Jess Glass

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Trans Drama A Fantastic Woman Wins Best Foreign Language Film

A drama about a transgender woman has won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Chilean film A Fantastic Woman has taken home the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, its only nomination.

A Fantastic Woman’s director Sebastián Lelio, thanked star Daniela Vega when accepting the award.

He said: “I want to thank the cast of the film, especially the brilliant actor Francisco Reyes Morandé and the inspiration for this movie, Daniela Vega.

“This film was made by a lot of friends and artists. I share this with all of you tonight.”
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

28-year-old Vega has been receiving rave reviews for her central role in the film.

Vega’s character Marina has to deal with her partner’s death and his family’s subsequent transphobia, while simultaneously trying to find her identity without her beloved Orlando.

Screening in several film festivals internationally, A Fantastic Woman had been very well received, particularly for Vega’s performance.

The magazine said she deserved “so much more than political praise,” and was one of many publications heaping compliments on the actress.

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

The film has been praised both for Vega’s performance and the artistic merit of the film, but for also ensuring that a transgender character was played by a transgender actress.

After his win, director Lelio said that it was critically important that the main character in the film be played by a transgender actress.

He said:  “I felt that, for me, it was [a] very instinctive and strong decision knowing that I was not going to make this film without a transgender actress in main role.

“That put [the] film in a different dimension because of everything that Daniela brought to the film.”

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(Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images)

After it was screened at the Berlin Film Festival, Variety called Vega’s performance “a multi-layered, emotionally polymorphous feat of acting.”

However, Vega herself missed out on a nomination for Best Actress.

Vega became the first openly trans person to ever present at the Oscars, introducing Sufjan Stevens’s performance of “Mystery of Love” from the acclaimed film Call Me By Your Name.

As Vega took the stage at the 90th Academy Awards, she said: “Thank you for this moment. I want to invite you to open your hearts and your feelings to feel the reality, to feel love. Can you feel it?”

Director Yance Ford became the first trans director to be nominated for an Oscar in this year’s Academy Awards, but was sadly beaten by the documentary Icarus.

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LGB Teens Are Four Times More Likely to Be Suicidal

A new study has revealed that lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning teens are at least four times more likely to be suicidal than their heterosexual peers.

The research in the Journal of Adolescent Health investigated how sexual orientation and traumatic experiences affect suicidal feelings and attempts in teenagers.

The study asked questions to 5,000 students from 97 high schools in Nevada, United States.

A risk of suicide was linked with childhood experiences of trauma, known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

These traumatic experiences included sexual assault, domestic violence and physical harm from a parent.

The study discovered that LGB people without traumatic experiences were four times more likely to be suicidal or have attempted suicide than their heterosexual peers.

The study also found that LGB and questioning people were more likely to have experienced trauma or significant upset in their childhoods.

Over 50% of LGB students said they had been through two or more traumatic incidents, compared to around 25% of heterosexual students.

LGB and questioning students with one incident of trauma were nearly seven times more likely to be suicidal than heterosexual students with one incident.

LGB students who had three or more significant traumatic experiences were 14 times more likely to think about suicide or be suicidal than heterosexual students.

Kristen Clements-Nolle of the University of Nevada, the lead author on the study, highlighted the need for research on teen suicide in a statement to Reuters Health.

She said: “It is imperative that we identify adolescent populations at greatest risk to guide our prevention efforts.

“Furthermore, cumulative exposure to ACEs greatly increased suicide risk behaviours among sexual minority adolescents.

She continued: “for example, compared with heterosexual students with no exposure to ACEs, LGB/not sure students with two or more ACEs had approximately 13 times higher odds of attempting suicide in the past year.”

This research echoes a similar study in 2014, which found that LGB people were 3.8 times more likely to attempt to take their own lives, and 3.2 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts or to self-harm.

The 2014 study discovered that lesbian and bisexual girls are more likely to report planning suicide, having suicidal thoughts and self-harming than their male peers.

 Bisexual and lesbian girls were approximately half as likely to have been treated by a medical professional as a result of a suicide attempt.

Neither of the 2014 or 2017 studies investigated transgender, genderqueer or intersex youths.

A study conducted by the National Centre for Transgender Equality in 2016 found that of the 17,715 transgender people surveyed, 40% had attempted suicide.

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