STATE OF FIRSTS (Tribeca 2025) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
The documentary State of Firsts, following Sarah McBride’s historic run in 2024 to become the first transgender member of Congress, takes a deliberate and delicate approach, much like McBride herself. She’s smiling and gracious everywhere she appears in public, feeling the responsibility to not be too emotional or give others a viral moment.
“It is an unbelievable challenge of figuring out how to ensure that I am seen as a whole human being rather than just a walking trans flag,” she says.
A Democrat representing Delaware, McBride won her seat during the same election cycle that brought President Donald Trump back to the White House. The film, which premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, accompanies McBride as she knocks doors and talks to constituents, spends time with family, and settles in on Capitol Hill.
A savvy speaker, McBride addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2016, four years after she came out. State of Firsts is a brisk watch at 93 minutes and a largely pleasant one, but it’s by no means a biography. It skips over details of McBride’s life, save for a brief marriage (her husband died of cancer), and barely includes the hateful invective that Trump and other right-wingers continue to hurl at trans people. She denounces the culture war obsession at a news conference, needling lawmakers to think instead about lowering costs for American families, but that’s about it.
Director Chase Joynt (The Nest, No Ordinary Man) no doubt wanted to respect McBride’s privacy and her desire not to reduce every conversation to biology. Nevertheless, without knowing much about her earlier life and political career, it’s hard to appreciate the significance when McBride’s mother praises how far she and their family have come.
That said, the film hits its stride once House Speaker Mike Johnson bans McBride and any other trans lawmakers and staff from using public restrooms that don’t correspond with their “biological sex.” Amid a montage of some trans people disappointed that McBride isn’t more of an advocate, McBride speaks in closeup, wishing for more grace.
“It’s not just that they don’t want me in bathrooms. They don’t want me in Congress,” she says. “The disobedience is taking this seat. The civil part is taking what they throw at me in this seat.”
Though it lacks depth, State of Firsts still provides the sense of expectation and difficulty at being a trailblazer—and how McBride is trying to figure out how to navigate this for herself.
