What Kevin Smith And Chasing Amy Taught Me About Being Transgender

Not pure enough to be a gold-star lesbian, not queer enough to be a gold-star trans

“One of the most enjoyable things about watching ‘Chasing Amy’ is knowing that it’s going to piss off a lot of people.” Charles Taylor, Salon

One clerk gave this lesbian more than exact change.

With hype building for Clerks III among Kevin Smith fans (there are literally dozens of us), I’d rather revisit his third movie: Chasing Amy. The one that proved as far back as 1997 that Kevin Smith had something to say not just for lesbians, but for all sexual and gender non-conforming people (including this trans girl y’all call Stephenie).

Note: If you haven’t felt pissed off about this movie in a while, Jon Oliver took a stab at it just a couple of years ago in a segment on Last Week Tonight (YouTube):

Jon Oliver: Set aside the notion that any lesbian could be magically turned straight if the right guy comes along. What’s extra offensive in hindsight is the idea that guy would be Ben Affleck.

Chasing Amy’s Gender

Alyssa: Maybe you knew your track was from point “a” to point “b,” but I didn’t know how to get from “b” to “a,” because I wasn’t given a fucking map at birth and shown the way. I found it myself.

In what’s easily Kevin Smith’s funniest (and most honest) movie, a comic book writer meets the love of his life, only to discover she’s a lesbian. That ought to be the thing that keeps them apart, but a person’s sexual orientation can be as fluid as their gender.

The straight dude and the lesbian become each other’s exception.

The two fall for each other — and they fall hard — only to break up when the comic book writer can’t get past his own insecurities around gender, orientation, and sex itself.

Alyssa fell for Holden because he made her feel whole

Alyssa: The way the world is, how seldom it is that you meet that one person who just gets you — it’s so rare… And to cut oneself off from finding that person, to immediately halve your options by eliminating the possibility of finding that one person within your own gender, that just seemed stupid to me.

Inspired by the clusterfuck that was Kevin Smith’s real-life relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, Kevin Smith released Chasing Amy. Decades later, I’m more certain about one scene in particular.

The movie either hooks you or loses you when Holden, the main character played by Ben Affleck, professes his love for Alyssa (who we’re meant to see as the titular Amy).

And Holden doesn’t just say he loves her. He’s in love with her.

He understands that because she’s a lesbian, she can’t choose to feel the same way about him.

But he sees it in her eyes. (Doesn’t he…?)

She feels the same way about him. (Doesn’t she…?)

In the pouring rain and her own pouring tears, Amy runs away from Holden…only to rush back to him, to embrace him, to kiss him —

— to wake up with him the next morning.

She told herself that would never happen. Isn’t the point of being a lesbian that you don’t **** dudes?

So for you, to love means to penetrate

Alyssa: Let me ask you something. Can men **** each other? Banky: What, are you asking for my permission? Alyssa: In your estimation. Banky: Yeah, sure. Alyssa: So for you, to **** means to penetrate. You’re used to the more traditional definition. You, inside some girl you duped, jackhammering away, not noticing the bored look in her eyes. Banky: Hey, I always notice the bored look in their eyes.

Alyssa has sex. A lot of it. And when it’s sex without love — most of it — she calls it what it is.

For Alyssa, there’s a difference in making love and just plain ****ing. There are plenty of women she will take on a tour across the Jersey turnpike, but she’s only going to wake up two mornings in a row with people who make her feel like she’s come home.

For most of her life, Alyssa struggled to find that feeling of lust or love with men. She needed that experience like she needed food and water, but she had to try everything under the sun to find it with women.

She refused to believe she might one day find it with a man.

We end up being our own worst enemy

Alyssa: While I was falling for you I put a ceiling on that, because you were a guy.

Until I remembered why I opened the door to women in the first place: to not limit the likelihood of finding that one person who’d complement me so completely.

So here we are. I was thorough when I looked for you. And I feel justified lying in your arms, ’cause I got here on my own terms, and I have no question there was some place I didn’t look. And for me, that makes all the difference.

When Holden declares his love for her, he reminds her of the sacred pact she made with herself. If she doesn’t feel the same way about him, then fine. He can’t change that.

But if she does…how can she possibly reject what makes her whole? How can she possibly reject who makes her whole?

Is a gold star really worth saying no to that?

Not pure enough to be a gold-star lesbian, not queer enough to be a gold-star trans

For the longest time, Chasing Amy spoke to me about just being queer. The movie would eventually help me accept the descriptions that speak my truth.

• I’m a lesbian
• I’m trans
• I’ll probably never get a gold star

When Alyssa’s circle of lesbian friends finds out she’s fallen in love with a man, they condemn her. They punish her. They hurt her.

I wouldn’t be the first among you to say wtf? Why can’t she just say she’s bi-sexual…?

“Bi.” This word takes up like zero room on a screenplay page. This entire premise rests on the fact that Alyssa is bi… yet we never hear the word in the movie. — “The Unicorn Scale: Chasing Amy” by Jennie Roberson at Bi.Org

But, like, there’s a reason for that. Our internalized homobophobia and transphobia takes on a lot of different forms, and one of those is in our obsession to get a Gold Star.

Did you get any gold stars as a kid? Do you remember how they made you feel?

Gold-star lesbians say you can’t be a lesbian if you’ve ever had sex with a man.

Gold-star trans girls have our own weird myths and gate-keeping guidelines. Some of us say you can’t really be “trans” unless you’ve had the surgery.

I assume most of those people are actually straight cis men hoping for one more opportunity IYKWIM, though some could be your closeted gay best friend using homophobia to hide their truth.

But that’s just a joke. We’re as harmful to our own as anyone else. Sometimes more so.

[T]ake the tragic death of Leelah Alcorn — there was no shortage of people aware enough to say that she should’ve been protected and validated in her identity, while at the same time an enormous part of her desperation was the false and dangerous belief that being a “real” trans person can only be achieved by surgically transitioning and doing so at a young age. — “Can Lesbian Identity Survive The Gender Revolution?” by Shannon Keating at Buzzfeed

There are more than men disrupting a chance for connection between diverse kinds of women. Requiring gold stars for lesbians or trans women is just one more senseless gatekeeping obstacle to empowerment for all women.

I was insisting that she apologize for her life up until the moment we met

Alyssa: How could [I] do such a thing?

Happily! And I’m not making apologies for it now — not to you or anyone.

And my advice to you is to let this shit go; it was a long time ago.

Maybe you knew your track was from point “a” to point “b,” but I didn’t know how to get from “b” to “a,” because I wasn’t given a fucking map at birth and shown the way. I found it myself.

Chasing Amy makes a lot of sense when you know why a straight white dude named Kevin wrote it (Criterion Wayback Machine). He worried that Joey Lauren Adams — the actress with that powerful performance as Alyssa/Amy — had lived a life too full for him to ever compete with.

He worried he would never be worthy.

As people with transgender experiences, we carry with us a fear that if we’re not this or that, then somehow we’re not enough. When we find happiness, we turn away.

We reinforce our walls when faced with the people, relationships, and experiences that would cultivate for each of us what Brene Brown calls a “wholehearted” life.

We put up ceilings when we see the face of the one person who can bring us home. It’s hard enough when that face belongs to another person.

It’s even harder when that face belongs to ourselves.

Don’t let anyone talk to you like that

Did you see Olivia Munn’s directorial debut Booksmart? Film critics wore out the phrase “tour de force,” but I’m bringing it back for this one.

Booksmart is a tour de force.

For me, the sweetest part is the friendship between the two main characters Molly and Amy. Molly is hopelessly queer but hopelessly straight. Amy is hopelessly straight but hopelessly gay.

The sweetest moments for these two come up when insisting they both deserve safety, love, and happiness. They biggest fights come up when they see the other denying themselves those things.

They say things like how dare you talk to my best friend that way? You are a gorgeous person who deserves happiness, true love, etc etc etc

Keep in mind, that’s Amy telling Molly to stop berating her inner Molly.

It’s the sort of stuff we need to tell ourselves when we look inside and find the person waiting to make us whole. We just need to stop putting up ceilings the moment they get our attention.

Try saying this back to them

Alyssa: How dare you try to lay a guilt trip on me about it — in a fucking public place, no less. Who the fuck do you think you are, you morality-slinging prick?

You mean to tell me that…you have some sort of half-assed, mealy-mouthed objection to pubescent antics that took place almost ten years ago?

What the fuck is your problem?

Maybe it sounds harsh to talk to another person like that.

Does it feel just as harsh to talk to yourself?

I’m not sure if it’s tough love, but neither is the bull**** we put ourselves against.

We don’t deserve to feel broken when some moron straight dude tells us we don’t count as women, as when lesbians tell us we don’t count as lesbians, or anything else that diminishes you for simply existing.

We don’t deserve to feel broken when instead of some moron straight dude telling us those things, it’s our reflection in the mirror.

And if I saw someone talking to you like Holden talks to Alyssa, I’d want you to say at least as much as Alyssa says for herself.

The consequences of coming out

Writing for Salon just a few months after Chasing Amy released back in 1997, film critic Charles Taylor said that whatever else the movie accomplished, it was “going to piss a lot of people off.”

That’s putting it lightly. But it’s been 25 years since Chasing Amy stunned audiences as much with the quality of its story as that it came from Kevin Smith.

Kevin has shown deeper shades to his person and his stories. And just so, us queer girls who remain as enthralled as enraged by his movies have found deeper shades upon rewatches.

Chasing Amy was never going to “single-handedly save romantic comedy.” Nor was it ever going to break the barriers that keep lesbians of all kinds — including the trans kind — from coming together as women supporting women.

To paraphrase Charles Taylor’s article one last time, the movie illustrates, even celebrates, the fact that love, sex, and gender are emotional anarchy.

I can’t believe I’m saying this

“Do I identify with the lesbian community still? Absolutely. I doubt that many of them identify with me.” — Kevin Smith, Smodcast episode “Glazing Amy”

I never would have thought I’d say this — he is a straight white dude, after all — but Kevin Smith taught me a lot about being transgender.

He taught me a lot about being a woman.

He taught me a lot about being queer.

But most of all, he taught me that 50% of the time, professing your love in the rain works 100% of the time.

Allies come from straight white places

As both a retrospective and updated film commentary, Kevin recorded the Smodcast episode “Glazing Amy” back in 2009. It’s been another thirteen years since then, but his thoughts hold just as true.

He said that in addition to basing the script on his observations about a man’s unrequited crush on a lesbian (Buzzfeed), he made Chasing Amy for his older brother, who is gay and whom he considers a personal hero.

Kevin can’t help it that despite being queer as hell, he’s also straight as hell. He’s still determined to help us out.

He showed that by his own willingness to acknowledge how offensive a lot of Chasing Amy was (still is) to a lot of people. Did you see the sorta Clerks sequel that was The Jay & Silent Bob Reboot?

It contains a secret sequel to Chasing Amy (The Wrap). And if it doesn’t make your cold heart melt a little, I don’t know what will.

Allies come in all shapes and silent bobs

We need allies.

We need each other.

Kevin Smith may be a straight white man, but he’s queerer than nearly anyone else I’ve met. And if I can learn to call a man an ally, surely the rest of us can learn to stop letting a little thing like trans experiences stop us from coming together as women.

Otherwise…here’s the whole breakup speech Alyssa gave to Holden.

The whole speech

Holden: How could you do such a thing?

Alyssa: Happily! And I’m not making apologies for it now — not to you or anyone.

And my advice to you is to let this shit go; it was a long time ago.

Maybe you knew your track was from point “a” to point “b,” but I didn’t know how to get from “b” to “a,” because I wasn’t given a fucking map at birth and shown the way. I found it myself.

And how dare you try to lay a guilt trip on me about it — in a fucking public place, no less. Who the fuck do you think you are, you morality-slinging prick?

You mean to tell me that while you have no problem with me sleeping with half the women in New York City, you have some sort of half-assed, mealy-mouthed objection to pubescent antics that took place almost ten years ago?

What the fuck is your problem?

You fucking people make me laugh. Rick Derris was the biggest slut I ever met, and nobody ever gave him shit about it. Well I caught on to the double standard way early in life, found it unfair, and saw no reason why I should conduct myself in a manner that betrayed my curiosities and desires just so that I wouldn’t be called a slut or something equally juvenile!

Because I knew I wasn’t sticking around the tri-town area my whole life, and wherever I wound up, people wouldn’t point at me and say crap like, “Holy shit — it’s Pitch-and-Putt! She’s the one that got stuffed like a donkey!”

That’s all it was — some sex. Just like you’ve had some sex — a lot of sex probably from high school on. And am I right in assuming that you hit the double digits?

I used them. You don’t think I would’ve let it happen if I hadn’t wanted it to, do you?

I wanted to experiment, I wanted to taste it all — which was an instinct that accompanied me all through life — through dozens of guys and girls — that is until we — that’s you and I — had sex that night.

Can’t you take some fucking comfort in that? We fucked, and I decided — then and there — that I was done experimenting; that I’d found it, that thing that wasn’t in Rick Derris’ pants or Kim’s crotch, or anywhere else on the fucking planet!

I found you, you asshole!

Bonus stuff to binge (offsite)

• Chasing Chasing Amy Facebook & Chasing Chasing Amy website (incredible documentary by trans male filmmaker Sav Rogers)
• Sav Rodgers: The rom-com that saved my life
• ‘Chasing Amy’ taught me how to date bi men
• Sav Rodgers: The rom-com that saved my life
• Scene Studies with Kevin Smith: The Permanent Injury Scene
• The Misconception of Chasing Amy
• Chasing Amy at 25: A Complicated Work from Kevin Smith
• Kevin Smith Celebrates Chasing Amy 25th Anniversary With Throwback Photo
• It’s Your Anniversary: My Rage at “Chasing Amy” Helped Me Find My Bisexuality
• 165: SAV RODGERS — THE LIFE CHANGING SERENDIPITY OF DISCOVERING BEN AFFLECK AND CHASING AMY
• A Bi-Transgender Fight
• Chasing Amy: Slut Shaming, Homophobia, and Bisexual Erasure
• Scene Studies with Kevin Smith: The Rain Scene from Chasing Amy
• Looking Back At The Sexual Politics Of “Chasing Amy” 20 Years Later
• Society’s Bisexual Hangups: How Chasing Amy Is Still Ahead of Its Time
• Can Lesbian Identity Survive The Gender Revolution?