The Garden Left Behind: An Intersectional Approach

Madison Ziedenberg

February 13 2020

I had the privilege of attending Kingston’s Reelout Film Festival and viewing the film, “The Garden Left Behind”. This film demonstrates Kimberle Crenshaw’s theoretical framework, intersectionality, to depict the day-to-day struggles faced by Mexican immigrant, and trans woman, Tina. The protagonist lives in a small New York apartment with her grandmother. To provide for her family, Tina works as a taxi driver, and later a bartender, in search of something more fulfilling. Tina struggles with her identity as a transwoman both when she is denied access to gender reassignment surgery, and in hearing that another transwoman, Rosie, has been brutally attacked and murdered by police. This powerful, thought-provoking film follows Tina’s life through her relationships with her grandmother, boyfriend, peers, and doctors until finally Tina is beaten and killed by a local convenience store worker, Chris.

My overall experience in viewing this movie was extremely positive. Throughout the film, viewers develop a strong attachment to Tina; I found myself rooting for her. The director’s creative choice to ultimately have Tina murdered demonstrates the importance and severity of issues surrounding trans rights. Director Alves’ choice to depict Tina as not only a transwoman, but also a racial minority, effectively used intersectionality theory to convey that people are more than just their most visible aspect. We are made up by multiple categories of identity that combine to inform our experiences.

Intersectionality, coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, began as an analytical tool, capturing the multiple dimensions of discrimination that black women face (Kaufman 2018). Crenshaw emphasized the idea that to truly understand the privileges and oppressions individuals face, people must be assessed based on the accumulation of the multiple categories of identity that compose them (Kaufman 2018). Applying this theory to Tina allows one to understand how her multiple aspects of identity accumulate to influence her experiences, as well as permits us to first assess each aspect individually to understand her composition.

Firstly, this film dealt with many issues surrounding characters’ gender identities. Although Tina identifies as a transwoman, she has a hard time getting beyond this label. She struggles with her boyfriend as he is reluctant to be seen in public with her, as well, her grandmother still refers to her by her birth name, Antonio. When Tina is denied access to gender reassignment surgery, she finds herself questioning her identity. She decides to investigate other resources to help define herself. Tina begins seeing a speech pathologist to help her feel more comfortable in her own skin and begins to take part in trans advocacy, even though she is reluctant at first. Tina joins a movement to support another transwoman, Rosie, who had been killed by police officers; the exact people who are supposed to provide protection. Tina’s involvement in this trans movement gives her a newfound appreciation for her identity and community.

The director of this film made the creative choice to cast only trans actors to play the trans characters; this extremely important and innovative decision goes against typical Hollywood productions and protocols. In the class reading, Negotiating Fandom, the author briefly touches upon Hollywood’s white casting practices. The author explains that Hollywood often casts white actors, even in roles where a person of a different ethnicity would be more fitting. This often undermines the authenticity of the characters, and the film creator’s visions (Jenkins 389). This practice can also be applied to gender in noticing that Hollywood typically casts heterosexual actors, however, the director of The Garden Left Behind did not conform to this norm. Alves chose to cast every trans character with a trans actor, making this film authentic and impactful, with the hopes of effectively delivering his intersectional message to the viewers.

            Although Tina’s oppressions based on her trans identity are evident throughout the entire film, the importance and severity of her discriminations don’t become clear until the last scene of the movie. Tina is approached by teenagers verbally assaulting her, and calling her a ‘tranny’. One of the teenagers, Chris, steps out of the car and brutally attacks and murders Tina. Although the motives behind Chris’s actions are not explained in the film, it is clear that he is struggling with identity, and supposedly sexuality issues himself. I hypothesize that he is envious of Tina’s confidence and comfortability with her identity, and targets this insecurity towards Tina in the form of violence. Evidently, Tina’s trans identity plays a crucial and influencing role in the experiences and oppressions that she faces throughout her life.

More than just being discriminated against for her gender identity and sexual orientation, Tina also experiences oppression rooting from her ethnicity/race. Tina and her grandmother immigrated to New York City from Mexico. Although never explicitly stated, many times in the movie, their undocumented immigrant status is implied. To add to her stress of being a trans woman struggling with an identity crisis, Tina and her grandmother have to deal with the pressure and constant fear of being deported back to Mexico. We can see a cross-road of these two oppressions when Tina is denied access to gender reconstruction surgery.

Tina obtained illegal Unites States identification, worked extremely hard, and even sold her car to make enough money to fund her surgery, however, in the end, she is denied the procedure. This was a strong creative choice by the director. Based on Tina’s illegal immigrant status, she was automatically placed at a disadvantage. She has so much to risk by applying for this surgery, something necessary to help her feel like her true self, only to then be denied simply because she did not meet the medical requirements; something so beyond her control.

It is impossible to fully understand the struggles that the protagonist, Tina, has faced without analysing the cross-roads of her identity. Assessing Tina for just one of these categories of oppression without understanding their additive effect is just scraping the surface of the much larger issues she faces. The reading, Intersectionality for Beginners, explains that, “Women… experience the world very differently depending on the other social positions they occupy” (Kaufman 2018). Tina was a trans, immigrant, low-class woman. Her experiences and life path are unique to her because of these categories of identity, and this cannot be understood without analyzing these categories as interlocking and cumulative. This film did an amazing job of highlighting the importance of intersectionality in understanding someone’s oppressions and privileges. This a framework that should constantly be applied in the analysis of one’s identity.

Word Count: 1076

Works Cited

Jenkins, Henry. Negotiating fandom: The politics of racebending. New York, Routledge, 2017,

pp. 383-94.

Kaufman, Peter. “Intersectionality for Beginners”. Everyday Sociology, 23 Apr. 2018,

https://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2018/04/intersectionality-for-beginners.html#more