Boys Don't Cry

Boys Don't Cry movie trailer

In the film, Boys Don't Cry, Hilary Swank portrays a young adult, Teena Brandon who is struggling with her gender identity. In order to express what she feels to be her true identity, Teena changes her name to Brandon Teena and starts to dress and act like a boy. The movie follows her story as she travels to a different town where she meets a women whom she becomes romantically involved with. The movie takes a tragic turn when two men, friends of Brandon, find out that Brandon in fact is really a women. Then, in a very graphic rape scene, we watch these men express their disagreement with Brandon's choices. Brandon reports the assault, but due to a "lack of sufficient evidence," police do not make an arrest. The two men who raped Brandon then murder him and two others in attempt to keep the rape under wraps. This film is based off of a true story.

Many people who were involved in the true story were offended and displeased with the movie. Brandon's mother believes the movie is a misrepresentation of her daughter. That it does not show case why Brandon felt the need to dress/act like a boy and did not show that Brandon did actually want to be a girl. Brandon's mother believes that Teena's gender identity crisis was a result of sexual assault when she was young. She believed that Teena felt that if she were to dress, act, and essentially be a boy that men wouldn't be able to hurt her. Brandon's mother also filed a lawsuit against the police department for not preventing Brandon's murder and for the demeaning interrogation of her daughter, in which she won.

Intterogation of Teena Brandon 

The true story of Teena Brandon's rape in murder is a classic example of the intolerance transgender and homosexual people face. Through Brandon's interrogation we can see that even the people designed to protect us are perpetrators of discrimination. If Brandon were to have appeared as his assigned gender, female, would he have received the same treatment? Would the sheriff have taken the allegations more seriously? Would have an arrest been made? And essentially would the murders of Brandon and two others ever happened? 

Although this story took place in 1993, and many gains in the area of LGBT rights have been made, there is still a long way to go. This story is just a shocking reminder of the atrocities that can occur from the intolerance of people that are different.