For most of his life, Jose Trujillo believed the United States was where his family’s future would be built.
naturalized citizens born in MexicoTrujillo spent years making his case. transgender My son Daniel is currently 17 years old. He attended a Congressional hearing. he spoke in public. He joins other parents in fighting to ensure that transgender youth receive gender-affirming care and basic legal protections.
by the end fathersa new feature-length documentary executive produced by NBA Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, features The Trujillo Family Gone – one of the first families to be completely expatriated on film.
“We realized it was no longer safe for our family,” Trujillo says in the film. “It wasn’t safe for Daniel anymore.”
His wife Lisette names the terror that ultimately drove them out. It means that gender-affirming care can be criminalized retroactively, and that a husband’s citizenship can be used as a weapon against him. “What if they criminalized caregiving and then said to my husband, ‘Your child has been receiving gender-affirming care, so you committed a crime, and this crime gave us reason to denaturalize you,'” she asks. “But what will that do to my child?”
Directed by Emmy Award-winning film director Lucina Fisher, fathers An expansion of the Emmy Award-winning 2023 Netflix short of the same name. The film, which premiered at SXSW in March to critical acclaim, depicts the transgender father community. non-binary A year of children who caused whiplash: From a cautious but optimistic retreat in the countryside maine and minnesotaa series of executive orders will be issued under the president until the 2024 election. donald trumpthe collapse of gender-affirming care in hospitals even in blue states, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling scumettisupport of tennessee Prohibition of caring for minors.
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“We were never trying to flee the country,” said producer Stephen Chukumba. defender. “That happened during filming.”
Chukumba, widow new jersey The father, whose transgender son Hobbs, 19, features prominently in the documentary, said his original vision was far less political. After audiences asked for more from the short film — “They just saw the trailer, not the whole short film,” he said — the filmmakers wanted to show normal family life, including homework, doctor’s appointments, and soccer practice, following the father home from the woods.
Then the political ground shifted under them.
“What we thought was going to happen after we left the retreat in June and returned to our lives was that Kamala Harris would be elected,” Chukumba said. “We were confident that the federal government would stop this foolish act.”
Instead, the filmmakers kept their cameras rolling throughout the aftermath. “We had an opportunity and a real responsibility to continue filming so people could see what was going on,” Chukumba said. “There was a historical record in this era that people couldn’t go back and think, ‘Oh, that didn’t happen.’ It actually happened, and we know it happened because we filmed everything that was happening.”
“We feel like it’s really not safe for her here anymore.”
The most quietly devastating scene in the film may be the Zoom court hearing.
Ed Diaz, a San Antonio housing general contractor, testified in court after years of fighting for his 13-year-old transgender daughter, Charli. texas He was at the Capitol to participate in the lawsuit against SB 14, which would ban the state from providing gender-affirming care to minors. The family won the case in court. The Texas Supreme Court then allowed the ban to go into effect anyway.
“We had everything in place here in Texas. We had good health care. It was easy, affordable, and accessible,” Diaz says in the film. “And it just got taken away.”
After the 2024 election, Diaz and his Canadian wife, Tim, with the blessing of Charli’s mother, who attended the hearing, decided to legally adopt Charli to hasten her path to Canadian citizenship. Cameras watch as the judge grants the adoption and, with it, an exit route.
“My plan is to visit as much as possible until I can leave for good,” Diaz says. “We feel like it’s really not safe for her here anymore.”
Charlie also understands what’s going on. “It’s a little sad because most of my family is here. Most of my friends are here too. My hope is to just be present and be free,” she says.
A movement built around a campfire
The heart of the film is a retreat. Fathers of transgender and gender-expanding children meet in the woods to fish, climb, fight with each other, and say things many of them have never said out loud.
The men are hunters, contractors, veterans, and immigrants. Wayne Maynes, an Air Force veteran who founded the retreat, became a prominent advocate after his daughter Nicole won a landmark transgender rights case in Maine. Nicole Maines is now an actress known for: super girl and yellow jacket.
“We thought, okay, we’re on the right path, and we were for a while,” Maines says in the film. “But now it’s a different kind of danger. People are emboldened. These families are under attack more than we are. This is a war zone.”
rethinking fatherhood
For decades, fathers have been portrayed as the parents who struggle the most when their children come out as transgender. Mr Chukumba acknowledged this.
“I absolutely know that fathers have a harder time accepting their child’s gender identity than mothers,” he says. When Hobbs came out and began his advocacy work, he entered a room that was “literally an ocean of mothers and not a single father among them.”
“The fathers were embarrassed, the fathers were scared,” he said. “Fathers were more worried about what people would say about them and their parenting than they were about being there for their children.”
Chukumba’s own circumstances left no room for risk aversion. His wife, Chanel, died of cancer the year before Hobbs came out at age 10, sitting on his bed crying. “I had no other choice,” Chukumba said. “I thought, what would Chanel do? And Chanel would hug this guy and just support him until the cows come home. So that’s what I did.”
“I couldn’t ask for a better ambassador.”
Chukumba argues that much of the public debate about transgender youth is based on a misunderstanding of gender-affirming care.
“When we think of gender-affirming care, we need to stop thinking that it means surgical intervention,” he said.
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Dwyane Wade is an executive producer on the film The Dads and an outspoken supporter of his transgender daughter.Bob Metellus
Hovering over the project is Wade, whose support for his daughter Zaya has made him one of America’s most visible advocates for transgender youth. Wade, whose family evacuated Florida after it became a dangerous state for transgender children, is not the subject of the film, but is an executive producer through his company, 59th & Prairie Entertainment.
For Chukumba, Wade’s involvement has significance beyond celebrity.
“Dwyane Wade is a man’s man,” he said. “He is someone who is stereotypically perceived as male in this society…There is no better ambassador for the Alliance than this successful, accomplished Black man who stands in public with his children.”
“Love your child”
Chukumba points out that the film’s official nonprofit partner is the Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest organization serving LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness, who are on the streets because their parents didn’t do what the fathers in the film do. The center has helped more than 20,000 youth, including some as young as nine years old.
For Alex Roque, president and executive director of the Ali Forney Center and past recipient of the Elevate Award, whose foundation helped support the film, this partnership is central to the organization’s mission.
“The Ali Forney Center exists because homophobic and transphobic family rejection remains a global crisis,” Roque said in a statement. defender. “We are excited to partner with fathersFathers continue to be underrepresented in this film, and this film will help raise awareness and encourage more fathers and parents to fully accept and support their transgender and non-binary children. ”
Roque said his organization sees the dangers of its support every day. “We often see firsthand the consequences of family rejection. Many of the young people who come to us have been rejected by those close to them and are just beginning the difficult journey of rebuilding their lives,” he says. “Parental support is essential, transformative, and often life-saving for transgender and non-binary youth.”
“We are working with filmmakers to create a movement of alliance and inclusion, each of which will require unwavering courage,” he added. “We urge all parents to find the courage to love and support their children as they are.”
When asked what she would say to parents of transgender children who watch the film and worry about the future of their families, Chukumba said it’s simple.
“Love your kids, love your kids, love your kids. That’s it,” he said. “There is nothing stronger than this. There is nothing more powerful than this. There is nothing more positive than a parent’s love for a child. That is life-saving advice.”
Source: Advocate.com – www.advocate.com
