Twenty-five years ago, Daniel Peddle’s documentary The Aggressives offered cinema audiences a view into the lives of six aggressives: queer people of color who were identified as female at birth, but as adults identify and present as masculine.* It was a groundbreaking film, documenting the lives of people who had largely been excluded from representation in the media and offering insight into what it was like to live their lives.
In Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years later, Peddle catches up with four of his original subjects: Kisha, Octavio, Trevon, and Chin. He also interviews a number of people who saw the original film, asking what it meant to them and how it influenced their lives. Not surprisingly, for some it was a revelation—the first time they saw anyone like themselves on screen and saw a possibility of living that made sense for them. Also not surprising: some question the term “aggressive” and some question the need for labels at all.
Life in America is not easy if you don’t fit the mold—we like to say that we’re the land of the free, but that freedom can be selective and arbitrary, extended to some and not to others. Since the subjects of Beyond the Aggressives are gender-nonconforming people of color originally identified as female, they really have had a lot to deal with just to survive, let alone thrive.
Some of those struggles are documented in this film: hassling with the legal and the immigration systems, navigating medical and legal transition, dealing with child custody and other family matters, and finding careers that fit them. And yet this is a largely optimistic film, because Kisha, Octavio, Trevon, and Chin are doing more than just surviving: they’re finding ways to thrive, embodying the philosophy stated by James Baldwin: “You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.”
Beyond the Aggressives was shot between 2018 to 2023, mainly in New York City, as was the original film. It’s a big step up, technically speaking, from The Aggressives, and offers some beautiful views of New York City as well as of the queer lives lived there. Above all, it’s a document to the fact that the world is a place of infinite variety, and trying to force reality into a small number of categories will always end in failure. | Sarah Boslaugh
*I’d love to have a way to describe the people who appear in this film without getting caught up in the masculine/feminine dichotomy, but the English language and American culture both impose a framework that is difficult to escape.
Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later made its world premiere on Oct. 18 at the 2023 NewFest in New York City. The film is also available for home viewing Oct. 12-22. More information is available from the Festival web site. The rights to this film have been acquired by Showtime and it will be available for streaming later this year.
