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Following your own search for identity will always destroy whatever you used to have. 

It’s kinda tired to see films from the late 90s/early 00s that depict the ‘nuclear family isn’t really as happy as it seems’ kind of thing as so much of it becomes a mold, but here it adds far more substance than any previous iterations by both ditching the classic sheen of those family-coded ideals that such films want to ironically deconstruct (many of which just stick to that style throughout, despite the style no longer fitting the material further into those deconstructions) for a digital barely-lit reality of a run and gun style where it can all be changed and molded on the fly and in the editing room. While also really diving into how disassociating and kinda-ugly and disorienting the process of finding your own identity and how the fallout of that DOES change the perceivable world around you and show you a way of seeing things that feels kinda off, even if things settle somewhat into a normalcy when you’ve gone through it all. 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many who relate to this film and its ilk find comfort in the imperfectness of its style and new digital exploration of the medium from its time, especially when so much, including digital cinematography, has become adopted into that same sheen of overly sterile and clean look that disregarded these real experiences and boundary-pushes of both the medium’s identity and audience’s sense of self to recreate a template of ‘now be this.’ Since then so much of the subcultural and subversive gets subsumed into becoming a new market as much as a reality that is in want of representation, so we all buy into that sheen so we can all feel a little bit less alone in this world and connected to some sense of identifiable community. I’m guilty of it as much as anyone else, I will take the scraps, cause on the grand stage that seems to be all we will get unless we create things ourselves.

It is ‘old hat’ that transness doesn’t fit into the current mold of society but it is changing it towards a more accepting reality, but it is a violent change where the pushback doesn’t just threaten to destroy your self perception (old and new), but also it could literally get you fucking murdered, be it by a stranger or someone you know. It being someone you know brings no greater comfort so there is a certain comfort in distancing your core self from your new projected self that is you in the process of trying to find and project a sense of what the real you is. I mean, can you really be hurt if you are not being you in that instance? It is as much a protection of your real self as it is a projection of performance, but it is a reality. Noriko is Matsuko is Noriko. If Noriko by the end chooses either name it is her real one cause all sides of her have known the violence of transformation of the self and their world and sense of normalcy.

Not everyone in my life who means the world to me uses the correct pronouns or sees me as I am fully even if they don’t say so out loud, they see me as an act, but their heart is in the right place and I’d rather take part in an imperfect performance with them at times, where there is genuine love, attempt and coming to terms with the real reality that is currently unfolding before them, than closing that off entirely til they get it. They are not trying to change me, persuade me to go back, to try to stop this person from being and becoming their real self, so even if I indulge a bit in performing as a part version of my past self for them, it is not the reality that has come to be and they are definitely coming to grips with and starting to understand who I am in a true way, as beneath and around that momentary facade is the more expressive, happy and free self that frames that performance as a past reality that is foundational to but is not all there is of a ‘me’ now.

Transitioning socially was a deeply uncomfortable process that felt like an assault on my soul (especially without medical access), with a few but essential people putting up the biggest fight and ignoring that I was no longer who they thought or constructed in their minds, but in the end they came to not just see me fully and, more importantly, seem to have changed entirely along with me towards more loving people, revealing who they were or could be all along and show me the most support out of everyone as their new true selves. It is a luxury that is awarded to far too few of us (and coming from a small community probably helps as we humanize one another more when you can’t simply let yourself and others disappear into the crowd) and as one of the lucky few I do not take it for granted ever. I have known the hurt and shaking of one’s foundations and further self-destruction that comes with having to live a true reality that others find to be a fake one or an impossibility. I have known the suicidal ideations that come with the feelings of the impossibility of it all. Society, even when meaning well, will push back to keep things as they are, no matter the cost.

Detransitioners also go through something like this and find themselves at a greater lack of understanding from all sides, where they have to go through the process of creating a new self to find who their true self is. It is a trans experience, no matter if you come out the other end with your initial assigned gender or not, your first name or a chosen one. I will never understand that perspective fully but I do empathize with it and want people to understand that the process of transitioning is a process of both being a real person, a character, and a series of trying out different roles and images and roleplays to see which feels like the real you, until you start to feel the reality start to become tangible. Even other trans people seem lacking in empathy for those who detransition, when it is just the other side of the same coin. 

We are all just trying to be our true self. I will never detransition but the more I experience of the reality of transitioning, the more I want everyone to have that experience of when it finally clicks for us all equally, those who fully transition or those who detransition or are somwhere inbetween, when you feel the very real saliva dripping from your mouth, when you can touch it and know you are here and now and that this version of you is the real one, the one that exists and is undefinable in its origin, but it is far more tangible than any image that may have helped set you on your path of self discovery. I just need everyone to understand that no matter on what side you come out as, if you come out as a Noriko or a Matsuko or someone entirely different, that person is a real, genuine self and inherently worthy of existing.

The violence of the process fades away and settles back into something resembling normalcy or the beginning of it. Be that with everyone who used to be in your life or knowing some are gone, where their fate and reality no longer concerns you. But it is a violent process and a haunting one. Whatever image of who you are or the lives of those around you used to be, it will no longer exists, even if hung up fully as it was. The violence of identity destruction will transform that space, even when washed away. It can either lead to total destruction or a peace made of some kind of genuine hereto-thought-impossible understanding and everyone giving into something beyond their sense of how things were and should be. Things now are. Things always will be. We can rest, walk on and find understanding not just in one another but in our selves.

But we have to play along to find our true reality to go forward as your role and reality as you want it probably does not exist and requires trying on different modes and acts of existing. It is scary, it will feel fake, there is real danger, but there is also you. The real you. And the life that you choose. You just have to pull the string and walk on.