What White Lotus Season 3 and Emilia Pérez Get Wrong About Transition
There’s a story we’ve grown used to seeing in media portrayals of trans people. It’s the story of escape. A mysterious woman (or more often, an aging man) with a past that’s tragic, unspoken, or locked behind the eyes. Secrets, lies, fear. Gender transition, whether pursued or just fantasized about in these stories, is a kind of self-erasure. A magic trick.
I understand the appeal. There’s something cinematic about it. Transition makes for a great metaphor if you aren’t fussy about the particulars. But that’s not the whole story.
White Lotus season 3 leans into this narrative through Sam Rockwell’s character, a man whose years of debauchery and spiritual exhaustion end in a moment of rock-bottom desperation. He expresses a desire to become “an Asian girl”—not as a genuine reflection of identity, but as a final escape hatch after every other option has failed. Only then does he find what he’s really looking for: not transition, but surrender. A turn toward religion. A way out.
And earlier this year, Netflix’s Emilia Pérez—a musical fantasy about a cartel leader who transitions to escape his violent past—swept up awards even as it was panned by transgender critics. Both, in different ways, treat transition as a kind of disappearance. As if becoming yourself means leaving yourself behind.
But that’s not why people choose this path. At least not the ones I know. Transition isn’t about erasing the past. It’s an act of belief—that there’s still time to live a life that feels like your own.
Everyone I know who’s transitioned has had to give something up. Family. Jobs. Comfort. Security. The ease of being understood without explanation. The ability to blend in. Some of us have lost everything. And still—if you asked whether we’d do it again, the answer would be yes.
Because clinging to something that isn’t true will never bring you peace.
Transition is not a cure for pain. But you don’t transition because you think it will solve everything. You transition because the alternative is staying stuck in a version of yourself that isn’t true. Of course it is possible to be delusional and trans—delusional about how easy it will be, about what your body will look like, about the difference between someone who has lived decades as another gender and someone who has not. About the curiosity that others will feel about this rare experience. Or the belief that you are so rare, so different, that you can’t be known at all.
But the real gift of transition isn’t in the fantasy. It’s in the clarity. The ease that comes from telling the truth. The softening of the shoulders, the deep breath you didn’t know you were holding, the return of sensation. To be seen and known is not an escape—it’s a homecoming.
Some people do regret it. Their voices are often the ones amplified. I feel for them, truly. Regret is heavy. But it is also ordinary. I hope they find peace and healing. But there is no government on earth that can prevent regret. It’s part of being human. We try things. We change. We learn.
Transition isn’t a guarantee of happiness. But neither is anything else.
What it is, for many of us, is the beginning of a life worth living. Not a life free of problems, but a life with problems that feel worthy of fixing.
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is today. But you do not plant the tree if you do not believe there will be a tomorrow—or a twenty years from now.
You don’t transition because you’re running from something. You transition because you believe there’s still a future worth growing toward. Because you want to live long enough to see yourself bloom.
And that’s not delusion. That’s hope. And it’s yours.
Thank you, Ari. Spot-on and brilliant. I don't watch television, I haven't the time, but your observations about the transitioning process and its motivations are important for others to see.
Lynn Conway, one of the icons of our community, died last year at 86. Her story is worth reading.
https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/LynnsStory.html
One of the quotes from the main page of her umich website, she was an emeritus professor of computer science, quickly became a favorite of mine. It asks the same questions you do.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? – Mary Oliver, from the end of her poem, The Summer Day
It's so much more than just shedding what you aren't and embracing what you are and can become. It's about authenticity, about not having to apologize for being... well, you.
If I had to leave a takeaway from my transition, it would be this: When we start down this path, there is no guarantee of success for something that we've not done before in our lives, and whose destination is unknown. It's the courage to chart a course, one that looks so different for each and every one of us, having the faith that taking back our agency to live authentically is enough to motivate us to get through the tough times. The closest things that humans experience to this kind of faith is spiritual belief, and love.
Funny thing is, no one ever questions pursuing one's spirituality or falling in love and taking a chance. Maybe that's because neither of those are permanent changes that cannot be reversed. And yet, so many of us pursue a path through a one way door because the need to be 'us' is so strong that we summon a bravery that only few who live outside of being trans will ever really get to experience.
I did this not to hide, but to finally spread my wings and fly. To not feel shame or fear that my feathers are so brightly colored. To believe in something because it finally means living. To understand that the alternative is to twist on a string in a monochrome world devoid of passion or a reason to keep going.
And yes, given the same choice with the same risks and difficulty, I would choose to do this again and again and again.
It's not hubris to believe that we cannot fail... it's the confidence to approach this as an adventure that so few will ever know the joy to partake in. It is that confidence that gives us the feeling of being somehow a little more special. In a world that does not value individuality and non-conformance, that's priceless.