André Pérez on 'America in Transition'

Personal experience has led a transgender activist to grab a camera, travel the U.S. and capture stories like his. Now André Pérez is attending the Sundance Film Festival to promote “America in Transition,” his web documentary series about the challenges facing trans people in marginalized communities. At Sundance Pérez has arrived with a fresh trailer that was just uploaded on Vimeo. It features a handsome young man from Milwaukee named Dezjourn. Born a girl with good looks, modeling came natural. But she wanted to become a man. In the process he also turned into a transgender activist and Dezjourn and his family are now struggling to understand each other.

SUNDANCE GRANT WINNER A work in progress, “America in Transition” is one of more than 50 recipients of over $1 million in grants from the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program last year. To get his dream project off the ground, Pérez put together a community advisory board and launched a crowdfunding campaign. “We raised $2,500, which we spent on the first episode,” he says. More financial support came from the Trans Justice Funding Project, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the Propeller Fund. The Sundance Institute awarded $20,000 to “America in Transition." 2 DOWN, 5 MORE TO GO So far the web series has completed two episodes, including one about HIV criminalization and sexual violence. Production of the next two episodes is now underway at the same time that another fundraising effort tries to secure money for the last four chapters.

Pérez hopes to make the first episode available online March 31, International Transgender Day of Visibility, and the entire series this fall.

INSPIRATION This is a very personal project for Pérez. “'America in Transition' was initially inspired by my own experience coming of age in North Carolina and starting my transition as a youth in rural Vermont,” he says. “I had questions about everything from health care access to navigating relationships, but I had no one to ask.” Lacking role models and resources, Pérez founded the Trans Oral History Project to promote understanding of the transgender experience. Although the trans community has made some progress in American society in recent years, Pérez remains worried about its present and future. “Twenty-sixteen has brought some of the most regressive civil rights legislation in modern U.S. history,” he states citing anti-trans legislative proposals and other efforts in Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas. “Trans people have become the targets of radical social conservatives who are leveraging fear and ignorance to create a social climate of increasing and unrelenting hostility,” adds Pérez. NEED TO EDUCATE The production of “America in Transition has presented big challenges to its creator. “Over the time I have been working on this project, the need for it has shifted,” he says. “Coming from the South myself, I knew that there were a lot of good-hearted people who simply didn’t know about our community. I had wanted to create something educational that could reach folks before they were influenced by the negative assumptions and biases of the radical right.” In his view the last two years have been trying, both for him as an activist artist and the subjects in his work. “It’s hard to work on the project in an atmosphere of increasing polarization,” concedes Pérez. “I am often scared for the people I am filming with because their safety is more and more on the line.” He concludes expressing both personal grief and hope of affecting change. “The process has become a lot more demoralizing than I anticipated, so I have to be intentional about creating spaces for joy and celebration as well.”