Today, November 20, marks Transgender Day Of Remembrance, an annual observance in memory of the trans individuals who lost their lives to anti-transgender violence.
As the day honors those taken from us, we continue to fight for equality alongside our trans brothers and sisters and non-binary siblings to build a better future for the entirety of our community.
With that in mind, a new documentary provides a unique glimpse at how far we’ve come—and just how far we still have to go.
Back in 2005, a young director by the name of Daniel Peddle shared his film, The Aggressives, with the world, a culmination of five years of work, following the lives of a group of queer, masculine-presenting people of color living in New York City.
His doc’s subjects represented an array of gender identities, sexualities, and race, from different walks of life, presenting an unapologetic and eye-opening look at the challenges faced by those whose stories are rarely in the spotlight.
Twenty-five years after he first began documenting their lives, Peddle checks back in with a number of his subjects in a new feature, Beyond The Aggressives, examining both the impact the initial film had on their lives and how they’ve forged new paths for themselves since.
Image Credit: ‘Beyond The Aggressives,’ Showtime
There’s Kisha, a model and artist, who navigates the masculine and the feminine in their work. Octavio, formerly incarcerated, is now a proud parent and considering gender affirming surgery. Trevon now identifies as nonbinary and has since moved to Palm Springs, where they hope to start a family with their partner Jade. And Chin is seeking support from the Transgender Law Center after being targeted by ICE for deportation.
They were all teens while filming The Aggressives with Peddle in the late ’90s and early 2000s, and there’s inspiring power in the way this sequel shows us how they’ve grown and stepped into their identities, in spite of adversity.
Additionally, Beyond The Aggressives involves the voices of queer BIPOC who were, themselves, inspired by the original film all those years ago. “I consider ‘the aggressives’ to be my ‘tran-scestors,'” remarks one of Peddle’s younger subjects.
This is why, two decades on, Transgender Day of Remembrance remains crucial for the transgender community — and this is why it continues.
Collectively, the doc tells the story of “how much the language, culture and visibility of the trans community has evolved and grapples with many of the complexities around gender identity and representation.”
Beyond The Aggressives is now playing in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles, and is slated to make its debut on Showtime in 2024.
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