Poiesis is the process of creating something through intellectual, artistic, or imaginative efforts. Trans academic Susan Stryker argues that for trans people, poiesis is not one singular moment of change. It is ongoing. Living in a trans body is creation, and we must decide to continue creating ourselves every second that we are alive. I renew my choice by taking my hormones, by using my name, by choosing to acknowledge my identity and not hide it, both in my head and out the door. In all cases, the commitment to living truthfully is neither permanent, nor easy. It can feel humiliating, and patronizing, like repeatedly begging an audience to humor what is clearly smoke and mirrors. Most trans narratives I find focus on the initial act of poiesis—the acceptance and announcement of one’s true self. However, as we survive days, months, years beyond that first choice, it becomes comparatively microscopic.

What is the first act of poiesis compared to the lifetime that stretches beyond it?
How long will it be? How long does it have to be?

Jane, the main character of “Photo Play XX”, decides she cannot continue her poiesis. She puts on a suit, and she drowns herself, and I suspect most viewers won’t immediately recognize her to be a trans woman. There is a popular thought experiment amongst people questioning their gender: “If I was alone on a deserted island, would I still feel like a boy/girl/other?” I never found it to address what I struggled the most with: 

“Am I a girl?” is not the same question as “Can I be a girl, in public, every day?”
Jane can’t stop being a woman. She can only stop herself from getting up on stage.

It can be brutally exhausting to exist, especially in an identity associated with controversy and perversion. It’s awful to fear proving those claims correct, to wonder if you are fulfilling your own negative stereotype by simply being alive. When life feels like a doomed ship ablaze at sea, we can be blinded by the ash, the smoke, and the worry. The ocean beckons. Slip in, and drown out the terror that consumes us on deck.

Alas, I bear disappointing news; I don’t hold the answer to depression, or dysphoria. The concrete answers I have to offer in this film are sparse, and like transness and despair and most contemporary musicals, they are highly subjective. Nevertheless:

I like to play the banjo, and I like to sit by the sea, and sometimes,
I forget to be afraid of the monster. I forget to be afraid of poiesis.
I forget how many times I’ve woken up, and I do it all over again.