A Tale of Two Lukes: Experiencing Star Wars Episode VII as a Trans Fan

I remember, twenty years ago, when my father knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to watch Star Wars, the franchise which previously had been deemed too “violent” for my tender young eyes. I’d been given peeks, read snippets of books by my brother, who assured me that the hero of the series bore my name…

I’d never watched a movie with a main character named Luke before.

My name is no longer Luke.

My eyes were dazzled by the special effects and wonders on the screen. It as the BETAMAX version of the original film — it was modified to show “Episode IV: A New Hope,” unlike in its theatrical release, but was otherwise unmodified. I went to bed that night with visions of the Death Star trench run dancing on my closed eyelids. The next weekend, my dad and I watched the next movie… and I learned that the Luke on the screen had a sinister father. I was a homeschooled child. No one had spoiled me. I got the full impact of the reveal as if I had been there in 1980.

I don’t really know how my dad feels about Darth Vader. I think he realized that by naming his son Luke — I’m told this name was chosen at the last minute when I was allegedly discovered to be male — he had cast himself as Darth Vader. I never saw my dad as Vader, though — I always thought of him as like Han.

Which brings us to today. I spent twenty years of allowance money, salary, etc., on Star Wars stuff, but I never really thought we’d get an official answer to “what happened after that big ship blew up above all the teddy bears.” I purchased my ticket in advance, and drove from the evening rhetorical criticism class where I am a professor to a crowded movie theater to see a movie George Lucas told me would never happen. I didn’t really know what to expect going in, other than fanservice.

But it turns out The Force Awakens is continuing the franchise tradition of being about fathers and sons. It’s got a lovely female protagonist who I want to identify with, but what haunts me — what’s drawn me back to the cinema over and over again — is Kylo Ren.

I heard an audible gasp when the thing happened in the theater. I had seen it coming, of course — it was so telegraphed, Alexander Graham Bell deserved a credit. But when Han Solo was run through on his son’s lightsaber, I, probably alone in the theater, felt conflicted.

Because he called him Ben. “My son is not dead.” I remember telling my father that I couldn’t be Luke anymore, but that it wasn’t like I was dying — this was just the real me. I was bullshitting, pulling it out of a “how to get your family to accept your transition as smoothly as possible” guide, more or less. The truth was that Luke was weak, and I destroyed him. The moment that Han Solo — the father figure who I had always associated more with my father than Darth Vader — shouted his son’s “dead name,” I knew the confrontation wasn’t going to end happily… and I wasn’t sure who I pitied more.

I’m not saying being trans is like being a Knight of Ren. I’m saying that stories weave themselves into our lives. You know that scene where Beru calls Luke inside when he’s looking at the two Tattooine suns? That’s encoded in my mind and memory. “Luke? Luke? LUKE!” My mom would call me that way. I’m saying that when I faced bullies in high school who called me Skywalker, I thought about what Luke might do — even though deep down, I felt more kinship with Leia. I’m saying I know what it’s like to wear a mask and project a false image.

When Han takes the Falcon back in The Force Awakens, Rey exclaims “You’re Han Solo!”

Han replies, “I used to be.”

I used to be Luke. I’m not anymore, and now I’m watching the interior of my childhood’s imagination get opened up for consumption, a feast long-awaited. My new name isn’t anyone in Star Wars. It’s the name I was always supposed to have, the name my parents abandoned to name me Luke. But names have power; fans would do well to remember that while Kylo Ren may have rejected his birth name Ben, Ben Kenobi chose that moniker over his given name Obi-Wan.

Sons and fathers. So far, the series is still all about them. We’ve got a girl holding the blue saber, but what sort of world will she make? And what room does that world have for a sad boy who doesn’t want to be Ben anymore?