By Gretchen Rachel Blickensderfer
In the late 1990s, America Online's ( AOL's ) chat rooms were havens for transgender people to meet and talk with others secure behind the relative anonymity of a screen name. Within that microcosm, there were still plenty of bullies, a fair amount of intolerance ( depending upon which room one visited ) and predators on the hunt for cybersexual or physical prey. However, connections between transgender people could be made, stories shared and even lasting friendships formed.
Both before and during those years ( up until 2013 ), for the most part transgender individuals had been personae non gratae within both mainstream media and entertainment. Their more commonplace appearances in front of a television camera were limited to cannon fodder during the exploitative zenith of the daytime talk show. The more successful films to feature transgender characters depicted them either as subjects to be reviled and feared or opportunities for a few cisgender A-list actors to exchange stereotypical fish-out-of-water belly laughs for their share of the box office.
The unabridged, unenhanced straightforward stories of transgender lives and each of the travails, losses and even the smallest victories contained during their run through the gauntlet of society remained largely untold outside of the Internet.
In April 2012—years after social media had driven its chat rooms into Internet antiquity—AOL unveiled a video platform called the AOL On Network, which offered audiences access to the world in "compelling, timely content that viewers want to watch." Today, AOL On claims 15 channels, with more than 900,000 premium videos that include original content.
Nate Hayden is the vice president of AOL On Originals & Branded Entertainment. "We've built a slate of docu-unscripted content that really centers on authentic voices and remarkable stories," he told Windy City Times. "What it gives us a chance to do is tell a swathe of stories that all have heart, intelligence and a human connection." Those chronicles have included Steve Buscemi's Emmy nominated Park Bench, Gwyneth Paltrow and Tracy Anderson's Restart Project and Sarah Jessica Parker's City Ballet.
One month after the AOL On network began its mission to alter the landscape of streaming entertainment, an unassuming and brilliantly gifted punk artist named Laura Jane Grace changed her world and, finally unshackled, took the stage with Against Me!, the band she had formed in 1997 and unrelentingly drove to significant eminence in the genre. In 2014, according to Billboard, their studio album Transgender Dysphoria Blues was the band's "highest charting album ever."
Hayden recalled that discussions with Grace about her own original series on AOL originated in February 2013 with some network staff members who were fans of the musician. "We came to her and had some discussions about what stories she wanted to tell, what [the project] would evolve into and what it would look like," he said. "Laura told us that 'life is transition; everybody is in transition.' That immediately clicked for us as, not only as the amazing story of her realization and everything she went through, but something so identifiable that even the person who has never even heard of LGBTQ can see the humanity. So we set out to explore the community and, for the first time, pull back the curtains on [that] world."
Shooting on True Trans began when Grace went on the road with Against Me! later that year accompanied by a two-person camera crew helmed by producer/director Austin Reza. The approximately 10-minute episodes intersperse Grace's own story alongside frank discussions with trans* and gender-variant people she meets during the tour on an array of topics including "Coming Out," "Gender Dysphoria" and "Resilience."
"Hearing their stories and then being able to relate myself to it is what I need right now," Grace says in the introduction to each episode/ .
"Laura's motivation for doing [the show] was gaining an understanding by talking to people," Hayden explained. "She wanted to share her story and hear their stories, so we had a lot of conversations with people across the country. What it boiled down to was taking a road map of a person going through transition, finding the benchmarks for most people in that process and grouping them so, during the course of the series, you understand the arc that some people in transition go through."
The deeply personal tales and opinions of transgender individuals who were a part of AOL's world were once contained within the thirty or so members of a chat room. They now reach a potential audience through AOL On that the company estimates at a network total of 70 million. Hayden said True Trans is performing as well as or better than their current slate of original programming.
"It's a fantastic evolution," Hayden stated. "We're able to do what traditional TV can't do and I love that we have been able to bring it back around with our content in order to close that loop a little bit."
Two of Grace's extensive plethora of interviewees are fellow Chicagoans—mixed-martial artist and National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Famer Fallon Fox, and accomplished writer and activist Jen Richards, who, as well as appearing on camera, worked with True Trans producers to find others for Grace to talk with.
"[Laura] is such a lovely person," Richards told Windy City Times. "I wasn't actually familiar with her music prior to her coming out. So I knew her as a newly out trans* woman rather than as a rock star. It made it easy to relate to her and be compassionate to where she was in her journey. When she asked if I would be involved in the show, I said 'absolutely, yes'."
Richards admitted a great deal of skepticism with regards to reality shows and doco-series featuring transgender people. "The thing that made [True Trans] different was Laura's involvement," she said. "There was a sense that I got from everyone I spoke with that they were an extension of her in that they were sweet people. There wasn't a whole lot of education needed on basic trans* issues and they were interested in telling stories from an organic and lived-experience perspective."
However, despite the comprehensive mission of True Trans, one vital story is missing from the show's first season. "I was very explicit in my interview to point out that violence against trans* women disproportionately affects trans* women of color," Richards said. "While I understand that it was a context and time issue, I was really disappointed that there was no mention of race in the episode which dealt with issues of privilege and violence [episode seven]."
With violence against trans* women of color becoming epidemic in nature, Richards hopes that AOL producers will air an unedited version at a future date.
Windy City Times challenged Hayden on the omission. "In the short amount of time we had to do the series, there was so much ground to cover just as a starting point to open people's eyes," he replied. "I do totally understand that there is a need to cover that piece that is happening in the community on a deeper level."
The first season of True Trans concludes at the end of November. Hayden said that, if there is a second season, the issue of violence against trans woman of color could play a more prominent role in the narrative. "We've told the story of what transition is," he said. "If we move into season two, there is an opportunity to talk about what the world of trans* is like."
