It’s a hard time to be a trans person. Not only do we have to sift through the identities projected upon us to discover our true selves, but every day an onslaught of anti-trans propaganda and legislature is lobbed in our direction to effectively ban trans individuals from public life. It is cruel beyond any sane measure to target self-expression when trans acceptance is an invigorating feeling. Discovering one’s transness is scary, yet it is by looking past societal expectations of gender and sexuality that we discover our true power and potential.
Suspiria (2018): Trans Identity as Radical Transformation
2018’s Suspiria is a film about how society bends self-expression into the political and how refusing conformity is in itself an act of radical transformation. The film’s protagonist Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) comes from a conservative Mennonite community, yet is drawn to Berlin, where the Markos Dance Academy resides. Once at the academy, Susie is swept up into the studio’s politics, as her peers fall out of favor with the studio’s lead instructor Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton). Blanc quickly elevates her to the position of lead dancer as the other dance instructors dispose of her competitors using witchcraft.
The coven believes Susie will serve as a means for extending the life of the academy’s director Madame Markos. However, in an act of defiance, Susie interrupts their ritual, digging her hands into her chest and tearing it open to reveal a hidden, gasping organ. She breathes, her eyes falling shut in pained bliss. When she opens her eyes, Susie is transformed by the knowledge of who she is—a reincarnation of the coven’s deity, Mother Suspiriorum—and is empowered to destroy the coven that betrayed her.
Discovering My Trans Identity
Back when I first saw Suspiria (2018), I had accepted that I was queer, but what exactly that meant, I was unsure. Several years later, I awoke in the middle of the night, anxious with a knot in my stomach. I mulled over the source of my discomfort –a coworker’s insistence at calling me ‘man’ instead of my name—and came to a conclusion I had avoided considering: that I wasn’t a ‘man’, but rather, someone who didn’t align with my assigned gender. Much like how Susie’s power becomes undeniable once she awakens her true self, this revelation was one I knew I couldn’t force back inside myself. I had finally seen who I truly was and knew I couldn’t deny it.
Possessor (2020): Identity and Loss in a Sci-Fi Horror Lens
Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor (2020) is a sci-fi horror film rooted in the existential, as Tasya (Andrea Riseborough), a hitman who biologically splices and possesses the bodies of those near and dear to her targets, finds the boundary between herself and the inhabited blurred. Tasya exists in a personal and professional liminal space, as her handler Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh), urges her to assassinate higher-priority targets. Yet, she is drawn to the domestic life she once shared with her son and ex-husband. Despite this dissonance, Tasya agrees to inhabit the body of Colin (Christopher Abbott), the fiancé of a powerful tech mogul’s daughter. Tasya is warned of the risks of this operation, with Girder warning her that the implant that allows her to inhabit Colin’s body is designed to quickly degrade, requiring her to do daily calibrations to prevent her from losing grasp of her true self as she completes the hit.
As Tasya assumes Colin’s life, she immediately struggles to separate the personal and professional, regularly following her son and ex-husband as Colin despite the risk of miscalibration. While Tasya is tasked to kill Colin’s future father-in-law and then Colin himself, Tasya cannot kill herself and return to her own body, forcing her to go on the run, miss her regular calibrations, and lose track of where she begins and Colin ends. As the implant in Colin’s brain degrades, he fights for control of his body. Believing Tasya is responsible for frying his brain, Colin seizes control, breaks into her family home, and mistakenly slaughters her family as he wrestles with Tasya’s psyche for control.
The Cost of Losing Authenticity
While Possessor isn’t explicitly a trans film, it digs into themes of identity and the consequences of losing one’s true self. Tasya must not only take control of her victims’ bodies but also displace their consciousness. She reduces her targets to tools to achieve an end, but when Colin fights back, she wrestles control back by causing him to question if they are responsible for the deaths of his loved ones. This constant questioning of where the boundary between Tasya and Colin is causes it to blur, resulting in mutual destruction as their loved ones meet violent ends.
Weaponizing Identity: Transness in the Political Crosshairs
As trans people, the confusion that arises by questioning our gender is often weaponized against us by the right. Discovering one’s identity and choosing to express oneself because of these revelations is framed as mental illness, allowing conservative politicians to villainize and scapegoat trans people as dangerous, violent, and deserving of a sanitarium. Possessor shows what happens when one’s identity is torn away from them. As Tasya seizes Colin’s own body, she effectively strips him of his autonomy to kill his loved ones. Yet, the most horrific aspect of this method of assassination is that Colin’s loved ones believe him to be responsible for their deaths in their final moments. Tasya takes everything Colin sees himself as and wields it as a weapon, using his identity to create a convincing narrative to fit her agency’s purposes, much like conservative politicians constantly seek a narrative to demonize trans and LGBTQIA+ populations.
The Power of Self-Discovery: Trans Resilience in Film and Life
Much like Susie Banon’s transformation began with blood and suffering, searching inwards and discovering that a person’s true self isn’t the same as the one projected upon them is painful. But that discovery can be invigorating, making the transformed feel like they are just now seeing the world for the first time. To be trans requires a great deal of bravery and perseverance, yet we are politicized and weaponized as false narratives equate transness with the violent destruction of traditional family values.
Possessor is a film where the creation of untrue narratives and the slander of one’s true self results in equally devastating consequences for the perpetrator as the victim; however, while Tasya’s actions come back around to bite her, the enemies of the so-called trans agenda align themselves with fascism and illogical fallacies, hiding behind layers of privilege, wealth, and systematic loopholes. As trans people, we can only fight so hard without giving our opponents more fuel for their propaganda machine. Still, regardless of trans legislation throughout the world, our acknowledgment of our true selves and the power that comes from it is something they can’t take from us.