Emmy-winner and former Saturday Night Live head writer Harper Steele will produce a documentary about the suicide crisis among trans masculine young people.

As The Hollywood Reporter first reported, Steele, who starred in the 2024 doc Will & Harper alongside friend and longtime collaborator Will Ferrell, serves as an executive producer on What Will I Become? from first-time directors Lexie Bean and Logan Rozos.

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Set to have its world premiere at the Berlinale film festival next month, the film reportedly explores the vulnerability of the transmasculine community by weaving together Bean and Rozos’ own experiences as well as delving into the high-profile suicides of Blake Brockington and Kyler Prescott.

“Homecoming king Blake Brockington and the soft-spoken Kyler Prescott were poets, musicians, and community advocates,” a plot synopsis of the film reads, according to THR. “This film traces their joys and challenges, their tragic deaths and resulting media attention, and the larger aftermath within their communities.”

Transgender youth activist Brockington died by suicide in 2015 after receiving national media attention as the first openly transgender boy to be named homecoming king in North Carolina. Prior to his death, Brockington had reportedly signaled that he’d experienced depression and suicidal ideation.

Fourteen-year-old Prescott also died by suicide in 2015, just weeks after he was treated for suicidal thoughts and self-inflicted wounds at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego’s youth psychiatry unit. His mother later sued the hospital, alleging staff had repeatedly misgendered her son, further traumatizing him.

According to the film’s synopsis, What Will I Become? will examine “why the transmasculine community is particularly vulnerable to living briefly and dying quietly” and explore “resources that affirm trans boys and the LGBTQIA2S+ community to provide an understanding of suicide-prevention practices.”

“We made this film for people who internalized feeling like a burden, people who had not seen a model for who they wanted to become, and believed the world was better off without them,” Bean and Rozos said, according to THR.

Producer Drew Dickler noted that the film’s crew is made up almost entirely of people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community and/or have been directly impacted by suicide.

“This film does not sensationalize loss or flatten trans lives into tragedy,” Dickler said. “It insists on community and accountability at a moment when trans youth are being erased and abandoned by systems meant to protect them. We are proud to provide a community resource for this moment and also hope to engage people who might not think this film is for them.”

“As someone who’s been steeped in trans culture for more than a decade, this film was an education,” Steele told THR. “As trans people come under increasing attack from all directions it is essential to show the harm transphobia enacts on the community but equally important to show is the joy they can never take away. What Will I Become? achieves both.”

Editor’s note: This article mentions suicide. If you need to talk to someone now, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. It’s staffed by trans people, for trans people. The Trevor Project provides a safe, judgement-free place to talk for LGBTQ youth at 1-866-488-7386. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

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