The mood — reflective and melancholic — is set with the sparse piano on the soundtrack that introduces shirtless Sam, portrayed by Elliot Page, scanning the world outside his window in a concrete corner of Toronto.
Page bares his own top-surgery scars in the scene, lending a personal, physical dimension to Sam’s story, which Page co-conceived with writer-director Dominic Savage. The filmmaker doesn’t deviate much from the brooding mood, but rather just tightens and loosens the tension that accompanies all the dread.
Sam is stressed in anticipation of returning to his hometown, and family, for the first time in four years. He hasn’t seen anyone from home since he transitioned. Choosing his dad’s big birthday weekend get-together as the venue for his homecoming-out might backfire, warns Sam’s friend and housemate Emily (Sook-Yin Lee).
But, dread be damned, away he goes by train from Toronto to leafy, small-town Culver. His first awkward encounter with someone from home — Katherine (Hillary Baack), a friend from high school, now a married mom whom he spots on the train — doesn’t bode well. Still, the brief reunion does supply enough detail to signal that Kat and Sam were previously closer than just friends, and it leaves both with questions lingering heavily on their minds.
Everyone in Sam’s family has something weighing heavily on their mind, it seems, though not everyone spills, or snaps, at the same time. Savage brightens the mood somewhat for Sam’s surprising welcome home scene, where he gently reconnects with mom Miriam (Wendy Crewson), dad Jim (Peter Outerbridge), and his siblings and their partners.
The scene bears hints of the domestic warmth Sam craves, and that the film could use more of to add dimension to its shades of gray. Outside of stray bits of snark from Sam, the film forgoes humor for angst almost completely.
So, the awkwardness persists, and Page, being the expressively interior actor he is, finds within that many affecting colors to play, as tension escalates with each heart-to-heart between Sam and his respective family members. Each one asks all the same catch-up questions — about his job, his happiness, his love life — posed with varying degrees of concern or pity.
The poignant notes of long-delayed homecomings, and polite welcomes that hide old resentments, ring true. So do the uncomfortable conversations with Dad, who’s eager to talk about Sam’s past depression, older sis Kate (Janet Porter), who harbors all sorts of other doubts, and Mom, who’s supportive with intention, yet still hung up on losing her “little girl.”
The film carefully, and too patly, hits every trending concern family might have about their adult trans loved one living alone in the big city. Some in the family seem to wonder if happiness could even be possible for a person like Sam. And one family member steps far over the line, going from awkward and passive aggressive to openly hostile.
The ensuing climax feels like the movie reaching its inevitable destination, but, despite a sense of contrivance, the acting holds up. Crewson and Outerbridge are particularly good as loving parents processing a host of difficult emotions at once, and Page thoroughly embodies the fulfillment Sam has found in his life, as well as the compassion he’s seeking.
Unfortunately, neither Page nor Baack lend much tension or suspense to the will-they-or-won’t-they between Sam and Katherine. Baack certainly conveys that Katherine sees and appreciates Sam for who he is now and has always been. For someone like Sam, who says he just wants to feel seen, that’s a victory worth the train ride home.
Eris Montano joined Life Time Fitness, a Minnesota-based gym chain with a branch in Ellisville, Missouri, to get in shape.
Before signing up, the 52-year-old, who is transgender, had formally changed the gender marker on her state-issued driver's license by filling out a form with the state Department of Revenue and having a medical provider attest that she was undergoing treatments to assist her in transitioning.
The license identified Montano as female, and she was allowed to change clothes in the women's locker room.
But in late July, another patron confronted Montano about her presence in the women's locker room, insisting that she was biologically male. Montano told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the woman tugged at her own bikini top to show part of her breast to "prove that I am a real woman."
A federal judge has ruled that Florida's ban on gender-affirming care for adults who work as state employees is discriminatory and violates their civil rights.
Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, of the Northern District of Florida, found that the ban -- which takes the form of an insurance exclusion in the state employee health plan prohibiting coverage for "gender reassignment or modification services or supplies" -- violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Title IX prohibits discrimination against employees and job applicants based on a variety of personal characteristics, including "sex."
Vivian Jenna Wilson, the transgender daughter of Elon Musk, hit back at her father in an interview with NBC News, accusing him of being an absentee father who was cruel to her and of lying about aspects of her life in his public comments.
Musk recently appeared on conservative influencer Jordan Peterson's podcast for an interview, blaming Wilson's transition as one of the reasons that he has been vocal about his rejection of transgender identity and his opposition to what he calls "woke" culture.
In that interview, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who also owns the social media platform X, claimed that Wilson had been figuratively "killed" by deciding to transition, and that he had been "tricked" into agreeing to allow her to receive puberty blockers when she was 16 years old.
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