Basqueness, Bodies and Bees: The Trans Child in 20.000 especies de abejas (Urresola Solaguren, 2023)

With her first feature length film, 20.000 especies de abejas (20,000 Species of Bees) (2023), Estíbaliz Urresola Solaguren garnered critical praise and awards for the film’s sensitive portrayal of conflict and acceptance between three generations of females within the same family. Understandably, critical reviewers’ attention has focused on the youngest of these generations, a prepubescent child assigned as male at birth but now identifying as female. This article will begin with an overview of the cinematic narrative tropes through which trans bodies and trans children are often presented. It will show how the film’s queer ecology is both trans oriented and regionally specific to the Basque country, within a context where religion, tradition and creativity shape lives. In a film whereby identification through the act of naming holds such power, what is at stake in the representation of trans and Basque identities?