Sunday, June 19, 2022, 1:30pm Roxie 💝
World premiere
+Streaming
Frankie Gonzales-Wolfe went from nightclub entertainer to corporate executive, married an Air Force veteran, and through it all worked on political campaigns, starting in the 1990s. But in 2019, she decided to run for office herself, the first trans woman to run for city council in San Antonio, Texas.
I grew up in Texas, but I went out of state for college and never looked back, landing in the Bay Area a month after my college graduation. I know firsthand the deeply entrenched homophobia of my native state, and transphobia has risen to join it in a toxic anti-queer mix, lashing out at anything that questions the hegemony of straight white Christian cis-men. It takes considerable courage for anyone to run for political office, but to run as an out and proud trans woman in Texas during the Trump years, that’s truly next-level.
The persistent efforts in Texas (even moreso than other states) to turn transphobia into legal oppression are sickening and depressing, but the fact that there are people like Frankie Gonzales-Wolfe willing to speak out and put themselves at the forefront of the fight, gives me hope that things will get better. Frankie came in a distant third in the run for city council, but she hasn’t given up the fight. This documentary is a much-needed call to action, and I’m glad I was there for its world premiere. It will be available in the “streaming encore” for Frameline (June 24–30), and other festival appearances are in the works. Here’s hoping it also gets picked up for broader distribution, because this is a must see.
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