National
Historic Oscar showing for ‘Emilia Pérez’ stirs controversy
Karla Sofía Gascón is first trans nominee for Best Actress

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences makes the annual announcement of Oscar nominations, it’s always a day of divisive opinions – but even the most divisive Oscar controversies of the past are bound to end up feeling like a pleasant chat over brunch compared with the one that has predictably erupted over yesterday’s revelation of the Academy’s slate of contenders, in which “Emilia Pérez” became not only the most-nominated film of the year, but the first to score a Best Actress nod for a transgender actor.
It’s a milestone that hardly comes as a surprise. The film’s star, Karla Sofía Gascón, has been considered a front-runner in the category throughout the awards season so far, already winning the Golden Globe for Best Lead Actress (Musical of Comedy) and snagging an equivalent nomination for the upcoming SAG Awards – whose membership also happens to represent the largest percentage of Academy voters, thereby making their choices a solid indicator of how things are going to go down on Oscar night. In any other year, apart from being noted as a historic first and inevitably ruffling a few conservative feathers, Gascón’s inclusion in the lineup would likely otherwise feel like business as usual.
That, however, was before the return of convicted felon Donald Trump to the White House. Days after the former reality show star signed an executive order proclaiming that the United States will henceforth legally recognize only “two genders” (justified in part by the invocation of “concrete reality,” whatever that is), it seems that Academy voters have a dissenting opinion – and suddenly, a simple Oscar nomination feels like an act of resistance against the government itself.
For those who have yet to see the film (which is now streaming on Netflix), “Emilia Pérez” is a sprawling musical drama in which Gascón portrays a powerful Mexican cartel boss who enlists an idealistic lawyer (Zoe Saldaña, also nominated for an Oscar, as Best Supporting Actress) to facilitate a gender transition, so that she can disappear from her brutal life of violent conflict and finally live freely as the true self she has always had to keep hidden. It’s an epic-length saga, blending multiple genres into a larger-than-life, unpredictable wild ride that both celebrates traditional cinematic conventions and shatters them.
In addition to the kudos for Gascón and Saldaña, the film – which, though its dialogue is mostly in Spanish, was produced in France, giving it the additional distinction of earning the highest number of nominations of any non-English-language movie in Oscar history – also earned its place among the 10 Best Picture contenders, where it competes against more traditionally styled favorites like “Conclave,” “Wicked,” and the Chalamet-as-Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” as well as “artsier” titles like “Anora” and “The Brutalist.” Additionally, filmmaker Jacques Audiard is nominated as director and co-screenwriter (with Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius, and Nicolas Livecchi, in the Adapted Screenplay category), with two nods in the Best Song category and a host of so-called “technical” awards to round out its whopping total of 13 – only one nomination fewer than the three films (All About Eve,” “Titanic,” and “La La Land”) currently tied at 14.
Other films on the Oscar roster also gathered a high tally; “The Brutalist,” Brady Corbett’s critically lauded examination of the “American Dream” through the experiences of a Holocaust survivor (Adrien Brody) on his way to becoming a celebrated architect in the mid-20th-century United States, got 10, as did John M. Chu’s blockbuster adaptation of “Wicked” (including one each for stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande). Among other multiple nominees are “Conclave,” “Anora,” and “A Complete Unknown,” along with “The Substance,” which earned a Best Actress nod for previous dark horse candidate Demi Moore as one of its total.
Other nominations of note: Colman Domingo, whose well-deserved Best Actor nomination for “Sing Sing” gives him another shot at becoming the first openly gay person to win in that category; a pair of nominations for literary adaptation “Nickel Boys,” a story of two Black American youths at an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida; a nomination for Isabella Rossellini, daughter of three-time-Oscar winner Ingrid Bergman and Italian cinema maestro Roberto Rossellini, as Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Conclave”; and the inclusion of “Memoir of a Snail,” a uniquely poignant Australian film which features (among other non-kid-friendly things) a pair of queer characters being subjected to conversion therapy, among the nominees for Best Animated Feature.
As always, there were snubs, too: egregiously, Daniel Craig, the star of Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” who was widely seen as a front runner, was shut out for a Best Actor nomination. Guadgnino, who also directed the bisexual tennis romance “Challengers” this year, saw both of his movies come up empty-handed; also left out was a Best Actress nod for Pamela Anderson’s breathtaking comeback turn in “The Last Showgirl,” despite promising buzz and a strong showing at previous awards ceremonies this season.
Nevertheless, while in other years these subjectively labeled hits and misses might be fodder for plenty of debate in the public forum, none of them are even a storm in a teacup compared with the uproar around “Emilia Pérez” – which thus far (at this writing, anyway) has focused on detracting from the merits of the film itself, rather than at its transgender star. We get it: “Emilia Pérez” is not a film for all tastes, so it’s not surprising that many film fans are appalled at the acclaim it has received.
Even so, thanks to the atmosphere of transphobic oppression that has been forced upon us by Trump and his extremist cronies, any discussion of the film and its nominations must now be considered with all one’s critical thinking skills, because any arguments, either for or against its worthiness, might merely be a smokescreen for a deeper agenda than defending a set of cinematic aesthetics.
For our part, of course, we celebrate the film for its bold inclusivity, as well as its fantastical exploration of not only gender, but justice, corruption, politics, and all the contradictory passions that make being human what it is. We also celebrate Gascón’s nomination and the significant historic impact it carries – particularly coming at this precarious moment in the American story.
As for Oscar night, we have no idea what to expect, so our only prediction about the ceremony on March 2 also serves as a bit of advice, courtesy of a quote from a previous Oscar champion: “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
State Department
Transgender, nonbinary people file lawsuit against passport executive order
State Department banned from issuing passports with ‘X’ gender markers

Seven transgender and nonbinary people on Feb. 7 filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
Ashton Orr, Zaya Perysian, Sawyer Soe, Chastain Anderson, Drew Hall, Bella Boe, and Reid Solomon-Lane are the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, and the private law firm Covington & Burling LPP filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The lawsuit names Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as defendants.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022.
Trump signed the executive order that overturned it shortly after he took office on Jan. 20. Rubio later directed State Department personnel to “suspend any application requesting an ‘X’ sex marker and do not take any further action pending additional guidance from the department.”
“This guidance applies to all applications currently in progress and any future applications,” reads Rubio’s memo. “Guidance on existing passports containing an ‘X’ sex marker will come via other channels.”
The lawsuit says Trump’s executive order is an “abrupt, discriminatory, and dangerous reversal of settled United States passport policy.” It also concludes the new policy is “unlawful and unconstitutional.”
“It discriminates against individuals based on their sex and, as to some, their transgender status,” reads the lawsuit. “It is motivated by impermissible animus. It cannot be justified under any level of judicial scrutiny, and it wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people exist today as they always have.”
Solomon-Lane, who lives in North Adams, Mass., with his spouse and their three children, in an ACLU press release says he has “lived virtually my entire adult life as a man” and “everyone in my personal and professional life knows me as a man, and any stranger on the street who encountered me would view me as a man.”
“I thought that 18 years after transitioning, I would be able to live my life in safety and ease,” he said. “Now, as a married father of three, Trump’s executive order and the ensuing passport policy have threatened that life of safety and ease.”
“If my passport were to reflect a sex designation that is inconsistent with who I am, I would be forcibly outed every time I used my passport for travel or identification, causing potential risk to my safety and my family’s safety,” added Solomon-Lane.
Federal Government
Education Department moves to end support for trans students
Mental health services among programs that are in jeopardy

An email sent to employees at the U.S. Department of Education on Friday explains that “programs, contracts, policies, outward-facing media, regulations, and internal practices” will be reviewed and cut in cases where they “fail to affirm the reality of biological sex.”
The move, which is of a piece with President Donald Trump’s executive orders restricting transgender rights, jeopardizes the future of initiatives at the agency like mental health services and support for students experiencing homelessness.
Along with external-facing work at the agency, the directive targets employee programs such as those administered by LGBTQ resource groups, in keeping with the Trump-Vance administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the federal government.
In recent weeks, federal agencies had begun changing their documents, policies, and websites for purposes of compliance with the new administration’s first executive action targeting the trans community, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
For instance, the Education Department had removed a webpage offering tips for schools to better support homeless LGBTQ youth, noted ProPublica, which broke the news of the “sweeping” changes announced in the email to DOE staff.
According to the news service, the directive further explains the administration’s position that “The deliberate subjugation of women and girls by means of gender ideology — whether in intimate spaces, weaponized language, or American classrooms — negated the civil rights of biological females and fostered distrust of our federal institutions.”
A U.S. Senate committee hearing will be held Thursday for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, who has been criticized by LGBTQ advocacy groups. GLAAD, for instance, notes that she helped to launch and currently chairs the board of a conservative think tank that “has campaigned against policies that support transgender rights in education.”
NBC News reported on Tuesday that Trump planned to issue an executive order this week to abolish the Education Department altogether.
While the president and his conservative allies in and outside the administration have repeatedly expressed plans to disband the agency, doing so would require approval from Congress.
State Department
Protesters demand US fully restore PEPFAR funding
Activists blocked intersection outside State Department on Thursday

Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday protested outside the State Department and demanded U.S. officials fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.
The activists — members of Housing Works, Health GAP, and the Treatment Action Group — blocked an intersection for an hour. Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell told the Washington Blade that police did not make any arrests.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Jan. 24 directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that President Donald Trump signed after his inauguration. Rubio later issued a waiver that allows PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Blade on Wednesday reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding.
“PEPFAR is a program that has saved 26 million lives and changed the trajectory of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said Housing Works CEO Charles King in a press release. “The recent freeze on its funding is not just a bureaucratic decision; it is a death sentence for millions who rely on these life-saving treatments. We cannot allow decades of progress to be undone. The U.S. must immediately reaffirm its commitment to global health and human dignity by restoring PEPFAR funding.”
“We demand Secretary Rubio immediately reverse his deadly, illegal stop-work order, which has already disrupted life-saving HIV services worldwide,” added Russell. “Any waiver process is too little, too late.”
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