Filmfest reviews: Chica Busca Chica, Her Name Was Steven, Outrage, St. Trinian's at TIGLFF
October 14, 2009 at 6:23 pm by David Warner
Wednesday night, Oct. 14, at the Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival:
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2009/10/14/filmfest-reviews-chica-busca-chica-her-name-was-steven-outrage-st-trinians-at-tiglff/Her Name Was Steven: If you think you know all about Susan née Steven Stanton, the Largo City Manager fired in 2007 after announcing that he was changing gender, think again. This CNN documentary not only recounts the now-familiar saga of his termination by the City Commission, it provides invaluable insight into Stanton's life before and after that turning point. "It's a little more complicated than I initially envisioned," Stanton says early in the transition in what turns out to be a massive understatement. Adopted as a symbol by LGBT groups, she has difficulty identifying with them (and is at one point condemned as a traitor for not standing up more forcefully for transgender rights), and despair leads her at one point to thoughts of suicide. But more vividly than any other account, Dave Timko's film conveys the journey that Stanton went through — from childhood fantasies to first forays into cross-dressing to the trauma of electrolysis and surgery. The film also spotlights a relatively unsung hero: Stanton's teenaged son Travis, whose sweetly unforced acceptance of his father's gender change is pretty damn cool. Wed. Oct. 14, 9:15 p.m., Muvico Baywalk. —David Warner
