In Jules Rosskam's Creative Capital-awarded hybrid documentary, history comes alive when an Iranian-American transman time-travels through the LGBT archives on a dizzying quest to unravel his own sexual desires.

THE STORY

As Ahmad approaches 60, his long-suppressed desires for other men become impossible to ignore. Having grown up in an era when homosexual activity could block one’s access to medical transition, he can’t help but wonder whether his sexuality and gender identity are completely at odds. He turns to the LGBT archives for answers, where he meets a 20-something trans archivist named Kieran. Unlike Ahmad, Kieran is completely immersed in queer culture and wears his T4T (trans-for-trans) attraction like a badge of honor. At first, Kieran mistakes Ahmad for a cisgender interloper while Ahmad dismisses Kieran as a youngster with nothing to teach him. As Ahmad falls deeper into the archive, he’s quite literally sucked into the text—becoming a time-traveler who participates in the historical moments he reads about. As the boundaries of reality, fantasy, and history are tested, they realize that nothing is as it appears…including each other. When Kieran discovers Ahmad’s trans status, they must confront the confusing nature of their feelings for the older man. Ahmad, in turn, is humbled by Kieran’s deep knowledge of queer and trans history, which far surpasses his own.

Prior to his foray into the archive, Ahmad was disconnected from queer community and primarily understood his transness as a medical condition. Healthcare providers alleged the importance of opposite-gender attraction well into the 2010s, but an underground narrative has long been whispered within the community: after coming out as trans, many of us develop attraction for other men. A trove of transmasculine oral histories – shot for Desire Lines but presented as spontaneously-discovered archival material – helps Ahmad see he’s not alone. Ahmad listens raptly as a diverse group of transmen candidly discuss the evolution of their desires throughout their lives alongside navigating struggles with gender (non)conformity, fetishization, transphobia, safer sex, and the pressure to “represent” the trans community. Ahmad’s fear that he can’t be both gay and trans is quickly supplanted by a hunger to know the rich world that exists at this intersection.

Through a surprising blend of contemporary oral history, fiction, archival documents, and re-enactment, an intergenerational dialogue emerges that dares to ask how public forces shape our most private desires. Intimate personal testimony and never-before-seen archival gems bring to light the untold history of a group of people who have been doubly marginalized by straight and gay communities alike. Our protagonists dissolve the lines between past, present, and future as their intervention into the archive from which they have been erased changes the very course of history.

Desire Lines by Jules Rosskam

Exploring Transmasculine Sexuality

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