It is difficult to separate my cinephilia and early 2010s online identity from when I was hit with the realization of my trans identity. By the end of college, I had come out to a well-meaning campus therapist, a few friends, and a mother who, for all intents and purposes, gaslit me in the subsequent years from when I did come out to her. I did not know a lot of out trans people at the time or were friendly with them. I finally had the words and definition of who I was, but I lacked any real sense of direction in how to help myself out. As a result, it made me feel too apprehensive to suddenly be friends with other trans people. It was kind of an imposter syndrome where my trans embodiment felt more abstract than fully embodied. I had gender dysphoria, but none of the things I wanted to do to fix that. Basically, I was still not yet at the place where I wanted to be. I would lurk on forums like Susan’s Place, various Tumblrs (Fuck yeah, FTMs! was definitely the most frequented), YouTube videos of trans guys giving their T logs, and reading Original Plumbing to try to find any frame of reference. But I also had a Twitter account and was shifting away from following political reporters after the 2012 United States Presidential Election and moving more towards what would be my ‘Film Twitter’.
I forget what topic or tweet that had the stars align where I became aware of Willow Maclay, but I do remember her love of wrestling, Greta Gerwig, Courtney Love, and Chantal Akerman (she had an avatar of Akerman in Je Tu Il Elle) being immediately apparent. I thought she was smart and super fucking cool. It was sometime in 2013 and writing that down just now makes me realize we have been friends for ten years. Willow was one of the first people I disclosed my trans status to online. I remember that the most clearly. At the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, I was emotionally destroyed but also deeply enchanted by Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin. For me, the film was a contemporary fairytale that spoke so much about trans embodiment, transition, the journey of going from the perceived alien/monster to human, and the looming threat of death. I felt all of this but could not write or talk with anyone about this. If I wrote over the connections I felt to the film, it would pretty much be a coming out moment that I was frankly not ready to broadcast to a group of strangers. However, sometime in 2014 when Willow saw the film and felt the same connection to Under the Skin. I immediately sent her a direct message. In that one message, I both came out to her and also told her, I felt the exact same way about Under the Skin. Her agreeing with my initial reaction made me feel less insane. That film has become such a focal point in our identities as trans film critics. But it was also, in fact, an important text of ‘lore’, so to speak, about us as collaborators and friends.
From that point, I would say we became thicker than thieves in talking about movies, transition, basketball, relationships, ennui, and the ebbs and flows about being freelance film critics online, especially both of us feeling increasingly unimpressed by the post-Transgender Tipping Point environment for trans people in film. It was often expected of us, as both trans critics and consumers, to be scolding, unable to please, difficult people who often watched our cisgender colleagues stumble on topics of transness in film. I would like to think we have earned some level of respect from colleagues and people in film culture in our work and the effort in terms of our writing and nuanced discussions around trans people in cinema, be it through our Body Talk series and other projects (we hope to give a more concrete update of certain fruits of labor soon). We did this all despite only talking in online spaces like on Skype, Zoom, Messenger, Signal, email, and pick your poison on social media. We had not met in the flesh. But Willow was getting one of major gender affirmative surgeries in Montreal and that was, for me, a long, but feasible, car ride away. I was not going to pass up the chance.
It was a beautiful Saturday summer afternoon. The only thing that went wrong was my cheap Casio watch ripping off my wrist when I took out the garbage before I left. I drove up with my podcasts downloaded to listen to on the drive. For some reason, I downloaded The Daily (mercifully without that clownish Ira Glass masquerader Michael Barbaro hosting that particular episode) because it was about Twitter struggling under Elon Musk and the perceived Twitter competitor app, Threads. I am mostly including this anecdote to serve as a time stamp that Threads’ relevance and potential existed exclusively in July 2023. Barbenheimer was on the horizon and Willow, iconically, had both a Barbie party prior to her surgery and post-surgery, posed with the Margot Robbie cover of Vogue. She did that before realizing, once she was able to go to the movie theaters weeks later to watch Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, that she and Robbie’s Barbie would both end up going to the OBGYN moving forward.
I brought gifts for Willow that included some books, DVDs, and VHS tapes. That included an unwrapped copy of The Limey, Clueless, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything. Julie Newmar, Tootsie, and Disney’s Robin Hood. The others I had gotten at a yard sale, but that Robin Hood VHS tape was a childhood favorite that was thankfully not worn out. Willow and I both talked about it before and loved it. It was quite honestly an animated film that most resembled a Burt Reynolds star vehicle (with apologies to All Dogs Go to Heaven), further underscored by the Roger Miller country twang title song.
I had driven into Canada before although not since the pandemic. My short stay was exclusively to see Willow. I had no real plans to hang out in Montreal because relying on French signage and my finnicky car GPS felt too risky. My GPS froze when I drove over one of the bridges, and for a brief moment I felt like Dionne in Clueless driving on the Los Angeles freeway. But I made it. I was masked up and signed in through the medical house where Willow was staying for her post-surgery recovery. I went to her room and knocked on her door asking, in my best Glenn Ford impression, ‘Willow, are you decent?’
She replied in her Kentuckian drawl, ‘I’m decent!’
We hung out and talked for the next few hours before her partner, Trevor, had his allotted visit time. We hung out in the Montreal sun in the patient courtyard and in her room where she was still trying to get a hang of the television options as it was all in French. Willow had migrated to Newfoundland from the United States but her or any non-Québécois Canadian in Montreal (or dirtbag American like me) were practically dropped into another country with how different the city and province is from the rest of Canada (respectfully). A lot of our conversations were a mix of shoot the shit and personal stuff that we would only pass along and share amongst the closest of friends, a natural dynamic for both of us at this point.
We hugged and said our goodbyes. I drove back and went through the American border patrol. The guy at my window asked me about the length of my stay and for what purpose. I said I was visiting a friend recovering from surgery. He asked where I drove from and said, Schenectady. He seemed surprised I drove by myself back and forth remarking, ‘Must be a good friend,’ as he gave me back my passport. Without a blink of an eye I just said, ‘You bet.’ I drove back home with my stomach growling amid the lack of food options on the I-87, but that brief sojourn was more than worth it.
Happy Birthday, Willow!