“State of Firsts” (2025) is a documentary about Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride’s 2024 Congressional campaign, which she won. As the highest ranking openly transgender elected official and first openly transgender member of the US Congress, Rep. McBride navigates between the Scylla of displeasing the trans community for being too appeasing and the Charybdis of open advocates for trans genocide foaming at the mouth over her existence. Will Rep. McBride find a way to survive as a person and do her job as a representative of all Delawareans without being used as an effigy? Director Chase Joynt’s second solo feature is more conventional, but as Rep. McBride barrels forward to victory, the story becomes an intimate microcosm of Presidon’t and his supporters’ immediate threat to all Americans, which includes Presidon’t’s supporters, though it is specifically about a transwoman’s body becoming a cultural battleground though irrelevant to anyone other than herself.
After watching “Prime Minister” (2025), a documentary about New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, “State of Firsts” seemed to feel dangerously conventional filled with recently aired news archival clips, safe press conferences and crowd-pleasing campaigning. Such compilations could make a moviegoer feel as if they are watching a repeat. Anyone alive during President Barack Obama’s first Presidential campaign would not be surprised at this approach. His skin color is considered radical, but his politics were not, which is the key to catapulting to national prominence and winning elections. Similarly, Rep. McBride and Joynt make the first part of this documentary as bland and conformist as possible by depicting Rep. McBride as a devoted, self-sacrificing, adoring wife, mourning widow and daughter of proud parents, Dave and Sally. While on the campaign trail, Rep. McBride complains that the media and her opponents do not focus on her record and qualifications, but neither does this documentary, which leaves her accomplishments to our imagination. She is for expanding access to healthcare, securing paid family and medical leave and gun control. Her constituents seem firmly in her corner.
“State of Firsts” offers little context about the places where she campaigns other than the place that it is located: Manhattan and Delaware towns such as Rehoboth, Newark and Wilmington. All these locations are less about her constituents but feel like glorified backdrops for a canned inspirational story. Rep. McBride’s staff are mostly featured in the first half, and they are mostly quiet, awed listeners to McBride’s monologuing such as aide Hatti Specter and finance director Connor Miller. Campaign manager Michaela Kurinsky-Malos is the most vocal, strict and stressed supporter pulling the strings behind the scenes and keeping Rep. McBride on message to win, especially when Victory Fund’s Senior Political Sean Meloy seeks to pull Rep. McBride on stage of the Democratic National Convention as a member of the trans community exactly when the manager wants Rep. McBride to be universally relatable and tone down any aspect of herself that could make her less relatable to the public. The biggest surprise is watching the McBride family gather in the living room to write a speech, includes brother Sean and his kids, brother-in-law Blake Lanstro, and sister-in-law Jaime Prater.
Unlike most films featuring subjects instrumental in the Democrat Party, Joynt is unafraid to weave a negative thread throughout “State of Firsts” and never loses focus of the real and present danger that Rep. McBride and other transpeople face, especially transwomen. Presidon’t’s identity politics appear with archival television news clips, colorful trolls protesting Democratic events and institutional harassment. It does not feel like a needless rehash because the striking dissonance of paralleling Rep. McBride’s decisive victory concurrent with Presidon’t’s increased attacks on Vice President Harris for supporting trans people’s access to health care. Spoiler alert: Presidon’t does not support any person’s access to health care. Oops. These developments need to be contrasted to convey how mind boggling this era is. It takes pat your head and rub your belly to elevated dissonant levels. When Toby, a supporter who asks for a signed copy of Rep. McBride’s 2018 autobiography, “Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality,” it is impossible not to be stressed about how Toby is doing right now, especially considering Rep. McBride’s reception as she goes to Washington D.C.
“State of Firsts” is effective at depicting the legal, quotidian psychological and potential physical threat that Rep. McBride faces when she hits the halls of Congress. Joynt uses archival news clips to implicitly show the difference between the response to the January 6th insurrectionists, which is not referenced, versus Rep. McBride’s arrival. Some Democrats and Republicans could find common ground through their transphobic horror and mobilize to protect Congressional property disguised as a measure to protect women and girls (ha!) with bathroom laws designed to criminalize transpeople from using the bathroom of their gender thus forcing them to use the bathroom associated with their birth assigned gender. This codification of disrespect and dehumanization translates into colleagues dead-naming, misgendering and threatening to attack Rep. McBride even though the public eye is on Rep. McBride, and Rep. McBride adheres to respectability politics. If she is enduring so much hostility, the implicit fear is how are people like Toby being treated.
At this point, Joynt does something powerful. Instead of continuing to focus on the national story, Joynt asks Rep. McBride, “How are you doing?” “State of Firsts” is a participatory documentary. While Joynt’s voice cannot be heard in most of the film, this moment matters because it transforms Rep. McBride into a person forced to walk a tightrope, and she cannot win. If she expresses real emotions or acts as she did before she was an elected official, she could lose her life, but just because she is not acting, it does not mean that she is not feeling. At this point, McBride becomes impressive. While driving and getting her Starbucks coffee, she delivers some of the most expressive, resonant, intimate statements about her predicament and her frustrations. She is a natural. She could be President.
While “State of Firsts” is exactly the kind of documentary needed right now, it is still a little disappointing that the man who made “Framing Agnes” (2022), such a revolutionary exploration of trans history, narratively complex structure and fascinating work of art, made such a conventional film. It feels like a step backward even though it makes sense. While trans people are under attack, they must make films that are easier to digest in the mainstream and may feel as if there is less room for experimentation when existing is now considered unacceptable.
“State of Firsts” does an excellent job of compiling clips from social media though it was problematic since the speakers, particular the trans Tik Tok creators, were not given credit like the mainstream media or many of the active participants. They are recognizable, but Tik Tok handles are not easy to remember. One of the Tik Tok creators is Y. K. Hong. Also, Joynt failed the “anti-film” test: how to depict a vertical screen on a horizontal space, which disrupts the cinematic experience. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” also failed the test, so Joynt is in good company but check out “An Unfinished Film” (2024) for one solution.
Stay for the post credit tour of Rep. McBride’s Congressional office suite. At a time when trans genocide is exponentially progressing, “State of Firsts” becomes a chronicle of how even the most conforming, assimilated and politically powerful transwoman is still in danger regardless of the merit or mildness of her views. Stay safe.
