This 10 minute Emmy Award Winning documentary THE DADS should be compulsory viewing for EVERYONE. This NETFLIX short film from director Luchina Fisher is about Matthew Shepard’s father Dennis going in a fishing trip with five fathers of trans children. The last time Dennis went fishing with his son was in 1998, and a few short months later Matthew was brutally slain in an anti-gay hate crime that reverberated globally. Since then Dennis and his wife Judy have tirelessly worked to help ushering in sweeping hate crime legislation that we all really hoped would pave the way for lasting equality.
But these fathers find themselves in a moment when the civil rights of their kids – and kids just like them – are being rolled back across the United States and around the world. This trip with Dennis offers a rare opportunity for these fathers to speak openly and honestly with others who understand their fears all too well. They’re willing to put everything on the line for their children, but it’s clear they cannot survive in isolation – it will take all of them together to protect trans youth, in this generation and beyond.
In these 10 short minutes we are also forced to confront the reality of what could happen to the whole LGBTQ+community if we allow it to continue to free fall and both the homophobes and transphobes to turn the clock back to the ‘dark ages’. After all they managed to overturn Roe vs Wade : we could easily be next
