Top 5% of all Discoverable Projects on Coverfly!

According to the ACLU, the annual number of anti-LGBTQIA+ bills have nearly doubled in less than a year with 238 bills introduced in the first three months of 2022 to a total of 430 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills as of March 2023. Anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation has skyrocketed over the past several years, from 41 in 2018, with most bills targeting the drag and trans community. 

As of March 5, 2023, according to Time Magazine, Tennessee became the first state to ban Drag Shows for minors with similar bills introduced in 11 additional states. As of March 22, 2023, according to the HRC, 10 states have outlawed or limited gender-affirming health care for minors with similar bills introduced in 21 additional states. 

Women and LGBTQIA+ filmmakers struggle daily to find opportunities, fair wages, and financial investment in Entertainment. In their 2022 study, Women In Film LA found that “...on average, men-owned production companies receive over SEVEN-TIMES the amount of funding that women-owned production companies receive.” 

The 2019 ReFrame Executive Summary shows that, “disparities related to gender and underrepresented status are even more pronounced when they intersect. Across 1,200 top grossing pictures within the past 12 years, fewer than 1% of directing assignments were filled by women of color, 1.6% of producers were non-white women, and 5.7% of editors were women from underrepresented racial/ ethnic groups. Between 2007 and 2017, only 2.5% of all speaking characters were depicted with a disability—physical, mental, or communicative—and only 30% of those were female characters. In the same sample, 0.7% of all characters were lesbian, gay, or bisexual and those characters were predominantly white (68%).”

The impending WGA strike, with DGA and SAG-AFTRA threats to follow, only amplifies the demanding need to fund and produce uplifting queer stories focused on empowering the Drag and Trans communities before another industry shutdown and while studios are stockpiling content in preparation! According to Deadline, “...a WGA strike is overdue. From the first writers’ strike in 1953 until the last one in 2007-08, the longest the WGA had gone between strikes was 12 years, eight months and 15 days”. In a February 2023 article Variety explains that, “Studio heads, producers and streaming executives are terrified that if the writers walk out, production will grind to a halt…in recent months, production companies and studios have started to stockpile projects in anticipation of a slowdown.”

As of October 2022, reported by Forbes, the "Total abortion bans that criminalize performing the procedure in nearly all cases are now in place in 13 states", highlighting that, "(by) July (2022) 43 clinics in 11 states had stopped performing abortions in the first month after the Dobbs ruling alone."