UCLA Center for the Study of Women

June in San Francisco is undoubtedly the most Prideful month. The Annual Pride Parade, the National Queer Arts Festival, and the Frameline International LGBT Film Festival are merely a few of the million queer events listed on the city’s June calendar. While such a variety of queer arts events and venues might speak to an increasing visibility of the LGBT community in general, certain populations—transgender and gender non-conforming people in particular—still remain largely underrepresented and marginalized. Among hundreds of films screened at Frameline each year, only a handful of them are concerned with transgender and gender-variant issues.Out of thousands of queer events and social gatherings,gender non-conforming people could count the times when no one makes assumptions regarding their identities. Even at LGBT community centers, gender-variant and trans people often report having experienced harassment when using restrooms that correspond to their selfproclaimed gender. For them, the letter “T” in the LGBT acronym by no means guarantees that their identities and desires are respectfully acknowledged both within and outside the queer community.