In 1982, a local news station in New Orleans broadcast a documentary called “Cruisin’ the Streets,” which aimed a prurient and dehumanizing gaze at gay and trans sex workers in the French Quarter. The same year, swept up in a moral panic over prostitution in the city, Louisiana’s state legislature passed draconian measures that explicitly targeted the L.G.B.T.Q. community. Prostitution was already a misdemeanor in Louisiana, but a new law—known as CANS, which stands for Crime Against Nature by Solicitation—made merely offering oral or anal sex in exchange for money a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison with hard labor. In 1992, the penalties set by CANS were made even harsher: anyone charged under the law was required to register as a sex offender. This development deeply exacerbated the challenges of finding housing, employment, and health care—and it escalated social stigma—for a group that already faced severe discrimination. The short documentary “CANS Can’t Stand,” directed by Matt Nadel and Megan Plotka, uses archival material to explore the history of CANS, but its focus is a group of Black trans women who are fighting today to liberate their community from the policy’s grasp.
Nadel and Plotka first learned of the campaign against CANS in an exhibition at Tulane’s Newcomb Art Museum centered on formerly incarcerated women and girls in Louisiana, which featured a short blurb about Wendi Cooper. Cooper founded the organization CANScantSTAND, in 2018, to...
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