The protagonist Owen, played by Black actor Justice Smith, embodies repressed trans identity through denial and dysphoria, culminating in a gut-wrenching metaphor for the horror of living inauthentically as one's assigned gender. His friend Maddy transitions and urges him to embrace his 'true self,' positioning gender identity crisis as the central emotional driver and conflict. Director Jane Schoenbrun, who is trans/nonbinary, explicitly crafts the film as a new metaphor for the trans experience, moving beyond simplistic 'butterfly' narratives to depict post-transition stagnation and the terror of egg-cracking denial.

This ideological core permeates the storytelling, with the TV show's 'Midnight Realm' symbolizing a buried queer/trans reality beneath suburban normalcy. Casting a cis Black man in the lead trans-coded role raises questions of authenticity, though Schoenbrun defended it without DEI mandates evident. Absent are overt lectures or race-swaps, but the trans framework dominates, alienating general audiences who found it pretentious or boring while critics in progressive circles hailed it as profound. Low box office reflects its niche appeal to identity-focused viewers, prioritizing activist metaphor over broad entertainment, resulting in a divisive arthouse product that embeds social justice identity politics at its heart, compromising universal horror appeal.