There's something happening in trans cinema right now. It's playful, messy, campy and decidedly raw. Film programmers Gabi Grossman and Aidan Dick, both of Frameline, have coined the phrase "Trans New Weird" to describe this emerging genre coming from mostly trans directors.

"These films are extraordinarily playful," Grossman says. "They're also a reaction against the demand in certain more mainstream films for trans people to be 'normal,' whatever that means."

She puts it another way: "They keep the weird in queer."

What Is 'Trans New Weird'? An Emerging Film Genre Screens at YBCA [16 April 2026]

In our post-90s independent film market, formal production and distribution opportunities have dwindled, while rapid technological growth has rendered media hyper-accessible and super-diffuse, setting the stage for Trans New Weird cinema. Filmmakers in this emerging movement use personal resources to make films that demand a new relationship between subject and object. By pairing Trans New Weird films with New Queer Cinema titles, this film series explores how our current generation of filmmakers are "rewilding" themselves in order to both renew queer cinema's transgressive roots and push LGBTQ+ art forward during an unrelenting moment in history.
Frameline Presents Trans New Weird Films at YBCA [2 April 2026]

"There had been other trans directors, but something that was that fiercely independent and coming at it from this personal perspective of a trans coming out story – I didn't really know if there was any sort of audience for that," [Vera] Drew [director of The People's Joker] tells Variety. "I kind of just thought I was making a movie for myself."
How Vera Drew, Louise Weard and More Trans and Nonbinary Filmmakers Are Taking Control of Their Stories Outside the Studio System: 'We're Creating a New Industry' [11 August 2026]

There are also very normal trans characters who just get to exist, but I'm focusing on a terminally online trans woman who really does see her identity as this house of cards. That's why I wanted to write [Michaela] in the first place—I wanted to write a trans woman who had really bad politics.
Filmmaker Louise Weard on the Abject Tragicomedy of Her DIY Epic Castration Movie [27 June 2025]

But when I watch films and shows, especially queer shows, I mean outside of Heated Rivalry and stuff like that, but especially with trans people, it always cuts away or fades to black. The only other instance I can think of would be the Queer as Folk reboot and Sense8, both of which I loved. So yeah, I wanted to show that trans romance is romantic, but it can still be sexual and fluid and special and explicit.
I Don't Make Scary Movies: An Interview with Alice Maio Mackay [25 March 2026]

Our relationship to sex as a culture is so unhealthy. So, of course we try to compartmentalize it or keep it on our browser window and never share it with another human being. I don't think that is serving us as a people. I think that repression is the enemy, and especially the enemy of the artist, and this is a movie against repression.
Flesh and Fluids: Jane Schoenbrun on fighting repression through Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma [6 August 2026]