Ok also I think the reason I Saw The TV Glow is so powerful (and everyone is making jokes like it got them to start hrt) even beyond its fundamental message of hope and There Is Still Time etc is because as a trans person there are so many people and medias that will ask you the question What If You're Faking It. What If It's Not Real. And ISTVG is the first media I've seen that asks What If You're Not? What if you're not and you keep going on like this?
And it gives that question a name and a physical presence and a weight and an aesthetic and a horror. It's like TV static. It's like falling asleep on the car ride home. It's like living with a light inside you crawling to get out. It's like suffocating to death. It follows that thought to its logical conclusion and, in a frankly extremely painful and hard-to-watch but deeply needed way, excruciatingly draws out what that looks like. Suspended animation. Stasis. A life that is not your life.
It says that choosing not to transition is still a choice.
