Trans Media

THE INTENTIONAL (!) TRANS ALLEGORY OF STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS’ AD ASTRA PER ASPERA, part 1

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! By now you likely know that I live and breathe Star Trek, and so it’s such an absolute joy to take you through THE INTENTIONAL (?!) TRANS ALLEGORY OF STRANGE NEW WORLDS’ AD ASTRA PER ASPERA, part 1: context and diving in by timestamps!

If you’re new to Star Trek, a quick primer: each of the shows basically follows a crew on a starship (or space station, or soon at the academy) and their adventures in “seeking out new life and new civilizations.”

They’re usually part of Starfleet, which is the group of ships and stations used for said exploration, and Starfleet is the exploratory and defense force of the Federation – which is a very large alliance of planets that have come together to work for the common good.

The Federation is largely a utopia, and the founding principles of the entire franchise are inclusion, diversity, compassion, and hope. You can maybe start to see why I love it.

All of these 800+ hours of movies and television have a shared continuity and history, and that can seem really daunting to folks. I’m here to tell you that if you’ve never watched any Star Trek before, fear not! This little primer and the episode itself that I’ll be discussing give you all the context you’ll need.

And the really cool thing is that Star Trek has almost become a sub-medium of its own within science-fiction, because it can hold compelling drama, goofy silliness, horror, legal drama, medical drama, action, outright comedy, war drama, thrillers, parody, and more. For every genre of story, Trek has incorporated it and made it work within its framework. It’s really remarkable.

And I’d be remiss if I did not take a second to mention that not only have Susan and I written for the Star Trek Adventures roleplaying game and consulted on season two of Star Trek Prodigy, we’re also writing a comic series! Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming is a five issue limited series that begins later this year, so you should definitely check. that. OUT. (we have a really fab story coming your way)

One little bit of in-universe history I will mention are the Eugenics Wars, which took place prior to the formation of the Federation. There were genetically modified humans, some of whom felt they were better than us regular ol’ humans and wanted to eradicate us.

As a result of that, the Federation banned genetic modifications entirely, in an effort to prevent the same thing from happening again. Whether that was right or wrong is something the episode we’ll be talking about covers, so more on that later.

The leader of the genetically modified people who started the Eugenics Wars was Khan Noonien-Singh (yes, the one from the Wrath of Khan movie you’ve undoubtedly heard the title of). I mention this only because one of Khan’s descendants is in the episode we’re going to discuss, but also because this episode heavily features a genetically modified character.

That character is Una Chin-Riley, who is not human (though she outwardly appears human), and is in fact an Illyrian. Most Illyrians are genetically modified, which is something the episode itself, and its “previously on,” will explain. Una is the first officer on board the Enterprise, the very same one from the original Star Trek with Kirk and Spock. This show predates the original series chronologically.

But know that Illyrians, as a species, are this episode’s stand-in for trans people in the allegory.

Unlike what I talked about in my deep-dives into THE MATRIX¸ BARBIE, I SAW THE TV GLOW, and even REAL GENIUS, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has its own visual language, color palette, and look and feel that each episode needs to conform to outside of the allegory this specific episode is telling.

As such, things like colors being metaphors can’t be used as easily, because costumes and bits of the sets have to maintain an appearance to match with all other episodes. Things like this are also why the unintentional (I think?) trans allegory of SILO season one also are more limited in the ways they can use visuals to convey allegory and metaphor.

Buuuuuuuuut there is one super important huge visual clue that has caused me to label this an intentional (I think?) trans allegory, and it happens pretty early on. Stay tuned!

You will find, much like with other trans allegories in media that I’ve discussed, that a lot of this episode applies to people of all marginalized communities. But it is also very specific in the transness of its allegory, which is what we’re gonna discuss.

The first time I saw this episode it rocked my world, as evidenced by a social media post I made the second I finished watching it, thanking the entire franchise and the episode’s writer.

As you can see from when I made that social media post, this episode aired during Pride month. While possibly not entirely planned (networks and studios set release dates), it’s quite possible (and I believe likely) that once they got their release schedule and saw episodes would release through June, someone somewhere worked to be sure this episode was among those released that month.

Okay! You’re primed, you’re ready, you’re hopefully excited!

Let’s gooooooooooooooooooooo!

1:07 – Flashbacks. “She needs a hospital. Her leg isn’t healing.” “It will.” This is young Una, hurt, and note right here that her parents didn’t just take her to get medical care even though she clearly needs it. Why do you think that would be? It gets discussed later, but this is your first clue that Una (and her people) have to deal with things other folks might not think twice about.

1:11 – Okay so when I said the one visual that made me believe this is an intentional allegory was early in the episode, I wasn’t kidding. Here it is!

Did you miss it? Lemme lighten it up and zoom in for you.

So. Y’know. You’ve seen the trans pride flag, right? I mean, right?

The buckle on Una’s brace isn’t just in trans pride flag colors, it is literally the trans pride flag with an extra pink stripe on top and bottom.

I say it in every trans allegory discussion I do, but everything in a movie or tv show is a choice. And yes coincidences or happy accidents might happen, but it’s still a choice to leave them in (or remove them from) the final product.

But do you think the production designer and prop folks coincidentally made a buckle for a leg brace that looks like that? Not even just in blue, pink, and white, but with a literal trans flag on it? Have you ever seen a strap that looks like that anywhere if it wasn’t part of an intentionally trans pride-colored item? Do you think it’s a coincidence that this strap made it through to the finished version of this episode?

And do you think it’s a coincidence that this happened in an episode that is very, very clearly (as you will see) discussing trans people?

BECAUSE I SURE DON’T.

It’s also important that you see this strap as part of that leg brace, which is there because of Una’s wound. Because there’s something about Una’s wound that’s something only Illyrians (trans people) have, so this is showing you right up front that the difference Una (and Illyrians) have from humans (and other non-Illyrian species in the Federation) is their transness. This is setting up that metaphor and all the heavy lifting it’s gonna do for the rest of the episode.

1:15 – “If we go to the hospital, they might see her fighting infection. They’ll run tests to find out.” And what will those tests show, do you think?

1:31 – Una’s leg glows, she is “different” physically. “Look, if we go to the hospital now, they’ll see, and we’ll lose everything. Her life will be ruined, all of ours.” So Una’s physical difference (the glowing, representative of a physical marker that she’s trans… say, perhaps genitalia that you wouldn’t expect to find on a cis girl) will be found by the doctors, and they would lose everything.

Here’s where some of that earlier context helps, because remember genetic engineering is outlawed in the Federation due to the Eugenics Wars, and what you might not know yet is that basically all Illyrians are genetically modified (for reasons that are revealed later).

So Illyrians simply being who they are is against the law. Ring any bells?

1:46 – Back with adult Una, in trouble because she’s been outed. “Starfleet would like to offer a deal. Plead guilty to knowingly submitting false information to Starfleet by failing to disclose your genetic modification status, and we’ll accept dishonorable dismissal. No prison time.” Look how generous they are, “no prison time.” We won’t even throw you in jail for not disclosing your truth so we could kick you out earlier. “Dishonorable” dismissal.

For the crime of being different.

2:06 – Captain Batel: “Starfleet is willing to seal your records and look the other way.” Una: “They want to cover up their mistake.” And she’s right, they do. Because if word got out that a genetically modified Illyrian had been serving for a very long time with zero issues, that would sure pull the rug out from under their belief that genetically modified people are evil, wouldn’t it?

2:15 – Batel: “Una, you don’t want to drag this out. And you don’t want others to get dragged in.” Ooh, listen, if you don’t do what we want then all the allies who helped you are gonna get in trouble too. You wouldn’t want that, would you?

2:33 – Batel: “Take some time, talk it over with your counsel.” Una: “How can he counsel me when he works for you?” The people working for our oppressors aren’t our friends, even if they claim to be. They don’t understand us, they don’t know what it’s like to be us, and if they’re, say, voting for people who would oppress us, they are not and cannot be our friends. See TRANS POLITICS 2: YOU MUST VOTE TO PROTECT US.

3:33 – Captain Pike’s trying to get one of Una’s own people, Neera, to represent her as legal counsel, and though it is dangerous and possibly even life-threatening for him to do this (due to the atmosphere being inhospitable to humans), he will not give up. Because he is an accomplice and will not let his crew member and friend lose her rights, even though it doesn’t come without danger.

Standing up for us and fighting for us does indeed paint a target on cis allies’ backs, even though they’re far more likely to be listened to than we are, and far less likely to suffer repercussions (which is why we need them so badly). If you’re not standing close enough to us that the bricks thrown at us hit you too, you’re not standing close enough. See PROACTIVE ALLYSHIP (be an accomplice) for more.

3:56 – The room’s air is changed so Pike can breathe in it, and it saves him. Illyrians represent no threat and don’t want to hurt anyone, they just experience life differently. Just like trans people.

4:15 – Pike explains how Illyrians have been genetically modified to be able to live in the Vaultera Nebula, and Neera says, “You think that would allow us a measure of privacy.” Note that their genetic modifications were a necessity for them to survive. And they just wanted to be left alone in peace, but here’s a cis person waltzing right in (at least Pike has noble goals).

Many trans people who feel they can’t transition don’t make it to old age. This is not true for every trans person, because you can be trans without experiencing GENDER DYSPHORIA, but also not every trans person makes it to old age due to the violence and oppression we face, and how difficult life can be made for us.

4:31 – Pike says Una needs Neera’s help because Starfleet Command found out Una’s Illyrian (and thus genetically modified). Neera: “It was only a matter of time before she was outed. Starfleet will never let an Illyrian serve. Not openly. But that is not my problem…” Yeah things suck for trans people out there, but this one lawyer literally cannot save all of them, much less one she has personal beef with, and she doesn’t think changing the system is possible.

4:55 – Pike: “I know why you feel the way you do about Starfleet, the Federation, all of us. I saw some things. On a research mission to an abandoned Illyrian colony, we found out that it wasn’t so… abandoned. I saw what can happen to Illyrians who reverse their genetic modification just so the Federation will accept them.” People who detransition just to be accepted by cis society go back to living in a waking death, if they can even continue living at all.

And yes, some detransitioners are cis people who made a mistake (which shouldn’t be held against trans people), but most people who detransition do so because life as an out trans person was made too difficult for them to cope with. And those trans people, who detransition just so cis people will accept them, live a horrible miserable “life.” And if that’s something you’d ask anyone to do just to get your approval, well.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

5:13 – Pike: “Old fears can be hard to let go of, but we were wrong about Illyrians. All of us. I was wrong.” Neera: “Congratulations. You discovered empathy. Let me know when the rest of your Federation catches up.” Individuals can wake up to the false cis binary matrix once they see it for themselves (do check out my book whydontcha), but changing society is a much bigger hill to climb.

5:34 – Pike: “They’re going to dismiss her. Everything she’s strived for, her life’s work, her entire career. Everything that she’s contributed.” Neera: “…Starfleet race laws are draconian.” This is something The Matrix discusses at multiple points through the franchise, how we’re all rewarded for conforming to the cis binary, and punished the second we don’t.

7:19 – Neera goes to see Una, who’s being held until trial. Neera: “I told you this would happen.” Una: “After 25 years the first thing you say to me is ‘I told you so?’” Neera never believed the system of oppression would change, so Una getting “caught” is what she always expected would happen.

7:33 – Neera asks for Una’s version of the story. Una: “Until two months ago, my record with Starfleet was spotless. When they didn’t know, they didn’t care. The only thing that’s changed is that they know the truth.” Right, because Illyrians (and trans people) can be valued people who contribute to society without issue, because we are not the problem.

Neera: “And that you lied about it. Must be nice… some Illyrians have modifications they can’t hide, and some of us refuse to.” This is referring to going stealth (trans people letting everyone think they’re cis), which used to be known as “woodworking,” and was required by draconian rules set up to force us to conform to compulsory cisgender heterosexuality. See MISGENDERING AND PASSING and TRANSMEDICALISM (and WPATH version 1) for more.

And it’s not something every trans person can do, even if they wanted to. Some of us just don’t look like cis people of our gender, and that’s okay. I don’t pass and I don’t want to. And none of us should feel we have to just so society will leave us alone. And some of us, even if we wanted to pass as cis, simply can’t due to the way our bodies are. Some of us don’t have that privilege.

Una: “So then somebody turned me in, and now Starfleet is asking me to hide again, so that no one has to know an Illyrian climbed the ranks of Starfleet. It’ll be like it never happened. Like I never happened.” Erasure of our existence has been the primary goal of our transphobic society since its inception. See TRANS TRAUMA 2: SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING.

8:14 – Neera: “You had your playtime, acting like one of them. Accept your dismissal, take your licks and go home.” Neera has no sympathy for someone who would hide their truth simply so those who oppress us will like us better. It’s a really hard thing to deal with, because when you hide your transness, regardless of the reason (some of which, like for safety, are totally valid), you are still in essence confirming that transness is something that should be hidden. That it’s shameful. That it’s wrong.

And it also makes it appear as if there are less of us in the world, and you rob every trans person who’s not out yet, or who hasn’t discovered that they’re trans yet, of seeing you out and proud, which helps them think they can do it too. All of us who are out publicly have trans people who came before us and inspired us in that way. I thanked all the trans women (and especially trans women writers) who helped me do those things in the very first Trans Tuesday when I came out. And in the back of my book.

I have more compassion for trans folks who go stealth than Neera does, but her stance is justified and understandable. It’s complicated and difficult.

And none of that would even be an issue if it weren’t for transphobic society and all the cis people who perpetuate it.

Una: “…I shouldn’t have to hide anymore. None of us should. I know I should have done better. I didn’t stand up when I should have. I’m standing up now.” Well, if that doesn’t just say it all.

8:43 – Neera takes the case. “I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for me. And for all the Illyrians who can’t or just won’t pretend to not be who they really are… so they can run away to Starfleet.” Despite her reservations at changing the system, Neera knows that the only way it will ever change is to fight it. Even when it seems impossible.

We’ll wrap it there for this week. Next week we dive into the hypocrisy of (some) cis people, the damage society does to us (and then blames us for), and see that no matter how much we good we do and contribute to society… none of it will save us from the oppression we face.

Because it’s not really about us.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – Part 2 is here!

TRANS REPRESENTATION IN 2024 MEDIA part 3: TV part 2

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Here we go with TILLY’S 2024 TRANS REP IN MEDIA, part 3: TV part 2! We finish our discussion on trans rep on complete seasons of tv that I saw last year, and then look at the overall numbers and see how they stack up my past two annual reports! Spoilers abound!

As we get to overall totals and comparisons this week, be sure you’ve read 2024 TRANS REP IN MEDIA, part 1: MOVIES and 2024 TRANS REP IN MEDIA, part 2: TV part 1!

My Adventures With Superman s2 – 1
In one episode there is a “Metropolis’ Most Eligible” contest, but note it doesn’t say “bachelor” or “bachelorette!” And one of the finalists is non-binary and has they/them pronouns! Even though they have no lines, it was nice to see.

Only Murders in the Building s4 – 0
Okay, this one got rough, which is really sad because this was my warm comfort show. This was the worst offender on trans jokes that I saw all year. Past seasons weren’t like this! Did something change behind the scenes and some transphobe got more power or something? I’m so baffled.

This season there are a set of sisters called the Brothers Sisters, which is supposed to be a joke, but why is that funny? Because they’re called brothers when they’re sisters, right? Which feels half a step from a misgendering joke. They also both kind of have deep voices. They make a point that one is really strong, they dress weird, nobody wants to be around them, and in flashbacks to college they’re both kind of wearing suit coats. And I’m just saying all of that sure is a big coincidence isn’t it? I’m counting their entire concept as a joke at our expense, and their portrayal as another joke that’s a dig at trans people.

For a while Oliver impersonates a midwestern grandma to spy on his girlfriend on Instagram, and he affects a voice for her, and they sure didn’t pick a midwestern grandpa for him to impersonate did they? More of “men acting like women is funny,” so this sweet show I adored is now up to three jokes at trans people’s expense.

Episode 5 has a very bad pronoun joke. Charles is telling a story about their mystery killer, and starts off saying “he or she” and then says “I’m just going to stick to male pronouns because it’s easier even if it’s not accurate,” which is what transphobes do to us all the time! The SAME episode has an Ace Ventura joke (with the movie mentioned by name, and if you’re not familiar that movie is HORRIBLY transphobic and makes a mockery of trans women and hits almost every bad trope about us). And the episode ALSO has a Harry Potter joke! Which is of course always awful because of its creator JK Rowling, who might be the world’s biggest transphobe and uses her billions to try and strip our rights away.

A horrid pronoun joke that’s in line with what transphobes say, an Ace Ventura reference, AND a Harry Potter joke, and all in one 22-minute episode is like a transphobic hat trick. What the fuck. 

In a brief scene Paul Rudd’s character, who has an outrageous fake Irish accent, calls another man “lassie” for… lulz i guess? Another misgendering joke.

I’m so, so mad and disappointed. But don’t go blaming the cast for this, they likely don’t even know that so much of the season was stealth transphobia right under the surface. You don’t see it until you see it, you know?

But this was a show that was so dear to me, and to have it repeatedly make a mockery of my existence hurts like hell. 

Orphan Black: Echoes s1 – 0
The show is set in the 2050s and a teen girl is bored by a “cishet” relationship, which isn’t really anything to talk about but it’s so rare to hear “cishet” in anything I thought it worth a mention!

In the finale a bad guy calls Kristen Ritter “dude,” but I don’t know why, not a joke and he’s being a dick at the time. Is that a deliberate misgendering of a cis woman? Or just the “words for men are okay to use for everyone” thing our society does creeping in again? I don’t know.

Quantum Leap s2 – 2
Ian is still in the main cast, a nonbinary character played by nonbinary actor Mason Alexander Park, who remains fantastic.

There’s an episode with a nonbinary character named Dean, played by nonbinary actor Wilder Yari, who wears a makeshift binder and comes out to their family, and it also includes discussion of what nonbinary means and they/them pronouns (it’s set in the 1950s so the characters didn’t have that terminology, but learn it from our time-traveling lead, Ben). 

This episode was written by Shakina, who wrote the super trans episode of this show back in season one, and it is again fabulously done. Be sure to check out the Trans Tuesday INTERVIEW WITH SHAKINA when I talked about it with her.

Along with Heartsopper, the Quantum Leap reboot was one of the bright spots of trans rep in television each year. It has sadly since been canceled, soooo trans rep may be taking another nosedive next year.

Resident Alien s3 – 0
There’s a lady alien with wings and feathers that keeps getting called a “bird lady” or “bird person” and she says “my noun is avian” which is just anoooooother recycled pronoun joke. 

Shrinking s2 – 0
In one episode the lead character Jimmy wakes up screaming from a nightmare and someone overhears and says they heard “an old lady screaming”. Yet another “anything feminine associated with a man is funny” joke.

Also a cis woman tells another cis woman she has to “sack up” and do a thing she doesn’t want to, but it’s not a joke or anything. Just another instance of the way our society says it’s cool for women to say and do stuff men do, whereas the opposite is to be derided and laughed at.

In another episode a cis woman says to a cis man friend, “such my dick you big dumb bitch,” and it’s played for laughs. It’s a joke. Ha ha women with penises are hilarious!

I’m so tired.

In another episode a gay man and his husband are thinking about adopting a kid and someone says “Jimmy’s having a baby!” And a guy responds “You’re not even showing.” Which I think is another “men being pregnant is hilarious” joke, because if that played out exactly the same but “Jimmy” was a woman it wouldn’t be a joke, would it? There was a show last year, UPLOAD, that did a whole terrible protracted scene around the joke of a man being pregnant, ignoring the reality of trans men entirely. I talked about that in 2023 TRANS REP IN MEDIA part 3: TV part 2.

When a cis woman hands a cis man a baby and he asks what to do if it gets hungry, she says “you’ve got nipples, whip out a titty.” A MAN with BREASTS and BREASTFEEDING, so hilarious, can you even imagine. Ugh.

And here’s the thing. This show is about mental health and forgiving ourselves (and others) and is generally positive and uplifting. But look at all those stealth transphobic jokes that worked their way into it.

I should mention this show is from the same folks who made Ted Lasso… which you can also hear me talk about in the 2023 TRANS REP IN MEDIA part 3: TV part 2 report, because that show was called “the kindest show on tv” and it ALSO had a LOT of stealth transphobic jokes. 

These folks keep making shows about being good and kind humans, but can’t see their own implicit transphobia and it keeps making me feel like their kindness is reserved only for cis people.

Silo s2 – 0
Is this show still a remarkable trans allegory? I believe so. Will I do another full write up on it, like THE UNINTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF SILO Trans Tuesdays? I very well might. We shall see! There were some moments that felt allllllmost intentionally trans, as in season 1, so my gears are definitely turning.

No out trans or nonbinary people are involved with making it, however, as far as I know.

Skeleton Crew s1 – 0

Slow Horses s1 – 0
In one episode some right wing bigots are sitting in a house with someone they abducted, and one comes in and looks at a carton of milk by the tea (yes there’s tea even for bigots, it’s a very British show). He says “oh, you got milk,” and the cranky leader dude replies with “no, he lactated it.” Another joke about lactating men, and yeah these are literal bad guys, but it wasn’t making fun of them for being ignorant and bigoted, it was a joke about how funny it would be if a man lactated (and hey, some trans men do). Very very tired of this crap.

In another episode a character is about to show off his hacking progress and says, “ladies.” There are two women and a man with him. The man speaks up and says, “…And gentleman.” And the first guy looks at him and pointedly says, “LADIES.” Misgendering for humor! Because it’s just so funny, isn’t it?

COME ON.

Slow Horses s2 – 0
The boss at MI5 is a lady who everyone calls “ma’am”. One of the enforcers at MI5 is arguing with someone under her command, and she dismisses the enforcer and the guy under her command smiles and nods at the enforcer, and calls him “ma’am.” AUGH YOU DID IT AGAIN STOP IT STOP IT.

Slow Horses s3 – 0
In one episode a man knees another in the groin, and when the victim reacts in pain the attacker says something to the effect of “that didn’t hurt, you’ve got no balls” with the implication that you’re not a man without testicles. But hey, that’s a lot of trans men! Sigh.

In another episode a cis male character says to another cis male character, “hold on to your tits” when he’s about to drive fast. These jokes are insidious and everywhere.

Slow Horses s4 – 0
But no jokes about us this time, oho! How sad is it that that is progress.

I want to add I LOVE this show. A lot.

It also makes a lot of bad gender jokes that are implicitly transphobic.

Two things can be true.

Somebody Somewhere s3 – 1
Fred Rococo is back as a main supporting character, played by trans man Murray Hill. He’s so great, as always, but he felt a bit underutilized this season. 

Fred Rococo spinoff when?

Star Trek Discovery s5 – 3
Nonbinary character Adira is still a main cast member, played by nonbinary actor Blu del Barrio. 

Trans man character Gray returns for a couple episodes, and is still played by trans man Ian Alexander. 

Another character with “they” pronouns briefly talks to someone about drag racing. In another episode there’s an alien species that has three genders, and the third uses they/them pronouns.

This was the queerest (and least white) Star Trek show, but it’s done now and I’m sure going to miss it. It was the first to really live up to all of Trek’s inclusive ideals in terms of cast.

Star Trek Lower Decks s5 – 0

Star Trek Prodigy s2 – 1
Zero is still in the main cast and is nonbinary, but is played by a cis actor. But alllso Zero’s story this season is a trans allegory, and I can tell you it was definitely intentional because it’s what my wife Susan and I were brought in to help them with and consult on! We worked on a Star Trek! Hell yeah. 🖖

Superman and Lois s4 – 0

We Are Lady Parts s1 – 0
So this show is about an all Muslim woman punk band, which is amazing, but one of their songs is called “Voldemort under my head scarf”. Now listen, it’s not ABOUT Harry Potter shit, it’s about people who are afraid of a hijab like there’s something evil underneath it. Buuuuut they say his name like twenty times and drop Harry Potter house names too, and as a trans woman that’s just absolutely no fun to watch. Which is sad because I actually like the song!!

In the pilot a cis lady asks another cis lady “why are you such a boner-killer,” ha ha women with penises, that old hilarious chestnut. 

In episode 2 the same character calls her cis lady friend “bro,” but there is a LOT of this throughout the entire series. I suspect it’s true to the culture (it’s set in the UK), but there’s also just a ton of it. Saying things to each other like “nice one, man,” or multiple times they refer to each other as “lads.”

We Are Lady Parts s2 – 1
There’s yet ANOTHER song with a Harry Potter reference. And as this show is made in and set in the UK, they have to be even more aware of JK Rowling’s transphobia, right? If you know that and you’re still including Harry Potter references, that’s pretty bad. Of course I have no way to know if they’re actually aware of Rowling’s hatred or not.

Nonbinary actor Libby Mai is in one episode playing Chelle, though the character’s gender is never mentioned.

Now here’s something weird. In episode 3 of season 2, there’s a Martina Navratilova reference, when a millennial lesbian says she had posters of her on her bedroom wall as a kid. I’m not sure the timing there even lines up right for when millennials were kids and Navratilova was popular in the world of tennis, but Navratilova is also a known transphobe now.

Given this and the repeated Harry Potter references, it’s got me feeling wary and a little bit suspect. It could all still be coincidental, but there could also be someone behind the scenes who shares some views with some famous transphobes. 

What If s2 – 0

What if s3 – 0
One cis woman calls a group of three other cis women “guys.” And they’re all from alternate realities, so I guess dudes are just so good that words for them get applied to everyone in every universe. So that’s… cool.

What We Do in the Shadows s6 – 0
There’s one joke about a man with “a lady’s haircut,” ha ha funny right? C’mon c’mon, the show’s so much better than a joke that low.

There is also… a Harry Potter joke. COME ON. Like even if you don’t know about JK, it makes me wonder if you don’t know or if you do and you agree with her. Please stop referencing her, for the love of all that is good in the world.

The penultimate episode features Coney Island carnie vampires and one is a bearded lady. She has no lines but at least isn’t played for a joke. Though she does appear with a troupe of carnival sideshows, which is bad. We’re not freaks for your amusement.

That brings us to the end of my report! I mentioned way back in PART 1 of this 2024 trans rep in media report that some other folks sent in some of their own reports for inclusion, so I’m going to mention those here. Please note I have not personally seen these shows or movies, though I trust the people sending them in did their best to be accurate.

The lovely Duna sent in these:

Acapulco s3 – 0

Bodkin s1 – 0

Constellation s1 – 0 

House of the Dragon s2  – 2
Nonbinary actor Emma D’Arcy has a lead role, though the character uses she/her pronouns.

Abigail Thorn appears in this show as well, in the season finale, playing a character that seems quite likely to continue into season 3. She plays a woman pirate that’s respected, feared, and has many wives. There is mud wrestling. (I am suddenly interested in this show). Abigail’s character is not mentioned as trans, but the show sets expectations that her character is a man so that her reveal is a surprise… and that’s not great, and kinda feeds into the “surprise” “trap” aspect a bit. But again, as I’ve not seen this myself, I can’t really comment on if it fell into or deftly avoided that trope.

A Murder at the End of the World s1 – 1
Nonbinary actor Emma Corrin stars, but plays a cis woman.

Outer Range s1 – 0 

Outer Range s2 – 0
Duna said it seems like there’s some going out of the way to set up a couple transphobic lines. As an example, there’s a man named Trudy who seemingly exists just so someone can grumble “that’s a goddam woman’s name,” and then is rarely seen again. Well! That’s not great.

Palm Royale s1 – 0

The Power s1 – 2
Episode 3 introduces Sister Maria, a trans woman character played by trans actress Daniela Vega. Maria explains her coming out story and how their convent for wayward girls was formed by a group of nuns who were excommunicated from the church for standing up for justice during the AIDS epidemic. After this episode her character is still around but not featured as much.

Episode 6 reveals a character to be an intersex person who has the power. He explains that he identifies as a guy. Played by Nico Hiraga, who is not openly intersex as far as we know.

Presumed Innocent s1 – 0 

Time Bandits s1 – 0

Velma s2 – 1
There’s a nonbinary character, Amber, voiced by nonbinary actor Sara Ramirez. They/them pronouns are used. There’s a scene where men and women are being separated and Amber loudly asks where they should go if they aren’t either. 

There is a secret facility where one character puts people’s brains in a jar so they can figure out who they really are while they have no outside influences, then puts them back in their body. In the examples shown, clearly some of them come out of that experience happily queer. This is kinda glossed over, and Duna felt it deserved more attention! I would concur!

The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon s1 – 0

And then I got one report from my fab friend Jenn Wallace, on X-men 97 s1 – 1
The character of Morph is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, and is played by genderqueer actor J. P. Karliak.

Jenn says that everyone knows the X-Men are a queer allegory, but she feels this season was an intentional trans allegory.

Okay, so where are we at with the totals?

Just for recent movies and seasons of television I, a trans woman screenwriter, saw 26 movies and 43 seasons of tv in 2024. And in our totals, we have:

23 trans or nonbinary actors
25 trans or nonbinary characters
30 jokes about trans people

And I counted four instances of bad representation, and ten good. (Keep in mind the joke total would have been much higher if I’d counted every instance of jokes about Ava’s “big hands” on Hacks).

When we add in the reports Duna and Jenn sent me, the new totals for 26 movies and 58 seasons of tv in 2024, we have

29 trans or nonbinary actors
29 trans or nonbinary characters
31 jokes about trans people

This shows representation as still not equal to the jokes made about us, even if most of those jokes were implicit. That’s terrible!

And the news is even worse, because in 2023, these were the numbers across 31 movies and 44 seasons of television, I found:

31 trans or nonbinary actors
20 trans or nonbinary characters
16 jokes about trans people

In 2022, the first year I did a trans rep report, across 22 movies and 62 seasons of television, I found:

22 trans people
15 jokes about trans people

And so what you see looking at these numbers is that actual trans people showing up, and actual trans characters in our media, hasn’t really changed, but the amount of jokes at our expense (even if implicit) has dramatically risen.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but given the propaganda war the Republicans have waged against us, and the Democratic party, as a whole, barely standing up for us if they even do at all… this is what you get.

It feels like gender norms are going back to being more rigid, “deviation” from those arbitrary, restrictive, and reductive norms is being further ridiculed and punished.

And while the trans rep numbers in what I’ve personally seen have remained somewhat steady, with the loss of Quantum Leap and Kaos (and rarities like I Saw the TV Glow and People’s Joker not happening that often), and the way trans and queer projects are routinely canceled, I fear next year’s numbers will be grim indeed. Also keep in mind that while the rep numbers were about the same, not all of that rep was good and some did active harm to us, on screen and off.

And then remember that Heartstopper alone makes up almost a quarter of all trans rep I saw last year.

Cis writers, producers, executives, publishers, and editors: YOU can help fix this. Art can change hearts and minds, and we NEED better and more trans rep across the board.

Hire us and help make it happen. We can fix this together.

I’m tech avail!

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

ADDENDUM 2/8/25

A reader let me know that Eva Everett Irving, in Orphan Black: Echoes, is a trans woman. The character is never mentioned as trans, and I missed her when looking up cast from so many shows.

I will add that there’s no reason her character couldn’t have been trans, tho, so why not just say in the show that she is and give us more of the representation we need? Otherwise even trans people watching, even trans women screenwriters specifically looking for trans representation, might miss it. And if we don’t know the representation is actually there, how can we feel represented?

TRANS REPRESENTATION IN 2024 MEDIA part 2: TV part 1

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Here we go with TILLY’S 2024 TRANS REP IN MEDIA, part 2: TV part 1! We dive into every complete season of tv I saw last year, and take a look at the trans representation therein! There shall be spoilers!

If you missed 2024 TRANS REP IN MEDIA part 1: MOVIES, you should check that out first!

The Acolyte s1 – 1*
Trans woman and big YouTuber Abigail Thorn is in episode 3 as part of the force witch coven of all women, which is great, though she only has a few lines and is not mentioned as trans. She’s also in episode 7, has one line, again no mention of being trans. If you’re not already familiar with her, no way you’d know that the force witch coven included trans women too.

Agatha All Along – 0
In episode 2 when Agatha is recruiting lady witches to her coven, her pitch to one of them, again, a woman, is “I need a potions guy.” This isn’t a joke and it’s not an intentional misgendering, but it does show you again how the use of that very gendered word to apply to people of all genders has permeated culture. And to me it’s just gonna stick out every time. 

It happens again later when the ladies find out Agatha’s ex, a woman, is death incarnate. And she says, “I like the bad boys.”

The show is overall very queer and has the MCU’s first lesbian kiss and first gay man kiss, and in the finale there’s a trans pride flag that says “trans lives matter” in Billy’s room (he’s not trans but he did appear in drag as Maleficent in one episode, and looked fabulous).

This was actually the doing of actor Joe Locke, who had the flag added to the set for his character’s bedroom. It’s such a small thing, but to see it there in something from the MCU is way more huge than it should be. We need cis accomplices to do a whole lot more of this, including taking it further and helping trans actors get added to the cast and trans writers to the writing staff. But this was a lovely gesture and it meant a lot to a bunch of people.

Here’s an article about it.

Bad Batch s3 – 0

The Bear s3 – 0
In two episodes, Jimmy the mob guy says “fuck my tits,” as an exclamation when he’s pissed off. Because it’s again funny for men to have breasts? Sigh. It’s the same joke but it’s used twice, so I’m counting it as two. Really hoping this doesn’t become his recurring catchphrase.

Delicious in Dungeon s1 – 0
In one episode Marcille wants to clean herself and as the only girl in their adventuring party, she says she should have cast an illusion spell first… so she imagines her head on a big, hairy, muscular man’s body. It’s played for laughs, and it’s definitely laughing at the concept of someone you thought was a woman actually having the body of a man. Stealth implicit transphobia joke.

In another episode there are “dryad flowers” that look like naked women, and they’re described as “male and female.” But they’re monsters who try to kill our heroes, so the dryad flowers are killed and the characters then eat their fruit (which look like pumpkins with human faces).

Listen it’s a weird show, but this was the closest it got to having trans characters and they were monsters to be murdered, and that ain’t great. They’re also introduced in an incredibly sexual manner, when NOTHING else in the show is, as trickster temptresses. Hitting some bad bad trans women tropes there.

In another episode they discover a mushroom that changes humans into other races like elves or dwarves, and gargoyles into statues, etc. They surmise that it does this to transform someone into something its own people will fear so that they will be abandoned and die… which alllllso seems to imply some bad things about trans people, even if accidentally.

At least the dryads aren’t a joke, but they hit bad bad trans tropes and I’m counting them as bad representation. I really love this show, but it’s got some hidden regressive ideas on gender baked in there.

Echo – 0

Fallout s1 – 1
The character of Dane is nonbinary, and they/them pronouns are used. It’s a small role only in a few episodes, but they’re played by Xelia Mendes-Jones, who is trans and uses he/they pronouns. Right on.

Hacks s1 – 0
There’s a recurring joke throughout the entire show about Ava’s “big hands,” which very much feels like laughing at the idea of a woman having something generally associated with men. A lot of trans women who transition as adults have big hands. Like me. And let me tell you every time there’s a joke about Ava’s hands, I winced. This happens A LOT, but I didn’t think to count them so I can only count it as one joke.

Hacks s2 – 0
In the second episode of the season, Ava is reading an email she wrote with something to the effect of, “hey y’all (I’m trying not to use gendered terms, even though “hey guys” seems neutral to me)”. YES this is a good joke, and not at our expense (it’s at hers, for not getting it), and ALSO pokes fun at the usage of male terms treated as “neutral” by our heavily patriarchal, misogynist society. FABULOUS.

In the season finale, two jokes are made where the punch line seems to be “women with penises, isn’t that funny?” This came up a lot in last year’s trans rep in media report, and here it is again. It’s one of the most common stealth implicit transphobic jokes, laughing at the very idea of the reality a lot of trans women live with. And it’s the other side of the “men with boobs, so funny!” joke we’re already seen pop up a few times this year.

But y’know what? Our existence and our bodies aren’t jokes. This shit’s gotta stop.

Hacks s3 – 0
In episode 3 Ava finds out DJ, a friend, is pregnant, and says, “I’m going to be an uncle.” I guess because she’s… bi, she can’t call herself an aunt? I dunno. It’s self-misgendering as a joke. Stop it. 

In another episode some old guys complain about how there’s “15 genders” and how “my daughters boyfriend looks like my ex wife” and such. They’re clearly presented as being in the wrong, just so Deborah can call them on being out of touch. But this is the same show that’s made “women with penises are hilarious” jokes, so it rings a bit hollow. In any case, it’s more jokes about us in a show that features none of us, which isn’t great. I’m going to count them all as just one joke in the tally though.

In the second to last episode of the season, which is all about Deborah confronting terrible bigoted jokes she’d made in her past, she keeps saying about the people who got upset that, “they’re minorities.” Ava says “You really shouldn’t call them that,” and Deborah says “I thought everyone was ‘they’ now!” Which is just another pronoun joke. C’mon.

In the season finale Jimmy is pleading with Kayla to stay and be his partner (in business, not romance), and he kneels down because a flight attendant told him he couldn’t stand in the plane aisle, and then another passenger thinks he’s proposing and apologizes for thinking he was a man because he said “partner” and not “wife.” And if you think about it for half a second, that’s just another misgendering joke? That didn’t need to be there? Like… why?

This is one of those situations where I LOVE the show, for so many reasons, but damn they need some trans people on staff, because it really shows that they don’t.

Hazbin Hotel s1 – 0
The show is about demons in hell and none of them really have human form so it’s impossible to say if any of them were intended to be trans, but none of them were mentioned as trans and as far as I could tell there are no trans cast members.

Heartstopper s3 – 5
Still our stalwart of trans rep, and still excellently done across the board.

Elle, a trans girl, played by trans woman Yasmin Finney, is still a main character. In season two the show introduced a trans school principal, and a trans girl and nonbinary kid as classmates, and they all reappear. They’re small parts, but show up in multiple episodes.

Isaac continues exploring his asexuality and discovers he is also aromantic. As I mentioned last year, this is not trans rep but it’s so rare to see that I wanted to mention it again.

In this season the character of Darcy comes out as nonbinary and decides to use they/them pronouns. Darcy is played by Kizzy Edgell, who is transmasc and uses he/him and they/them pronouns. And I thought the egg cracking, realization, and coming out were all very well done.

In the Christmas/New Years Eve episode, Darcy talks to Elle’s nonbinary friend about exploring gender and having fun with it, which was cool. In the same episode, Elle wants to have sex with her boyfriend Tao, but when he touches her it makes her feel dysphoric. And then she describes dissociating! If you need more on that, see the Trans Tuesdays on THE TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW.

Elle then talks to her trans lady friend about those feelings and not knowing what to do about it. And during her talk with Tao about it, they both use the word “trans” openly and like it’s not a big deal. I wish that didn’t feel revolutionary, but it sure as hell does.

This is it, this is all we’re asking for. Treat us like human beings, just like all the cis characters. Damn, that episode felt like a miracle. 

In another episode, Elle goes on a radio show that ostensibly wants to talk about her art, but immediately switches to asking about the “trans debate” and “feminists” who say trans women don’t belong in women’s spaces.

And that was wild, because pretty often when I was doing interviews to promote my book on the trans allegories of the Matrix, it would turn into a trans 101 discussion and I’d be peppered with questions about trans existence.

I was happy to answer those and discuss and get that kind of basic information out there, but like… that’s a separate thing from very specifically talking about my writing and a book that was released. And I get it, that book is about the trans experience as seen through the lens of the Matrix films, but still. It’s a thing that happens, and rang very true.

Anyway I would die for Nick and Charlie, they are my sweet perfect gay babies, and Elle is so dear to me. Heartstopper continues to be the GOAT of trans rep in modern tv right now. Which means whenever it ends, the already paltry trans rep on tv numbers are gonna plummet if we don’t get a lot more soon.

Interior Chinatown – 0
One of the most imaginative and original shows ever, and it’s super super great.

Interview with the Vampire s1 – 0

Interview with the Vampire s2 – 0

Kaos s1 – 5
Ohhh Kaos, how did I love thee. A brilliant show about the Greek gods as set in the… 80s? 90s? Somewhere in there. Created by Charlie Covell, who is nonbinary! This is the only show I’m aware of, that I watched in all of 2024, with a trans or nonbinary creator and showrunner. And do you know what happens when we run our own shows?

THE TRANS REP IS FUCKING AMAZING.

One of the main characters is Caeneus, a trans man played by trans man Misia Butler. In episode 6 we get to see Caeneus’ top surgery scars. 

We see a flashback about how he had to leave the Amazons (the all-women warriors from Greek mythology) because he was a boy…which it turns out is also why the Amazons killed him, because he went back to them, which isn’t allowed. They didn’t kill him because he’s trans, but because he wasn’t a woman. Which is weirdly affirming?? (I should add his story takes place in the underworld, after his death, because this is Greek mythology and so his death was not actually the end of his story and it doesn’t carry the same issues as trans characters always getting killed off).

In the flashback his mom tells him she knows “The form doesn’t fit the content” and she loves him. He’s also a romantic lead, and never doubts who he is OR has to figure it out and come out. He’s just a cool, good trans guy who gets to be a bit of a hero. It’s amazing.

Suzy Eddie Izzard, who is trans, is also in the show as one of the fates, Ché (who is nonbinary) is another one of the fates, and Sam Buttery, who is trans, plays the last fate. And what a wild thing to see that the fates, the three beings in Greek mythology with power over everyone and everything, even the other gods, be played by trans and nonbinary people. What a powerful statement, because who has more control over our lives than trans people do? Extraordinary. Unheard of. 

Sadly, the show was canceled not long after it debuted, so this one season is all we’re going to get. Which is sad because I think it was a great show, but also because it had FABULOUS trans rep that we’ve now already lost.

Lessons in Chemistry – 0

Loot s2 – 1
MJ Rodriguez, a trans woman, returns as a main cast member, but is again never mentioned as trans. And in this season, it feels like they went out of their way, multiple times, to not mention she’s trans.

In episode 3 she’s explaining the societal pressures she’s under, and says “I’m a 36 year-old Afro-Latina woman” and… why do you not say trans in there, when she’s literally describing everything about herself, and how her societal marginalizations impact her life? It was glaring to leave her transness out of it. 

Is the show trying to hide it? Is the character she’s playing cis? It feels like that’s the conclusion I have to come to because to leave transness OUT of a list of “parts of your identity that society puts extra pressure on you for” is pretty huge. 

In another episode they make a point of showing an all-gender bathroom, but the sign on the door has a man, woman, and half man/half woman silhouettes which always makes me feel weird, and then in the same episode they’re planning a trip to Dubai, and MJ’s character is excited. Buuuut Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates… where being trans is literally criminalized. So her character has to be cis… right?

But then in another episode MJ’s character is talking to someone about going to camp as kids, and they talk around ever saying she was a little girl or with the other girls, or if she’d maybe been put with the boys because it was pre-transition. But if the character is cis, why not just say she was with the little girls at camp? I mean her character can be trans and still have been with the little girls at camp if you just make her story that she transitioned as a child.

So now it feels very much like they’re just talking around it all, and I cannot figure it out. I’m counting the actor rep, but not the character. 

And I shall remain stymied as to what they’re actually doing with her character and why they seem to be working so hard to hide MJ’s transness.

I also want to mention that in episode 2 there is another trans woman as a background actor in a scene in a bar, but I only know this because I know her personally and recognized her! Welcome to working in Hollywood and living in LA. Hi Cameron! Anyway she doesn’t have any lines or anything, so I can’t really count this as trans rep in the show. But I know she’s there!

A Man on the Inside – 0
Some teens repeatedly call their mom “bro” and Ted Danson calls his daughter and her three sons “guys”. The first is played for laughs, the latter isn’t. But again this is how our society works, right? 

Mr and Mrs Smith s1 – 0

Monster High s2 – 2
Monster High continued to have nonbinary character Frankie as one of the three leads, still played by nonbinary actor Iris Menas.

Annnnnd then of course my wife/writing partner Susan and I wrote six episodes for this season, four of which were the Halloween special, Monster Fest! Have I mentioned before that we wrote for Monster High?! Well, we totally did!

And I mention our Monster Fest special, because we got to introduce a new trans woman character to the show, Phoenix! I know I’ve talked before in these about how phoenixes are very trans, conceptually (one form of you dying in the ashes so a new you can be reborn), so it was the perfect “monster type” for the character to be. And she was played by trans woman Dominique Jackson. And the entire Monster Fest storyline is about being true to yourself, and being who you truly are and not who anyone else says you have to be. It’s very trans.

John Waters also did a voice for it! Check it out whydontcha?!

Annnnd we’re gonna wrap it there this week. Come back next week for the rest of our discussion on trans rep in tv, as well as how things look overall and where we’re at compared to the past two years!

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Part 3 (TV part 2, and overall totals) is here!

Addendum 2/3/25
A reader let me know that Carl Clemons-Hopkins on Hacks is nonbinary! Hooray. Their character is seemingly a cis man, however.

TRANS REPRESENTATION IN 2024 MEDIA part 1: MOVIES

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Over the course of 2024 I tracked every movie and tv show I watched as it’s time for TILLY’S 2024 TRANS REP IN MEDIA, part 1: MOVIES! Let’s talk the good, the bad, and the oh god not again!

Okay, this is going to be a three-part report, because there’s so much to talk about. In order to see how things are progressing with time, at the end of part 3 I’ll compare to my 2022 TRANS REP IN MEDIA and 2023 TRANS REP IN MEDIA reports, so you may want to familiarize yourself with those first.

Especially as this isn’t necessarily movies and television released in 2024 (though most of it was), but all the movies and tv from the last few years that I watched this year. Too much is released for me to see all of it right as it premieres, and the goal is to give you an idea of what one trans woman screenwriter (who watches A LOT) sees in terms of representation in a given year.

Also please realize this means I TAKE NOTES on EVERY movie and tv show I watch, all year. And I’ve done this every year for three years running. It’s a huge undertaking, but I think it’s an important one. Trans rep in our media has been getting better but is still in a dire state, and we need to know where it’s at if we want to see where and how to make it better.

I’m going to be reporting on every time I saw a trans/nonbinary person appear (both in terms of characters and actors, because the two don’t always match up), as well as any time there were jokes about us, or other things about us or related to us that appeared.

I want to note a lot of the jokes are implicit. Our society worms implicit transphobia into all of us, see the Trans Tuesday on IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA for more on how that works. So very often these jokes are implicitly transphobic, meaning that the people working on those shows may not have intended to target trans people, but when you examine the joke it all comes down to “trans people are different and isn’t that hilarious.”

That doesn’t mean the people working on that show are bad people, or bad at their jobs, or that the shows are bad (some shows with implicitly transphobic jokes are shows I LOVE). It just means the people working on it have some implicit biases they may not even be aware of and thus haven’t worked to change.

NONE of this report is intended as commentary on the quality of the movie or show mentioned. Art is all subjective, you (and even I) will have loved or disliked some of these, regardless of their trans representation. That’s FINE AND HOW IT WORKS.

This is just a report on how trans people are appearing and being talked about in the two most popular mass media formats of our society. Okay? We good? Good.

In this age of rampant transphobia, trans rep in our media is more important than ever. The good legit helps fight back against the hate we’re experiencing, the bad… sadly feeds right into it. So it’s really, really vital that our art gets trans issues right.

If you want to see what happens when it goes wrong, you can see the Trans Tuesdays on BAD REPRESENTATION (Lovecraft Country) and BAD REPRESENTATION (Emilia Pérez).

Also this year I had a few folks helping out to submit their own reports on things, which I’ll get into way at the end after discussing everything I personally watched.

Also also I might miss things! I do my best but I don’t have time to look up every cast and crew member of the mountains of stuff I watch. If them being trans or nonbinary isn’t called out in the story, I might miss it. But that’s part of the point I’m making, because if a trans woman screenwriter looking for that rep misses it, what kind of rep are you actually giving us? Is it even really representation if nobody knows it’s there? I’d argue no.

I’m also going to call out every time words that explicitly describe words for me men… “guys,” and “dude” being the two biggest offenders… as applying to people of all genders. It’s not transphobic, but it sure is sexist and it happens so much more that you probably realize.

Okay so let’s get into it! And of course, there will be spoilers. It’s the only way to talk about some of this stuff.

I only really talk about scripted media in these, because “unscripted” movies and tv shows are entirely different things (unscripted is in quotes because even documentaries and, yes, “reality” tv have writers).

But I want to give an honorable mention to the documentary WILL & HARPER on Netflix, where cishet white man comedian Will Ferrell goes on a road trip across the US with his white trans woman friend Harper Steele. 

It’s by turns hilarious and heartfelt, horrible and heart wrenching. It’s something vitally needed to wake a lot of cis people up, even (or especially) those who want to call themselves allies, to what trans folks go through in this country. Highest possible recommendation.

But as this is a documentary, it won’t be counted toward the totals at the end as I’m chiefly examining our depiction in fiction.

I will also note when there are no trans people (or there’s no discussion of us or topics related to us), as that is so often the norm. And that’s fine, not everything is or should be about us. But it’s important to note just how rare it is that we do pop up.

Okay, onward we go. 

Aquaman 2 – 0

Blue Beetle – 0

Canary Black – 0

This movie regularly uses gendered insults on its lady lead, including the C word, and calling her a bitch waaaay too many times.

At one point it has her say something to the effect of “you’re not supposed to call women that anymore, especially in the workplace”… and then just keeps calling her that for the rest of the movie. It’s like they wanted to note it just so they could go hee hee hee we’re not supposed to do this, but we’re gonna and since we know it’s bad it’s okay.

That’s not transphobic, but it is sexist as hell. It was written and directed by cis men and I’m already very tired. When will women get to make these movies more than hardly ever? 

Damsel – 0

Emilia Pérez – 1

Emilia Pérez suuuure is a movie about a Mexican trans woman written and directed by a cis white French man. This one counts as rep (in both character and the actor that portrays her), but not all rep is good rep and this one sure isn’t. See the Trans Tuesday on BAD REPRESENTATION (Emilia Pérez) for all the info on the damage this movie did.

But can we just stop doing this PLEASE? Will you just let trans people make movies about trans people? We actually DO know ourselves better than cis white men do.

I’m also kinda mad because it’s gonna win awards because it’s ~important~ and ~so brave~ and it’s gonna actually make things worse for trans women. JUST HELP US TELL OUR STORIES. 

Goodness.

The Fall Guy – 0

Fly Me to the Moon – 0

In a phone call between two men, one of whom works at NASA and is complaining about having to do things like interviews and allow astronauts to appear in advertisements, he’s told by a government official, “She made you the belle of the ball, so put on a tutu and do a little dance.” It’s a joke, and it’s meant to take him down a peg… because a perceived man associated with femininity is always bad, right? Ugh.

Furiosa – 0

One cis man uses the phrase “that’ll put our tits in the wringer,” which I guess is a joke because cis men generally do not have tits. This is one of those implicit jokes I mentioned, “ha ha wouldn’t it be funny for men to have boobs” and like, hey, some trans men do and this is laughing at their existence. Stop that.

For a while Furiosa impersonates a boy to hide her identity, but there’s no gender stuff going on and it’s definitely not played for laughs, so that was a nothingburger.

Ghostbusters Afterlife – 0

At one point someone says “Gozer isn’t a he or a she,” which means Gozer the Gozerian is nonbinary. Gozer was played by three people… all cis women! Gozer’s movements were dancer Emma Portner, their face was Olivia Wilde, and their voice was (the stone cold amazing) Shohreh Aghdashloo.

Now listen, there’s a debate to be had about whether the only nonbinary character in the entire movie being a demonic spirit that wants to destroy the world is a good thing (it isn’t), but if you’re going to make the character nonbinary why did you hire three CIS WOMEN to play them?!

There are nonbinary actors that would’ve killed for that role! This robs them of a part in a big movie, AND perpetuates the harmful idea that nonbinary people are just “women light”.

Someone also says that Gozer being nonbinary is “pretty woke for 3000 BC”. So that’s a joke about Gozer being nonbinary, meanwhile apparently zero nonbinary or trans people were involved with it. This is technically character rep, zero actor rep, and one joke. 

Ghostbusters Frozen Empire – 0

Godzilla Minus One – 0

I Saw the TV Glow – 2*

Bridgette Lundy Paine is trans and plays a trans character, and it was written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun, who is trans. It’s chiefly about Owen, who is trans. But is played by cis man Justice Smith. You can see my seven-part series of Trans Tuesdays all about THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW. It’s magnificent and sacred to me, and some of the good representation we really need. 

Inside Out 2 – 0

At one point, Riley calls her two best friends, who are girls, “guys.” 

Jackpot – 1

Trans man Murray Hill (who comes up later in our talk on TV) has a small role. He’s only in two scenes, has only a handful of lines, and is never mentioned as trans. But honestly that’s probably for the best because his character runs a lottery where it’s legal for anyone to murder the winner within 24 hours of them winning to get their money. And it’d be real weird and say some bad stuff to lay the blame for that at the feet of trans people.

At one point, the lead cis woman character calls a room full of women doing yoga “guys.” It’s so pervasive.

Harry Potter gets referenced twice in the same discussion (ugh). Also there’s this really complicated moment that seems transphobic but I think it might not be?

So the lead cis woman character, who’s won the aforementioned lottery, gets a disguise to hide from all the people trying to kill her for her winnings. And she puts on a mask of an old man. And then says something to the effect of “let’s go pee standing up and make more money than our female counterparts.” 

On the one hand, a woman making a joke about peeing standing up feels like the “women with penises are hilarious” implicit transphobic joke that you’re gonna see pop up way too often in this report, but as it’s immediately followed up with a joke about how women are underpaid due to sexism… I don’t know. I really can’t parse this one, so I’m not gonna count it as a joke at our expense. But it was weird.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – 0

Lisa Frankenstein – 0

At a couple points the Frankenstein monster, who is a man, wears women’s nightgowns and you’re not gonna believe this… it’s NOT played for laughs. There’s a lot going on here that makes it a pretty fabulous trans allegory. I’ll be doing a deep dive on it before too long, I think, especially as it’s one of the few trans masc allegories I’ve seen. But I’m not sure yet if it was intentional, and I don’t think there were any out trans people working on it or making it, so it doesn’t count in any categories.

Love Lies Bleeding – 0

The Marvels – 0

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning part 1 – 0

Monkey Man – 1*

This entire movie is a trans allegory, and will also probably be getting a deep dive at some point. The character Alpha is important and a Hijra. That’s the term the movie uses, and I understand there’s some who believe the term to be derogatory and others who are reclaiming it. Even though some of them identify as trans women and some might not, I’m going to stick to calling them trans women when talking about this film so as to avoid offending someone with a term I do not have the full cultural context to be using.

But Alpha is played by cis man Vipin Sharma. Sharma said, after meeting the director, that “he saw me as somebody just completely the opposite of me. I am a male; he saw me as a female character, which was quite amazing actually, that he saw something about me that he thought I will be good to play this role.” 

And yeah, that’s amazing for you man, but what about all the actual trans women who should have been playing that role? And even here, in a movie with great representation and a really strong trans allegory, it perpetuates the idea that trans women are really just men. C’mon! Argh.

The movie does feature a squad of trans women beating the crap out of a room full of bigoted goons, which is a big point in its favor.

I should also mention the movie actually wasn’t released in India, even though it has an all-Indian cast and is set there. Thanks to Pragnya for that info, and the cultural context around the term the movie uses.

Next Goal Wins – 1

Jaiyah is fa’afafine (something akin to trans women, in Samoa), played by Kaimana, who’s a trans woman. She’s forced to play on the men’s soccer team because she hasn’t had bottom surgery. She’s intentionally misgendered and deadnamed by their new cis white man coach until he learns to respect her and comes to see her as kinda like a daughter. 

At first he says to her “you’re a woman,” when he’s surprised she’s on the men’s team. And she says “not yet” because she hasn’t had gender confirmation surgery yet (oof, talk about perpetuating more TRANSMEDICALISM). As this was based on a real story it could have gone into how horrible it was that that was probably required at the time and thus the way of thinking that was beat into every trans woman by society, but it doesn’t (probably because this story wasn’t told by trans people).

At one point she goes off her hormones because she thinks it will help the team, and has a scene where she breaks down because without them she doesn’t feel like herself anymore. And that’s great, but… they don’t do anything with it beyond that. And it’s also kind of used to teach the cishet white man about humanity and caring and opening his heart back up, rather than being about how it affects Jaiyah who never mentions it again. 

It’s based on a real trans woman and her story, but written and directed by cis men.

This is rep in character, actor, and story, but it’s mixed representation at best. 

Orion and the Dark – 0

The People’s Joker – 2*

Written and directed by trans woman Vera Drew, and also stars Kane Distler, who is also trans, and both play trans characters! There’s also a nonbinary character in the movie, and I believe there are other trans and nonbinary actors in the cast. But as this was an indie movie it was tough to find information on some of them, and I don’t want to speculate on people’s gender, so I’m gonna count the rep as two actors and characters.

The entire story is about being trans as told through a parody lens of the Batman mythos (with a helping of Superman mythos tossed in). It’s bananas, it’s kinda subversive, it’s funny, it’s wildly creative and original. And at several points kicked me right in the heart when talking about things trans people go through. 

It tells its trans story right on the surface, but also I think it kind of brilliantly uses the world of stand up comedy as an only half-hidden allegory for gender, and uses that to say even more about what it’s like to be trans in this world.

Also, I’m not really a fan of the Joker as a character, but this movie had me all the way through. The People’s Joker is the only Joker for me, thank you.

It’s really great and unforgettable.

Red One – 0

There’s a “christmas witch” who possesses a man to speak through him, and she and her sons are all shapeshifters, and one of them impersonates two different women. Nothing trans is done with it, BUT zero jokes are made about it either, which feels like dodging a bullet. I’ll take it.

Robot Dreams – 0

The Substance – 0

Soooo I think you can definitely read some trans themes into this but I’m not even gonna try right now, because it would take me an awful long time to figure out and I’d have to watch it multiple more times and I don’t think I could handle that. Phew.

Transformers One – 0

So this is wild but the whole movie is about autonomy and people who have choice removed from them at birth without consent, and so it’s super trans conceptually. And I’ve always felt that Transformers: The Movie, the only other animated Transformers movie, from 1984, was also a huge trans allegory. And I guess maybe that just happens when TRANSFORM is literally in the title. But this one seemed even MORE intentionally trans to me. Still no actual rep that I’m aware of, though.

That wraps up the recently releases movies I saw in 2024. Come back next week as we begin our deep-dive into trans rep in tv!

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Part 2 (TV part 1) is here!

ADDENDUM 1/24/25

A reader let me know that Celeste O’Connor, who appears in Ghostbusters Frozen Empire and Ghostbusters Afterlife is nonbinary! Yay! The character is never mentioned as such however, so this is trans actor rep but not character rep.

And once again proves my point that if you don’t somehow convey a character’s transness or nonbinaryness, there’s no way for your audience to know. And then even a trans woman screenwriter who’s specifically looking for this rep can miss it.

BAD REPRESENTATION: EMILIA PÉREZ

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! We’re starting off the year by discussing one of the more harmful bits of depictions of trans women to come out in recent years. Here comes BAD REPRESENTATION: EMILIA PÉREZ.

Emilia Pérez was a movie released in 2024, about a Mexican trans woman, written and directed by a French cis white man, Jacques Audiard, based on a book written by Boris Razon (also a cis man from France). If any of that gives you pause right up front… well, it should.

I’d heard the movie was about a trans woman, so I was intrigued and added it to my list to check out. And then I heard it was about a trans woman who’s a cartel drug lord, and my heart kinda sank because already I felt like I knew where it was headed.

But I went into it with an open mind. I’m a screenwriter, I’ve trained myself to approach all art on its own terms, and give it all a chance. But I’m also a trans woman, and I know how cis people writing about trans people often goes. See BAD REPRESENTATION (Lovecraft Country).

As I was watching it, I just felt my heart sink with every passing minute. I think we weren’t even twenty minutes in when the first “what the fuck?” (not complimentary) escaped my lips. I thought I was just gonna watch it and note a few things afterward, like I always do for my “trans rep in media” reports, but I ended up taking multiple notes in spite of myself.  Because so much of what I saw was so damaging and dangerous, and I’m so, so tired of it.

And then I thought I’d just talk about it in my TRANS REPRESENTATION IN 2024 MOVIES AND TV write up, but the more I thought about it the more I felt like I needed to talk about this movie on its own first.

Because it won multiple awards at the Cannes Film Festival, and as of this writing it’s shortlisted for a nomination for multiple Oscars (including possibly being France’s official entry as a country). And, again, if a movie about a Mexican trans woman being submitted by the country of France isn’t sending up some alarm bells…

Very briefly, it’s the story of a trans woman cartel leader who hires a lawyer to help her transition, and what happens after that. It’s also… a musical. And it’s a very weird musical. But let me make something clear here: that it’s a weird musical is a point in its favor with me! You can read more about it here.

I love weird stuff that takes bold swings. And I was actually really impressed with Karla Sofía Gascón, the trans woman lead actress who plays Emilia. She was really great with what she was given to work with. The problem is that what she was given to work with is suuuuuper problematic.

And to be fair, I’ve heard that the movie fixed some problems with the book it’s based on, namely that in the book the cartel leader goes on HRT and has gender confirmation surgeries simply to avoid being caught for their crimes. Given that, I’m willing to take folks’ word on it because I’m not gonna read that.

Because that means the lead isn’t actually trans, and it conceptually perpetuates the “trans women are really just violent men in dresses” trope that transphobes use time and again to legislate our rights away.

Imagine being a cis man and thinking that was a good book to write. Imagine being another cis man who thought that was a great concept to turn into a musical. Woof.

To the movie’s credit, they present Emilia as a trans woman who “always knew” she was a girl since childhood and is actually trans. And in movies like this, so so so often, cis men are cast to play trans women and thus even further perpetuate that we’re nothing more than “men in dresses.” See the Trans Tuesday on TRANS ROLES AND STORIES for more on how and why that’s a horrible thing to do.

Not all movies about trans people made by cis people come out bad. I talked in the TRANS REP IN 2023 MOVIES AND TV report about Monica, which is a very good movie starring Trace Lysette. The writer and director of Monica at least brought Trace on board to consult (though he really should have made her co-writer and co-director at MINIMUM), but her involvement behind the scenes showed.

I can find nothing that says Karla Sofía Gascón was allowed to help shape Emilia Pérez in any way, and let me tell you… it also shows. And I cannot imagine telling a story about someone from a marginalized community and thinking you don’t at all need their input on how to do that or if you’re getting it right, never mind that a transition story is one hundred percent not a cis man’s story to tell. Trans voices and stories are routinely stolen from us by cis people to suit their own ends (it’s part of what Matrix Resurrections is about, see my book for more on that).

Let me also state here that none of the harmful representation in this movie is Karla’s fault. There are so, so few roles for trans women, much less starring roles. And who had the absolute least power on that set? As a trans woman, she did. None of the problems are on her.

I’d like to think she’d have seen how problematic it was and turned it down, but maybe she wasn’t in a position to do so, especially with a high profile Oscar-bait film that could possibly make her career.

It’s the same thing that happens in tv shows made in the US. On the rare occasion a trans writer is on the writing staff, they’re the least empowered and it’s not safe for them to speak up about harmful representation without fear of reprisal. Cis people don’t often like hearing that what they’re doing isn’t “being such a good ally, gosh” and is instead actively harming the people they think they’re helping.

So does that trans writer speak up, and risk being fired and thus not be there to possibly effect positive change later? It’s a terrible situation to be in (writers from all marginalized communities face this to some degree in Hollywood, which is still overwhelmingly run by cishet white men).

So what, exactly, did I find so harmful in Emilia Pérez? So glad you asked, because gosh do I have answers for you.

First, and this might just be a me thing, but Emilia almost feels like a secondary character in her own story. The movie’s named after her, and it’s ostensibly about her transition, but we don’t really see any of her transition or anything it involves, mentally or physically (there’s a little, which we’ll get to shortly). As a writer, to me, this movie felt like it was just as much but maybe more so about Zoe Saldana’s lawyer character, Rita, who is hired to help Emilia transition and then befriends her.

And it’s wild to me that in a movie that is, again, supposed to be about a trans woman and her transition, her transition takes a back seat, and she has to play second fiddle (or at best, co-first fiddle) with a cis woman who is just so brave and such a good ally for helping this trans woman drug lord. It feels like a very cisgender-centered point of view, right? That’s often what you’re gonna get when you have a cis person trying to tell a trans story that they have no business telling (and this is one of the reasons why).

But again, to be fair, those are my personal impressions. I think they should definitely count for something as a trans woman screenwriter, as this is my exact wheelhouse, but let’s set that aside. Let’s do what I do when I watch any new movie or tv show: take it on its own terms.

There’s an early scene where Emilia, pre-social transition, meets with Rita, Zoe Saldana’s lawyer character, and says she wants to hire her to help her transition to a woman. Rita says it’s not an overnight thing and takes time (good!) and then… pre-transition, man-presenting Emilia opens her shirt to reveal she’s been on HRT for two years and has already developed breasts. Rita gasps.

I’ve seen some folks say this was a gasp of disgust. I’ve seen some people say this was a gasp of surprise. What I want you to know is that either way this is showing transition as a surprise and something to be shocked by. It’s showing you trans people are duplicitous. See what she was hiding from you? Also this trans woman is a violent drug lord, can you even trust her?

And like… yes, you can say maybe NOBODY would trust a violent drug lord. That’s not transphobic!

I will remind you of what I say in basically every trans allegory write up that I do: everything you see in a movie or tv show is a choice made by the creators. It’s not made in a vacuum, it’s not beyond questioning.

The writer and director of this film chose to tell a story about a trans woman who was a violent drug lord. She could have been literally anything else. This is what he picked.

Trans people can be villains, by the way! We should be, because we can be any kind of character. I’d argue that until cis people demonstrate they can write us as villains without damaging all trans people, however, that maybe only trans people should be writing trans villains.

Because even though Emilia Pérez doesn’t have Emilia transition to escape justice for her crimes, her transition is inextricably linked to it and they thought, in the present horrific climate trans people are experiencing in this world, that presenting us as a violent criminal was a good idea. I can’t imagine the thought process there, other than to think not a second thought was given to it. Which is not what you’d get if a trans person was telling this story.

Early on there’s a musical number, full of trans people (story-wise, I have no idea if any of them were played by actual trans people because they were in a musical ensemble) and a doctor who performs gender confirmation surgeries, singing about how wonderful plastic surgery is and how they all love it.

To me it trivializes that these procedures are vital and life-saving. They’re not goofy or just for fun. It also treats it like something every trans person wants and does, which is huuuuugely problematic in its own right. The movie sadly does this a lot, kinda presents Emila’s transition as the only way to do it, likely because the cis man writer and director literally doesn’t know that’s not true.

As a perfect example of this, lyrics in the song go on about going “ from man to woman, woman to man.” Which ignores that nonbinary people exist, and treats trans women like we were men (and trans men like they were women) and that it is only the surgery that changes that.

This is one hundred percent TRANSMEDICALISM, see that Trans Tuesday if you need more. And here it’s being presented to a wide audience, of largely cis people (cis people are the largest audience for anything, because they outnumber trans people by such a wide margin in the population), that this is what transition is.

I actually think a goofy musical number about gender confirmation surgery could be fucking amazing in the hands of a trans person who understands it, and what trans people go through. In the hands of a cis person, it became a weapon that perpetuates some bad bad shit.

When Rita meets with the surgeon who will perform Emilia’s operations, the surgeon says he can’t change a patient’s sense of self. “If he’s a he, he’ll still be a he. If he’s a she she’ll still be a she.” This is actively transphobic, and saying even with surgery a trans woman is still a man mentally. It’s fucking appalling, when mentally we’ve always been our true gender! This is again perpetuating the horrific real-world violence we face, with transphobes thinking trans women are “really” men.

When the scene ends, the doctor says Rita should tell Emilia to “change his mind,” as in he believes she’s still a man and, as such, misgenders her. Cis bullshit.

And the doctor says he can’t “fix the soul.” Trans people’s souls don’t need fixing tho?! Rita then says that fixing the body fixes the soul, and fixing the soul fixes society. That’s some weird contorted cis justification for helping trans people because it might help society? But that’s not our job? We just want to exist as ourselves, it’s not on us to fix transphobes’ hearts.

And also, why are two cis people debating a trans woman’s transition here?! What the fuck. 

Guess we can’t allow a trans person to talk about how they actually feel and what it’s actually like for them. You’re telling me that Emilia the drug lord, with mountains of money and seemingly unlimited resources, couldn’t have used a burner phone to call the doctor Rita found and talk to him herself? Again, all of these were active choices made by the writer and director, and they’re some bullshit.

Emilia tells Rita that she has to send her wife and kids away, and they can never know about her transition. No reason is ever given!

I feel like this is a carryover from the book, right? Oh, I’m a criminal and I’m transitioning to hide, so if my family knows they can point the cops to me. But when you (rightfully) change Emilia’s motivation there, and then you have this scene with no reason given for why they have to be sent away and can’t know about her transition, what do you get?

You’re left to think Emilia’s ashamed of being trans and doesn’t want them to know, or that it’s required as part of her transition (spoilers: IT ACTUALLY USED TO BE, see that TRANSMEDICALISM Trans Tuesday). And again we find that, either way you interpret that, you’re perpetuating bad bad shit.

In the hands of a trans person, this could be a powerful scene about how society wants us to be ashamed of ourselves, about how society wants us to think no one could ever love us for who we are, and how all of that is bullshit.

Instead, we get confirmation that that’s just the way things are for trans people. It infuriates me.

Emilia has a later song about how all she cares about is transitioning. Now, like, yeah, it’s super important for us for a whole host of reasons, but not to the exclusion of everything else. We don’t stop caring about other people or loving our kids! The song paints us as selfish, self-absorbed assholes who only care about ourselves. Because if we cared about others we wouldn’t transition, right?

Transphobic bullshit.

Emilia has a scene where she instructs Rita to destroy all evidence of her transition. Again, a possible artifact of changing her motivation for transition from being nothing more than escaping justice. But what you now have is a trans person who’s going stealth and doesn’t want anyone to know they’re trans, as if trans is something bad to be. BULLSHIT.

Emilia then apparently has all the surgeries (at once) and her face is entirely covered in bandages, and she uses a hand mirror to look at her crotch. Then suddenly she’s out of bandages and putting on women’s clothes and it’s all over. As if it’s that easy and not an incredibly lengthy and difficult process. As if it’s a quick switch you flip.

They show none of her adapting to it, or how it affects her, or what it means to her. The movie immediately skips ahead four years, so you miss all of that. It’s the kinda stuff that feeds into “teachers are gonna trans your kids at school, and you send your son to school and he comes home a girl” bullshit transphobes use to gin up hatred towards us.

So when I said earlier that Emilia and her transition, which again is what this movie is supposed to be about, plays second fiddle, this is what I mean. And on the one hand I’m kinda glad because, given what we’ve seen already, I would not trust this cis man writer/director to get any of it right and not perpetuate more misinformation and harm, but in not showing what it’s actually like, he still perpetuated misinformation and harm. This is why cis people need to stop taking trans stories from us.

Then years later, post-transition Emilia shows up to surprise Rita at a dinner party, in a “you didn’t recognize me, but this is me now!” way. Again playing up the trans women are liars and tricksters aspect, and the “we’re just a surprise to cis people” angle.

One derogatory term for us is “traps,” as if we exist only to lure cishet men into a trap because they think we’re cis women and then when they go to have sex with us, surprise! We trapped you into doing sex stuff with a trans woman. Which I think scares so many cishet men because they worry it somehow makes them gay, when in fact being attracted to a trans woman is the most straight thing a cis man can do because we’re women.

And you can draw a straight line from the portrayals of us as “traps” and tricksters to things like THE TRANS PANIC DEFENSE. It’s a mess!

Emilia later decides she can’t live without her kids anymore, so Rita brings them to her in Mexico under a story that Emilia was their dad’s cousin. Emilia’s wife and kids do not recognize her, more lies and secrets from trans women.

There’s a scene of Emilia lying next to one of her kids in his bed, and Karla gives a really great performance here when the kid sings a song about missing his dad. But also the kid tells her she smells like his dad. But at this point Emilia’s been on HRT for six years.

Y’know what one of the first things to change for most people on HRT is? YOUR SMELL. I smell like a girl now, and it was one of the earliest changes from HRT that gave me GENDER EUPHORIA. This one shows the person writing it knew jack shit about what hormone replacement therapy does to a body, and as my brilliant friend Jessie Gender mentioned to me, this points to a “biological essentialism” and is essentially saying it doesn’t matter what you do or who you say you are, you’re still “really” a man.

Emilia has another song later about how she’s “half him and half her” and doesn’t know who she is. I should add at no point in the film does Emilia actually struggle with her identity or her gender. This is not one of the things trans people actually go through where we wonder if we’re trans enough, or if transition was right (btw YES YOU ARE TRANS ENOUGH).

It makes zero sense for this song to be where it is in the movie, with no other context. It feels like it’s doing nothing but adding to the “trans people are just confused” nonsense that’s used to take our rights away, because we can’t really know who we are or what’s right for us. Perpetuates more. Bad. Shit.

There’s a portion of the movie where Emilia gets mad at the thought of losing her kids, and when that happens… her voice drops. Not to just being unmodulated or what have you in the way that can happen when we’re stressed or upset (Monica does this brilliantly, actually), but her voice becomes the exact same as the one she used pre-transition at the beginning of the film.

What’s worse is she then gets violent with her wife for threatening to take the kids away, and assaults her on a bed. It’s not a sexual assault, but her wife is on her back on the bed and Emilia is on top of her, choking her, possibly even straddling her (I’m not going back to check that one, sorry), and speaking in her pre-transition voice in anger.

And if you don’t see this as directly perpetuating the “trans women are violent men in dresses” trope that is being used to ban us from public bathrooms and schools and take our ability to exist in public away, like, I don’t know what to tell you.

Perpetuates SO MUCH MORE. BAD. SHIT.

Emilia later becomes a victim of violence at the hands of her wife (who still doesn’t know she’s trans or her husband), which is now perpetuating the “trans women are victims” trope that pops up in media again and again and again.

Her wife then, upon learning Emilia’s true identity, misgenders her… after tying her up and throwing her in the trunk of a car.

That car then explodes, and Emilia dies.

Somehow this movie managed to hit every harmful trope about trans women at the same time.

We’re for shock value.

We’re duplicitous.

We’re selfish.

We’re confused.

We’re violent.

We’re victims.

We can’t be trusted.

Like, how do you hit every single fucking one of those without even trying? It’s like a transphobe writer’s checklist of things to include to be sure they’re stickin’ it to the transes.

Other folks have also written about how damaging this movie is to Mexico and Mexicans, with the director even admitting he didn’t bother researching Mexico before telling this story about Mexican people in Mexico! And if he didn’t do that, how much do you think he researched about trans women?

Clearly, from the results in the movie, the answer is NONE.

If you’d like to read more about the horrible depiction of Mexico as nothing more than full of violence and drug gangs (ALSO at a time where those tropes are being used to hurt Mexican immigrants BY THE SAME PEOPLE using transphobic tropes to hurt trans people!), here’s an article for you.

Here’s another great article outlining a lot of issues with the movie.

It’s so bad that GLAAD felt they had to write about it and the harm it’s done (this also collects a lot of other quotes and statements from trans and queer reviewers who are just as appalled as I am).

This movie perpetuates every bad lie you’ve ever heard about trans women, and confirms for transphobes everything they think they know about us. I don’t give a shit about bigots, but think about what this movie is going to do to the people who just don’t know much about trans people, but have heard the propaganda. This is going to confirm all the bullshit lies, and it could make them support the people trying to take our rights away.

When you tell a story about a marginalized community you don’t belong to, you HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO DO NO HARM.

But you also better think long and fucking hard about whether or not it’s your story to tell. No cis white man has ANY business telling a story about what it’s like for a Mexican trans woman to transition. If you think that’s an important story to tell, HIRE A MEXICAN TRANS WOMAN TO TELL THAT STORY. I ASSURE YOU THEY EXIST.

If you feel the need to defend this movie, do something for me. At every point where I said this movie went wrong, ask yourself if a Mexican trans woman writer/director would have made those same choices that a white cis man did. The answer is unequivocally NO, and therein lies the problem.

This is what happens when our voices are stolen.

This is what happens when our stories are appropriated by people who don’t understand us and don’t care to learn, and think they know us better than we know ourselves.

And it has GOT TO STOP.

Art can change the world. The question is: do you want to change it for the better, or worse?

Hire more trans writers. We need these gigs.

The world needs our stories told by us, maybe now more than ever.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

ADDENDUM 2/8/2025

Well. This movie got more Oscar nominations than any other this year (insert world’s biggest eyeroll here, because of course it did), and Karla Sofía Gascón has turned out to be a seemingly awful person… so maybe she knew exactly what she was doing in signing on to this movie. Oof.

In maybe the only upside to this entire fiasco, it resulted in the short film parody Johanne Sacrebleu, made by Mexican trans woman Camila Aurora, and it’s about French people in France made entirely by Mexicans with bad French accents. Perfection.

THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 7

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Tillyvision comes in for a landing in THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 7! Owen or Isabel? Who will survive, who will get buried forever? It may not be who you think.

This is a bad place to start, so for that go to PART 1!

Who would even start with Part 7? You goofs. See PART 2!

Maybe nobody would start with Part 7? See PART 3!

And yet people do weird things sometimes! See PART 4!

So much so that I feel I have to include links to all past parts! See PART 5!

Just so I can be sure you have them if needed. I’m so thoughtful! See PART 6!

1:19:42 – Owen runs home, surrounded by only dysphoria, fear, and despair, and looks into where his dad used to be, watching tv. The couch is empty, because it’s his now. He is going to take the place his father occupied, and “be a man” and give in to the masculinity that society expects of him.

Owen: “After that night on the football field, I locked myself inside.” He doesn’t mean his house, he means he locked Isabel inside of himself.

1:19:53 – Look at him surrounded by that green, looking at/only seeing fear. Note the yellow here is again a barrier, a metaphor keeping him (Isabel) inside. “I didn’t leave the house for days. I kept waiting for her to show back up, to force me underground. But she never did.” 

Nobody can force you to transition, you have to CHOOSE to. 

1:20:11 – Riding Around in the Dark by Florist plays, and if you think this song might have some transy lyrics that apply to Owen right at this moment too, you are not mistaken.

Eyes turning, light burning
And I’m far from gone
And the deepest feelings
Faces come and go

Owen: “I told myself I made the right choice. Maddy’s story was insane, and it couldn’t be true. But some nights, when I was working late at the movie theater, I found myself wondering what if she was right? What if she had been telling the truth? What if I really was someone else? Someone beautiful and powerful. Someone buried alive and suffocating to death.” 

Aw babe. BABE. You’re so close. SO. CLOSE.

Also! Again, A reminder that long before this movie I described my own dysphoria as being like drowning. Which is suffocation, my friends.

1:21:00 – LOOK AT THIS BRILLIANT SHOT. Owen: “But I know that’s not true. That’s just fantasy. Kids’ stuff.” His head is the same shape as the yellow popcorn on the screen behind him, HIS HEAD IS FULL OF FEAR.

1:21:15: – And now, the most important shot in the entire movie.

THERE IS STILL TIME. Look how much MORE jumbled and chaotic his head is now. But look at the end of the street, amidst all the despair, and the jumbled mind holding the truth… he’s ignoring it all and heading right toward fear. It’s still all he can see. Even though the pink message of his transness is right there, telling him it’s not too late.

1:21:35 – Owen: “I work [at the Fun Center] now, restocking the ball pit with balls.”

Like, uhhhh… he’s making sure to keep a good supply of balls, upholding the (cis) man society says he has to be. SUPERtext?

1:21:50 – Owen: “Time moves fast these days. Years pass like seconds.” Remember Maddy said that happened to her too? He’s still dissociating. “I just try not to think too hard about it.” 

Yeah, because if he DOES, what’s he gonna realize, do you think?

1:22:04 – “It was time for me to become a man.” OOOOOOF Supertext. “A real adult. A productive member of society.” YOU HAVE OBLIGATIONS, FOLLOW THEM AND IGNORE YOUR TRUE SELF AND TRUE DESIRES.

1:22:19 – Owen brings his new tv inside. “I even got a family of my own. I love them more than anything.” OBLIGATIONS OBLIGATIONS OBLIGATIONS to US.

1:22:30 – The new tv he’s dragging in is an LG, which has the tagline “Life’s Good”. 

Jane said this was the production designer’s choice when getting the box for the shoot, and how perfect is it? “My life must be good, this is what society says I’m supposed to do and want and be!” It’s genius. And shows you how so many different people come together to make collaborative art like this, and contribute to its meaning.

Also note the outside of the house: despair. Inside: fear. The house next door: danger. His “life,” such as it is, hasn’t changed at all.

1:22:58 – Owen puts out the fire of his inner self, his transness, his truth. For good. Or so he thinks. But it leaves him in darkness.

1:23:25 – Owen: “Anyway, like I was saying, it was raining the other night and I couldn’t sleep? So I started The Pink Opaque again. …and it was nothing like I remembered it.”

Remember what he said about Maddy, and how she couldn’t be right? It was just a fantasy, kids’ stuff? They weren’t exploring transness, they were just a couple of kids playing around. There was nothing more to it.

And he’s convinced himself that’s all it was, so when he watches the show now, that’s all he sees. Not the truth of it, but some sanitized, flattened, muted version of it. Kids’ stuff.

1:24:04 – Wizard of Oz and Mrs. Doubtfire DVDs next to the tv were chosen by Jane: “This is meta commentary about the history of queer cinema.” SUPERtext.

1:24:23 – As Owen watches it, he’s… wheezing. Again. 

Owen, bud, if it’s just goofy kids’ stuff… why on earth are you reacting like you just had the wind knocked out of you??

Because HE STILL KNOWS, despite all he’s done to convince himself otherwise. But this is so important, because it’s set up for the ending. 

We know his subconscious is telling him “there is still time.”

We know his dysphoria is still suffocating him.

Will he accept that’s what it is? Will he realize the internalized transphobia keeping him from self-actualization? 

1:24:35 – The world spins and flashes. Owen: “I just felt embarrassed.” That’s what society and internalized transphobia want you to feel.

1:24:55 – Cut to the fun center, and what do we have? Spinning dysphoria, fear, and danger, a CLAW MACHINE (if you remember from the earlier song, a heart) that can’t grab onto anything…

1:25:10 – A MR. MELANCHOLY GAME. Transphobia is everywhere, even here, Owen cannot escape it. Note that in the game Mr. Melancholy is fighting The Pink Opaque ghosts. It’s called “Mr. Melancholy’s Midnight Dash, the race for your life.” SUUUUUUPERtext.

1:25:35 – 20 years later, Owen’s (literally and figuratively) still in the same place. Surrounded by despair and fear… but there are some small hints of transness still.

1:25:46 – He opens a box of balls, he’s still pretending to be the MAN society says he is, still WHEEZING because it’s suffocating him. And if you wonder how that makes him feel, uh, gee, look at the colors the balls are… the transness is there, but it’s entirely overridden with fear.

1:25:54 – Look at his lips. He’s stopped taking care of himself, because he feels entirely disconnected from his body and sees no reason to. I did this too. So many trans people do, because we see no reason to. Our bodies aren’t “ours” so why should we care? I talked about this a bit in the Trans Tuesday on UNEXPECTED CHANGES OF TRANSITION.

1:27:00 – During the party, Owen is miserable, finds a spot alone in the corner. This was me at every party ever, it’s Neo in the club in the first Matrix. We don’t want to be perceived as the wrong gender because it’s so painful, we don’t want to interact with anyone because then we have to put on a painful performance of someone we’re not, don’t want to be, and don’t know how to be.

1:27:15 – And then, the most harrowing moment in the movie for every trans person who ever lived with dysphoria. 

Owen screams, gutteral, primal. It’s agony, it’s terror, it’s misery, it’s loneliness, it’s a LIFETIME OF SUFFOCATION AND PAIN and NOBODY. ELSE. CAN. SEE. IT. They’re frozen. They don’t react, because they don’t know.

“You need to help me! I’m dying right now!” He sobs.

This is life with dysphoria, not just at work but at home and with family and friends and everything you love, everywhere you go, every second of every day. 

You are drowning and dying and being buried alive and NOBODY KNOWS OR CARES (and some, in fact, may be tossing dirt on top of the pile to help bury you).

It tears my heart to shreds EVERY. TIME. I see it. This was my entire life pre-transition.

MY ENTIRE LIFE.

Justice Smith’s performance. The direction. Everything about it. It is magnificent and horrible and beautiful and agonizing all at once.

“Sorry. Ignore me.” Well we wouldn’t want our WAKING DEATH to be a BURDEN to the people around us, would be? That damned fucking Luna Juice from Mr. Melancholy can fuck off into the sun.

1:27:55 – On the commentary, Jane about Owen’s scream: “Come on dude, you know you’re Isabell” “What did Maddy say at the beginning of the film? Don’t apologize.”

1:28:12 – Owen screams. “Mommy!” He’s SCREAMING FOR THE FEMININITY HE LOST, because he gave it up, made the choice to ignore it and give in to transphobia. 

He coughs, seems to be choking on something. Wonder what it could be? Hmmmm…

1:28:16 –  Jane: “A couple people tried to get me to cut the ‘mommy.’” Devastating. I’m so glad they fought for it and refused to cut it. It’s so vital.

1:28:26 – Owen sits on the floor of the men’s bathroom. It’s the most heavily gendered place in society, only for MEN, and he’s got his shirt off. He’s getting real with himself. 

He’s… cracking. 

IN EXACTLY THE WAY YOU THINK.

1:28:37 – The sink is full of ugly blue gunk. Did you wonder why is this shot here? What is this? Owen had no liquids with him. But he was choking on something… 

THE LUNA JUICE.

He has expelled the final dregs of his own internalized transphobia!

1:28:54 – Owen cuts himself open, so he can finally look deep inside himself. What does he find?

1:29:36 – The dysphoria of URINALS (aka MEN and MANHOOD behind him), despair off to the side, he looks into himself and sees the static! 

The static Maddy told him that Mr. Melancholy put inside him to confuse him, and obscure his truth. 

He can see it for what it is, and that it’s in there. And if you can IDENTIFY IT, that is the first step to FIGHTING IT, getting rid of it, replacing it with your (recovered) stolen heart, and choosing to…

T R A N S I T I O N

And try to be rid of the static entirely. Look how he’s HAPPY to see it! 

Because now he knows for sure. His egg cracked. He’s trans and he knows it.

1:29:54 – Near the end of this sequence, PINK APPEARS WITHIN THE STATIC. His transness is still buried in there, and he can dig it out now that he can see the static covering it. The glow emanating from it even takes on a pink hue. 

Also the shape of the wound may, uh, indicate anatomical changes to his body that he needs And neither I nor this movie are saying you need bottom surgery to be trans or transition, this is just metaphor. 

1:29:24 – When Owen sees the static inside him, on the commentary Jane says: “A lot of different feelings going on here. Relief, transcendence, horror, peace, self-understanding, exhaustion… having a vagina on your chest.” The egg crack moment is a hell of a thing.

1:30:48 – Owen puts the fun center shirt and vest back on, but… maybe it’s just me, but before it looked like those were clothes Owen was wearing. But in this shot…

…when his breathing calms (he’s not suffocating, accepting himself has already helped some!)… it looks like he’s wearing a costume of Owen. The way the clothes hang, his posture… like he knows this isn’t the end of the road and he’s going to have to boymode for a while yet… but it’s just a costume. It’s always been a costume, but now he KNOWS it’s a costume.

For more on BOYMODING/GIRLMODING, see its Trans Tuesday.

And look at his lips! Before they looked like this…

But now? Uh…. hm, gosh, what happened that suddenly his body is already changing?

Again again again, you don’t have to change your body to be trans or transition (though a great many of us do). But metaphor.

1:30:59 – He apologizes to all the cis people, as transphobia has taught him, and it causes the suffocation wheezing to come back. This is… not going to be easy. Mr. Melancholy makes sure of that.

1:31:24 – It cuts to black, and we hear static. The static Owen now knows is there, covering up his truth.

1:31:26 – And when the credits appear, the static is gone… and the background isn’t black…

It’s PINK! Another Season by Frances Quinlan plays. Are you wondering if this is another transy song with lyrics directly applicable to Owen and where he’s going? Bingo.

Hello, dear
Acquaintance, even
If this isn’t over
What else could take shape?
How will you remember it?

Which, to me, all outlines Owen’s trajectory from there. 

This is a hopeful ending, because he knows for sure now, and the static will eventually stop (or lessen), and his transness will remain. And without the static, the Luna Juice, or Mr. Melancholy, he can embrace it and return his heart. And Isabel.

1:36:30 – On the commentary, Jack: “You reminded me that this is not real life. Like we’re working to access another reality which is our true reality and it’s really painful, but we know it’s true. …that this isn’t real and the constraints that are constantly on us are illusions and that we just have to trust each other.” “I’m just talking about being trans. You just have to be around people that remind you that your reality is real. Because otherwise you’d go crazy.”

1:39:17 – Jack: “If you bought this for someone to crack their egg, did it work?” Jane: “Yeah, bring this dvd around town, crack some eggs, pass it on.”

There’s been a lot of debate about the ending, with a lot of people seeing it as Owen retreating back into his false cis shell and never becoming Isabel. But this movie was never about him becoming Isabel, it was about him accepting that he is Isabel. And by the end he does.

Jane mentions at 1:22:00 on the commentary: “It was always important to me that ‘there is still time’ was there, not at the very end, but close enough to the end that hopefully it got its message across.” This was exactly how I interpreted the ending of the movie, and it delights me that that’s what Jane intended. “There is still time” was there right before the end scene for a reason.

He expels the Luna Juice.

He sees the static and internalized transphobia still inside him, in a shape very suggestive of bodily change for someone assigned male at birth.

His clothes then fit differently.

His lips/body are instantly taken better care of.

He’s going to become his true self. It’s not going to be easy or quick, but he’s going to get there. Isabel lives.

I know some people see the opposite, that the end is Owen denying Isabel yet again. But that’s part of the genius of it, to me, because it works just like accepting your own transness.

The signs are there. If you’re not looking for them, if you miss them, you might come to the wrong conclusion and deny your truth. But if you look closely, those signs are absolutely there and will lead you right to that truth.

Thank you for coming along with me on this journey through a truly incredible movie. I hope I’ve been able to help you see what I see, to know and feel the truth and beauty within.

To the entire cast and crew, thank you for helping to make this incredibly important film.

To Justice Smith and Jack Haven, thank you for the love and care you put into Owen and Maddy, for the honesty with which you portrayed them and the depth and reality you imbued them with.

And to Jane Schoenbrun, who has given us this beacon of trans cinema, who conveyed our pain and struggle with such nuance and care and love, thank you thank you for showing the world what so many of us go through. And thank you for imbuing it with hope.

I meant it when I said this movie is sacred to me. It forever has my heart.

THERE. IS. STILL. TIME.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Addendum 4/2/2025

This is why I do Trans Tuesdays.
This is why it’s important to share our experiences.
This is why it’s vital that we talk about these things, if it’s safe for us to do so.

This isn’t the first time my trans media write-ups have been taught in classes, and it never ever gets old. It’s just the coolest thing.

Thanks so much to Jasiel for reaching out! (posted here with permission)

And check out this amazing slide she made for her students!

THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 6

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Tillyvision burns through reentry in THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 6! Dysphoria and transphobia are coming for us with everything they’ve got, and it exacts a heavy toll!

You should obvs start with PART 1!

And continue you PART 2!

And then go to PART 3!

Go directly to PART 4!

Following on to PART 5!

58:27 – Owen kept The Pink Opaque tapes in a pink pillowcase, hidden away from the world. 

59:03 – He’s surrounded by dysphoria and fear. Owen: “A little while after Maddy disappeared, she sent me one more tape in the mail.”

59:16 – Owen is bathed in pink, watching the final episode. Isabel: “Mr. Melancholy is coming.” Tara: “If we’re going to defeat him this time, we’re going to need to harness the full potential of our shared powers.” 

Again, community. Maddy is Owen’s axe. None of us can do it alone.

59:20 – Look at the sky over them, fear and danger and despair, but the transness covers it all.

59:40 – A shot of the back of Tara, in a black tank top, with her Pink Opaque tattoo on the back of her neck. Why is this shot here? It’s setting up a later shot, we’ll get there in a minute.

59:53 – Owen: “But then, as Isabel approaches, she picks something up. A stray signal from the psychic plane. It’s a desperate message from Tara. The real Tara. She’s buried underground, in terrible danger.”

1:00:27 – Isabel lies in a grave, spitting up luna juice, sadness and internalized transphobia fed to her by Mr. Melancholy. Trying to kill her transness. Static flies across the screen, transphobia obscuring the truth.

1:00:33 – As Owen watches, still covered in blue, we hear static. Transphobia is obscuring his truth, too. Because he is Isabel.

1:00:37 – A shot of the back of Marco, the bearded moon woman, but in a black tank top and with the Pink Opaque tattoo, matching the shot of Tara I mentioned at 59:40. 

So when Marco turns, it’s revealed that’s not Tara, it’s a scary mockery of what you want to become. And that’s how you think the world will see you, because that’s what the world teaches you that you will see and become if you transition. 

This confirms what I said when Marco and Polo first appeared. This is what society and internalized transphobia tell us, all we’ll ever be seen as are “men in dresses” or “women with beards.” 

Again, neither or nor this movie are saying there’s anything wrong with that if that’s who you are! That’s cool! But this is metaphor, and that’s a very real bit of transphobia society worms into trans men and trans women, all to scare you and keep you from ever transitioning.

1:00:48 – As Polo drags Isabel away, the static returns, obscuring things. And it happens at her most intense screams. Owen hurt himself and obscured his own truth by locking Isabel away. And what did he do with her?

1:01:17 – Polo walks with a beating heart on a platter. Owen: “They cut out her heart.”

1:01:21 – The heart is put inside despair and dysphoria.

1:01:33 – And she’s given Luna Juice. This is transphobia from moon man Mr. Melancholy. She took the transphobia inside herself, literal internalized transphobia, and it buried her truth. Effectively “killing” isabel.

1:01:50 – Owen: “And then he makes his entrance. Mr. Melancholy… the big bad.” Dysphoria and despair, that’s all it brings.

And he’s got Owen’s transness trapped and held in the prison of a snow globe. Remember what Maddy asked Owen back at the Double Lunch? “Or do you ever have a hard time distinguishing between what happened in the show and what happened in real life? Like somehow the memories got jumbled around? Shook up in your head, like a snow globe.” 

Transphobia has locked down Owen’s transness and jumbled his thoughts so he doesn’t know what’s real, so he will not and cannot accept his truth. 

And it’s not just pink inside that snow globe, but it contains the tv with pink on it and Owen watching. It’s literally locking away Owen’s ability to access his truth and transness. 

1:02:08 – Mr. Melancholy licks Isabel’s face. It’s domination, as Luna Juice leaks out of her, showing you it’s still inside her. Transphobia traps, controls, and owns isabel. And it’s disgusting.

1:02:18 – Mr. Melancholy: “Don’t fight it. Let my poison work its magic. You’re gonna love the Midnight Realm. It’s such a wonderful, wonderful prison.”

1:02 :40 – Mr. Melancholy shakes up the snow globe. Static. Chaos. Everything’s jumbled and unclear.

1:02:54 – Mr. Melancholy: “Shh. It’s okay. Soon you won’t remember anything. Your real name. Your superpowers. Your heart. You won’t even remember that you’re dying!” 

And that’s what living with dysphoria, forced into that prison, is. It’s death. It’s worse than death. 

“Death before detransition” is a saying for a reason.

1:03:22 – Static, both seen and heard, as Owen’s image, entirely blue, becomes fuzzy and flickers in and out.

1:03:43 – The sky now looks like a shaken snow globe. Isabel is in the grave, Luna Juice leaking out of her mouth. Owen: “They bury her. Alive.” Very much what suppressing your true self is, your life becomes a waking death.. “And then… it just ended. Forever.” Darkness. Nothing.

1:04:28 – Owen gasps for breath in front of the television, because Isabel, his true self, was just buried alive. Worth noting again that one of the ways I described my own GENDER DYSPHORIA was “like drowning” and being unable to breathe.

1:04:40 – That kitchen is all dysphoria and fear. A fire ALARM beeps. Owen’s dad walks through and down to the basement, where Owen is.

1:04:50 – A phone is off the hook. Communication with the true self is lost, due to… what color is the phone? Yellow. FEAR. And what did Owen just do to himself? It all tracks.

1:04:56 – Owen’s smashed his head into the television. He tries to get back to Isabel, to his true self, to The Pink Opaque, even though he just buried her and gave it all up. The sparks are blue, sadness and despair. But note in all the sparks and chaos and flashing lights… the PINK is still there. You can deny your transness but that doesn’t make it go away.

1:05:14 – In the very yellow, fear-filled bathroom, Owen screams: “This isn’t my home! You’re not my father!” This is him fighting back, trying to reject the false cis reality and to reject masculinity. 

1:05:29 – Owen expels the blue despair of the Luna Yuice, trying to purge all his internalized transphobia. But notice the static returns.

1:05:45 – Once again we see the burning tv. On the commentary, Jane said they thought they needed this shot here but didn’t seem to know why. I think, subconsciously, they knew what this symbolized for Owen. His fear was still too great, and he killed Isabel, and then regretted it and wanted her back. But his fear still kept him from saving her.

1:05:56 – Owen is open and naked with himself in the mirror, there’s fear and dysphoria everywhere. That is not the face of someone who likes that reflection, or even sees themselves in it.

And so he immediately hides himself… in a MUTED GRAY. dull. Lifeless.

1:06:35 – He leaves the house, and sees the two men near the street. Chalk on the sidewalk behind them is jumbled, sadness abounds. There’s lots of transness still, but even the transness is sad now. 

He is kept from his transness by, judging by their posture and silence, sad men. Which is what he knows he will become if he doesn’t let Isabel out.

1:06:42 – Inside the inflatable planetarium, which as we discussed before, was the place where he’d have to finally choose. And so it’s no coincidence this is where we get Maddy’s story, about her choice to become Tara.

Also note how IMPORTANT it is that Maddie TELLS us this story, rather than us SEEING it in flashback. This is all about what these events did to HER. Pay attention to the words she says, and what she doesn’t say, and her emotions and expressions as she says them.

This is some REMARKABLE acting, but it’s also FANTASTIC writing to know that telling us this story through Maddy is so much better and more intimate and emotional than seeing it as flashbacks could ever be. Because what’s important is what it all did TO Maddie, and how she felt about it.

“I made it all the way to Phoenix on the money I’d saved,” a phoenix dies and is REBORN anew, going through a transition. Phoenixes are very trans, conceptually.

“The trees looked different, but everything else was exactly the same.” The GREEN of dysphoria was DIFFERENT, but nothing else had changed yet. Transition is a process and it takes time, it doesn’t all change the moment you decide to embrace your true self. 

“I started using a new name.” SUPERtext. “Sleeping at the cheapest hostel I could find.” Trans people are often poor due to losing homes and jobs and bigotry in hiring us. Being out and trans in a highly transphobic world is HARD, and it shouldn’t be. 

”The Pink Opaque was over.” It was no longer the goal she couldn’t see past. “I got a job at the mall. At Build-a-bear, filling the dolls up with stuffing.” Constructing a body the way YOU want it to be!

“I got out of that town, that place I knew would kill me if I stayed. But something was still wrong. Wronger, even. Time wasn’t right.”

1:07:55 – Hopefully you’ve been paying attention to the colors on Maddy in the inflatable planetarium and on and around Owen as he approaches her. Look at when he enters the hall toward the gymnasium, and it’s all red down there. No matter what his final choice is, there’s DANGER. If he transitions, he could lose EVERYTHING but himself. If he doesn’t transition, he will keep everything he has but lose HIS TRUE SELF. 

This is what society does for us, makes it dangerous no matter what we do.

1:07:57 – Maddy: “[time] was moving too fast. And then I was 19. And then I was 20. I felt like one of those dolls, asleep in the supermarket. stuffed.” You lose time from dissociating, like you’re asleep through your life. See the Trans Tuesdays on TRANS GRIEF and all the years I lost from dissociating, and the memories that were lost with them.

“And then I was 21. Like chapters skipped over in a DVD. I told myself, ‘This isn’t normal. This isn’t how life is supposed to be.’ I thought about running away again, about moving to Santa Fe and changing my name one more time.” 

I see this as Maddy thinking she was a trans man, but discovering that wasn’t right either, and she was in fact nonbinary. “But I knew that everywhere would be just the same. I had seen how it ended. I knew where I was.”

“A little bit after my 22nd birthday, I paid this burnout kid who used to hit on me in the food court $50 to bury me alive. I mean… he didn’t know he was burying me alive, but I doubt he would have cared too much even if he did.”

“I bought a coffin. I dug a hole. I got inside and I closed the lid. I said to myself, ‘This is crazy. What you’re doing is crazy.’ But another part of me knew that it wasn’t. That it was survival. And that I didn’t have much time. That what felt like years in this world was actually just seconds.” OOOOOF dissociation from dysphoria does be like that. It’s so messed up.

“So I waited. And then finally, the first spadeful of dirt hit the top of the box. And then another. And then another. I sang songs to myself. I counted to 10,000 without skipping any numbers. I pissed and I shit my pants and I forced my mouth to produce whatever saliva it could muster just so I’d have something to drink.”

1:09:41 – On the commentary, Jane: “I feel like if you don’t get it, you don’t get it. I find it so funny that people, in a lot of the Letterbox reviews of the film, people will be like ‘this long monologue that’s just exposition, they’re just telling us the story,’ it’s like… IS that what this is? I don’t think so.”

“I feel like if you’re not emotionally keyed in to the feeling of what happened and what is being described here, it is gonna just feel to you like exposition. But the idea of, like. this exposition is so beside the point to me. This is the emotional crescendo. And it’s a story of defiance and becoming. And I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you, like, talk about your commitment.”

Again, this is why it’s so much more important that Maddy’s telling us this, so we can see how it affected her, and what she’s trying to get across to Owen.

1:11:31 – Look at Maddy now, the most gender-neutral in appearance that she’s ever been. And no, this isn’t saying you have to be androgynous to be nonbinary, mind you, but visually it works as an excellent metaphor for showing her between, or outside of, “man” and “woman.” 

“I screamed as loud as I could for help. I apologized for the whole thing.” Maddy told Owen to never do that. But we see, even here, she was doubting herself. “And I begged god for someone to come along and save me. I tried and tried to claw my way out, but that burnout guy had packed the dirt in too tight just like I had asked him to do.”

“And then, after I don’t know how long, I felt myself start to leave myself. And it was like I was watching myself on a TV from across the room. And I was moving further and further away from the screen, until the screen was so small that I couldn’t even see myself anymore.”

1:12:33 – Maddy hits a button that turns the constellations in the planetarium into art of fully-realized beings. This is when Maddy flipped the switch on herself, from being a mere outline of who she was to becoming all of who she is.

She approaches Owen, slowly.

“And then I was clawing my way up out of the ground. And then I was at the surface, gasping for air, rain pouring down on me, thunder and lightning. And I was finally back there. Back at our old sleepaway camp.”

“And just like I was waking up from a bad dream, that whole life… that whole reality where I was Maddy Wilson… drifted away. Like a brief hallucination, that after a few moments I could hardly even remember. And all those memories that had felt so real, washed away with the rain back at our old sleepaway camp. And I was me. I was finally me again. And it was the season six premiere.”

The season six premiere, again, being the escape from the Midnight Realm – transitioning to escape dysphoria and find euphoria and the authentic self.

She’s down on all fours, slowly crawling toward him, pleading.

“I tried looking for you, but Mr. Melancholy had covered his tracks too well. I knew you must be buried somewhere close by, but I didn’t know where. And your signal… that signal that I used to be able to close my eyes and feel so vividly… was nowhere. I wasn’t picking up anything on the psychic plane.”

She’s so intense here, so passionate, so breathless.

“I found my heart. Isabel, oh my god! I found yours, too. And it was still beating, stored indefinitely in… in an industrial freezer. I left our hearts there because I knew I wasn’t done yet. And I found Mr. Melancholy’s cauldron. I found the Luna Juice he used to send us to the Midnight Realm, then I took a big sip straight out from the ladle.” 

She knew confronting someone stuck where Owen is would remind her of how she felt when she was stuck there. And then those internalized transphobic thoughts and feelings we have, that she fought so hard to overcome… might come back. But she did it anyway, because she couldn’t abandon Owen to that. Again we see the importance of community.

“And I laid back down, and I waited to fall back asleep. I knew I needed to come back here. I knew I needed to come back and save you. So that the show can continue. So that we can get to season six.”

Owen: “Maddy…” Maddy: “That’s not my name. And I haven’t told you anything tonight that you don’t already know. Tell me. Tell me you know it’s true. …you told me yourself you felt it. Remember? On the bleachers? You know what he put inside you.”

She’s talking about the static, the internalized transphobia, of transphobic society.

1:16:17 – Owen shakes his head no. Denial. “This is insane. I remember… I remember… playing in the snow. Driving to baseball games with my dad. Cooking with my mom.” He remembers that boys like sports and girls belong in the kitchen: he remembers conforming to the false cis binary.

1:16:28 – On the commentary, Jane repeats what Maddy said, that Mr. Melancholy put the static inside Owen, replaced his insides, and put his heart is somewhere else. Owen told her he felt it on the bleachers.

Jack in the commentary: “To keep you drugged.” Also known as taking the blue pill, for you Matrix and Begin Transmission fans out there.

The static, the internalized transphobia, is there to keep you from self-actualization.

1:16:38 – Maddy: “Those memories were put there to distract you. To keep you trapped.” The DISTRACTIONS and OBLIGATIONS of your life to keep you from realizing and accepting your truth. Matrix Resurrections deals with this too.

1:16:49 – Owen denies it, he cannot accept the truth that he buried Isabel. Or accept that he then tried to get back to her, tried to remove the Luna Juice of his internalized transphobia… but we see here it’s still won out. He’s made his choice. Owen: “It’s just the suburbs.” What are suburbs? A LIMINAL SPACE, between rural and urban, a little bit of a purgatory between one place and the next, pre and post transition. (No shade to people who live in suburbs and like them!)

1:17:09 – Maddy: “…we need to go back down into the soil.” We need to bury the false self so the true self can emerge. “Tonight. The longer you wait the closer you get to suffocating.” OOF.

The Matrix franchise deals with this too, about how the older you are the more obligations to society you have, the more you have to lose, and the harder it is to do. But Matrix Resurrections also very, very pointedly says: it’s never too late.

Maddy: “I’ve got everything ready. …no one will find us there.”

1:17:46 – A shot of Owen in the dress, but now it’s cropped to the same aspect ratio that The Pink Opaque was, so… it’s real, but filled with static and awash in fear. He lowers his head, and the green dysphoria towel behind him fills the screen. SUPERtext.

1:18:13 – They walk across the football field like before, Maddy is his axe, to help him battle Mr. Melancholy. But unlike before, his head is not held high. It’s drooped, his eyes on the ground, he’s dressed in despair. Maddy: “I know it’s scary. That’s part of it.”

1:18:39 – Owen: “It’s the drain lords. It’s just like the drain lords. It’s not real if I don’t think about it.” Oh babe. We’ve all been there. 🙁 You, and me, and Neo in the Matrix, and almost every trans person ever. 

But not thinking about our transness doesn’t make it go away. It just makes the misery continue.

Maddy takes his hand. They’re exactly on the 50 yard line, Maddy’s gotten him halfway there. He tackles her and then runs off, again his fear has gotten the better of him. Remember from back in part 1, a little after 1:28, when Owen saw the first commercial for The Pink Opaque? There was a sad shot of Isabel waving goodbye and/or trying to get Owen to notice her. Foreshadowing this exact moment, when he chose to leave her behind.

He keeps doing that. Will he ever overcome it? Can he? Time will tell.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Part 7 is here!

THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 5

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Tillyvision now in stable orbit in THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 5! Our connection to community returns, and brings with it the hope of another chance at self-actualization!

You know the drill, don’tcha? Sure you do. PART 1!

Drill PART 2!

Keep drilling with PART 3!

This drill metaphor doesn’t work at all, but here’s PART 4!

46:08 – Owen apologizes to his dad for being home late. Even though he’s an adult now his father still controls his life. Look at all the FEAR everywhere around him. 

46:19 – His dad has fear behind him, is on a dysphoria sofa, is bathed in blue. This is what awaits you, Owen. The tv is all blue, playing a laugh track from a sitcom. This will be your miserable life.

46:30 – Owen on his bed, the light is yellow, walls around him are green. As he turns his tv on, it bathes him in blue. He’s on his way to where his dad is, a sad (for him) masculinity. But he turns the light out, the fear is gone if he just gives in. Narration from the tv: “…the invaders changed the planet’s atmosphere, creating an eternal night.” That’s what this life is.

46:57 – Owen walks through the theater. The movie is Transpmorphers (it’s a real movie!), a twenty-teens low rent Transformers, and it’s all yellow (SUPERTEXT), Owen is all blue. 

Narration: “The sun forever covered by the dark clouds.” SUPERTEXT. “The survivors fled underground, living in fear of the machines that now ruled the earth.” How very Matrix-y!

And in the Matrix (my book on it is here, btw!) machines = transphobic society, humans = trans people, living underground = going into hiding for safety. As Owen has done, even though he refuses to acknowledge his own truth.

I just wanna say really quick how genius including these clips of it were. The narration and colors fit the theme of I Saw the TV Glow so perfectly I was sure they had to be entirely fictional and made up for this movie! But nope, it’s real.

47:16 – Owen’s at the grocery store, by the produce. I feel like there’s something going on with the photos of produce above his head, even outside of the colors, but I haven’t been able to decipher its meaning. Sometimes produce is just produce. But he’s surrounded by all green, green things that are grown in nature. Dysphoria is “natural” for him.

47:49 – Maddy returns, and look how her gender presentation has changed. Also look how much closer to Tara on The Pink Opaque she now looks! It’s not identical (transition is a journey, she’s not done yet) but she’s definitely on the way. 

There’s all MEAT behind her, which I see as her having already had access to physicality and bodily form, BODILY AUTONOMY. See the Trans Tuesday on it for more.

And again, it’s behind her, so Owen can’t get to feeling like his body is his own if he doesn’t cross to where Maddy’s been (she’s holding a steak, showing you she’s been there).

48:31 – He meets her in the middle (but does not cross behind her to access bodily autonomy). Maddy drops the meat, as if to tell him changing your body is what will get him to where she is. Again, to clarify, nobody is suggesting you have to change your body to be trans or transition. We don’t do transmedicalism here, there, or anywhere. This is speaking in metaphor.

Also look how in this shot the meat behind Maddy looks much more pink than red. Transness is back there, and can be accessed by claiming his own bodily autonomy, if Owen’s willing to go for it.

48:56 – Maddy: “I know a place on the edge of town, it’ll be safe for us to talk there.” As his only access to transness, as a person who has transitioned, she knows a safe place or way for Owen to explore his transness again. 

Look at the sign for the Fun Center they walk beneath, and the colors there, and what that’s telling you about what Owen has done to himself, and the emptiness (those empty shopping carts again) surrounding him. There’s nothing “fun” for him there at all. Foreshadowing! Oho!

49:06 – It’s allllll red as we hear Claw Machine by Sloppy Jane. 

I’m in the eighth grade
sending grown men grainy
photos of my ribcage. 

You can read something sexual into that if you want, but the wording of “ribcage” should make you think otherwise. Sounds to me almost like sending a doctor photos of yourself to enquire about top surgery.

My bedroom has no doors
so I can never close them

So, fun fact that is not fun but is factual: my mother HATED when I closed my bedroom door. I didn’t know I was trans… I didn’t have the words, but if I did I’d have told you. My mom didn’t know I was trans… but she picked up on every bit of feminity I ever tried to explore and mocked, belittled, and punished me for it.

And I think she never wanted my bedroom door closed because then who knows what gender I might be exploring within. I’m just saying… there’s something to it. Even when cis people don’t know we’re trans, some of them know we’re trans.

i paint the ceiling black
so I don’t notice when my eyes are open

Listen, this is getting uncomfortable. When I was in high school, my entire bedroom was black and gray. I don’t even like those colors (no shade to those who do)!

But it’s how I felt, especially at the height of puberty. It took this movie to make me realize that connection, right now as I’m writing this. Shit. 

But think about that, truly, and what trans people going through the wrong puberty is like for us… to not even want to notice when our eyes are open.

Staying in that hell, that’s the danger.

49:39 – The sign behind the stage says this is the “Double Lunch!” We know from when Owen and Maddy first met that this is THE CLUB ON THE PINK OPAQUE TV SHOW! Maddy has escaped and found true reality (as Tara).

49:59 – It’s a very “trapped in dysphoria” song. And look at this portion of the lyrics:

I think I was born bored
I think I was born blue
I think I was born wanting more
I think I was born already missing you

aka
life has always been gray
all I’ve known is despair
this can’t be what my life is
where’s the real me I’ve longed for since I was born?

Kinda burns you up like you’re going through atmospheric reentry, doesn’t it?

51:09 – Owen and Maddy talking backstage. Dysphoria and fear are right behind Owen, and talking with Maddy is all red. Danger, danger is all he sees. To Maddy’s right, look at the lamp in trans pride flag colors on the desk, and on the far right how much smaller her own green dysphoria has become. Transition helps alleviate dysphoria.

51:15 – Owen: “They think you’re dead, Maddy.” That’s how so many cis people treat us when we transition, it’s CIS GRIEF over losing the fake person we never were (that only hurt us). There’s a whole Trans Tuesday about it.

51:35 – Maddy: “I’ll tell you everything. I just need to ask you something first.” Owen: “Does your mom know that you’re alive?” Remember that his mom represented his own access to femininity. Do you see what he’s asking her here? Are you still in touch with your femininity? Did you… transition?!

51:48 – Notice that even though they’re sitting in all red, Owen is also lit with yellow. He’s scared shitless by this. Maddy transitioned! I’m talking to her about it! Does that mean… I am…? OH GOD I’M SO SCARED.

52:10 – Maddy asks him if he remembers The Pink Opaque, the transness that they explored together. Of course he does, it meant more to him than anything else.

53:02 – Maddy: “…how do you remember it? … do you remember it as just a tv show?” Was it just us “playing around?” Or was there something real there?

53:18 – We get the shot of Owen through the door… IN A DRESS. THAT IS PINK. Femininity. Transness. Presentation change. Trans femininity. Supertext. 

Note the green towel behind him. This hasn’t eliminated his dysphoria, but for the moment it’s sure smaller than the giant fish tank, huh? And outside that room he’s in? Fear…. of getting found out. 

Owen says he remembers it only as a tv show. But he’s bathed in danger and fear, and his voice breaks. He’s so scared. Owen: “The last show before the young adult network switched to black and white reruns for the night.” 

We’ve heard that line before, but right now it’s telling you everything! This is when they were young adults, and it was the last thing they did before the world went back to black and white, lost its vibrance and joy and went back to being THE FALSE DICHOTOMY.

53:51 – Behind Maddy, look at the light on the wall. Pink! Maddy: “Are you sure that’s all it was?” Wasn’t trying on that dress more than kids playing around? Didn’t it make you feel things? Didn’t it clue you in to something?

54:11 – Maddy smiles as she looks next to the reflection of Owen in the dress. He’s seeing his true self (Isabel) and his transness for the first time. 

Owen smiles too, but dysphoria and especially fear are still there. This is so scary.

54:40 – Maddy asks him, when he thinks back about those nights watching the show, if he ever gets confused. “Like maybe the memory isn’t quite right.” This is dissociation!

54:54 – Owen, in his pink dress, walks on the football field like we saw Isabel do in The Pink Opague earlier. The pink ghost tattoo zaps into being on his neck. Madde: “Does time ever feel like it’s not moving normally?” Oh god the dissociation. 🙁

Life with dysphoria is so bad, many of us dissociate and lose not just memories, but often entire years of memories of our lives. Time seems to disappear, which Owen deals with a lot in this movie. I talked a bit about the loss of memories of my own life in the Trans Tuesdays on TRANS GRIEF.

55:02 – Static. Transphobia fills his head. Maddy: “Do you ever feel like you’re narrating your own life, watching it play in front of you, like an episode of television?” 

Holy crap, listen. This is also life with dysphoria, where you feel disembodied, like you’re watching yourself go through the motions. You’re disconnected from your own life, nothing feels real. So you literally wonder what is reality? What is real? You can’t tell, because the entire world has gaslit you into thinking you’re something you’re not.

The Matrix deals with this too. Took me an entire book to talk about it.

BARBIE deals with this, too! Reality is not what you’re told it is when you grow up as a trans person in a transphobic home and society that denies your existence.

“Or do you ever have a hard time distinguishing between what happened in the show and what happened in real life? Like somehow the memories got jumbled around? Shook up in your head, like a snow globe.” Like a snow globe. This isn’t just foreshadowing, it’s telling you what that snow globe will represent when it shows up.

55:30 – Isabel, in a pink dress, walks on the green dysphoria football field… with an axe.

55:35 – Owen, in a pink dress, walks on the green dysphoria football field with Maddy – she is his axe, his weapon against transphobia

I’m sure you’re tired of me saying “read my book,” but listen, these themes show up again and again for a reason. In The Matrix, the trans community is represented by the character Tank. Tanks are literally armored weapons. Later in the franchise the trans community is represented by the human cities of Zion and Io, which are defended by human-controlled mechs with giant guns.

The trans community protects and defends each other. We need each other to fight transphobia!

55:46 – Maddy: “I’m trying to go slow. I don’t want to alarm you.” If you just shout at someone that they’re trans, even if it’s true it’s going to likely scare them and just make them pull back even more. This is why “the egg prime directive” exists – don’t tell an egg you think they’re an egg (eggs are people who are trans and don’t know it yet, realizing is “hatching”).

Buuuut the egg prime directive is complicated, and often misinterpreted, and that’s a topic for another time (yeah, there will be a trans tuesday on it, but I haven’t written it yet, I’m still writing this one, gimme a break!).

54:48 – Standing on dysphoria, Owen in his pink dress with Maddy by his side, look up at the blue sky and Mr. Melancholy.

55:54 – Owen thinks they should tell the police or his dad. Uhhhhh I feel so weird let me check with my toxic masculinity and see what it thinks! Look at Maddy LEANING in on him, pressing the importance. Maddy: “No, you can’t tell anybody.” 

Do you know how many people you thought loved you and cared about you instantly reveal that they do not once they know you’re trans? It should be zero.

For many of us, it’s not.

For some of us, it’s a lot.

56:30 – Maddy: “I’ve been there. Inside the show.” She’s been transitioning. Note, again, they are inside the club from the show. Owen is also there, now, with Maddy, and doesn’t even realize it.

56:40 – King Woman sings Psychic Wound. (SUPERSupertext, phew), and that song title sure explains the despair of the blue lighting.

In the commentary, Jane said this moment was a release from the tension the audience and Owen are feeling. And, well, Owen just learned Maddy transitioned into Tara and that transness is real, and he needs to scream about it. 

Foreshadowing what he does later!

Why have I been punished?
I’ve been banished from the sky.

I didn’t ask for this, why is this happening to me? Why do people hate me for who I am? (you’re not gonna believe this, but The Matrix has Neo literally asking that question out loud). 

Also, in that franchise, flight is a metaphor for gender euphoria, the kind you can find with transition. In fact, long before ever realizing the “flight is gender euphoria” metaphor in The Matrix, I’d described my own first encounter with gender euphoria the exact same way – like flying.

I discuss that a bit in the Trans Tuesday on BODY HACKING, where I talk a bit about the first women’s clothes I ever owned.

And I went into that in even more detail in the Trans Tuesday on GENDER EUPHORIA.

So “banishing someone from the sky” is preventing them from ever accessing that euphoria, which means preventing transition.

clinging to his mighty chest
bury my face and cry
I bow to him just to sleep next to you
a force I can’t deny

For Owen, holding on to the man the thought he was, that society said he was, is what’s causing all his pain, keeping him from the real person inside.

when I’m spread on the bed
you remain the luscious fruit
help me I’m so chained to you
Someone tell me what to do

At my most vulnerable, you (the real me inside) are what I crave. I keep pretending you’re not real, that I’m not trans, that none of this is happening, but it keeps coming up again no matter how much I try to deny it.

Poor Owen.

57:52 – Owen leaves the danger behind as he walks into despair. Says a lot.

58:04 – Maddy tells him she can’t stay where he is much longer, she’s going back to her life as her true self. Maddy: “Do you remember how it ended? The final episode? The end of season five?”

Remember that Owen found the episode guide that mentioned the start of season six was escaping the nightmare realm… leaving dysphoria behind (hopefully) and transitioning. 

But the “show ended” before that, which means he never got to that point. Maddy: “You can’t trust anybody in your life. They’re all working for him… Mr. Melancholy.” Transphobia is everywhere, even in the people you love, and they all work to uphold the transphobic false cis binary matrix even if they don’t realize it. 

And many will again consciously turn on you the moment they know you’re trans.

You’ll never guess what movie franchise deals with that and explicitly shows how if you’re not fighting the system that oppresses trans people, you’re a vital part of the machinery that oppresses us… anyone? Any ideas? 

A hint… I wrote that damn book about it!

Maddy asks him to come to the high school at midnight, his last chance for her to help him out of the misery he’s in. 

58:44 – Owen digs through his closet, it’s all fear and danger inside and dysphoria outside. Tonight, Tonight by Snail Mail plays. Lyrics, anyone?

We’ll crucify the insincere tonight
We’ll make things right, we’ll feel it all tonight
We’ll find a way to offer up the night
The indescribable moments of your life
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you

This might be your last chance, Owen. You can do it.

He’s digging through the closet, which is where he has put himself, and his transness. 

IN THE CLOSET.

Almost every trans person has been there at some point, and choosing to bring our transness out of the closet and into the light of day can be so tough. Because society does everything it can to stop us and make us feel that it’s bad and wrong.

It messes you up. A lot. And look where it’s gotten Owen.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Part 6 is here!

THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 4

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Tillyvision exits the atmosphere in THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 4! Our fear of our true selves is in the driver’s seat, and that’s baaaaad news.

You know you need to read PART 1 first!

And read PART 2 second!

And what a surprise, you need to read PART 3 third!

33:49 – Owen walks to Maddy’s house again, green grass, pink sleeping bag rolled up, blue sky… but it still has those hints of pink.

34:02 – The laughing clown doing an unsettling dance. RED light. DANGER. You’re going to LOOK LIKE A CLOWN IF YOU EXPLORE YOUR TRANSNESS, OWEN. These are his own fears rearing their head… but what are those fears based in? Internalized transphobia. Which is why that clown is a minion of Mr. Melancholy.

34:10 – Maddy’s show counterpart, Tara, calls that out as nonsense. Kills the idea of the clown with an axe. This is your first confirmation of connection between the axe, Tara, and Maddy.

And again you see they NEED EACH OTHER TO GET THROUGH. Community. Tara is the weapon Isabel needs to defeat that clown, internalized transphobia.

34:32 – Maddy cries while watching the show. She’s fully realizing her truth. It’s heavy. Owen looks at her, studying, learning. But look right next to him… a pillow in the trans flag colors, but there’s a MOON on it. 

But what’s on Owen’s shirt? A sun. Showing FEAR and DANGER.

Where does the moon get its light? REFLECTED FROM THE SUN.

The transphobia’s coming from inside the house, Owen! Ignore it, fight it, transness is right there if you’ll just reach out and grab it! (poor Owen)

34:51 – When the show is over, the green fish tank, dysphoria, is front and center again. There’s yelling and fighting upstairs. Did Maddy’s parents find out what she was doing in the basement?

35:19 – Maddy: “I’m getting out of this town.” She now fully knows her truth, and knows she can’t live it at home with a violently transphobic family. There are pink hearts on her shirt, she’s IN transness, but bathed in blue, sad because her family has rejected her for who she is. And look at the yellow fear behind her. It’s a scary thing to do. She also looks less femme here, she’s already moving closer to her true self.

35:45 – Maddy: “I’ll die if I stay here.” She’d have to suppress her true self and that is a very real kind of death. But also transphobic families pose a real threat of danger and violence to trans kids as I talked about before. As horribly sad as it is, it’s the truth.

36:10 – Owen: “If you leave, I won’t have anyone to watch The Pink Opaque with.” You are my only access to my transness and exploring who I am, if you go I will lose that! There is no safe space for him without her.

36:40 – Maddy tells him to sit up, we see his shirt is blue. Green dysphoria light washes over him.

37:05 – She unbuttons his shirt and pulls it down, exposing the true Owen: Isabel. Owen does not protest, or even seem startled by what she’s doing. At best his expression gives off a “What, here? Now?” vibe. This is emotional, and intimate, but it’s not sexual.

We know that “watching The Pink Opaque” together is them exploring the truth of their transness together, right? And if they’ve been doing that all along, it stands to reason they maybe swapped clothes, helped each other try things on (confirmation for this comes later on). He is not surprised by what’s happening.

Maddy draws The Pink Opaque ghost on him with a marker, making him closer to Isabel. As a reminder of his transness, so he won’t forget or lose it after she’s gone.

38:43 – Static floats over Owen’s head… blue and green, his mind a swirl of feelings (like Barbie in the white void with Ruth at the end of Barbie), but the pink is still in there. But he can’t see it clearly because of all the damned static.

39:05 – Owen furiously scrubs the pink ghost off his neck. Oh god what if they see? What if they know? What might happen? I CAN’T LET THEM SEE. Note that in the mirror he’s bathed in yellow light. Fear. 

On the commentary, at this moment, Jane says: “Shame.”

Jack: “I always feel hurt when I see this.”

Me too. It broke my heart. Because society’s transphobia and that internalized transphobia has told him his transness is bad and wrong, and he’s ashamed of it, ashamed that he can’t stop seeking it out and exploring it. He shouldn’t want to! It’s not “normal!” 

It’s heartbreaking. And I lived through it many, many times.

39:12 – Look at how much transness surrounds him in the daylight. His shirt, the sleeping bag, the blanket on the couch, the carpet. The green fish tank seems smaller and less imposing. This is what accepting your transness can do for you, Owen. You could start, like Maddy. And here, briefly, he thinks he might do just that.

39:30 – Maddy tells him not to tell anyone they’re leaving. He asks where they’ll go. Maddy: “We’ll know when we get there.” You don’t know what you’re going to get out of transition, or if you’ll find your truest self, or if or when it will end. But you’ll know when you get there.

40:00 – Owen goes to Johnny Link’s house, furiously rings the doorbell. It’s an emergency. Help. Terrified, he tells her the entire truth and tells her SHE has to tell his dad about the lies. Not that he’s been exploring transness, because that could be fatal. But she has to tell his dad that he’s been lying about where he’s going, so he’ll be punished and unable to join Maddy when she leaves. He’s too scared. He’s severing the link between him and Maddy, between himself and his transness.

40:20 – Owen: “You can’t let me go with her. I don’t want to leave my home.” He’s scrubbed the pink ghost off his neck as best he could, but traces remain. His shirt is still pink, but now it’s covered by green. Giving in to dysphoria won’t work. It won’t get rid of your transness, Owen. You’re just trying to pretend you didn’t see it, that it’s not there… but that doesn’t make it go away. 

40:27 – The chalk on the street outside is a jumble of pinks and blues, in equal amounts. And he’s entirely separated from it by the green grass.

40:37 – Owen: “My mom passed away the next July.” Well, he severed the link and cut off access to his transness… and so he LOST HIS ONLY ACCESS TO FEMININITY. 

And then Maddy was gone, she left without him.

40:46 – Maddy’s house is surrounded by cop cars, RED lights and YELLOW caution tape. Danger! Fear! This is what could have happened to you, Owen. This also, sadly, reflects the way transness worked for people in the past… they were often forced to uproot and disappear, “woodwork” and pretend to be cis. There’s more about this in the Trans Tuesday on TRANSMEDICALISM (and WPATH version 1).

40:58 – Owen: “All they found was her tv set, burning in the back yard.” Look at Owen’s face lit in half yellow, and half blue. You know exactly what this did to him.

41:03 – The burning tv. Yellow. Fear destroyed Owen’s only access to his transness, through Maddy and the tv. 

41:10 – Owen: “And the strangest part of it all was, the month maddy disappeared, The Pink Opaque got canceled.” SUPERtext. Yeah, he cut off his access to exploring transness so of course the “show” that represented that disappeared. 

41:39 – Cut to adult Owen watching the campfire again, its yellow light across his face.

41:51: We get a shot of future (or, I guess, present) Owen in the Fun Center, all blue and yellow and red. Lights flickering, things are dark and unclear and awful.

42:04 – Look at the one half-inflated balloon, the entirely yellow wall that meets the entirely blue wall. There is no joy to be found on this path he’s set himself on.

42:12 – Owen steps into the literal spotlight. We’re eight years later.

42:47 – Owen orders food in the drive through, it’s awkward and weird. EVERYTHING in life feels this way when dealing with dysphoria and having no confidence whatsoever. See the Trans Tuesday on CONFIDENCE for more.

And then see the trans tuesday on CONFIDENCE 2: INTO THE UNKNOWN, aka A WHOLE NEW WORLD, aka WHAT IS HAPPENING when, much to my surprise, everything changed for me two years into transition.

43:08 – Owen’s at work, there’s despair everywhere. The exit sign is a bright red… the exit from the sadness, transitioning? Owen only sees it as DANGER.

43:18 – Owen opens the door on the manager receiving oral sex from a woman. What does the idea of sex do to him? A little bit of fear and A WHOLE LOT OF DYSPHORIA. This is something that happens to a lot of trans people, where the idea of physical intimacy is terrifying and awful because we’re so alienated and horrified by our own bodies.

But also, for some of us, it’s terrifying in ways that get tangled up with sexuality. As I talked about in SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER, I’m exclusively attracted to women and always have been. And that complicated understanding my own gender.

And so getting close to women in a sexual way was terrifying, because it amplified those feelings, and would almost make you confront them. Like… I may have sexual desires about this woman’s body I’m close to, but there’s something so much more than that under the surface about wanting to be her and have that body, and not understanding it. 

It would spike dysphoria and envy and despair and mix it all up with attraction and desire, and you’ll find this is why many trans people entirely dissociated during any sexual activity, pre-transition, if we were even able to handle it at all.

He gets LAUGHED AT for being uncomfortable with it. He apologizes, which again Maddy told him never to do. You don’t have to apologize for being uncomfortable due to the dysphoria you feel… especially in a situation that should not have even been happening in the first place, like sex in the workplace.

43:34 – Owen fills a bag with popcorn… yellow, blue, and red all around him, keeping him confined.

43:46 – He looks outside – DANGER of the exit signs, he sees only fear in the possibility of coming out… and emptiness as his only reward (look at the shopping carts, they’re all empty).

43:51 – Owen’s coworkers make fun of him for feeling weird about barging in on THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE EVEN BEEN HAPPENING. But HE’S the weird one? Look how he’s in despair, and that’s all he sees in his manager too. And on his manager’s side? Danger. Right behind him? Fear. And the green dysphoria permeating everything.

44:33 – Owen drives home, his own reflection is FEAR. For more on being terrified of our own reflections where we don’t see ourselves, see the Trans Tuesday on PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS.

There’s sparking electricity from a power line down in the road. The connection has been severed, between Owen and his way forward.

44:43 – Fear and danger in the lighting where Owen is, despair where the connection has been severed and the electricity, which illuminates the dysphoria from the trees. But look at  the  street light, and the light on the ground underneath it. Doesn’t that look… PINK?! His dysphoria, sadness, and fear are BLOCKING THE PATH TO HIS TRANSNESS.

44:56 – When he gets out of the car, the ground looks RED, and now so does the streetlight. Danger, Owen! Trying to remove this blockage means your entire life would change, you know it!

45:24 – Owen looks down, the torn pages are from Maddy’s Pink Opaque book. This is what’s become of his transness, it’s in shreds. He sees MR. MELANCHOLY. Transphobia. That’s what’s keeping him from accessing his transness: his own internalized transphobia.

And there’s so much of it we have to overcome, and we can’t be our true selves until we do. And we can’t overcome it until we can recognize it, and Owen definitely can’t do that yet. For more, see the Trans Tuesday on INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA.

45:41 – Owen turns the page over, sees Mr. Sprinkly, the scary ice cream man. Again, things that should bring you joy do not, when dysphoria blankets your life. 

45:50 – Owen opens the paper. This moment seemed really important. Did I try to read what it said?

I sure did try!

I tried and tried.

I had no idea these photos were being taken, btw. My wife was sitting on our sofa and thought they were hilarious so took photos of me up close squinting at the tv (and she’s right, they’re pretty dang funny).

To the best of my ability, here’s what I was able to decipher:

…escaped an ancient prison trapped inside the dark side…
…Man’s lunar forces have finally stolen one thousand…
…teenagers. Now there’s no moon. No sun. Just Melancholy….

…season Mr. Melancholy finally tricked Tara and Isabel…
…began back at their old sleepaway camp. Now our heroes…
…nightmarish hellscape the likes of which they never could have imagined…
…underground, hugged only by the branches of everyone’s…
…place where they first laid eyes on each other…

…that Mr. Melancholy’s reign has officially begun. Somebody get her a tissue!
Things have never been worse. A county-wide mandate passed by Senator Sprinkly…
…never-ending math class. A new dress code restricts any citizen in the entire county from…
…of music the college radio station now only plays mattress…
…the Double Lunch has been transformed from the coolest club in town into Mr. Melancholy’s…
…where he, Marco and Polo are keeping all four members of the “Absolute Loser Brigade” held prisoner…
…he’s not planning to kill them anytime soon. He’s just planning to feed endlessly on their weirdness…
…everything beautiful about their souls into stinky star fuel.

So where is Isabel? Where is Tara? Where
are our heroes when we need them most?
Somewhere very far away… in a town oddly…
…reminisced of the real world they need to…
…but different in so many subtle, insidious,
ways. But one thing is for sure, this town has…
…bled of magic and wonder.

It’s all conformity, all the…
…place our heroes no longer even remember…
…they are The Pink Opaque. Here they don’t…
…like heroes anymore. Here every monster…
…fought every joke they ever shared, all…
…heartstopping…
…the pages of this very episode guide…
…real. No instead, in this world, all…
…just the weekly transmissions of a dumb tv show. Absurd, right? Who would fall for such…
And Tara. at least at first…

Can Isabel and Tara find each other again on the hazy…
…as it glows dimly? The Luna Juice and soil is caught…
…I have much time. But then again, time might not work exactly… think it does. After all,…
…right now, aren’t I? But you’re also reading it right now. Strange.

Tara is the first one to realize something is very wrong.
…the “home” where she’s been placed is little more than…

Even though I couldn’t decipher all of it, that’s telling you the whole game right there. This is from “season six,” which we know later from Maddy is when the two of them “escape the midnight realm” aka get away from Mr. Melancholy/dysphoria and transition.

So they’re trapped in a living hell by dysphoria, losing their lives (and time) to dissociating.

Look how it gets metatextual, “the pages of this very episode guide,” “you’re also reading it now. Strange.” Weird wording for an episode guide, don’t you think? That’s because it’s not just an episode guide.

Owen knows he’s severing his own connection to his transness, and transitioning in the future, and condemning himself to a life of dysphoria and lost time from dissociating. This is his subconscious trying to call out to him, to get him to accept his truth.

Will he listen? Is he ready? Because we can never accept the truth about ourselves until we are.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Part 5 is here!