Saturday, June 7, 2025

Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr

Zooey
Director: Kimberly Reed
Release Year: 2024

Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr is a short yet deeply resonant documentary by award-winning filmmaker Kimberly Reed, capturing a moment both intimately personal and politically seismic. At its center stands Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr, a transgender woman whose principled stand against anti-trans legislation in April 2023 led to her expulsion from the Montana House of Representatives. What began as a legislative clash over trans healthcare became an international symbol of courage, community, and the power of staying true to one’s identity, even under siege.
 
Reed, herself a trans woman and Montana native, felt an immediate call to return to her home state the moment news broke that Zephyr had been silenced. Zephyr had vocally opposed a bill restricting transgender medical care for youth, declaring that those voting for it would have "blood on their hands." For this, she was censured and barred from the House floor. Though still allowed to vote, she was relegated to a hallway outside the chamber, where she transformed a bench into her new “office.” A post-it note, simple yet defiant, marked her place: “Seat 31.” Filmed over a single week with a small crew, Seat 31 offers more than just a record of political injustice. It is a portrait of resilience. With a tender, observant camera, Reed brings us into Zooey’s orbit: we see her respond to hate with warmth, to exclusion with presence, and to cynicism with hope. The film avoids the well-worn narrative of trans suffering, choosing instead to shine a light on queer joy and love, emotions too often absent from mainstream portrayals of trans lives. For Reed, the story was personal from the start. Having grown up in Montana, she saw how the state, though sparsely populated, often serves as a microcosm of the national cultural and political divide. Zephyr’s removal from the House floor echoed the recent expulsions of three Tennessee lawmakers who had spoken out against gun violence, raising chilling questions about democracy and the silencing of dissent.
 
And yet, despite the intensity of the moment, Reed’s film retains a persistent sense of optimism. The choice to highlight hope was intentional. As Reed puts it, documentaries often aim to inform, but too many leave viewers feeling despondent. “I think it's really important to create room for that hope, to give audiences something constructive to do,” she explained. “That's also how Zooey approaches things.” In one scene, Zooey sits on the bench with her partner, journalist and activist Erin Reed, exchanging laughter between moments of legislative tension. We see glimpses of a trans life lived in the round: not just surviving but thriving. We witness her speak to a crowd in Missoula with grace and determination, her voice unwavering even in the face of relentless hostility. And in a moment that feels almost cinematic, we watch her propose to Erin, a deeply personal milestone captured in the midst of public upheaval. dupa Reed’s lens is not neutral; it is empathetic, intentional, and communal. When trans people tell their own stories, Reed argues, the emotional palette expands. Beyond trauma, there’s humor, intimacy, stubborn joy, and hard-won peace. This framing resists the extractive curiosity often found in outsider-directed trans narratives, those that demand trans people explain themselves rather than simply be.
 
One of the most powerful scenes in Seat 31 comes when Zephyr is finally allowed to re-enter the House chamber at the end of the session to gather her belongings. There, she speaks with colleagues, some of whom likely voted to expel her, engaging with grace rather than scorn. These human moments matter. “Political conversations have become so polarized,” Reed reflects. “We forget that there are these little moments of humanity that all of us share.” Zephyr, for her part, has long emphasized those moments behind the scenes, where Republican colleagues, away from cameras, show support they wouldn’t dare voice publicly. That contradiction speaks volumes, not just about the political pressures inside conservative legislatures, but about the performative nature of much of today’s anti-trans rhetoric. These small, off-stage connections remind viewers that change is not only possible, it’s already happening in the margins. What Reed ultimately hopes audiences will take from the film is a deeper understanding of both Zephyr as a person and the broader trans experience. Not a flattening into stereotype or symbol, but an expansion into full humanity. “We forget the humanity of the people we happen to disagree with,” Reed says. “If films can remind us of that, can help us witness someone else's humanity from the inside out, then that’s a successful film.”
 
Zephyr herself is a compelling figure in every frame. Born in Billings, Montana in 1988, she moved to Seattle at ten, wrestled competitively as a teenager, and later earned degrees in business, creative writing, and literary criticism. After returning to Montana, she worked at the University of Montana and emerged as a passionate advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, first as a community organizer and later as a legislator. Her election in 2022 made her the first openly transgender person in the Montana legislature. Zephyr came out in 2018, choosing a name with intention: “Zooey” for “life,” and “Zephyr” for “a gentle breeze.” Her story is threaded through with thoughtful deliberation, about language, about identity, about justice. Even in moments of conflict, she is deliberate. Even when silenced, she finds ways to speak.
 
The documentary concludes not in despair, but in affirmation. We leave with images of Zooey, not as a symbol of marginalization, but as a person making choices, building relationships, shaping policy, falling in love. These images matter. For trans kids, and the parents who worry for them, seeing such stories on screen can be life-changing. As Reed says, “It just matters who's behind the camera.” Seat 31 is what happens when a trans woman turns her lens toward another trans woman, not to explain, not to pity, but to reflect and celebrate. The result is a rare and necessary work of political filmmaking that is as fierce as it is tender, as sobering as it is joyful. In just 20 minutes, Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr manages to do what many full-length documentaries never quite achieve: it shows us not just what is at stake in the political fight for transgender rights, but who. And that, perhaps, is the most powerful argument of all.
 
via: youtube
Image credits: YouTube

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