‘State of Firsts' Review: Trans Congresswoman Sarah McBride Steps Into the Spotlight for a Doc That's More Than Your Average Political Puff Piece
'Representation' takes two forms in Chase Joynt's new documentary, State of Firsts.
The 93-minute film, premiering at Tribeca, follows Sarah McBride's quest to be elected to Congress, representing the state of Delaware; as she's aspiring to be in the House of Representatives, she's also on the verge of making history as the first openly trans member of Congress. McBride is proud of both kinds of representation, but she's pragmatic.
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McBride is a joyful trailblazer and a calculating politician, and Joynt's willingness to feature both sides of her personality is what finally makes State of Firsts more than just a hagiographic puff piece.
It would have been easy for Joynt and editor Chris McNabb to trim away the 'politician' side of McBride's personality and let her be the uncomplicated icon that many of her supporters will probably want to see represented — that word again — here. Instead, they show an increasingly public figure at a crossroads for her and for the country, and suggest why McBride may have the mettle to chart a career that embraces her various 'firsts' while positioning herself for substantive further chapters.
State of Firsts traces McBride's life from mid-2024 to early 2025, as she goes from an already precedent-shattering tenure as a Delaware state rep to a Congressional candidate — only to become one of the most visible figures of the country when Donald Trump and the Republican Party latch onto virulent transphobia as a wedge issue.
Joynt begins the documentary with Delaware's own Joe Biden as president, but he has just completed the disastrous debate that became a catalyst for his exit from the presidential race. We follow McBride as she does the grunt work of retail politics, from knocking on doors to opening campaign offices to a debate that her opponent opts not to attend. She pushes back against intimations that she's running as a trans candidate and not a Delaware candidate, promising that her assortment of pet issues — healthcare, paid family leave, economic insecurity — will be relevant to the state where she was born and raised.
Still, she knows that the 'first' guaranteed to come up in interviews isn't related to Delaware's state nickname. I don't know how to precisely describe McBride's attitude toward the inevitable trans-themed questions that she faces in every interview, toward the pressure to address issues of identity even in standard speeches, toward the fact that the 2024 Democratic Convention didn't have a trans speaker on the main stage's lineup. It isn't 'reluctance' and it isn't 'exhaustion.' It isn't 'wariness,' but it may be 'awareness' — awareness that no matter how much she says 'I'm running on behalf of the people of Delaware,' there will always be an AND or BUT that gets brought into the discussion.
Circumstances, as casual observers of current events know, get even more heightened. After the election, South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace — who responded to her own experience breaking gender barriers at an entrenched institution (the Citadel) by becoming a cartoonish bully rather than developing an iota of empathy — uses McBride's bathroom use as a way to gain her own share of the spotlight. McBride's responses become a referendum even within her own community.
It's an open question as to whether Joynt's very presence is a further source of McBride's self-conscious awareness. Despite McBride repeated emphasis that she's a Delaware candidate and not a trans candidate, the director's interest often seems just as trans-focused as that of the media. A rare exception to that angle comes when a constituent wants to engage McBride on issues related to the Israel/Gaza conflict — and even then, it's obvious that while McBride knows her ideological position, this isn't really the issue she wants to talk about either.
Long stretches of the documentary feature McBride, Joynt and usually McBride's perpetually anxious campaign manager driving in cars. In those scenes, McBride's answers to the director's questions are thoughtful, passionate and, if you've seen other interviews with her, delivered with consistent preparedness or prepared consistency. Often State of Firsts is a film about a woman doing interviews while she waits to do more interviews.
When McBride isn't answering the director's questions and when Joynt is able to fade into the background, the documentary, which asserts little visual style other than fly-on-the-wall presence, is able to witness moments that showcase the unguarded McBride. Family gatherings and backstage meetings show McBride's vulnerability, dorky sense of humor and general passion for the political process. Much more than when she's making statements or espousing messages, it's these glimpses that allow State of Firsts to pack an emotional punch when she fields a congratulatory call from President Biden, hugs a trans constituent, or briefly takes in the joy that her parents and siblings feel as they walk down the hall on her first day at the Capitol.
Whether we're seeing McBride the person or McBride the politician, McBride the Delaware rep or McBride the trans pioneer, State of Firsts portrays a young person realizing she can't avoid being all of these things at once — and facing, perhaps for the first time, the idea that she can't be a perfect representative of everything at all times. That's more interesting than if State of Firsts were just a love letter.
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