A growing network of trans and nonbinary filmmakers, including Vera Drew ("The People's Joker"), Jane Schoenbrun, Louise Weard, Alice Maio Mackay and Avalon Fast, are building careers largely outside the traditional Hollywood studio system. They have found each other through film festivals and online communities, frequently appearing in one another's projects, and are effectively forming a parallel independent industry that supports queer-focused, often genre-leaning storytelling the mainstream has been slow to embrace.

The article traces this community's growth over the past five years, noting collaborations such as Schoenbrun appearing in "Castration Movie" and Jack Haven's shorts, Weard featuring in "Camp Miasma", and Fast acting in both "Castration Movie" and "The Serpent's Skin". It also cites a GLAAD report, "Where We Are in Film", which found zero trans characters in 2025 releases from the top 10 US distributors, underscoring the industry's continued failure to finance and platform trans directors, particularly trans directors of colour, in big-budget filmmaking.