I have finally finished my transition video! I had a super strong urge to get it done this weekend, in time for a specific submission deadline. ALSO I knew I wasn’t going to add more media to the story. I tried to add some new images but it messed with the ending, which is a fairly strong ending. I went back and forth on the title. For a while it was going to be Man Oh Man! Then it was going to be Whatever Happened to Baby Dyke? Neither of those worked because except for maybe a couple of spots, it wasn’t really a comedy. Then I wanted it to be Sunlight Through Trees but there’s another film with a similar title so I had to adjust and now it’s Dreams of Sunlight Through Trees. The title comes from a dream I had when I was anaesthetized for my top surgery and saw myself in a forest looking up at the tree tops and the sunlight was coming through the leaves.

It was a long time coming together! I’ve been collecting images and voice memos and videos this whole transition and I kind of end the video in April of this year. I could have gone longer considering my two years on T was just this last week. But I feel like the arc of the story is better this way. Even though it ends before a lot more of the fucked up stuff happens in Canada.

I’m glad I have another video out there. Last year I spent the whole year finishing my video game, so I didn’t really have a video to show for a while. And games just aren’t as popular as films in regards to festivals etc. So I DID make a whole extensive video game, but I don’t think it was really celebrated. Which is too bad. I did show it at Union Docs which was nice, but we had technical difficulties.

But now I have a new video to show places, and it’s a more accurate video of who I am today. So much of my past work is about being a butch lesbian, and now I am a bisexual trans man. I suppose there was The Lost Art of the Future but I was so early in my transition that it was hard to see me as I am now. I mean the funny thing is very little changed. And yet so much DID change. I have a flat chest now, and a shaved head. And a deeper voice. And I think I smile more which is funny because in so many trans masculine transition timelines we end up not smiling to look more masculine. But I was just happy I think.

Anyway, I hope it gets picked up places. I did include a lot of the current anti-trans legislation that is being advanced in the US, Canada, and the UK. I was having trouble with the headlines looking ugly beyond just the ugly content, but I made some revisions and it’s way better now.