Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

A coda to the Stanton story

The timing of a showing in Largo of a film about transgender women is no fluke.

By RICHARD DANIELSON
Published April 6, 2007

LARGO - After the house lights came up Wednesday night, a woman at the back of the theater raised her hand and said it's ironic that we're seeing this film in Largo.

Well, yes and no.

True, Almost Myself is an award-winning documentary that looks at the journeys of 10 transgender women who were born male.

And true, it was screened less than two weeks after the Largo City Commission fired City Manager Steve Stanton, who recently disclosed that he plans to have gender reassignment surgery and become a woman named Susan.

But it was no accident that Almost Myself came to the Largo Cultural Center when it did.

After Stanton's plans became public in February, Charles Henson called Stanton and offered to have the film shown to Largo city employees.

But as Stanton, 48, was first suspended, then fired, that plan fell through, said Henson, executive director of Friends of the Festival, which produces the annual Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

Still, "the concept is still good," Henson said, "so we offered it as an educational opportunity for the community."

The group paid $450 to rent the Largo Cultural Center's 333-seat Tonne Playhouse and show Almost Myself for free Wednesday night.

Despite the controversy surrounding Stanton, it turned out to be a straight-forward business transaction.

"It's strictly a rental as far as the city's concerned," said cultural center manager Colin Bissett.

Bissett did run the request by City Hall first, though.

"If there's something that's slightly out of the ordinary, it's always best to go to your boss," he said.

But the film generated not a ripple of controversy.

"No complaints, no phone calls, no nothing," Bissett said before the show Wednesday night. "I'm surprised at how quiet it is."

Though organizers prepared for a full house, they didn't get one. Friends of the Festival gave 182 tickets to various community groups, and about 100 people showed up to see the film.

But those who came said they were impressed.

Almost Myself is the work of Sarasota filmmaker Tom Murray, who handled virtually every aspect of the production himself.

In the 82-minute documentary, Murray interviewed 10 transgender women with a wide range of experience and perspectives.

There were women who, like Stanton, had had their share of rugged experiences. One was a combat-wounded Vietnam veteran. Another went to college on a football scholarship and ran a sawmill.

Also like Stanton, they described feeling from a very young age that they had been born into the wrong gender. They spoke of isolation, confusion and estrangement from their families.

And they talked about their journeys with humor as well as sadness.

One, a North Carolinian named Beth, joked that a male friend had been convinced that she had been recruited by some organized group.

"I don't think they'd have a lot of takers," she said.

For Murray, making Almost Myself was journey itself.

Murray, 62, came to documentary filmmaking late in life after a career as a licensed building contractor.

"It was a long-deferred passion," he said.

Almost Myself is his third of five films so far, and transgenderism was not a subject he set out to explore, he said. But he began the project after finding a Web site for a transgender woman who was raising money to have her reassignment reversed so she could become a man again. Her story forms the narrative spine of the movie.

As a result of making his documentary, Murray said he has come to understand transgender people better.

"I don't know Steve Stanton," he told the audience after the screening, but "I really have compassion for what it is he's going through."

Murray said he watched much of the Largo City Commission's proceedings on Stanton on the Web.

"I felt that there was a lot of misinformation or perhaps a lack of understanding," he said.

Others who saw the film Wednesday night agreed. After the screening, cultural center volunteer and Largo retiree Mary J. Kimball stood up with a question for Murray.

"Is this film going to be shown anywhere else?" she asked. "I think it should be brought out to the public."

Richard Danielson can be reached at Danielson@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4152.

Fast Facts:

On the Web

www.almostmyself.com

[Last modified April 5, 2007, 23:49:40]