Jules Rosskam is an American filmmaker, artist, and educator. His films, which include transparent (2005), against a trans narrative (2008), Thick Relations (2012), and Paternal Rites (2018), have helped shape the discussion around transgender narratives in 21st century film. [1] Rosskam is also a noted fine artist, lecturer, and professor. He is currently assistant professor of visual arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. [2]
Jules Rosskam was born in Chicago in 1979 and raised in Philadelphia. In 2001, he received a BA in Visual Arts from Bennington College before moving to New York City where he went on to develop a successful production and editing career working for MTV, The History Channel, Curious pictures, and independent artists and arts organizations like Dyke TV. In 2005, Rosskam became Dyke TV’s Executive Producer, playing a key role in organizing the award-winning cable access show for the queer community. [2]
Rosskam premiered his first feature film, transparent, in 2005 to critical acclaim both domestically and internationally. The documentary explores the experiences of 19 transgender men across the US who have given birth. The film was acquired by Frameline Distribution in 2006, and since then has screened in over 50 film festivals and been broadcast on PBS.
In 2008, after relocating to Chicago to obtain an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Rosskam released his critically acclaimed second feature film, against a trans narrative. The genre-defying experimental documentary weaves interviews with performance and narrative segments, challenging dominant narratives of a monolithic transgender experience.
In 2009, Rosskam released short film Queer Teen Romance, a queer reimagining of the heartfelt after school special in collaboration with artists Sam Feder and Angelo Madsen Minax. Rosskam’s third feature film, Thick Relations (2012), blends narrative and documentary film elements to explore the interrelatedness, intimacy, mourning, joy, and ambiguity in the uncategorizable lives of a queer chosen family.
In 2018, Rosskam released his long-awaited personal essay film, Paternal Rites. A deftly crafted and deeply intimate study on trauma, memory, and family, Paternal Rites combines archival footage, present-day audio interviews, and animation.
Rosskam also released short film Something to Cry About, a touching and humorous documentary centered on three trans-masculine individuals having a good cry, in 2018. His most recent work, Dance, Dance, Evolution, a short documentary investigating transgender people’s shifting relationships to dance, followed in 2019.
Boys Don't Cry is a 1999 American biographical LGBT-related romantic drama film directed by Kimberly Peirce, who also writer with Andy Bienen. The film is a dramatization of the real life story of Brandon Teena, an American trans man who attempts to find himself and love in Nebraska but falls victim to a brutal hate crime perpetrated by two male acquaintances. The film co-stars Chloë Sevigny as Brandon's girlfriend, Lana Tisdel.
Ariel Schrag is an American cartoonist and television writer who achieved critical recognition at an early age for her autobiographical comics. Her novel Adam provoked controversy with its theme of a heterosexual teenage boy becoming drawn into the LGBTQ community of New York. Schrag accepts the label of ‘dyke comic book artist’.
Joey Soloway is an American television creator, showrunner, director and writer. Soloway is known for creating, writing, executive producing and directing the Amazon original series Transparent, winning two Emmys for the show; directing and writing the film Afternoon Delight, winning the Best Director award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival; and producing Six Feet Under.
Alexandra Scott Billings is an American actress, singer, and teacher. Billings, a trans woman, played one of TV's first openly transgender characters in 2005 made-for-TV movie Romy and Michele: In the Beginning. She is also known for portraying the recurring character Davina in the Amazon series Transparent and has played transgender characters in ER, Eli Stone, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy and The Conners.
Transparent is a 2005 documentary film written, directed, and produced by Jules Rosskam. Its title is a play on the words “trans” and “parent” implying the invisibility of transgender parenting in society today. The documentary follows 19 transgender men from 14 different states who have given birth to, and in most cases, gone on to raise, their biological children and the challenges they face while transitioning.
Michelle Handelman is an American contemporary artist, filmmaker, and writer who works with live performance, multiscreen installation, photography and sound. Coming up through the years of the AIDS crisis and Culture Wars, Handelman has built a body of work that explores the dark and uncomfortable spaces of queer desire. She confronts the things that provoke collective fear and denial – sexuality, death, chaos. She directed the ground-breaking feature documentary on the 1990s San Francisco lesbian S/M scene BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes & Sadomasochism(1995), described by IndieWire as “a queer classic ahead of its time, a vital archive of queer history.” Her early work included 16mm black and white experimental films combined with performance. She is also known for her video installations Hustlers & Empires (2018), Irma Vep, The Last Breath (2013-2015), and Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume(2009-2011). In 2011, she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for her film and video work.
Wu Tsang is a filmmaker, artist and performer based in New York and Berlin, whose work is concerned with hidden histories, marginalized narratives, and the act of performing itself. In 2018, Tsang received a MacArthur "genius" grant.
Portrayals of transgender people in mass media reflect societal attitudes about transgender identity, and have varied and evolved with public perception and understanding. Media representation, culture industry, and social marginalization all hint at popular culture standards and the applicability and significance to mass culture, even though media depictions represent only a minuscule spectrum of the transgender group, which essentially conveys that those that are shown are the only interpretations and ideas society has of them. However, in 2014, the United States reached a "transgender tipping point", according to Time. At this time, the media visibility of transgender people reached a level higher than seen before. Since then, the number of transgender portrayals across TV platforms has stayed elevated. Research has found that viewing multiple transgender TV characters and stories improves viewers' attitudes toward transgender people and related policies.
Zackary Drucker is an American multimedia artist, cultural producer, LGBT activist, actress, and television producer. She is an Emmy-nominated producer for the docu-series This Is Me, a consultant on the TV series Transparent, and is based out of Los Angeles. Drucker is an artist whose work explores themes of gender and sexuality and critiques predominant two-dimensional representations. Drucker has stated that she considers discovering, telling, and preserving trans history to be not only an artistic opportunity but a political responsibility. Drucker's work has been exhibited in galleries, museums, and film festivals including but not limited to the 2014 Whitney Biennial, MoMA PS1, Hammer Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Hammer Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Silas Howard is an American film and television director, writer, and actor. His first feature film By Hook or by Crook (2001) co-directed with Harry Dodge is a seminal trans masc feature. Howard earned an MFA in directing at UCLA and is a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow. He began directing episodes during the second season of Transparent, making him the show's first trans director.
Angelica Ross is an American actress, businesswoman, and transgender rights advocate. A self-taught computer programmer, she went on to become founder and CEO of TransTech Social Enterprises, a firm that helps employ transgender people in the tech industry.
Sean Dorsey is a Canadian-American transgender and queer choreographer, dancer, writer and trans rights activist. He is widely recognized as the United States' first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. Dorsey founded his San Francisco-based dance company Sean Dorsey Dance, which incorporates transgender and LGBTQ+ themes into all of their works. Dorsey is also the founder and artistic director of Fresh Meat Productions, a non-profit organization. Fresh Meat Productions creates and commissions new work, presents performing arts programs, conducts education and engagement, and advocates for justice and equity in the Arts. The organization hosts Fresh Meat Festival in San Francisco, an annual festival of transgender and queer performance.
Trace Lysette is an American actress whose most notable roles include Shea in the television series Transparent (2014–2019) and Tracey in the feature film Hustlers (2019). As a trans actress, she also featured in the Netflix documentary Disclosure as herself.
Girl is a 2018 drama film directed by Lukas Dhont, in his feature debut. It was written by Dhont and Angelo Tijssens and stars Victor Polster, in his acting debut, as a trans girl who pursues a career as a ballerina.
Hunter Schafer is an American actress and model. She first made headlines in 2016 with her activism against the North Carolina bill HB2. In 2017, she started modeling for many worldwide fashion brands. She made her acting debut as transgender high school student Jules Vaughn in the HBO teen drama television series Euphoria (2019–present). Since then, she has had roles in Belle (2022), The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023), Cuckoo (2024), and Kinds of Kindness (2024).
Rhys Ernst is an American film producer and director. A trans man, his work explores transgender identity. He is best known for his work on transgender-related television shows, serving as an associate producer on Transparent and the director of its documentary spin-off This is Me. He is also known for his controversial debut feature film Adam.