Support group for parents and family members of transgender and gender non-conforming children. Write AskFORGE@forge-forward.org for more information

Genderqueer Sebastian may be the most commandingly upfront character we meet this Festival: a young trans person working to transition more fully to being Ellie but, whatever her personal stumbles, defies the world, and her suitors, to meet her on her own terms. Not hesitating to smash a bottle over a 'phobe's head, she's a badass, or just sensibly direct in her desires. She gets through the days, passing the time at a who-cares job, afterwards cruising for sex. But when she meets Andreas, she thinks she may have met something serious. (After they first hook-up, the immediately retreating Andreas backpedals with "Look, I'm not gay." Sebastian replies, "I'm not either.") Award-winning filmmaker Ester Martin Bergsmark has, once again, made a film both dreamily beautiful and rousingly raw. Tiger Award, International Film Festival Rotterdam 2014; Jury Award, International Dramatic Feature, Outfest 2014 Community Co-Sponsors: FORGE Community Co-Presenters: Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP); Genderqueer Milwaukee; Tall […]

Artist/theorist Kate Bornstein explodes binaries while deconstructing gender - and her own identity. Trans-dyke. Reluctant polyamorist. Sadomasochist. Recovering Scientologist. Pioneering gender outlaw. Sam Feder's playful, meditative documen-tary joins Bornstein on her latest tour, capturing rollicking public performances and personal revelations as it bears witness to Kate as a trailblazing artist-theorist-activist who inhabits a space between male and female with wit, style and astonishing candor. We unfurled this so great, really lovely film last February and we bring it back at audience insistence and also in anticipation of Bornstein's visit to the UWM campus on October 30, to be hosted by the UWM LGBT Resource Center. Community Co-Sponsor: FORGE Community Co-Presenters: Genderqueer Milwaukee; Fair Wisconsin Campus Partners: UWM LGBT Resource Center http://www4.uwm.edu/psoa/film/lgbtfilmfestival/schedule.html

Definitions claimed and ignored in this energetic conflation of characters engaging with disclosure, athletics, postmodernism, robots (possibly), mothers, and a bling bedecked walker as vehicles for getting where and who you need to be. To screen: Bradley Manning Had Secrets (Adam Butcher, UK, 5min., 2011); Dating Sucks: A Genderqueer Misadventure (Sam Berliner, US, 12:40, 2013); Gender Games (Meg Smaker and Veronica Lopez, US, 9min., 2013); Black is Blue (Cheryl Dunye, US, 21min., 2014); MyMy (Anna Helme, Australia, 15min., 2014); two from Zackary Druckart: Fish (US, 2min., 2008) and She Gone Rogue (with Rhys Ernst, US, 22min., 2012), and more! Community Co-Sponsors: PrideFest; The Tool Shed; FORGE Community Co-Presenters: Genderqueer Milwaukee Campus Partner: UWM LGBT Alumni Chapter http://www4.uwm.edu/psoa/film/lgbtfilmfestival/schedule.html  

52 Tuesdays is, truly, 52 consecutive Tuesdays in the relationship between a gender-transitioning mother and her daughter, the year that the mother starts to transition and reluctantly asks her teenager to live with her father. Tuesdays will be the day that they reserve for each other, to hang out. The year brings changes for both of them: James, the transitioning parent, working to declare his identity while maintaining a sense to the relationship with the daughter he loves, and the 16 year-old Billie, unmoored, and defiant a bit, beginning to explore her own sexuality and making clumsy stabs at adulthood in the process. Both stumble towards new declarations of identity, and the balance the two work to sustain between their own relationship and their emerging sense of self makes for a compelling, quite moving dance. It's a beautiful film. And the filmmaking itself worked to meet the dictates of James and Billie's relationship. Filmmaker Sophie […]

Sponsored by the UWM LGBT Resource Center "A self-described trans-dyke, reluctant-polyamorist, sadomasochist, and recovering Scientologist, Kate Bornstein has been instrumental in raising transgender visibility. She is a role model for a generation of people that is learning how to define its gender and sexuality, and survive in a world that frequently greets them with hate and hostility. When we can watch Laverne Cox regularly on the popular Netflix series Orange is the New Black, or root for writer Janet Mock resisting Piers Morgan’s transphobic narrative on his CNN talk show, we can thank Kate for paving the way. She modeled how we can tell our own stories." -- Sam Feder | Director, Producer, Editor of The film, "Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger" UWM is thrilled to have Kate Bornstein coming to our campus this October to share her story through a one woman show titled "Men, Women, and the Rest of Us." […]

  Join FORGE and community partners in marking the Transgender Day of Remembrance. The greater Milwaukee community will be honoring those who have lost their lives due to anti-transgender hate and/or violence on Thursday, November 20, 2014 at 6:30pm at the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center (1110. N Market Street, Second Floor, Milwaukee, WI 53202). This is a COMMUNITY event — for the community, of the community, by the community. Part of joining together as a community this year, is to hear multiple voices and diverse views. Food and connection will round out the evening.