Transgender Filmmaker Quen Wong on Getting Vulnerable for her Documentary ‘Some Women’
In a powerful debut for the Singapore International Film Festival 2021, Singaporean performer, writer, director and producer Quen Wong gets deep with audiences about her life as a trans woman. Here, she tells us what influenced her to finally share her story.
With vulnerability, comes strength. Brené Brown once said, “Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.” And it’s true – to be vulnerable means to be raw, to be unafraid of letting people in, and risking judgment from others who may or may not know the true being of who you are.
For local filmmaker Quen Wong, vulnerability is everything she sacrificed for her latest debut feature documentary – ‘Some Women’, now showing at the Singapore International Film Festival 2021. In the film, Wong takes us on an intimate journey through her life as a transgender person living in Singapore to reclaim her identity as a woman deserving of love just like any other human being. There, she talks about coming out to her unconventionally supportive Asian family about her identity, finding the love of her life, and finding her place within the community as a pivotal voice for people like her.
For the record, it is not easy to be vulnerable, let alone lay it bare in a feature film to be watched by the relatively still-conservative state of Singapore. But that is exactly what Wong hopes audiences will do – that many people will watch the film and take with them a sense of joy, hope, affirmation, and camaraderie through her life story that's told on her terms.
Below, we talk to the filmmaker about what influenced her to finally share her story, her challenges making the film, and more.
‘Some Women’ showcases your vulnerability, unlike anything you’ve ever done before. What influenced you to finally tell your story after all these years?
I've definitely been inspired by the rise in visibility of trans people and our stories in international film and television, beginning with Laverne Cox in ‘Orange Is The New Black’ and Joey Soloway's series, ‘Transparent’, and more recently, Sebastien Lifshitz's ‘Petite Fille’. I saw that that visibility was doing good, it made people who would not ordinarily pay any attention to trans people at all care more about us. What struck me was that, despite the institutional silence surrounding LGBTQ+ lives in Singapore, these conversations about gender and sexuality, and our place and rights in society continue to evolve and the LGBTQ+ are not content being sidelined any longer. In this changing landscape, I felt that I needed to locate my own experience, while, at the same time, offer more accurate and positive representations of trans lives in direct opposition to mainstream stereotypes. On a more personal level, making 'Some Women' was an opportunity to confront a deep-seated trauma in dealing with stigma.
What would you say was the biggest challenge when creating this film?
When I first considered making a documentary about the trans community in Singapore, I had no intention of being in it at all. I'm used to being behind the camera! But unlike other documentaries I've made, this was one where I questioned if I had the right to direct if I didn't also have the courage to be in it. So, on top of the rigours of filmmaking, I also had to go on a pretty emotionally-tumultuous journey – confronting my own fears and doubts, making the effort to be vulnerable while giving creative direction, disrupting the silence around my own gender history after decades of simply getting on with my life as a woman.
Your documentary also focuses on other members of the local trans community – like Bugis Street’s famous ‘Anita’ and youth activist Lune Loh. How do you feel your experiences differ or relate to theirs?
I think because our social circumstances have changed quite a lot, especially with the advent of the internet and having a richer, more nuanced language to describe our experience of gender and sexuality, we are quite different in the way we express our femininity. I've also found young trans people, like Lune, to be much more thoughtful about transness and womanhood, and making room for more fluidity and change, whereas I believe Anita and I have been more instinctive about it, having focused a lot on the practical aspects of living and, in a way, fitting in with the status quo. There's definitely a desire in LGBTQ+ youths to shake things up a bit! However, ours is definitely a kindred experience of being trans women that goes way back beyond our three generations, demonstrating a constancy and continuity of human beings and groups whose gender identities are not fixed at birth.
What do you hope to achieve from ‘Some Women’?
I've always loved film and the act of seeing films together with complete strangers in a cinema because, above all, it's such a celebration of the privilege of being alive, of sharing experiences as well as imagined possibilities, and definitely of being part of society. I hope 'Some Women' gets seen by as many people as possible, and that audiences take with them a sense of joy, hope, affirmation, feeling just that bit less alone.
Personally, how do you think audiences can better educate themselves about trans issues and how can they become better allies of the LGBTQ+ community in general?
In generic terms, I guess a good place to start is to question the bases of their own prejudices and discomfort about the LGBTQ+; to recognise that there are experiences of humanity quite different from their own that are just as valid and worthy of love, yet seeing that we definitely have far more in common as fellow humans. In practical terms, I feel that all humans should care about the material well being of those who enjoy fewer privileges to themselves or who are unfairly discriminated against, and join in existing efforts to help improve everyone's lives, may it be donating to or being active members in LGBTQ+ civil society groups.
