Markie in Milwaukee dir. by Matt Kliegman (review)

Before setting out to critique a text, I always begin by deciding on my evaluation criteria. When the text is about trans people, and it is created by a cis person, Jacob Hale's "Suggested Rules for Non-Transsexuals Writing about Transsexuals, Transsexuality, Transsexualism, or Trans _____"¹ usually serves as the foundation for my critique. After watching Matt Kliegman's Markie in Milwaukee, however, I am left with only one criterion, a criterion that I suggest we add to Hale's important list: Does this text portend harm to trans people?

Markie in Milwaukee documents its subject, Markie Wenzel, for ten years from her time as Mark, a seven-foot-tall evangelical Baptist minister in Milwaukee, through her transition to Markie, and finally her partial detransition ending in a tortured double-life as both Markie and Mark. Throughout the film, Markie is vulnerable and generous with the camera. Rejected by her family and church community for attempting to live her truth, the pain and loneliness laid bare by Markie is shared by many trans people who might find in Markie a compelling point of identification not often represented in media. On the other hand, Kliegman's editorial decisions leave the viewer with the idea that trans people have two mutually exclusive choices. Refusing transition offers a life of connection at the cost of self-realization, whereas transitioning holds out the possibility of experiencing a wholeness that is only achieved by sacrificing all sense of belonging in family and community. In the end, Markie's attempt to live both as herself and as Mark when her circumstances require it is best characterized by "Mark's" own words to "his" church congregation, "Dear Jesus. Please forgive me for being a sinner. I've sinned against you, and I deserve to be punished in hell."

My reaction to Markie in Milwaukee reminded me of José Esteban Muñoz's analysis of The Transformation, another film that documents the detransition of its protagonist, Ricardo, who "has taken on this name in the same fashion that he has taken on a heterosexual identification and a conversion to fundamentalist Christianity."² Although Markie, a white man, does not share with Ricardo realities of racism, HIV infection, and antiqueer sentiment, her detransition and double-gendered life are presented as strategies for survival that resemble Muñoz's concept of disidentification. In addition, like the depiction of Ricardo in The Transformation, Markie's disidentification is not presented in the "service of a larger practice of freedom."³ Muñoz concludes his discussion of disidentification, "Disidentification's use-value is only accessible through the transformative politics that it enables subjects and groups to imagine."⁴ Kliegman leaves us with a Markie/Mark for whom the future is bleak. The few instances of trans community formations we are shown are depicted as ultimately unsatisfactory in comparison to the bonds of a transphobic family and church community, and we are almost exclusively shown interviews with those who reject Markie instead of those who celebrate and welcome her as, in her words, "complete."

Returning to the criterion with which I began, Markie in Milwaukee does portend the possibility of harm to trans people. Unaccepting family and community members can point to Markie as one who admits her sin, disavows her earthly happiness in favor of salvation and love, and is welcomed back into the good graces of her family and her church. They can point to the loneliness Markie suffers during her transition, not only as a result of ostracism by her family, but also because of the lack of trans communion we are shown by Kliegman. Markie does, after all, participate in trans accepting church communities, trans community building, and trans activism, but these activities are vastly overshadowed by Markie's overwhelming suffering. Markie in Milwaukee would almost certainly serve as a warning to anyone on the precipice of transition that shares Markie's religious convictions and conservative values, but it did not have to be that way.

I honor Markie's story and...