In an airborne pandemic when separation, isolation, and self-sufficiency became the punishing norm, many trans people faced the COVID-19 era differently. Connection | Isolation presents eight portraits of trans and post-gender people who cultivate community in this pandemic. These trans participants foreground how trans people have been disproportionally impacted by Long COVID, how Asian Americans have faced violent racism during the pandemic, how Black Americans and allies rose in opposition to white supremacist police-state violence in 2020, and the exclusion disabled people feel from a society that—despite grave and massive loss—refuses basic protections. Connection | Isolation also highlights how the pandemic gave some trans people more space to explore and understand their identities, community, and bodies.
Between portraits, we depict elegiac (re)enactments performed by trans people revisiting their core COVID-era memories: washing masks, wiping down groceries with disinfectant, and traveling alone to work at the hospital in an empty city. Archival moments flow into these scenes - news reports, memes that made us laugh, and web seminars on community care. Trans and queer people - a community most impacted by pandemics like HIV/AIDS- have built a culture undergirded by mutual aid. This became a model for resilience and care in the pandemic for those who listened. This film follows in that legacy.
Connection | Isolation is presented as a full film (85 min) a shorter film (67 min) and as a series.
Episode descriptions:
Episode 1: Dan
Dan Kingsley (he/him) was born in China and adopted by a white family in Colorado. When the pandemic hits, he must move back home with this family, into a household where COVID-19 is called the “China Virus” and where he is misgendered readily. Dan eventually moves out, creating a new home for himself and his friends and chosen family. This leads Dan to move to the east coast and continue community building work at an LGBT Center in his new university. Dan’s story demonstrates the challenges some trans people had in securing safe housing in the pandemic. He also shares the acute stress upon AAPI people as the pandemic escalated anti-Asian racism. This episode revisits the moment of Coronavirus lockdowns as the pandemic emerges.
Dan’s episode is introduced through a core-COVID memory enacted by Thredd (they/them) who washes cloth masks. As Thredd washes dozens of masks, gloved, they hear sounds of clanging pots and chants of “Thank you health care workers!” These chants of appreciation occurred at 7pm in some urban centers during the height of COVID lockdown. Health care workers have carried an enormous burden amidst millions of infections and resulting deaths worldwide.
Ep 2: Mickaela
As a leader in transgender justice, Mickaela (Micky B.) Bradford (they/she) releases the Agenda for Trans Liberation just before the pandemic begins through their role as Co-Director of the Transgender Law Center. Her ability to bring people together in moments of crisis is shared through a group dialogue with Black trans femmes that they convene in April 2020. Those on the call - national leaders express how BIPOC trans people in their communities have been acutely impacted by the pandemic. However, these needs for healthcare across state lines, food, housing, and more have always been there. Mickaela shares how legacy of queer elders who lived through the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic helps guide these leaders. Ultimately, Micky’s inspirational joy demonstrates how to celebrate one another, and appreciate our own power and creativity as trans people, in hard times. Some scenes of Mickaela’s filmmaking with Comfrey films expresses this joy visually.
Micky’s episode begins with an enactment by Burton (he/him), a healthcare worker wearing scrubs, on a train by himself late at night. He watches news reports from early in the pandemic that speak to the world-wide crisis. He also sees an interview with a transgender activist who briefly notes the challenges her community faces. Burton’s isolation in this scene is strongly felt.
Episode 3: Bakpak
As the pandemic unfolds, the movement for Black Lives rises in response to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police. Bakpak Durden (they/them) joins the protests at first, and then shifts their activism to the walls of Detroit as a muralist. Bakpak connects and collaborates with local community in creating their work – including elders at Feedom Freedom Growers, a community garden created by former Black Panther activists. Bakpak speaks to depression in the pandemic. And mentions the challenges of living with a partner who did not want them to transition. But then, Bakpak shares their joy in ultimately making that decision to transition for themself. At the same time, Bakpak is post-gender, though the word ‘trans’ keeps them in conversation with others like them. Bakpak's artistry is powerful, surrounding their city, and shining a light on their own post-gender body. Key pieces feature costumed dancers in Yoruba culture of West Africa – The Eyo - who dance to celebrate life amidst moments of death. Bakpak’s questions open up conversation around mutual aid, universal basic income, Black community, police brutality, gentrification, and the impulse to move on while the pandemic continues.
The episode begins with an enactment by Chris (they/he) making sourdough starter – a trend that became popular in the beginning of pandemic lockdown as many people had more time in place. Chris plays a webinar as he works by Point of Pride foundation. Two activists and community leaders- Aydian Dowling (he/him) and Liz B. (they/them) guide viewers in a meditation. This scene intends to ground our audience in a quiet moment where they might reflect and breathe. Revisiting the pandemic can be stressful and this episode helps renew the breath we might be holding in as painful memories reemerge. It is also an affirmation of trans love, connection, and our humanity as we work to feed each other, as Chris intends through his bread-making.
Episode 4: Cole
Cole Wolf (they/them) is a white person living in Washington, DC in close proximity to BLM protests and actions. This perspective helps them see these protests as a break from isolation for so many. For them, the protests represent acts of community care and mutual aid. Cole is inspired to create a free, masked, yoga class for trans people as the pandemic becomes endemic, in 2022. They share how yoga can be part of a trans person’s understanding of their own body. And how this was part of their own experience. Even amongst great loss and sadness – their dear grandmother and uncle die in the pandemic – Cole simultaneously feels joy for their own gender awakening. As a writer, Cole’s words will resonate for many who came into this journey during their own periods of solitude.
Cole’s episode begins with J (she/they) who makes a poster for a Black Trans Lives protest. She sees imagery from the protest, sent by a friend, on her cell phone. This protest – in Brooklyn New York on June 13, 2020 – drew tens of thousands, representing one of the largest protests for Black trans rights in the US. These two participants demonstrate an experience by white people who rose in support of Black lives in solidarity and community in the pandemic.
Episode 5: Kirin
Kirin Queer Wave (he/him) is a disabled artist who transforms photographs by disabled queer people into captivating images on social media: images of strength, connection, and joy. Kirin’s art project brings him out of isolation and helps him connect to others as a disabled person. In the pandemic, Kirin has greater risks because of his disability. He also stays inside because he is fearful of anti-Asian racism. His Japanese-American mother lives in an Oregon community where Asian people are experiencing explicit racism during COVID and he fears for her as well. Kirin speaks to pulling back from participating in the leather bar scene, and wonders why queer people particularly aren’t changing their behaviors even as our communities endured significant loss in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Kirin acknowledges that his artwork features happiness at the center, but that he’s not trying to create ‘disability inspiration porn.’ Rather, Kirin reflects what his collaborators want to see of themselves which most often is a depiction of joy.
Kirin’s artwork is introduced in an absurdist moment – as a sad person, G6 -the director (they/them) scrolls through their phone at Christmas. While a tree twinkles in the background, G and their Blahaj sit pathetically on the couch. G. scrolls affectlessly through humorous TikToks by trans folks including a bit by comedienne Robin Tran on being Asian and transgender and afraid to go outside for all these reasons, a trans femme on the relief in getting her vaccine card upended by the jarring sight of her deadname on the card, and the infamous Zoom recording of a lawyer who shows up to his hearing as a cat (perhaps a trans allegory?)
Episode 6: Long COVID Justice
Long COVID Justice began as two HIV/AIDS activists reunited: JD Davids (he/him) who is a white disabled person and Gabriel San Emeterio (she / they / he), a Latine researcher who is HIV+ and disabled. That experience prepared JD and Gabriel for this work, guiding an organization on Long COVID education and advocacy with a disability-first perspective. They launch a small but growing organization. Gabriel explains the connections between Long COVID and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) a serious chronic illness impacting the nervous and immune system that leads to severe fatigue and other impairments. These symptoms align with Long COVID and these communities become directly connected. Gabriel’s fatigue and isolation as a disabled person with ME/CFS, HIV and Long COVID are visualized on screen in quiet moments in her NYC apartment. JD has a bit more energy, but serious health risks that require masking – even in our interview. He takes us to a memorial for Long COVID, and for a hair cut in a queer hair salon. Mutiny's co-owner shares how the shop's COVID precautions are led by the needs of staff members in the collective who are immunocompromised. JD ends this episode by calling for change – including memory and memorial as a way toward ending pandemics.
The episode begins with an enactment by Pilar (he/him), watering his (many, many) plants. Home-gardening became a craze in COVID. In the background, a webinar plays on Long COVID and transgender people hosted by Cecilia Gentili (she/her). Gentili, a prominent and powerful trans woman passed away in 2024, leaving behind her legacy of impactful activism for transgender people and sex workers. In this webinar, JD shares that transgender people have the highest rates of Long COVID compared to cis men and women. While not on screen, these reasons include lack of adequate health care for trans people, trans folks having lower incomes, less access to personal protective equipment (PPE), amongst other compounding issues.
Episode 7: Dani
In this episode, Dani Taylor (they/them) tells us about their experience living alone in a severe state of isolation as pandemic lockdowns begin. As an international student, Dani could not travel home to Hong Kong right away. Their isolation in a dorm by themself was extreme. Even after they arrive home to Hong Kong, their family does not acknowledge their gender and feels of isolation continue. Dani loses the freedoms and gender-based exploration they had enjoyed with college peers. But then Dani turns toward online community, realizing that there, they can “be a trans person.” Dani’s episode reveals shifting understandings of time, religion and faith.
Dani is bookended by two enactments: an online DND game led by Emilia (she/her) on Zoom. This playful moment becomes a refuge amongst queer friends. And the series ends with a long-overdue lunch date in the park between two close friends-Úmi (she/her) and JJ (they/them) - immigration and abolitionist activists.
This episode concludes with the series’ complete end-credits and a poignant song by Liz Ezra Furman (she/they), “Book of Our Names”. Furman’s song expresses the way trans people name ourselves. She demands that our names as they are be said, remembered, and sung out loud.