Transcripts

VENUS: I don't really think of myself as either male or female. Medically, I'm between.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Venus is a documentary waiting to happen. She's the leader of an extremely androgynous glam rock band. She's an experimental painter and filmmaker and one of the most eloquent voices around on what it's like to be transgender. Filmmaker Emily Goldberg says she was somewhat surprised somebody didn't get to Venus, formerly Steve Grandell, before she did.

EMILY GOLDBERG: Initially, I did really feel like this is a gift-wrapped package with my name on it. I mean, I had known Venus when she was Steve and he and had seen the band perform when Steve was still male and was just absolutely blown away by the band. And then, when I saw Venus a few years later, and she answered the door to her studio and had breasts, I said, "Can we have lunch?"

CHRIS ROBERTS: For Venus, giving unprecedented access to her public and personal life was a relatively easy decision. Not only was it a chance to give her band some desperately needed exposure, but an opportunity to speak to a potentially large audience about the struggles of being transgender.

VENUS: There is some change now, but back when we started doing the film, there was absolutely nothing except for very negative connotations of who people are in the trans community. But I think people are beginning to understand that it isn't quite as crazy as they would imagine. I think Emily found that in her film, and I think that we tried to express that. I think rock and roll is crazier.

CHRIS ROBERTS: The direction of the film began to shift when Goldberg started interviewing Venus' wife, Lynette Renei-Grandell. The two were high school sweethearts in Duluth when Venus was still Steve, and they eventually married.

EMILY GOLDBERG: When I started, I thought it was a film about gender. When I finished, I realized it's a film about any long-term relationship. And I started seeing, you know, myself, other people in relationships. You know, it reflected back in a way that I could say, this is what everybody deals with. It's about who you are as a person, how much do you compromise to be who you need to be, how much do you compromise to let your partner be who they need to be.

CHRIS ROBERTS: In the film, Lynette and Venus reminisce about the early days of their relationship.

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: That's what we look like without makeup. That's what we used to look like without makeup. We probably look a little bit different without makeup now.

VENUS: Yeah. My boy days. Who'd ever known Venus was in there somewhere, huh?

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: Just crying to get out.

CHRIS ROBERTS: What was it like for you both to sit down with Emily and the camera is rolling, and you talk about very personal things having to do with the way you relate to each other?

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: Well, in some ways, we'd already been doing a lot of that. We'd had to negotiate a lot of stuff. I mean, very little of this relationship falls into predictable guidelines, you know, where you can open up, you know, some magazine that gives you relationship advice and you say, OK, that's what I need to do. So I think we had already, between the two of us, been discussing a lot of just--

VENUS: Six things that will drive your transgender husband crazy. I haven't seen that article yet.

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: Well, some day.

EMILY GOLDBERG: Now you will.

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: Yeah.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Lynette says those conversations primed them for the questions they got in the movie.

EMILY GOLDBERG: Is the gender issue the biggest area of stress in your marriage?

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: No. Money is. Money and time, just like most couples. Most women in my situation are advised by friends, therapists, everybody. Dear Abby advice columns to divorce when this comes up. And I think that the film demonstrates that you don't have to automatically come to that kind of conclusion. I mean, it still might be the right thing for many people, but it doesn't have to be an automatic thing, which you have to do is look at the relationship and see what is in the relationship that you both still value and whether that is going to remain.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Following all the pretty horses around with a camera is undoubtedly going to get you into some volatile situations. And I'm wondering what kind of examples can you give of feeling in danger?

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: Well, most of the time, I have to say, and this really gives me hope for the future of the planet. I was really surprised and pleased at how positive most of the reactions from around the country small town, Minnesota, New York city, England, you know, working class England were. That said, there were a couple of times, most notably in our own little town of Hilltop, which is just outside Fridley, where I think I was interviewing one bar patron who was a really scary homophobe. It was the only time I've ever felt when I was standing next to a camera like, this guy could clock me. I really thought-- or worse.

SPEAKER 1: They belong in a gay bar. That's where they belong. They don't belong in a regular bar, as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah, I guess I'm trying to understand why.

SPEAKER 1: Just because, that's the way it is. I can't stand queers.

SPEAKER 2: But they're not hurting you in any way.

SPEAKER 1: No, but I'll kill them if they come in here all the time, you know. I wouldn't want to come and pick up some chick and find out it's a guy. I would have to do something about that.

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: I mean, there's anger, there's vitriol out there. And so I was aware of it a lot of the time.

VENUS: You always-- Yeah, I always know who's around me, who's behind me. I've had death threats. I've had people who wanted to take care of me after I got out of the dressing room. And I had to take some time to make sure that the bouncers had everybody cleared out before I came out. I've had that. It happens. But I don't try to pay attention to the negative end of it.

LYNETTE RENEI-GRANDELL: If you did, you wouldn't leave the house.

VENUS: Well, and that's it. I mean, it's rock and roll. Rock and roll is supposed to be challenging, so it happens to be challenging. Some of the people that think they are in the middle of rock and roll and they're still getting challenged. But that's what rock and roll is all about.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Documentarian Emily Goldberg hasn't been shy about entering Venus of Mars in as many film festivals as possible. It officially premiered last November at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam. It's been selected to screen at festivals in Spain, Romania, Greece, New Zealand, San Francisco, and New York. She hopes the film's impact on audiences is profound.

EMILY GOLDBERG: You know, in my wildest dreams, it stops all violence against transgender people. And, you know, it gets people to not think about-- have sex be the first thing they think about when they hear about a couple like this. That's probably not going to happen. But I think what might happen is that, by getting to understand two individuals who've really wrestled with a lot around the subject of gender and love, people will feel like these people are less other and that, you know, we're really not that different.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Twin Citians can see a sneak preview of Venus of Mars tonight at First Avenue in Minneapolis. The event is a fundraiser to help Goldberg, Venus, and Lynette and the band, All the Pretty Horses, fly to New Zealand, where the Out Takes Film Festival happens later this month. I'm Chris Roberts, Minnesota Public Radio.