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EARLY ACCESS: Notes on Vanishing (Patreon)

Published:
2025-04-24 01:50:09
Edited:
2025-04-24 01:54:45
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Forcing myself to ask an unspeakable question: "Should trans people make ourselves disappear?"

Content warnings: discussion of transphobia & child grooming, footage of an intense police encounter I had.

✦

Still missing from the final version: credits, a bit of music, a couple minor visuals. If you'd rather wait, the final cut will be on Nebula & YouTube in about a week.

This video was an act of love, anger, and desperation. I put everything into it. I hope you enjoy <3

Files

Patreon version: Notes on Vanishing

Comments

Reginald Excellent

Another great video, really thought-provoking. I've never heard of those 75 SHOTS films, it's an interesting idea. One thing that stood out to me: did you pronounce "pithy" as "pi-thy"?

Ainsley Ellis

i was thrilled to see this Patreon notification, and I paused what I was doing to give this my full attention. I feel pulled in many directions in this moment: wanting to disappear, but also to declare my presence in any and every possible way. This video gave me so much to think about when it comes to identity and safety and community, especially for those still grappling with their sense of self, and I will surely come back to upon final release, possibly before then as my thoughts come together. Personally energising, and, as always, artistically inspiring. I enjoyed the aspect ratio just as much as I thought I would—which is very much—and I was excited by how you played with the extra space throughout the video. Bookmarking 75 SHOTS as well!

silentcrystaltears

it is incredible how naturally this video transitions from essay to documentation of a protest then back to essay as you setup a tripod and start monologuing in between incidents with police? it goes hard great work as usual

Sylvia Quinn

That was amazing. I've been working on disappearing in place, though I've thought about moving abroad and have had several people strongly suggest I do so, a couple with specific and seemingly outlandish ideas. Thanks for making this video, I've been asking myself where we went wrong, though I came to the same conclusion you did - we were scapegoated by those in power and just didn't have the resources to win that fight.

Kaede Fukuhara

Blew me away as usual. You always give me chills, every time, and open my eyes to something that I really need to see. Thank you, thank you.

Lu

Great work as usual, thank you for your dedication to it. I don't know why but I started crying watching the protest footage... On another note, this kind of resonates with my own experience, even though I'm in a country that's safe and I've never had any trouble except online. A few months after I started transitionning (like early 2016), after I came out to my friends and family, I came out online. I also created an Instagram account, initially thinking I could use it to document my transition. Had the trans flag in my bio, hashtags transisbeautiful and all that. Appart from pictures of cool things I saw, I would also regularly post selfies. I would not get a lot of engagement except from friends and family, and the occasionnal creep who wanted me to post feet or would ask the usual weird stuff. But I was still quite content with my situation. At some point though, I had a realization that hit me like a train : "I'm gonna be on the job market soon enough". And the prospect of being seen by strangers suddenly felt horrible. So I immediatly deleted all my selfies and everything related to my transition or to LGBT+ stuff in general from my socials. That was in 2019 or 2020, and the only thing loosely related to pride that I posted since then was last year when I went to see Drag Race Live and took some pics of the show. It's not like I'm completely stealth though. My partner knows, my friends and family know, and in practice, most people I meet and spend a little bit of time with in my personnal life, I end up coming out to them in some way or another, sooner or later. But my boss doesn't know, my collegues don't know, my friend's friends don't know (unless I've been outed to them which I wouldn't necesseraly know) and strangers don't know. I only post pics of cool things I see now, but never of myself. I don't have a trans flag pin on my bag anymore. It's definitely been quieter, I dont get a lot of the unwanted attention that comes with being visibly trans. The harassement either IRL or online, the people telling me I will burn in hell, the chasers asking me to be their dommy mommy, the cis women projecting their insecurities on me ("You're a GUY ?? But you're more feminine than ME !!!"), the invasive questions... I haven't been getting any of that in years now. But I can't help but feel like I'm a bit of a coward to be honest. It's weird trying to reconcile the fact that I'm not fully visible with the fact that I needed other people's visibility to allow myself to come out and be in the place I am today. Maybe it's time I get back to my local LGBT+ center.

Max Miller

really really phenomenal. this is good and important work you're doing. thank you

Sam

I cried a lot watching this.

Lynn

Incredibly powerful, beautiful and heart wrenching. Thank you for creating and sharing this incredible piece

maradia

Ever since your wikipedia article video was randomly recommended to me, I have been such a big fan and you have been such a huge inspiration for me - I even quoted the end of Transition Regret for an epigraph for a recent project of mine - and I think this video has become my new favorite of yours. You do important and amazing work with it, I really appreciate the way you articulate things and your stylistic choices here, and I just know this video will be something I consistently refer to as something to aspire to for my own work. I’m incredibly excited to tell everyone I know about this video once it’s finalized and public.

Pat Biss

God this is so good. I really do not know how to put it into words. There's been this, like, feeling of genuine actual terror droning in the background of everything for a *while* now and this video hits on so many notes of that I'd barely even realised were part of it. That "a better world was possible" line really sticks. It keeps feeling like any sense that things were going to improve and even the era of dogshit acceptance liberalism has this weird hauntological (if that's a word) "lost/denied future" thing to it now and the night shots with the cars and droning industrial noise and the wind on the mic and the artifacting on the voice absolutely *nail* it. The contrast of how loud all of that "quietness" sounds with the sequence at the protest is so, so powerful. And the way that virtually every spoken word is said on-camera and directly to it has such an intense effect. At the same time as it feels so communicative and human it also builds so much tension so well (especially with the notes on how World's Fair is shot) and makes moments like the security camera pan-out feel so unsettling. I was hooked in so much by the whole thing that the ending cut full-on jumpscared me. The video's so ambitious and takes so many huge swings and every single frame and line of it works kinda perfectly? This is a phenomenal video. It made me cry a LOT and gave me these really intense hair-on-back-of-neck chills nearly constantly. It's heartfelt and heartbreaking and thoughtful and nuanced and beautifully shot and at times straight up terrifying and it's really hard to phrase so much of what I want to say about it. I can't remember the last time a youtube video made me this emotional. It's really so good and I can't wait for the final version to be out. Really just such excellent work.

Nicky Addrison

i like the hard cut ending. i know you need to add credits and that will change the feeling, but i like the way the video just

evie!

Goddamn. I wish I had something more complicated to say for how down to my core this video resonates with everything I'm experiencing in an oasis surrounded by red state hyper paranoia. When will the terror come knocking on our doors, no longer dissuaded by frivolous things like county lines or city limits? But mostly it awakens that persistent unease I feel every day as I amble forward. A fear in my spinal column I don't know how to properly confront. If I have enough time to confront it, before something worse comes from without. Beautiful work, Lily. You are consistently the most thought provoking and life changing artist on the platform, from lighter days with the first lesbian kiss on film to darker ones like today. I hope you keep the light on on your front porch as long and as desperately as you can - even as that role shifts from Hermes to Charon, outside any of our grasps and fighting it all the while.

Erika Valentine

I waited until the completed Nebula cut. This is probably your best work yet. Technical bits like the CCTV footage and the field of view shrinking to a small, claustrophobic box during the protest were brilliant, but so was the overall narrative. The ending was perfect, and there were a few tears throughout. As a member of The Transexual Menace, it gave me a lot to think about. What we do is often self-labeled as visibility, but I think what we really do is simply make sure that our voices aren't drowned out by those who want to erase us. We are here. And we deserve to live.

Maxine

The algorithm suggested this to me, I watched, and then immediately subscribed here. An incredible, powerful piece. Thank you for being rad.

kyrr kark

I take my routine medication on Thursday, and I often find myself jittery and weak the morning of, sometimes I even wait a day, just to see how far I can go -- exercising that old habit of pushing myself. I'm sure you're familiar, probably we all are. Maybe it's just like being a teenager, a horny lover, a dying sun. Anyway, I watched your video and relieved myself of so many tears and fears. Thank you for sharing. Trans Day of Not Getting Deported By Any Means Necessary, or at least making sure people know exactly who it is they're fighting for if push comes to shove. Flowers now -- Freedom, Love, Orgasms, Wins, Ecstasies, Raves, Seducing Billionairs? We gotta workshop what the letters mean. Possibly forever, maybe just for a long time.