As in the written work of Preciado, Orlando: My Political Biography is dense with several layers that questions the sexual, biopolitical and social identities, while mostly focusing on the trans experience. I really loved how Preciado linked the idea of transition to the adaptation and filmmaking practices. Adapting a book versus adapting your real self to the world. Building narratives versus constructing your identity. Can we go as far as to say that the art itself is trans?

The only problem I had with the movie was Preciado’s interpretation of Orlando’s “transition” in Ottoman-era Constantinople, claiming that it was only possible after feeling like an outsider, or rather a subaltern. Preciado seems to consider Constantinople as a colonized region and builds his whole analysis of transition on this idea of oppressed land. Yet we know that the Empire and Constantinople oppressed several minority groupes. Guess Preciado too, falls into to the traps of easy binary comparaisons between West and East.