Documenting the murder trials of four men who beat and strangled 17-year-old trans female Gwen Araujo after discovering that she was a biological male, filmmaker Shelly Prevost uses the case to explore complicated questions of how we all construct our gender identities.
Review
In 2002 during a night of partying, four men, including two who had been sexually intimate with Araujo, forced her to "prove" that she was female by revealing her genitalia to them. When they discovered that she had male genitalia, they flew into a rage and, over the course of several hours, bludgeoned her with objects including a skillet before strangling her to death with a rope. When charged with first-degree murder, the men asked for manslaughter, claiming that their crime was committed in the heat of passion elicited by Araujo's "deception." The resulting contentious trials attracted large demonstrations, celebrity lawyers and a nation-wide media spotlight that brought the issue of transphobia to the mainstream.
Prevost uses interviews with the victim's family (Gwen's mother is particularly articulate and inspiring) and the lawyers trying the cases to tell the story, but also interviews researchers and everyday people in the street to investigate the complex ways in which we define our genders and how our culture responds to transgendered individuals. The result is a sensitive depiction of justice that avoids sensationalism in favor of a sober examination of why such unspeakable crimes happen and how our society responds to them.
