations Psychology laboratory, Dmitry Isaev, and the head of the Clinical Psychology department of St. Petersburg Medical Academy. The topic attracted a lot of interest, since the very issue of transgender is lesser known even among LGBT. We discussed the modern notions of a transgender phenomenon, statistics in Russia; recommendations for surgical or hormonal correction, as well as the current situation with legal groundwork of such manipulations and status of transsexual persons, issues of psychological monitoring of LGBT and problems of this nature.

The organizers extend their thanks to Natalia Zhuravleva and Maxim Zirin for lending the films, guests and participants of the round table for the discussion and all who attended, especially those who participated in an after-movie discussion.

As always, we will be looking forward to seeing you again at our next show on November 22, at 6 PM.

Download: Transgender Day of Remembrance flyer

By Petr Voskresenski.

This material was take in part from the website www.bok-o-bok.ru