About Gender Reel Houston
Gender Reel Houston is a collaboration of Houston-area artists with a commitment to breaking ground in transgender and gender diverse representation on screen. The festival highlights and celebrates the diverse experiences of transgender artists, and enhances the vitality and diversity of the arts in Houston and the Southern United States.
Gender Reel Film Festival’s goal is to empower artists and filmmakers to continue creating works that are reflective of gender diverse experiences and identities and to help transgender filmmakers get their films to a wider audience.
Gender Reel Film Festival’s goal is to empower artists and filmmakers to continue creating works that are reflective of gender diverse experiences and identities and to help transgender filmmakers get their films to a wider audience.
Meet Your Friendly Neighborhood Gender Reel Houston Hosts
L-R Stephanie Saint Sanchez, Koomah, Jay Mays
Koomah is an intersex-bodied trans/queer multidisciplinary grassroots artist currently residing in Houston, Texas. Koomah's art is usually abstract in nature and their performance covers an eclectic range from performance art, drag (king/queen/in-between), queer burlesque & cabaret, genderfucking sideshow acts, and some educational acts centering around issues of gender, sexuality, and gender variant identities/expressions. Active in the arts since 2003, Koomah challenges audiences to ask questions, see from new perspectives, be vulnerable, and ponder social norms. Koomah is a performance artist with Continuum, a performer with the Houston Gendermyn, a frequent performer at QUEERLESQUE!, and a solo artist. Koomah has performed, showcased artwork, and screened films nationwide.
Jay Mays has been performing and producing gender-blended variety shows as a co-founder of the quietly subversive Houston Gendermyn since 2006. When not producing, Jay teaches, trains, and works collaboratively on the GENDER book (www.thegenderbook.com), a multimedia, fully illustrated, community-sourced gender primer that makes accessible the beautiful diversity of gender in hardback and ebook. Jay also volunteers with QFest, with Houston Transgender Unity Committee's annual banquet and as a cofacilitator of an adult transgender peer group at the Montrose Center. Jay is excited to help bring Gender Reel to Houston audiences.
Raised in Beaumont and corrupted in Houston, Stephanie Saint Sanchez spent her childhood in the MTV 80’s and received her first video camera at age 13. She was off and running, creating video stories and mini epics using recruited friends and innocent strangers as actors and subjects. Over the last 15 years as founder of La Chicana LaundryPictures (lachicanalaundrypictures.com ), Stephanie has written, produced, and directed more than 30 award-winning genre-splitting short films. She has been called a by-any-means-necessary media artist for her no-holds-barred style in which she tells a story using anything in her arsenal from death penalty paper dolls to her alternate personality Kitty Loco, a giant pink pussycat who is always around when trouble goes down. Inspired by screening at Real Women Have Curves Screenwriter Josephina Lopez’s Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Extravaganza: “That festival saved my life. I felt like I was a young punk seeing my first Ramones show at CBGB in its heyday - like something big was happening and that we Latina filmmakers were the future architects of an important chapter in film history.” Stephanie started Senorita Cinema, an all Latina film festival based in Texas. This celebration is now in its fifth year.
Jay Mays has been performing and producing gender-blended variety shows as a co-founder of the quietly subversive Houston Gendermyn since 2006. When not producing, Jay teaches, trains, and works collaboratively on the GENDER book (www.thegenderbook.com), a multimedia, fully illustrated, community-sourced gender primer that makes accessible the beautiful diversity of gender in hardback and ebook. Jay also volunteers with QFest, with Houston Transgender Unity Committee's annual banquet and as a cofacilitator of an adult transgender peer group at the Montrose Center. Jay is excited to help bring Gender Reel to Houston audiences.
Raised in Beaumont and corrupted in Houston, Stephanie Saint Sanchez spent her childhood in the MTV 80’s and received her first video camera at age 13. She was off and running, creating video stories and mini epics using recruited friends and innocent strangers as actors and subjects. Over the last 15 years as founder of La Chicana LaundryPictures (lachicanalaundrypictures.com ), Stephanie has written, produced, and directed more than 30 award-winning genre-splitting short films. She has been called a by-any-means-necessary media artist for her no-holds-barred style in which she tells a story using anything in her arsenal from death penalty paper dolls to her alternate personality Kitty Loco, a giant pink pussycat who is always around when trouble goes down. Inspired by screening at Real Women Have Curves Screenwriter Josephina Lopez’s Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Extravaganza: “That festival saved my life. I felt like I was a young punk seeing my first Ramones show at CBGB in its heyday - like something big was happening and that we Latina filmmakers were the future architects of an important chapter in film history.” Stephanie started Senorita Cinema, an all Latina film festival based in Texas. This celebration is now in its fifth year.