Sam Feder And Amy Scholder On Visually Sharing Trans Experience In 'Heightened Scrutiny'

The latest documentary by Sam Feder and Amy Scholder follows groundbreaking trans activist attorney Chase Strangio...

Heightened Scrutiny is a documentary by Sam Feder and Amy Scholder, the team behind the groundbreaking documentary about transgender representation in Hollywood, Disclosure. This film follows ACLU attorney and trans activist Chase Strangio as he prepares and completes oral arguments in front of the United States Supreme Court. Simply referred to as "The Skrmetti Ruling" for short, this ruling allows Tennessee to enact the discriminatory and harmful law, HB0001, denying all transgender minors any right to life-saving Gender Affirming Care in Tennessee. In June of 2025, the US Supreme Court announced its decision not to overturn HB0001 in Tennessee in a 6 to 3 ruling. Feder and Scholder recently spoke to Immersive about their journey making this timely film.

[This conversation has been edited for clarity and context.]

Can you explain the meaning of the term Heightened Scrutiny?

Sam Feder: It has a few meanings. Legally, the whole point of Heightened Scrutiny is to ensure constitutional protections. In practice, the court's role is to scrutinize the government when it targets unpopular or minority groups for discrimination.

These fast-moving court decisions are a lot of hurry up and wait, and then boom, a decision is made, and legal precedent has changed, and the country has changed. What was this timeline?

Sam Feder: Heightened Scrutiny is a direct follow-up to Disclosure. With Disclosure we wanted to show the history of trans representation in film and television, because that is what most of the country thinks trans people are. When we experienced a sudden surge in trans visibility, I felt it was happening too fast. I thought it was misguided and misused, and I was fearful of what I thought would be an inherent backlash. We made Disclosure with that in mind, and at the end of the film, there's an incredible quote from Chase that shows you where this was going and why our fear was valid. About a year after it came out, we started seeing this drastic pivot away from celebrating trans people to then becoming skeptical about our lives and our rights.

For a while, I wondered if there was anything I could do or say. As it became clear this was about children, I was like, I have a lot of ethical concerns about filming trans young people. When I started tracking the relationship between journalism and the legislation and how so many of these articles end up being cited in the bill that leads to these laws criminalizing our lives, I then was like, "Okay, I'm a media critic. I've got something to say about this." I think this is important for people to know, because so many people trust, notably the New York Times, you know, "the paper of record." I had for a long time mistrusted the New York Times. Now, I finally felt like I could show you all why.

I started doing research in June of 2023, and here we are two years later. We didn't start filming until March of 2024. It was announced that the Supreme Court would hear this case at the end of June 2024. So it wasn't until the beginning of July 2024 that we started filming Chase. And then, as you note, it's a very intense timeline up to December 4th. We locked the film on December 26th, and it premiered a month later at Sundance on January 27th. And then, legal people had all agreed that the announcement of the opinion would probably come out in June. We were fairly certain that we had five months to determine how to effectively promote the film and raise awareness about the case, ensuring more people were informed and prepared when the opinion was released.

The role of the news media is that trans people in media are constantly at the mercy of a swinging pendulum of popularity. Given how sharply the pendulum has swung back and forth in the last five years, I am curious about your thoughts on representation across all the forms of media we're constantly exposed to.

Sam Feder: It's just a matter of degree. When we were making Disclosure, it was really to show the complexity of representation and the fact that, for whatever reasons, people making Hollywood stories have always been fascinated by stories about changing gender. And we have a much fuller vocabulary to use now. The Times can have some decent coverage on occasion about what's happening around trans rights or trans life. But there is, by and large, a very systematic way of presenting stories about trans people as a question or a debate.

That framing is often used to show that trans people are getting it wrong if they are working toward their civil rights. And the ACLU was 'wrong' in taking a case because it was too soon. When those stories end up on the front page over and over, when trans people are not allowed to be writing about trans life because they're 'biased' or then it becomes 'activistic,' what we try to show in in our film is that those kinds of decisions in the newsroom are deeply problematic and not the kind of journalistic standards that they use covering other communities and other groups.

I'm fascinated by how the conversation can shift from humanizing to dehumanizing so quickly. As you were in the process of prepping and making this film, what are some of the things that you heard about its prescience and its importance?

Sam Feder: One thing I'll tell you from the start is that there was a little critique of my doing this film, because I'm not a journalist. People were like, a journalist should be making this film. And I was like, well, a journalist does what journalists do, and I'm gonna do what I do, and I am a ruthless researcher. Just like with Disclosure, I don't do Hollywood film and TV, but for many years, I did deep research, watching hundreds of shows. With this in mind, I conducted research and spoke with approximately 60 journalists to ensure I understood the situation, the problems involved, and the overall landscape.

To be clear, I'm not probing for sort of like holes in the process. I even wrote in parentheses, "Does any of this blowback matter besides revealing people are transphobic?"

Sam Feder: Knock on wood, reviews have been incredible out of Sundance. We were working in such a compressed timeline that I walked into Sundance being like, 'Does this film make sense? Are people gonna understand it?' And it was the most validating reviews I've ever received. People have been incredibly appreciative.

I was wondering whether there were significant institutional challenges to getting this film made because of the subject matter at hand.

Amy Scholder: We were able to get through much of production on this film through the support from donors who had supported and loved Disclosure. So, without having to prove ourselves, it was donors and funders who loved that film and trusted us to make the follow-up film. We were grateful for that. By the time we were seeking our post-funding, everyone was fully prepared to fight, but it was terrifying. And it wasn't easy to raise money for a movie. I think all social justice movie producers were finding that was the case. It was like our supporters were all terrified. It wasn't easy to finish the budget, but we did, and we finished the film, and we've had an incredible festival run. We are up to being accepted into 48 festivals around the world, many of them not queer festivals. So this will go to all kinds of film audiences around the world, and we're pleased about that. Of course, we love our queer audiences the most, but it's also nice to show the film there.

But we have not found a distributor. We did not make a sale to a studio the way we did with Disclosure. We sold that film to Netflix. As a follow-up to that, Heightened Scrutiny might have been an obvious film for them, especially after having a similar festival premiere, and yet, we were not surprised. We're not the only social justice documentary that's been left out of the studio system for distribution. That's a complex reality for filmmakers now who want to do this kind of long-form documentary work. You kind of have to take it into your own hands to get it out into the world. We're working with Fourth Act, which is an incredible company that's putting us into a limited theatrical release starting this month and going to select theaters around the country.

We're launching an impact campaign that highlights how this film can serve as a tool to support those fighting for trans rights in states with upcoming legislation. Lawyers are using clips of the film to educate themselves and their colleagues, and maybe even bringing it to the courtroom. We're trying to show the movie widely outside of cinemas. Whether it's youth camps, at law firms that specialize in healthcare, or to parents of trans kids who are needing support around building allies and coalitions, that is our work at hand with limited resources.

It's inspiring to see that Heightened Scrutiny was surprisingly emotional in so many instances. What would you want readers to know about the future of this issue, as in, what is the story that continues? How would you frame the ongoing aspects of this story for a reader who maybe doesn't have that much legal insight or relationships to the trans community?

Sam Feder: I guess there are two things. One, there is still a lot to protect, and there's still a lot to fight for. This is not the end; people are rallying more and more every day. We're seeing that in little pockets across the country on various issues, and that has just to keep going.

The second thing is that this story doesn't begin and end with trans people. This, all of this criminalization of our bodies, all of this is pulling back our privacy rights. This affects everyone. When you chip away at anyone's bodily autonomy, you're chipping away at everyone's bodily autonomy. When you tell one class of people that they can't have privacy between their family and their doctor, that's gonna spill out to everyone. What I want people to know is that if you think this is just limited to a small community, maybe you have other things to worry about. Like, no. If you don't care about us, at least care about yourself, 'cause this is going to affect everyone.

That makes a lot of sense. As far as that is concerned, what do you think might be some lesser discussed tools that we may not have quite put on the table? What has been the most effective so far in your career? And, looking at the efficacious tools from our past, what do you see in terms of new tools that we have to develop in the changing landscape?

Sam Feder: I can't deny that I question the efficacy of my work, for sure. Is it more important to spend the time, energy, and resources on a film, or should I be out in the streets, organizing and movement building in that way? That's not what I'm good at. I'm very shy, an introvert, and constantly tired, which isn't where I thrive. I've done that for many years and continue to be part of that work, but I come back to realizing that there is a real power in visual storytelling. When you combine all these layers of cerebral and emotional connections with movement, you can start to see a shift.

People leave the theater differently than they walked in. And I mean, just a straightforward thing that we've seen with this film is so many critical people [of gender affirming care for minors] don't know about puberty blockers. They're entering this conversation being like, 'kids shouldn't have surgery or hormones.' We're like, 'when we're talking about adolescents, we're talking about puberty blockers.' And they don't know that. So it's the educational part, right? That is powerful. I think documentaries can be compelling in the academic part.

Amy Scholder: Yeah. The tools change, becoming more sophisticated and newfangled, which can make me feel like an old dog that can't learn new tricks. But I think the old tricks just keep ticking. They keep working. If you want to change hearts and minds, you need to show something, not just tell it. I believe that what we've done in this film is that we do have these journalists and interviews telling us a lot of things, but they're also showing us their humanity. They're showing us their thought process. They're sharing experience.

We're meeting Mila, we're having an intimate scene around her dinner table with Chase, her mother, and her brother. She's speaking very organically about like, 'yeah, one day I just, you know, said to my mom, I want to wear those clothes. And my mom's like, okay.' It's the most natural thing in the world.

If you just tell someone that, they may not believe it, unfortunately. But I do think that in film, when you see and hear it in this visual storytelling, you can't unsee it. So, that's what we aim to achieve in the broader context of creating a film about media literacy, a movie that explores trans justice and civil rights. We're trying to show people their lives and create a world where they can enter into something new, meeting people they might not have met before. Hopefully, it will change them.

Heightened Scrutiny is now playing in select theaters.