Laverne Cox appears in the new trailer for Disclosure, a Netflix documentary on transgender representation in film and television, out June 19th in celebration of LGBTQ Pride month.
Directed by Sam Feder and executive produced by Cox, the trailer opens with the actress observing Hollywood’s influence on trans culture and society’s beliefs that have evolved overtime.
“I never thought I’d live in a world where trans people would be celebrated,” Cox says. “On or off the screen.” She adds: “I never thought the media would stop asking horrible questions and start treating us with respect,” as Oprah Winfrey is seen asking a transgender woman, “How do you hide your penis?”
The documentary will also discuss films as early as 1914’s A Florida Enchantment and television shows such as The Jeffersons and The L-Word, as trans people tackle their depiction on screen. “I think for a very long time, the ways in which trans people have been represented on screen have suggested that we’re not real, have suggested that we’re mentally ill, that we won’t exist,” Cox says. “And yet here I am. Yet here we are, and we’ve always been here.”
Feder previously directed 2014’s Kate Bornstein Is A Queer & Pleasant Danger. Disclosure also stars Chaz Bono, Angelica Ross, Lilly Wachowski, Alexandra Billings, Yance Ford, Trace Lysette, and many others.
.@Disclosure_Doc — from director Sam Feder and producer Laverne Cox — features interviews with MJ Rodriguez, Jamie Clayton, Jen Richards, Lilly Wachowski, Yance Ford, and more in taking a vital and unprecedented look at the history of trans representation across film and TV pic.twitter.com/yJTNKf765o
— Netflix (@netflix) June 11, 2020
