‘Fights for our material survival’: documentary goes inside the battle for trans rights

In Heightened Scrutiny, the fight driving activist and lawyer Chase Strangio is backgrounded by a deep dive into how the media has helped to push an anti-trans agenda Trans documentarian Sam Feder’s latest feature Heightened Scrutiny is a kind of two-for-one – an affecting portrait of one of the most important trans activists of our time, and a continuation of the media critique he established through earlier films, particularly his groundbreaking 2020 Netflix doc Disclosure. It’s a powerful look at the fight over civil rights for trans people, while also posing as a critical rebuttal to supposedly center-left media such as the New York Times and the Atlantic, which have aided and abetted rightwing forces in setting off a moral panic against trans existence. The film follows the ACLU attorney Chase Strangio as he prepares for oral arguments in the supreme court case US v Skirmetti. These arguments occurred on 4 December 2024, with the court ruling several months later in favor of Ten...

Electric Malady review – life under a blanket for man who fears ‘electrosenstivity’

This tactful documentary follows William, living in a tinfoil-covered cabin and covered in a blanket. But is there anything behind his condition?

William lives in a pretty wooden cabin deep in a Swedish forest. It looks like any other cabin, except William has covered it with aluminium mosquito netting. Inside, his bedroom is like a silver cave: walls and floor are lined with industrial-looking tinfoil bubble wrap. And then there is William himself – covered from head to toe in a white blanket. He looks like a kid dressed up as a ghost for Halloween. Except there are no cutouts for his eyes: holes would let in the electromagnetic radiation. So William lives mostly in darkness.

This idea that modern life could be making us ill, that there might be health dangers caused by exposure to electromagnetic fields given off by mobile phones and wifi technology, was big in the 00s. The mainstream media took it semi-seriously. Panorama even did a wifi special episode in 2007, which the BBC’s own complaints unit criticised for being misleading. The issue has since dropped off the radar but there are still people who believe that they are suffering from electrosensitivity.

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