Australian Jordan Bryon, an experienced journalist and filmmaker, had been in Afghanistan for five years when the Americans withdrew from the country in 2021 and the Taliban took power. This transition more or less coincided with his own physical changes: as a trans man, he started taking testosterone injections and was awaiting surgery.
For a report for The New York Times, Bryon gains access to a Taliban unit. While he films with them and is accepted as a man among men, he struggles with the moral implications of his choices. If he were to reveal his trans identity, it would endanger him irrevocably. At the same time, not being honest about it feels like cheating. The Taliban’s acceptance of him is also confusing, because it leads him to feel sympathy for them, when because of their ideas he should feel only hatred and fear.
Transition is a film full of paradoxes that offers a glimpse into the exceptional life of a trans man, whom we follow not only in Afghanistan, but also back in Australia with friends and family.
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