Behind the Movie: Heightened Scrutiny

After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the US vs. Skrmetti case, trans youth and their families have been reeling. The decision upheld state bans on healthcare for trans youth, further stripping away life-saving care and deepening the fear and uncertainty so many of us and our kids already live with. Through it all, Mama Dragons has been here–holding families, offering comfort, and standing as a community of fierce love and unwavering support as this case has unfolded. Today In the Den, Sara sits down with special guests Sam Feder and Erin Reed to go behind the headlines and to explore the longer, more human story–one of courage, resistance, and the fight for dignity, a story that is powerfully told in the new documentary Heightened Scrutiny. This incredible film follows fearless civil rights lawyer Chase Strangio as he battles at the Supreme Court for transgender adolescents’ access to gender-affirming healthcare, confronting not only the legal system but also a media landscape that distorts public perception and threatens the struggle for trans rights. 

Special Guest: Sam Feder

Sam Feder is a Peabody Award-nominated film director and writer. Sam’s films explore the intersection of visibility and politics along the lines of race, class, and gender. Sam directed the award-winning Netflix Original documentary DISCLOSURE (2020) and the widely acclaimed documentary Kate Bornstein Is a Queer & Pleasant Danger. Sam was recently invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Documentary Branch and is an on-going Project& Fellow.

Special Guest: Erin Reed

Erin Reed, known to her readers by her newsletter, Erin in the Morning, is a transgender journalist based in Washington, D.C. tracking LGBTQ+ legislation around the United States. Her work has been cited by the AP, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many more major media outlets.

Links from the Show:

• Project&: https://projectand.org/ 
• Find a Heightened Security screening near you: https://www.heightenedscrutinydoc.com/ 
• Watch a trailer for Heightened Scrutiny here: https://www.heightenedscrutinydoc.com/#trailer 
• Find Erin in the Morning’s substack here: https://www.erininthemorning.com/ 
• Find Erin on Blue Sky at: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:m65ifh7vn5zdgs7izcmht4gy 
• Join Mama Dragons today: www.mamadragons.org 

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you. Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at www.mamadragons.org.  

Transcript

SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons. A podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara LaWall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here. 

After the Supreme Court's ruling in the U.S. V. Skrmetti case back in June. Trans youth and their families have been reeling. The decision upheld state bans on healthcare for trans youth.

Further stripping away life-saving care and deepening the fear and uncertainty that so many of us and our kids already live with. And this case has been especially critical to our Mama Dragon's community, as we work to support each other and our trans youth. Through it all, Mama Dragons has been there, holding families, offering comfort, and standing as a community of fierce love and unwavering support as this case has unfolded. So, in today's episode, we are going to go behind the headlines of the Skrmetti case, and explore the longer, more human story, one of courage and resistance and the fight for dignity. This story is powerfully told in the new documentary, Heightened Scrutiny. This incredible film follows fearless civil rights lawyer Chase Strangio as he battles at the Supreme Court for transgender adolescents' access to gender-affirming healthcare, confronting not only the legal system, but also a media landscape that distorts public perception and threatens the struggle for trans rights. 

Today, we are honored to be joined by the film's director, Sam Feder, and Erin Reed of Erin in the Morning, who is also featured in the documentary. Together, we'll talk about the making of the film, the people at the heart of this story, and what it means for families, advocates, and allies in this moment of grief and resolve and political resistance. Sam Feder is a Peabody Award-nominated film director and writer. He directed the award-winning Netflix original documentary Disclosure in 2020, and the widely acclaimed documentary Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger.  Erin Reed, known to her readers by her newsletter, Erin in the Morning, is a transgender journalist based in Washington, D.C, tracking LGBTQ+ legislation around the United States. Her work has been cited by the AP, Reuters, the New York Times, Washington Post, and many major media outlets. Sam and Erin, welcome to In the Den. It is so good to have you with us. 

ERIN:  Thank you so much for having me on. 

SAM: Thanks, Sarah.

SARA:  Sam, I want to start with you, because I want to hear a little bit about why you decided to make this film right now. And in particular, as I watched the film, I was struck at remembering and recognizing that you all started filming long before we knew election results. So, this case kind of shows that arc a little bit, and the film shows that arc a little bit. So what led to your decision to make this film? 

SAM:  I mean, there are a few ways to answer that. The first, was because the reason I made my former film, Disclosure, was because I was worried about the backlash that would come. I thought the visibility we were seeing at that time, trans visibility, the tipping point, was all happening too much, too fast, and was being misused. And I really feared that history would repeat, where once a marginalized community is put in the spotlight, backlash ensues. So that's why I made Disclosure to have this conversation around the ways in which most people think of trans people and often how we think about ourselves through what we see in film and TV, and that a lot of people would be reacting negatively. Because those are the image they have of us in our mind, they'll be reacting negatively to seeing us in public space. Maybe a year and a half after that came out. in 2021, we started seeing bills rise, these anti-trans bills rise. And then you were seeing bills, and then we started seeing the media turn in the way that they were framing our stories. They went from these, sort of, fluff pieces of maybe celebration or I didn't necessarily – I didn't like the media before. It was fine. Some of it was fine. But then it just really pivoted to debating our existence, to questioning our access to public space to medical care, 

to questioning parents if they were abusers to support their trans children. I mean, it just was mind-boggling. And I was really trying to understand why the media made that pivot. And as I was researching this, I saw the ways in which coverage leads to laws so quickly. But in the beginning, it was before the election. It was the fall of 2023 when I started doing research. When I committed to the project is before the election, is before, obviously, before Chase knew that he was going to be going to SCOTUS, and it was really about the media. The film is about the media, and I spoke with dozens – probably actually around 60 different journalists, both trans and non-trans, that's when I first connected with Erin – to have this conversation about like, “How did we get here? Like, let's look at the big picture. What does this say about journalism? What does this say about the state for our lives?” And after a bunch of research, I brought in the journalists you see. And including that interview with Chase, we built this set, this diner, and we shot about 26 interviews. And Chase was part of that conversation, because Chase was in Disclosure. And he was in Disclosure because he was very much articulating the same fear I had. And he's been talking about the connection between coverage and the law. For at least a decade he's been sounding the alarm. And so we had those conversations. But I very quickly realized I needed a human component to these ideas that our brilliant journalists were sharing.  And so that's when I was looking for, “What can the story be that ties us all together and shows the material consequences?” And so, when it was announced in late June that Chase would be going to the Supreme Court, he and I decided to move forward with following his preparation. 

SARA: Oh, that's a great story. I didn't know all of that. And I want to dive right on into the major through-line in the film about how the coverage has influenced and created law. And so, Erin, I want to start with you on this question. And I want to just recognize that you are the go-to journalistic resource for detailed coverage on news impacting the trans community. I know this is true for Mama Dragons, for so many people in progressive circles. You've been covering this case closely. And you're featured in the documentary. And one of the things the documentary covers so well is to really highlight how mainstream media has its coverage that's disguised as perhaps asking questions or unbiased curiosity. But the film points out how that coverage really then gets used to create the laws and the bans that we've seen. Starts being cited by lawmakers, even cited in the courts in their opinions, and mainstream outlets like the New York Times. And that really stood out to me, to watch it all described in the way that you did on the film. Erin, I'm hopeful you'll give us a little bit more commentary on that, and the impact of that.

ERIN: Yeah. So, I've been tracking anti-trans legislation and sort of watching this fight play out from its earliest genesis, especially from the early attempts to ban people in sports, to ban medical care. I was there for the Arkansas Gender-affirming Care Ban. I was covering it at the time. And  back then, the news articles, they were sort of starting up, but it really kicked into high gear during 2022, 2023, during, like, The Don't Say Gay fights in Florida. And we started to see more and more disinformation about transgender healthcare and transgender people laundered through seemingly respectable outlets. Outlets like the New York Times, Atlantic, a number of other outlets. And there were a few things that I had noted whenever I first started seeing these articles appear. The first was in framing. So for instance, you would see whenever it comes to, for instance, de-transitioners, you would see the same 2 or 3 names that would pop up in every article: Chloe Cole, Prisha Mosley. A few people that have since become sort of right-wing media darlings to target the trans community. But you never would hear from the people that were forced to medically detransition because they were pulled off their medication. A feature that's much more common than people who willingly stop identifying as transgender. And so you started to see those narratives really play out. You started to see pseudoscientific narratives about transgender people play out from people who are not established scientists in this field from people who do not have personal experience working with transgender healthcare, people who have never treated a transgender kid. You started to see things like the whistleblower complaint in Missouri from Jamie Reed, who was not a doctor, who did not directly treat transgender youth, and who later it was determined, said untrue things in her allegations. And so, whenever we started getting this sort of deluge of pseudoscientific information about certain narratives that were being pushed, about how transgender healthcare works, we didn't have the same thing from people who do have experience with transgender people. We did not have articles in the New York Times defending transgender healthcare. We didn't have articles in the Atlantic talking about how this healthcare is important and what the science is behind it, and personal narratives from transgender people, not nearly to the degree that we had from people who were attacking it. I often go back to the Pamela Paul article as being one of the most clear examples of this. The first Pamela Paul article that was written in the New York Times opinion section, but it was given prominent coverage as if it were a news piece. It was two full pages in the New York Times print. And I couldn't tell you, I don't know if there's ever been a trans person who's been given that kind of real estate in a major paper. I don't know if there's ever been a person defending transgender healthcare that was given that kind of real estate. And this led up to the Skrmetti case, And all this misinformation got cited in Skrmetti, got cited in several other court fights. It's been cited by politicians banning healthcare, but it hasn't stopped since then in the immediate aftermath of the Skrimetti case. I interviewed in this documentary. It didn't end there. The problems that we spoke about, they didn't stop there. In the immediate aftermath of the Skrmetti case, New York Times published seven pseudoscientific anti-trans articles in 24 hours. I documented them, I went over each one of them. And so, yeah, this played a huge role in things, and it continues to play a huge role in things. One of the things that I said in the documentary was that this wouldn't end with transgender youth. They were going to start targeting trans adults as well. And in the last couple of months Puerto Rico just passed an age 21 ban on gender-affirming care. We have Trump passing bands up to the age of 19, so including 18-year-olds. And so we do see the same factors still at play.

SARA: Thank you, Erin, for putting that into really stark perspective for us. It's really troubling, and really concerning and I think it impacts how we, the lay-user of media, interact and understand media, and figure out what is trustworthy and what can we trust, and what is true and factual, and what isn't. And it just feels like it's gotten really muddy. Sam, in the film, you seem to intentionally bring about journalistic voices of trans and non-binary folks, and a few parents, even. And it's such a beautiful choice to hear how trans journalists are understanding and navigating and interpreting the landscape. And so I'm curious if you'll talk a little bit about that particular choice for the film. The other thing that really struck me in the film and in so many of those interviews, was that there was just a lot of emotion. There were a lot of tears. And the beautiful way that the camera lingered with people in that emotion invites us, the viewer, to experience it in a really powerful way. Can you share a little bit about how that all unfolded for you, and were there any surprises in that for you?

SAM: Everyone in the film, including Chase and Laverne, have written on these issues. And I think the only person who maybe didn't have a direct connection to a trans person was Jelani Cobb. But he has written on trans issues. I do spend a lot of time doing what I call research interviews, and so talking with people on Zoom, getting to know them, hearing their perspective and their stories, and understanding the landscape, and also learning so much myself. I was not an expert in journalism. I certainly learned a ton making it. And so I think I pretty much knew what the conversations would turn out to be. But, I mean, you're always totally taken aback and surprised. I mean, not only did things change so quickly – so Erin had stories that had happened between the time we had last talked that we're the ones that make it in the film –  and then I think the emotion didn't surprise me. Though it's never a goal of mine to make people cry. And it doesn't surprise me that it was the cis people who cried, and not the trans people being interviewed. Because we're so protective. And I think we have to have a certain distance in order to be facing this day after day. And so witnessing Alberto get emotional about his child. I mean, you're just there with him. I'm interviewing him. We're looking to each other's eyes for over an hour. And the whole crew is just on this experience with him. The funny thing about that one is you could feel the emotion in the room, and everyone is just totally quiet. And the camera keeps rolling because it would just be disruptive to stop the camera. But, at one point, you could see him nodding, because I asked him if he was okay. And there's still silent communication.

But I also said something like, “Do you want your son to come hug you? Like, come from behind and set?” And he was like, “Yeah, I'd like that.” And we were like, “Alex, Alex.” And then my producer whispers in my ear, “Alex is sleeping.” It's like, the kid was fine. Which is amazing. And so that was really sweet. And then with Jelani, it was a really special moment, because it was actually one of those, the camera kept rolling even though the interview had ended. And I was like, “You know, Jelani, I have one more question.” But I was more just out of my curiosity.

And I think I preempted it of, “I hope it's not rude.” And he was like, “Oh, I get rude questions all the time.” And that's when I asked him like, “Why do you do this work? Like, why do you care?”

And that's when he started talking about being bullied. So that was certainly a surprise. This is a man who I have admired his work for so long, I've seen him speak for so long. He's such a powerful voice. And in that moment, you see this vulnerable little boy. You see the child inside of him. And it was crushing, and beautiful. And so that was very, very moving. And, again, we're all there. We're all on that experience with him. And then he was very glad when we ended the interview for real that time.  I don't know if that answers your questions directly, but it's some things that made me think about. 

SARA: Yeah, it does. It made me feel very emotional. Those moments, too, I think really helps the viewers understand that personal impact, beyond just the what is happening and unfolding in the media, but, like, how it is really impacting all of the people who are in it, and who are living it. Erin, I mentioned earlier as the go-to resource of someone who's really dives in and picks apart and really tries to illuminate what's happening in media coverage, particularly that which impacts the trans community. That feels like a big weight in this particular moment. How do you take care of yourself? How does that land for you? And in relationship to the film, what was it like for you to see this story come alive on film?

ERIN: Yeah, it is a big weight. And I mean, having seen the story come alive on film, and having seen the story come alive in other ways, in mainstream media coverage that's changed since then. We've gotten more attention on this now than ever before. I remember telling my wife Zoe that – And this was just before Skrmetti. This would have been about 3 or 4 months before Skrmetti – that up until that point, I felt like I had been able to play a part in holding things back and stopping things from getting worse, my own little part. I got to help people with information on anti-trans laws, and how they can help speak out against them. And I had seen, I'd reported on many gender-affirming care bans that had failed. At some point, though, it felt like I was just trying to hold the ocean back. Like, I was standing there with my arms wide, just trying to stop the ocean. And that's what happened. We saw 800 bills. This year, 1,000 bills, targeting transgender people. And that's hard. It's hard as a journalist, and it's hard as a trans person, and it's hard as somebody who knows these parents, many of these parents. I remember whenever Ken Paxton did his child abuse enforcement initiative in Texas in 2022, and tried to arrest and round up the parents of trans kids. And I helped some of them flee. I remember helping some of them flee. Some of those people have since left the country. And it hurts to see that things got worse after that. Like, things continued to get bad. My role, and sort of the way that I see my role, has evolved since then. My job is not necessarily to stop things, because I can't. I'm one person. And my goal now is honestly just to record our stories, and to make sure that no matter what happens people know that we were here, that we were loved, that we continued to fight. And that hopefully one day 10, 20, 30 years from now, when things do get better, and I do believe that they will get better one day, we can look back and avoid this happening again. 

SARA: What do you hope people will understand differently about the media after watching the film? This question is for both of you.

ERIN: I'll jump in again on this one. My hope is that people don't place all of their trust in institutional media sources that have gotten this wrong and gotten this wrong multiple times. Not just with us, but with other disadvantaged groups, with other marginalized groups, going back years and decades. I hope that we realize that there is a space for journalism that comes from the community, for the community that they're reporting for. One of the biggest failures of the media landscape right now, and especially journalism, has been the marginalization of transgender journalists. And I'm not just talking about myself. There are a few hundred trans journalists that are out there. And the uniform sentiment that I've detected and that I've spoken to many of them about is that we are not allowed to tell our stories. We're not allowed to tell our stories in the major papers, or to write about our communities. We're seen as too biased. We're seen as too untrustworthy. And I mean that's a load of bologna. You can look at many other different minorities and marginalized groups, and they are allowed to tell, in some cases, their stories in these outlets. But for whatever reason, transgender people are not given that grace. We're not given that ability to tell our stories. I would not have the job that I have. I would not be as successful as I am if the media were doing their job, if the institutions of the media were doing their job. And I hope that in the future you see a trans journalist or two in the opinion sections of our major papers more often, the same way that you see, right now, the Pamela Pauls of the world. Also something that has become especially clear to me is the abhorrent role of money in getting stories placed. You look at a lot of the people who are writing op-eds. You look at a lot of the people who are submitting and getting accepted their op-eds into things like the New York Times. And they're supported by SEGM. They're supported by the Alliance Defending Freedom. They're being paid to pump out as much content as possible. And we don't have that. Like, trans people will never have that. We are a small population. We are tiny. We're not going to have a $200 million organization trying to pay 20 trans journalists to write, write, write, write, write. And so, money plays a huge role in which voices you hear. And I hope people become more aware of that. 

SARA: Thank you. I heard Imara Jones talk about this recently, in how this administration in particular has utilized this very calculated propaganda-fueled approach that one of the things the Christian nationalist movement did, which you just pointed out is develop this alternative media pipeline to put anti-trans information out into the established media as a strategy, as an electoral strategy, as a policy strategy. So, I appreciate you naming that, because it is just horrifying to think that the media is being politically manipulated to that degree. Sam, I'm curious about you? What do you hope people will understand differently about the media and media coverage after watching your film?

SAM: Before I get into that, you mentioned Amara telling that history. And in the fall of 2023, I think it was October. David Kirkpatrick of the New Yorker put out a very well-researched piece on this and how the next target. I think it was called “The next target for the group that overthrew Roe,” or something like that, and the ways in which the ADF really prepared to target trans people. And I think it was amazing at that time. And of course, I was like, I wish she had written this 2 years ago, 3 years ago, 5 years ago. Anyway, though, I think that's for people who want to understand that history a little more, I really recommend reading that piece. Another thing is, the film, like Erin said, it's not just trans people. And this film could be used as a field study to apply to any marginalized population. As soon as people realize and start to question this idea of objectivity. I want people to question that idea of objectivity. And question the voice of truth. Right? Why we believe the things we believe, and I think the more people can see examples of the ways in which the New York Times in particular, is really biased towards marginalized populations. I hope they become more skeptical. I don't have much faith that that's going to happen, to be honest. I love everything Erin said. And those are my hopes as well. But I don't have faith in these institutions. I think they're going to keep going. I started as an independent filmmaker, I was making films only for the community. I started wanting to reach outside of the community when the mainstream was talking about us so poorly. But I think now it's continuing, Erin's doing her work, I think everyone needs to just continue doing their work. I think that's all we can do. But, yeah, I think that's all we can do. 

SARA: I want to talk about a couple of the moments in the film, some really striking moments in the film. And one of those in particular that the whole podcast team honed in on, Erin, is when you're talking about the end game – you alluded to this earlier – that, while Skrmetti focuses on kids, and we've seen such a horrifying attack on kids, not just in the bans, but in the way we talk about healthcare for trans youth. But you also point out, it's not about the kids. There's this larger endgame. And it's that moment when you're sharing about the Twitter chat featuring the representatives, legislators of Ohio and Michigan talking about this quote end game, and the CPAC quote that transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely. Can you say more about that?

ERIN: Yeah, yeah. I have watched the rhetoric from the far right on this topic from an early, early point. And it has always been clear to me that they use certain issues to try to gain footholds to push their policies more. And, they've been explicit about this whenever it comes to sports. We've had some of the major anti-trans activists talk about, very openly, about how sports are just their way to get the foot in the door, to get people to accept denying transgender people basic rights. We know this about transgender youth healthcare, because immediately upon passing gender-affirming care bans at the age of 18, you start to hear them talk about expanding it to 21 to 25. You also hear the dehumanizing language. I remember one of my very early coverage stories, before I was writing – this was whenever I was just reporting on TikTok and Twitter – about how, in the hearing to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth in Missouri, one of the leaders called transgender people infectious, called transgender people a disease, vermin, even. Like, this kind of language is, it harkens back to many other times when this kind of language has been used. And I think that the point is that. Certain factions that are trying to say that if we stop fighting for sports, if we stop fighting for kids, if we stop fighting for drag events, if we stop fighting for bathrooms, that this is all going to go away. That it's really us fighting that's the cause, and that we should find room for compromise on these issues, and that if we just give up a little bit, that this is all going to go away. And then we can make peace. And the point that I tried to make there, and the point that I continue to try to make, is that this isn't about a policy disagreement. This is not about sports. It's not about kids. It's about there is no world in which these people see that we are included in, that we are included in a future of. They don't see us as worthy of sharing the same space as them, of inhabiting any of the places of political power, of inhabiting any of the places of telling our stories through journalism and more. And you see this. You see this in places like the United Kingdom right now where these decisions have been made. Where they said, “We will compromise. We will go ahead and give up on certain things.” And now, in the UK, both major parties – Labor as well as the Tories – are fully enacting a policy of restriction against transgender youth and even adults. And so, I think that's a roundabout way of just saying that when we see that sort of message in the Michigan and Ohio chat. It's a very clear, clear saying of what has always been the case. I want to actually close by saying one more thing. This doesn't just end with transgender people. It's not just about pushing transgender people away. It's about the consolidation of power. They see us as a stepping stool to go ahead and enact all the other policies that they want to enact as well. A really good example of this is the current executive orders in schools. From the president. Presidents have very little, historically, very little control over the day-to-day going-ons in public schools at the local level. But what we are seeing with the executive orders on transgender people is that we have a president, now, that is trying to dictate whether or not you could acknowledge a trans person in the classroom, whether or not you can read a certain book, whether or not you can use a trans person's name. And it's all about consolidation of power as well. 

SARA: Sam, do you have anything you want to add to that whole idea of the larger end game, so to speak?

SAM: I mean, I think to go into a little detail of other ways in which this is not just about trans people and in particular, when it comes to the case, I think it's so important for people to realize that this has set the precedent, so nobody has privacy with their doctor.  So I want people to look at all these issues with that lens of, this is not just about one group. And it was easy to do to us, right, because of all the reasons Erin shared. And it now opens the door to everyone's family, everyone's body. And I think that's a takeaway that's really important to me, that people walk away with when they watch the film, in particular. 

ERIN:  To jump on what Sam just said, I mean, look at the civil asset demands, the civil investigative demands that are currently being done by the FBI against hospitals, where they are demanding not just, like, the names of the trans people that are being treated at hospitals They're demanding the Zoom notes. They're demanding the private messages between doctors and the patients. They're demanding all of these things. And I would invite anybody, not just parents of trans kids, but anybody to imagine if they did that to your kid or your medical care, to your therapy notes, for instance just because they didn't like the group that you were a part of.

What if they didn't like people that took vaccines, and they demand every bit of private information that you share between you and your doctor. That's what this is setting the precedent of. 

SARA: There's another really beautiful storyline in the film. And some impactful moment where you highlight young Mila Suri. And what a firecracker Mila is. And what a joy it is to watch her. But I'm thinking in particular of the scene where she is speaking to what looks like her school board in a school meeting. And the camera cuts and shows Mila's frustration, and that she's being ignored. And many of the kids and families there are being completely and utterly, blatantly ignored by some of the members on the board who are staring at their laptops and their phones And you can just watch her not only get really angry and fired up, but then start to break down that they're not even giving her the dignity and respect, which is kind of an illustration of everything you've just kind of shared with us, Erin. Sam, can you share a little bit about Mila's story, but also what was it like to be in the room with the cameras in that moment? 

SAM: It was excruciating to be in the room. I had been going to these meetings for a couple months because Chase and some other people had organized adults to come and support the young people in New York. And I've come home from these meetings and tell my friends, and they didn't get it. They were like, “Oh, we'll be fine here. New York is fine.” And I kept going, and it kept getting worse. And then finally in June, I decided I needed to film it just as a concerned adult. Like, I hadn't met Mila yet. And it was, I mean, all the things you sort of hear about, or things I had heard about, but hadn't faced in person. Like there were parents there who were not supportive of trans kids who would make fun of people in their masks. Right? When someone within a mask would speak, they would go [mocking noises] I mean, the behavior was so beyond adolescent. I mean, Mila would never act that way. It was so wild. And, I mean, they were just like a little crew in the background, making fun of these young people. And they're adults. So things like this kept happening, and so the environment was so painful, so tense.

And then witnessing Mila, I mean, who doesn't go through that emotional range, right, when you get so angry, and then you choke up? And you're just in such disbelief of the helplessness that you have faced. It was an incredible moment to capture because this young person is so empowered. She has so much agency. She's so bright. And so many young people who've watched the film and have now expressed to me that they want to be activists like Mila. And I think that is one of the most rewarding things that maybe give me the tiniest bit of hope in our near future, that these young people are feeling that power, feeling that agency, and feeling that entitlement to fight for themselves. So it was a devastating moment.  It takes all of your composure to not jump on that stage and rip the cameras, and rip the phones and the iPod away from those people. And after the meeting, the banter kept going, where they were yelling at – the people on the board were yelling at us, essentially. It was vile. It was truly vile. 

SARA: I’m so glad to hear Mila has inspired other young people. Mila has certainly inspired my family. But that scene also really just captured the sense of the futility of the moment. Like, if a child like that can't be seen and just given that small amount of respect in that moment, where do we go from there? Like, how do we ever find ourselves in a different place as a society? And that was just really distressing. And so I'm glad that others picked up on the fire of Mila. 

SAM: I mean, if nothing else, it demonstrates the lack of humanity of the people up there. And Mila's mother speaks about that when we have dinner with her in her home. Like, how could you? How could any human person with a shred of empathy and compassion, ignore that child, ignore anyone? But yeah, it was the baffling, the disbelief, watching three people in particular and their anger towards her. I mean, I don't think we can relate to them, because they're not like us.

SARA: Yeah. As the film progresses all the way through the end. The title of the film really started to come alive and linger for me, in the sense that there really is a double meaning there. Heightened scrutiny being the legal term that the entire case is built around, really seeking heightened scrutiny. But then, also, the reality of how that persists for trans folks in the trans community. Was that an intentional choice from the beginning, or did that kind of come through as you were making the film? 

SAM: It was so hard coming up with a title for this film. With my last film, I came up with the title even before I started doing the research. But with this one, I was really, really struggling. And scrutiny was something I had in my mind from the beginning, the ways in which we're scrutinized in the media. And then as we moved along and understood the case, and understood the irony of the case, right? That the job of the judges is to ask if a group of people are being discriminated against? Does this apply? Does this warrant heightened scrutiny?

But then, it's just completely flipped, and trans people are being scrutinized. And so once we knew about that being in the case, and it was something Chase really wanted – he wanted that to be the title – And so we went with that. I love the title. I love the double meaning.  A lot of people get it wrong. They say heightened security. It was actually even in the Hollywood Reporter yesterday, under this, like, things to look out for on the Oscar campaign, and they wrote Heightened Security, like, no one's gonna be able to find it. But it's fine. We knew, we knew the risk. But, yeah, I think it's a really great title. And I thank Chase for it. 

ERIN: I agree.

SARA: Yeah. It's great. And it's helpful. I mean, it is a great descriptor for where we are in this particular moment. So the film ends and wraps before the decision came down – the film ends at the oral arguments. But then I read that you premiered at Sundance just days after the inauguration. And so I'm curious, what was that timeline like? And what was the reception like in your premiere? Like I said in the beginning, I was really struck at it being brought back to the pre-election days, and then that kind of through-line of, like, oh, here in this moment, now, by oral arguments, we know who's been elected. By the time the film premieres. He's been inaugurated. How did that play in the reception of the film as it was coming out? 

SAM: I think maybe I'll be able to speak about this later in, like, a year. I'm still so in it and it's barely been a year since we started filming Chase, and now the film got edited and premiered and is now in theaters. It's been a whirlwind. And I can speak more to the reason we made it so quickly. Once we started Chase, it was 5 months until we had to lock and premiere it the next month. I mean, that's a timeline no filmmaker would ever, ever want. But the urgency was undeniable, and I had felt very strongly about where the elections would go. I felt very strongly about what would happen in media and for the arts after that. I did not think the film could get finished if we didn't finish it last year. And so when it came out, I think a lot of people were just like, “That happened fast. Wow, that was just argued last month? Oh, yeah, maybe I heard of that. And, oh, that's scary.” And then I think as the months continued and people started to understand more of what was happening, then there was this march of, like, “Okay, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do?” And, people were very politicized and motivated to spread the word, to sign campaigns. We always have a call to action after a screening of something that's happening in some particular state. I think most of us were not surprised in which the opinion went but speaking for myself, it was still a devastating moment, because you're still so – the levels of dehumanization and humiliation and vulnerability? I was on my way to a screening in San Francisco, I was in the cab in New York to the airport when my team texted me. It was really intense. So then things changed, right? Then people are watching it, devastated. And then that's when we have to remind people that this was not a surprise. But this was a way that we can start having larger conversations around what is happening, and so that more and more people understand what is happening to trans people, and that is going to happen to them. And now it's really being used as a tool on the state level, as you know with Mama Dragons, to help different organizations and different communities meet their unique goals. And so, in a year, we went from just trying to sound the alarm, trying to get people to know about the case, to then, okay, this is sad, we have to kind of all be together, and that joy of being together was such a lifeline for those first few months. Those two hours to be with like-minded people and have conversations and remind ourselves that we're not alone. And then now, okay, there is still a lot to be saved. There's still a lot of laws we can try to fight. And there's so much more work to be done. 

SARA: Thanks for that. Yeah, as I was watching. I was watching with a sort of awareness of the,  had I been watching prior to the decision, the sense of hopefulness. And then the reality of what the current moment is and the aftermath of this decision. Erin, I'm curious how did the decision land for you? Having been through this process and the film premieres, and then the decision comes down. What was that like for you?

ERIN: I remember it came, we got the decision relatively early, if I remember, in the morning. And I instantly knew that I was going to be reporting on it all day. We had been, I think, every single day that a court decision could happen, I had been just bracing myself, because I knew once it hit, like, that would dominate everything for my work, and also would dominate some of the media environment as well in general. And it hit, and we got the decision. And I wasn't particularly surprised by the result. I know the makeup of this Supreme Court. I had a little bit of hope. I thought that Chase had argued quite well. And I had a little bit of hope, but I was also prepared for that kind of a decision from the Supreme Court. And I very quickly got to reading all the news stories that the major media outlets had prepped, because New York Times dropped several long-form stories at the same time in the very immediate hour or two after the decision was dropped.  You could see the kinds of people who they had ready to tell the story of Skrmetti. They very quickly jumped on the idea that this all happened because trans people pushed too hard, and that trans people demand it too much. And you saw so many stories that said that. That was actually the story that I covered. My reporting on the aftermath of Skrimetti, besides my initial story –  which was the very bare bones, like, here's what it does, here's what it doesn't do –  was turning towards the media coverage of it, both the media coverage of transgender healthcare and the media coverage of the immediate aftermath of the Skrimetti decision where we saw, I think I described it as the New York Times is dancing on the graves. It was, essentially, it was almost as if it had gotten the ruling that it had wanted. And it really read that way, reading the stories that came immediately out of that paper in the immediate aftermath. And I mean, we are in an era right now where I think a lot of people realize that fascism is at the doorstep. I live in the DC area. I see, military occupation of the city that I know and love. And it was always clear, to me at least it's been clear for a long time, that this was not the beginning or the end, that this is just another part of what will be a generational fight. Like, the fight that we are having right now for our rights and the rights of others is not something that I think a lot of us ever thought we would be on the vanguard of? As a trans person, whenever I first transitioned years ago, when things were a little bit better, I was hopeful that I could just move on with my life. I'd never thought that I would become a journalist. At the time, I think I was  working in digital analysis on websites and whatnot. And I never thought that I would do this work right here. But we've all sort of been roped into this fight in one way or another. And not just activists, not just journalists. Storytellers, people who are creating art, people who are coming out to their parents, like we're all part of this. I often get asked like, “How can I be a good activist? How can I help push back after a decision like this? How can I fight this?” And my response is often that, like, the best activism often doesn't look like activism. If this is going to be something that we are going to have to fight for the next generation, for the people that come after us, then the people that are going do the most work, the people that are going to do the best work, are the people who make a video game, are the people who write a children's book, are the people who create a new song, trans musicians, trans artists, trans scientists who make the world a better place with our discoveries, trans filmmakers, trans people in all walks of life. And so, while this decision hurt and hit hard, and we're seeing very real impacts of it, we are part of what it means to be human. We're not going away because of a Supreme Court decision. We're not going away because of an anti-trans law. If you could somehow erase every last one of us. We would still be here, we'd be born again to a new generation. And so, our fight is for those people. We're always going to be here. And that decision didn't change that.

SARA: Thank you. That's a beautiful message for all of our community, for parents, for youth, for the trans community as a whole, for all of us that are really concerned and trying so hard to push back and fight back. Sam, what message would you want to send to parents and youth in the trans community as a whole? 

SAM: I mean, very similar to what Erin is saying, is the law has never determined our ability to survive and will not determine our abilities to thrive. And those of us who know our history as queer people, know our history as trans people, know that we did not get to this point because of the law. Like, we didn't get to the point of having – Before this, right? We didn't get to a point of some stability because of the law. It was the community, right? We helped each other. It was mutual aid. We supported each other. And that's what's going to continue.

SARA: Thank you. Sam, thank you for this beautiful film. And Erin, thank you for being part of it, and for your stalwart work in seeking journalistic truth on behalf of the trans community. Uh, this has been a beautiful conversation. I'm really delighted that folks will be able to see this film and interact with it. And in our Mama Dragons community, we're going to be doing some events, and I know there are screenings that are being hosted by folks all around the country, so there will be opportunities to see it and talk about it and have these questions and engage in our local communities about things that we can be doing. But I so appreciate your time and the work of everyone involved in this film. And I thought the best way to end together today would be to end with the final, the near-final words of the film, when Chase – whom I realized, I don't know if I clarified, it's not the most important thing about him, but was the first openly trans attorney to argue before the Supreme Court, so that had its own power in the whole context of the story as well – and Chase comes out of the Supreme Court at the podium, greeting the crowd of supporters that are rallying there and these are Chase's words. 

We are here together. This is all of us. We are here with our ancestors. And we are here with the people who will come after us. And so whatever happens, we are the defiance of everything. We are collectively a refutation of everything they say about us. And our fight for justice did not begin today. It will not end in June, whatever the court decides. We are in this together. We are in it together. Our power only grows. I love being trans. I love being with you, and we're going to take care of each other.

Thank you both.

SAM: Thank you so much, Sarah.

ERIN: Thank you. 

SARA: Thank you so much for joining us here In the Den. Did you know that Mama Dragons offers an eLearning program called Parachute? This is an interactive learning platform where you can learn more about how to affirm, support, and celebrate the LGBTQ+ people in your life. Learn more at Mamadragons.org/parachute, or find the link in the episode show notes under links. 

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