The first thing you notice about Trans in Trumpland, a four-part docuseries from Iranian-American filmmaker, Tony Zosherafatain, is the absence of a certain former president: Donald J. Trump.
Streaming now on Topic, the series takes viewers on a road trip across the country, revealing the implications of Trump’s policies on real trans lives from North Carolina to Texas, Mississippi to Idaho. Through the former president’s absence, Zosherafatain’s film presents its subjects as more than abstracted symbols of the fight for trans rights.
They appear as fully realized people, not simply survivors of everything from the notorious HB2 “bathroom bill,” to the erasure of healthcare protections, but people who go to church, create community, and seek pleasure in the wide, open lands of America. What a relief it is to see trans people finally take center stage in the telling of their stories.
One of those subjects is Ash, a 17-year-old trans boy with brilliant red hair and he/him pronoun buttons attached to his vest. In his episode, which takes place in the suburbs of North Carolina, Ash tells the story of his first day of high school. “The first thing I saw was my dead name on the class seating chart,” he shares, “I wanted to end my life.”