In the opening moments of the documentary film Transition, Jordan Bryon, the subject and co-director of the film, inspects his chin for hair. He caresses the short whiskers that have just begun to grow, expressing his nerves and the precarious situation he finds himself in. The film chronicles Bryon’s gender transition while embedded with a Taliban unit in Afghanistan, a country where same-sex relations were already banned before the Taliban seized control of the city in August 2021.
The stakes are high for Bryon, who, despite the risks, decided to stay in the country to film the documentary. Queer individuals in Afghanistan have fewer employment opportunities and are at risk of being reported by family and friends to the insurgent forces. Though the Taliban has denied allegations of harassment of queer Afghans, abuse is widespread, making Bryon’s transition an even more perilous journey.
As Bryon spends more time with the Taliban, learning about their daily lives and occasionally interrogating their beliefs, the tension in Transition builds around the secrecy of his transition and the rigid ideology of these insurgents. The risk of persecution or death permeates the film, and the stakes are heightened by Bryon’s own insecurity, making us struggle with him for his safety.
The documentary starts a year before the Taliban takeover, providing a sense of Bryon’s daily life as he tries to navigate the gender binary that had defined him for too long. He always felt caught between identities and “was always trying to get away from labels and the shame that comes with them.” His narrative functions together with a growing number of transmasculine stories in films like Nicolò Bassetti’s Into My Name and Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s Mutt, granting us the opportunity to explore the diversity and layering of the trans experience.
Afghanistan, ironically, became a refuge for Bryon, allowing him anonymity to shift to his real identity. “When I moved here, those things did not follow me,” he says, “Afghanistan took me in.” However, not everyone can afford this kind of anonymity. As a white Australian national and a filmmaker, Bryon is met with both suspicion and curiosity. Questions arise about what his position means in a country whose current regime is seeking international diplomatic approval.
The film would benefit from a comprehensive examination of the context in which Bryon operates, acknowledging how he is able to get hormone shots in Afghanistan and top surgery in Iran, procedures that would seem, from limited vantage points, out of reach for the average queer Afghan. The moral questions faced by its individual subject and his dangerous situation are accompanied by messy, interwoven problems that should be addressed in this context. The doc does, however, provide insights into Afghanistan under Taliban rule, with footage of abandoned aircraft, shuttered businesses, and empty parking lots hauntingly interspersed with Bryon’s life.
In conclusion, Transition is an excellent portrait of a transgender filmmaker’s dangerous journey, exploring his insecurities, risks, and hardships as he faces the Taliban while transitioning. It offers an important and inspiring representation of transmasculine experiences, shedding light on the diversity of the struggle. The film’s exploration of the complexities and dangers of being queer in Afghanistan is a much-needed contribution to the genre, and it should be viewed by people who wish to understand the depth of human expression.
