SOUTHERN COMFORT (2001) | Dir: Kate Davis | This beautiful documentary feature follows Robert Eads, a trans man, in the last year of his life as he dies of ovarian cancer after being turned away for help by doctors who fear treating a trans person will hurt their reputations and affect their business. It is also a love story — he falls for Lola, a trans woman — and about their families and their histories. Like so many on my list, I saw this film at Film Forum in New York City. I remember leaving the theater and walking with a friend (a queer woman) and both of us remarking how the story showed us how little we actually knew about the trans experience. Both of us had assumed so much about ourselves — that we were progressive and informed. This film not only depicts the lives of two trans people, it demystifies, clarifies, humanizes without objectifying. I don’t mean to imply that every trans experience is the same, but this film gave a face to the struggle and also shows the beauty and liberation that accompanies being and expressing your truest Self. Eads and Lola create their own family in rural Georgia and I remember relating so strongly to living in an area where difference was frowned upon if that difference is queerness, but paradoxically can be found on front porches everywhere in various other, acceptable forms. One of the many contradictions you’ll find about rural, Southern life. This is a powerful, infuriating, and ultimately uplifting story about trans life in the South, a reminder of how far we have come and how far we still need to go in order to secure justice for all and space for the pursuit of happiness.
