From beginning to end, What Will I Become? is a heartwrenching, empathetic and vital documentary from directors Lexie Bean and Logan Rozos. The weight of the film lies heavily on you, yet what lingers is the never-ending love for Blake, Kyler and all those who experience this pain.

50% of transmasculine people attempt suicide. Two young trans men, Kyler Prescott and Blake Brockington, took their lives at 14 and 18, far too young. Lexie Bean and Logan Rozos, both trans males themselves, reflect on the loss in their community.

What Will I Become? is a documentary that many viewers will watch through tear-filled eyes, and rightly so, as Lexie Bean and Logan Rozos’ film shows us how much work still needs to be done regarding not only trans rights, but also in the ability to support those who are trans. Yet with such constant pain and loss within their community, the building of hope and progress is there, a place for love and respect to be, and it is a beautiful thing that we need to cling to as tightly as possible.

Your soul is continually crushed in What Will I Become? As if even just we, as the viewers, are getting personally knocked down with the pain that trans men are forced to endure. To essentially have to flip a coin as to whether a trans male lives or dies before they reach their mid-30s is utterly devastating, and frankly, words cannot express how painful that is to learn. You think to yourself, “How is this possible nowadays?” and then you sit and think about how cynical, how tribal our world remains and, in some places, grows, and it becomes less of a surprise and more of a horrible expectation.

Yet with films like this, and the terrific Tomorrow’s Too Late, you see that the small ray of hope, the belief that that percentage will drop. That we will see less and less of these horrible news stories of trans males and females taking their own lives. Bean and Rozos provide that hope by telling us Blake and Kyler’s stories in a way that simple news pieces would ignore. We see the real them, and our only lament in their story is that we didn’t get to see what fantastic people they assuredly would have become.

The inspired choice to focus on the two stories of Blake and Kyler, two young men who were as polar opposite personality-wise as you could imagine, yet still devastatingly find the same end. We see how one’s gender transition can take vastly different journeys, with Blake being able to become an activist and to show the world what is possible when a trans male has that support around them, in comparison to Kyler, who was still so young before his transition that he never got that level of support outside of a small circle.

Of course, given his social presence and personality, more time is devoted to Blake. Still, it’s worth noting how tenderly Bean and Rozos interact with Kyler’s parents, allowing us to see how they have coped with their loss in very different ways. The human story is so strong here, and how Blake’s closed circle are still wrecked from the loss

Interestingly, while it could be easy to delve into all of the failings of health and government agencies that led to Blake and Kyler’s deaths in great detail, instead, they focus on their lives and how they were emotionally and mentally in the lead-up to their suicides and the aftereffects of their deaths. The dialogue about their deaths has been covered in multiple news stories, so it is refreshing to learn more about the two men and their struggles throughout their young lives. That said, What Will I Become? still rightfully points the finger at those who helped create an insurmountable wall that Blake, Kyler, and countless others could not climb over. Be it comments online or in person from people who unfathomably cannot accept them, or from health practitioners.

There are moments in What Will I Become? Where Bean and Rozos add creative flourishes, such as a stop-motion song to Blake’s words. While it’s still shown in a wonderfully delicate manner, it doesn’t seem wholly necessary to the story being told. We are already more than emotionally engaged with the film, so bringing something that feels slightly artificial into proceedings takes away from the power of what has been created. These and other moments throughout the documentary give it a slightly uneven feel.

While we do not hear the stories of the many others who did not survive to give us that terrible statistic in the synopsis, What Will I Become? is a film that is very much a tribute to them. That is the sensitive beauty of the work done here by Bean and Rozos. There is so much love throughout the movie that it almost brings happy tears, hinting at a hint of optimism for the future.

14 and 18, simple numbers, but with heartbreaking realisations that these young men never got the chance to age past them and see the possibilities out there for them. With wonderful films like What Will I Become? We can only hope there will be fewer tragedies.

★★★★

If you are a trans person or know a trans person who is in need of help, please contact Translifeline (US/Canada) Mindline Trans + (UK)

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