SYNOPSIS

In a media landscape focused on transgender women and mired in tropes about transition and turmoil, these 127 short pieces of wry, vulnerable and relatable awareness from a 20-year journey to becoming a man offer deep and playful insight—based in the human desire to live your truth—from an award-winning trans masculine artist. 

OVERVIEW

While transgender men barely exist in the cultural imagination, trans masculine creator Scott Turner Schofield’s "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps” spent 20 years generating 127 pieces of short content that deeply explore the gender-universal and particularly-trans themes of childhood, parenthood, love, sex, death, survival, and authenticity. 

In the live one man show on which this content was based, audiences called out numbers from 1 to 127 to co-create a unique story every night. Translating from stage to screens, viewers will be able to choose by number which Steps they want to experience, or select a thematically-curated collection. Each Step maintains its own most authentic voice, crossing tone, genre, and media to create an immersive world of story through digital video, text, songs, and podcast episodes.

Tropes of transition and turmoil have smothered the landscape of trans storytelling, diminishing possibility for trans people, and those who love us. The 127 Steps record a lifetime from a trans perspective: a childhood believing in the identity that came true; a gender transition as just one moment whose drama is felt, but which recedes in the fullness of time; the pains and also joys of a #RealLiveTransAdult navigating the world. The ridiculous epic of 127 whole stories center a trans perspective—before, during, and 20 years after social and medical transition—forming a collection with unrivaled depth and focus. 

This is also the story of a queer, non-binary feminist who consciously became someone everyone sees as a straight white man. Key to the work is an awareness, critique, and especially a sense of humor around the social issues that inevitably arise while becoming “the man.” As an exercise in self-awareness, the 127 Steps go 360 on all the intersections of gender, because they must, and because doing so makes a better story. 

This work garnered major support, won awards, and toured successfully before Hollywood’s “transgender tipping point”—indeed, long before trans acceptance came as far as it has now. Its longevity underscores the quality of the work; and now, the world has never been more ready to take this adventure.