King’s Documentary Screening of Trans Movie Draws Mixed Reviews
Jennifer Lahl and Kallie Fell, two documentarians who have worked as nurses, created the documentary Trans Mission: What’s the Rush to Reassign Gender? The filmmakers screened the documentary at King’s, hosted by Dr. David Talcott, on Thursday, Sept. 30.
Two filmmakers presented their new film to the King's community — only to draw the ire of LGBTQ students who attended the event.
King’s invited documentarians Jennifer Lahl and Kallie Fell from San Francisco to present their 50-minute documentary Trans Mission: What’s the Rush to Reassign Gender? in the City Room on Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021 — arguing against transitional, sex reassigning procedures for people under the age of 18.
Emily Henry, PPE senior at King’s who identifies as part of the LGBTQ community, asked Lahl and Fell if they had any access to currently-identified trans adults mentioned in the documentary by their parents. She expressed sentiment that the documentary had been biased against transgender children and adults — in which she was met with Lahl’s response, “I don’t think it’s biased at all, it’s just a point of view.”
“There is no space for queer people to exist publicly at King’s, which makes hosting events like this even more dangerous,” Henry said. “I don’t expect them to agree with queer theory — I just expect them to respect the existence of queer people.”
Hosted by Dr. Talcott, professor of ethics and philosophy at King’s, the film argued against access to transitional medicine for children.
“Sexuality and sexual identity are major areas of cultural confusion today, so I hope we will have many more events at Kings that equip students for faithful Christian thinking and living in this important area of life,” Dr. Talcott said.
The description on the YouTube video where the film is available has the main hashtag #DeTransMission — promoting an idea that transitional medical procedures do more harm than good.
“This issue came to us,” Lahl said, in reference to her previous work in bioethics related to surrogacy. Along with this film, she has also shown three other films to King’s students — one being Breeders: A Subclass of Women?
The Trans Mission documentary did not feature a single person of color or a single interview with someone who currently identifies as transgender and has had a positive transitioning experience.
“I would have liked to see more ethnic diversity among the sources interviewed because, as we talk a lot about at King’s, our physical, embodied experiences give us different perspectives that enrich the conversation,” Aberdeen Livingstone, King’s RTS junior, said. “I’m sure different communities are all affected a little differently by this issue and their perspectives would help deepen the discussion.”
Although, Livingstone did appreciate the content of the documentary, saying, “Transgenderism overall is such a complex topic that it would be foolish and probably hurtful to try to discuss every angle of the issue in one documentary.”
Taylor Chick, JCS senior who identifies as queer at The King’s College, organized a group on Instagram prior to the event, encouraging students who affirm transgender identities to come wearing the colors of the transgender flag — light pink, light blue and white.
“As someone who uses she/they pronouns, this film was very heartbreaking,” Chick said.
Repeatedly during the film, transgender people were misgendered. Their “dead name,” or name pre-transition that was described as their “made up name” in the film, was used frequently by certain subjects. In an interview with multiple parents with trans children, the parents expressed remorse for the “loss” of their children.
“We’re born male or female,” Lahl said. “We’re pediatric nurses.”
Both Lahl and Fell have experience as nurses that they used to base their research off of. The documentary primarily focused on the long term health effects of children using testosterone or estrogen — and was meant to be shown to parents, according to Lahl and Fell.
During the Q&A portion of the event, many students outwardly expressed both remorse and gratitude that the documentary was made available to King’s students.
PPE junior, Emma Claire Smith, spoke about her own experience with a transgender child in her family, expressing that the child’s transition correlated with major health issues that reduced the child’s lifespan.
“I’d prefer to keep my cousin’s story impersonal and private — partly out of respect for the family but also because I don’t know the full scope of her story,” Smith said. “But I thought the documentary did a great job portraying a part of the transgender movement that is not often told. While one does have bodily autonomy, what you do with your body still impacts others.”
The documentary presented the point of view of parents unhappy with their child’s decision to transition and of transgender people who chose to detransition.
Screenshot from the film, describing the nature of cancel culture surrounding trans identities.