One of the ways we determine quality in an artistic creation is whether it stands the test of time. Or, more to the point, the test of the times in which it is experienced.

Picasso’s “Guernica,” for example, was inspired by the bombing of the Basque village of that name during the Spanish Civil War. It’s safe to say that many who marvel at the profundity of its visual statement have no idea about the specific incident that inspired the painting’s creation. Instead, we look on it and perhaps think of the totality of war in human history, or perhaps specific conflicts in our lifetimes or those of our parents — World War II, Vietnam, Korea and more recently, Iraq and Afghanistan.

That is as it should be: Art should provoke us to bring our own context to the process of experiencing it, and that’s certainly something you’ll feel watching Jason Benjamin’s “Suited,” airing on HBO on Monday, June 20. What we now bring to watching this thoughtful and beautifully tailored documentary could never have been known as it was being made.

Rae Tutera and Daniel Friedman are the owners of Bindle & Keep, the small Brooklyn custom tailor shop specializing in creating clothes for transgender people. The film introduces us to several clients whose individual stories are about much more than fabric and fit. Everett is an Atlanta law school student and transgender man. He interviews for a job and is told he’d be perfect for it, but the law firm isn’t prepared to hire a transgender person. “We just don’t have the things that would make it comfortable for you or for anyone else,” he says he’s told.

Derek is a transgender man from a small Pennsylvania town who needs a suit for his wedding to Joanna, who considered herself lesbian until she met him.

Jillian is a transgender woman who wants the perfect suit to wear when she argues an important transgender case before the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Aidan is a 12-year-old transgender boy from Arizona who needs a suit for his forthcoming bar mitzvah. He enjoys support from his family — his grandmother contacts Bindle & Keep on Aidan’s behalf — and despite his youth, he wants a bar mitzvah and not a bat mitzvah: It’s about Aidan becoming a man.

On a practical level, it’s a struggle for transgender people to find clothes that fit them correctly.

“I spent countless hours walking through department stores, and there’s like nothing here for me at all,” says Everett.

It’s not just about shopping, though, for Everett or any of the trans or gender-queer subjects of Benjamin’s film. It’s about an affirmation of who they are as people.

Understanding that is part of the context viewers will bring to “Suited,” but that context has deepened in just the past few days.

I first screened the film nearly two weeks ago. I found it smart, poignant and important. Before writing this review, I watched it again.

In between, Orlando happened. It didn’t personally happen to me and it didn’t personally happen to most of the people who will watch “Suited” on HBO. But the deaths of 49 people at the hand of a gunmen at a gay club in Florida on Sunday, June 12, will — and should — come to mind as you watch Benjamin’s film.

Like most of the dead and wounded in Orlando, the subjects of “Suited” ask to be accepted for who they are. You may not fully understand what it means to be transgender, but understanding “other,” no matter how it is defined, is fundamental to a progressive civilization. The nation’s history is a history of otherness, of waves of social and political outliers struggling for acceptance and respect, enduring indignities and worse in the process.

It will take more than an informative and engaging documentary on a pair of custom tailors to prevent another Orlando, but “Suited” makes a valuable contribution to understanding what it means to be transgender in the U.S. in 2016.

The film ends with a Bindle & Keep fashion show, as the trans people we’ve come to know in “Suited” and many others proudly strut the catwalk to the cheers of a live audience.

At one point, two older women show up to participate in the show. Rae Tutera greets them and directs them to the backstage area.

“It’s a little crowded back there,” she warns, “because there’s tons of us.”

David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: dwiegand@sfchronicle.com Twitter: WaitWhat_TV Follow me on Facebook.

Suited: Documentary by Jason Benjamin. 9 p.m. Monday, June 20, on HBO.