HER STORY: TRANS TV IS HERE

By Samuel Leighton-Dore

Following up from our recent piece on Mardi Gras Film Festival and the importance of LGBTQI screen content finding audiences via alternative viewing platforms, we couldn’t be more pumped to share that epic new trans series Her Story has recently launched online.

The 6-episode series follows the lives of two trans women in Los Angeles as they struggle to navigate the complexities of love, friendship, career and identity; seeking to offer the nuanced alternative to Hollywood’s typically tragic and one-noted depiction of trans women.

Commendably hiring predominantly LGBTQI women for both on and off screen roles, the series was co-written and produced by I Am Cait regular and Buzzfeed video star, Jen Richards. After raising a portion of their production budget through online crowd-funding, social media support for the webseries is already immense – with many fans taking to Twitter in a bid to encourage media powerhouses Netflix or Amazon to produce a full-length series. Take a look at the epic trailer below, and you’ll understand why:

Often shunned by networks and larger production companies, LGBTQI writers and directors have started turning to audiences online in the hopes of engaging a strong enough following to gain mainstream traction. Only recently Australian filmmakers launched the pilot episode of their queer youth series Subject To Change on YouTube, openly seeking the support of both local and international distributors. Encouragingly, Australian lesbian webseries Starting From… Now! recently celebrated an epic 40 million views in across their first three seasons.

When compared to the modest-at-best ratings of Australia’s biggest television shows, the future, it seems, lies not in The Bachelor’s quest for love and magazine endorsement deals, but in the very real stories of an incredibly vibrant and ever-diverse LGBTQI community.