'Disclosure' Director Sam Feder on Transgender Representation in Media

“Media has the greatest cultural impact of our time.”

DISCLOSURE is the latest documentary from director and producer Sam Feder. Premiering at the revered Sundance Film Festival before making its way to Netflix this past June, the documentary chronicles the history of how the transgender community has been represented onscreen, both good and bad, and how we can take action to do better moving forward.

The documentary features interviews with many notable figures in the LGBTQ+ community, such as Laverne Cox, Bianca Leigh, Jen Richards, and Lilly Wachowski. It was a bit of a passion project for Feder, who had the idea for the documentary in mind for decades. “Growing up, I was exposed to all of the television shows,” Feder begins. “And there were two films that really changed my relationship with the media, in the mid-90s/early 2000s when I was starting to make media myself, and those were ETHNIC NOTIONS and THE CELLULOID CLOSET, and those two documentaries really helped me understand how I learned to think of the world through these images that I’ve taken in . . . and I really wondered what that would look like for trans people.”

Feder spent about ten years making films that covered some of the issues in the transgender community, and it was in 2014 when Laverne Cox was on the cover of Time magazine that inspired Feder to finally take the leap to make DISCLOSURE. “That was the moment that I understood that when marginalized communities get mainstream attention, backlash ensues,” Feder says. “We’ve seen that again and again throughout history, and so I was wondering what was my responsibility as a filmmaker—in both what I’ve done already and what I will do in the future—and how can we better prepare for the violence that is going to come with this exposure?”

“When that cover hit the news stands, mainstream media barely talked about us, let alone celebrated us.”

Sam Feder and Jen Richards. Photo credit: Disclosure Films

Feder was aware of Cox’s passion, activism, and role in transgender visibility and was interested in her for the project. Feder began research for the documentary in fall of 2015, and two years later, had enough of a presentable outline to get invited to Outfest in Los Angeles. A panel followed Feder’s presentation, and Cox happened to be attending in support of some of her friends that were speaking. It was in fact Cox who approached Feder, moved by the presentation she had seen, and expressed to Feder that she had always desired to make a film like that and asked how she could help.

Interwoven between the interviews in the documentary are clips from films and television shows that have featured transgender people, or—more frequently—featured men dressing as women for a laugh. The clips included titles such as BOYS DON’T CRY, BOSOM BUDDIES, and THE JEFFERSONS. Masked with comedy, or criminally getting excused because “things were different” in the past, the documentary brings to light just how long the transgender community has been misrepresented in media and how badly a change is needed.

Sam Feder. Photo credit: Disclosure Films

In discussing how to change this line of thinking in the masses, Feder states that media literacy is the key. “How do we just become a more media-literate culture so that we are implicitly asking ourselves those questions as we watch?” Feder asks. “So that maybe we won’t internalize them as passively as we have been? How do we engage with the media that we consume?” Feder is also working to change the mindset of the people making the films, and that starts by having inclusivity behind the scenes. Feder hired many transgender crew members, and for any position that was taken by someone who was not transgender, they mentored someone who was. “I want to see paid mentorships across every industry,” Feder says. “That is the only way that we can see the inclusion that we keep talking about.”

In terms of what Feder would like to see going forward, having authentic characters is high on the list. “Often, people think it’s enough to just feel bad. [Like] you’ve done your work, you’re an ally. And it’s not. That is not connecting to a trans person, by crying over their death. Connecting to a trans person is understanding we’re full, nuanced, complicated people, and that’s what I want to see in our stories. I don’t want to see us shy away from the truth.”

DISCLOSURE is available to stream now on Netflix. Check out our full audio with Sam Feder below, and don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments.