Synopsis
In Juno's video calls to her therapist, the fears, desires, and hopes of her hormonal transition process permeate. As her body and voice transform, they are immersed in a corrupted video game, which she has decided to fix.Portrait of a transition in player mode.
Director’s memories
Since I moved to Barcelona from Asturias and began my documentary film studies, my interest has always been focused on the body. With “DIYSEX” I dealt with the subject of pornography from a feminist perspective, in a context of redefining archive images. With “La Revolución de las Musas” (The Revolution of the Muses), these same colleagues and I return to talking about the body within sexual work, in a feature film with a focus on the History of Art. Now, in the present, with “I’m in love with my testo”, it is me, it is my body and the administration of a liquid hormone that occupies this short film.
Deciding to begin a hormonal transition was a long and delicate process, especially as a non-binary person. If we understand that there are explicit and implicit conduct manuals on how to be, for example, “a good woman,” the same goes for how to be “a good trans person.” Sometimes it is as difficult to escape these canons as it is to enter them, even voluntarily. Wanting to escape from the gender binary often leaves us without guides, without models. This absence can either liberate us or suffocate us, depending on our own life moment and context. In my case, it was more the latter.
The moment I was able to access it and made the decision to begin this testosterone journey, I knew I had to start recording this process. Since the end of 2020, I started recording myself while doing my online therapy sessions. It wasn't until much later that I started to understand what kind of value the material I was generating actually had.
We are very used to observing the processes of hormonal transition in a certain way. Those of us who have questioned our own gender have a whole visual image, given to us by social networks, of what a person looks like to transition, what their voice sounds like at the fifth week or how many new hairs have grown at 3 months. It is also common that, like any other content,
audiovisual media referring to the body image and, consequently, to beauty, consuming it in excess can slowly harm us. And how, if not in excess, was I going to consume these videos.
That's why, although I had this deep need to film myself, I wanted to move away from these same codes and find my own narrative. Generally, this content also comes with a strong confidence about what is being done. In fact, due to the way our world works, not having this confidence often results in catastrophic consequences for the outside world.
The decision to start taking hormones was not the only difficult moment for me. During the process itself, testosterone would continue to be a substance whose side effects (physical and social) often made my heart ache.
In his book “Testo yonqui”, Preciado tells us how the relationship with testosterone varies within a medical protocol, where “changing sex must be decided only once and definitively; it must involve a single decision”. The value of this project lies precisely in the opposite of what has historically been required by the State. It lies in the indecision, the fear, but also in the desire to do it despite it, in showing oneself vulnerable and confused, but full of eagerness to continue and to form one’s own unique relationship with this liquid substance.
With this documentary I am not trying to give answers or definitions. I am looking to accompany those who, whether or not they have dared to walk along these gender boundaries, need a helping hand in the face of uncertainty.
Juno
