Jill Soloway wanted to shake things up on the set of Transparent, because it had always been important for her that trans directors be able tell their own stories, and she wanted to make her hit show reflect that.

“Directing is a great privilege. It’s a privilege to share your vision of the world with, well, the world,” said Soloway, the creator of Amazon’s Transparent. “For too long the white cis male gaze has dominated. But we are in this necessary and exciting moment, where we are giving diverse voices access—to a camera, the director's chair, the script—and helping to pass that privilege on.”

For the first season of the Emmy-winning dramedy, all of the 10 episodes were directed by women (most of them by Soloway herself). For the second season, Soloway opened the door to even more voices, inviting trans creators to join the show and tell their own tales through Soloway’s story. And Silas Howard definitely has a story to tell.

Howard is a veteran of the San Francisco activist art scene, a member of the queer punk act Tribe 8 who fell in love with visual storytelling. Not one to take the easy road, Howard and his friend Harry Dodge decided to make 2001’s feature By Hook or by Crook, a Midnight Cowboy-ish crime caper that is cited as one of the first films to feature part of the trans experience.

“We totally home-schooled it,” said Howard. “We made this feature film without having made a short or anything, because we’re like, we have the urgent need to tell this story, to have these different faces on the screen.”

He added with a laugh, “It took forever and it almost killed us.” He means that last part literally. When a fire threatened the film, they lugged the print out of a burning building. “We helped children and families out, but only after the movie was safe,” Howard said, laughing.

The movie went on to premiere at the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and picked up the audience award at the 2002 South by Southwest Film Festival. That’s when Howard decided to go to film school, heading to U.C.L.A. for an M.F.A. It was while enrolled at U.C.L.A. that Howard decided to transition to living as a male.

“I’d take acting classes and it would just be confusing, because I’d be playing female roles,” said Howard. “I would talk to the acting coach, and he was like, ‘I understand, but you just have to commit.’ I transitioned right on the heels of finishing work there.”

Courtesy of Miranda Penn Turin

Howard’s directorial career slowly took off with stints behind the camera for commercials, Above Average’s Web series Hudson Valley Ballers, music videos for artists such as Peaches and Justin Vivian Bond, and fellowships, including a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship. He also works as a guest lecturer at Cornell University.

When Howard first saw Transparent he felt an immediate kinship with Jeffrey Tambor’s character, Maura, who transitioned late in life from living as Mort Pfefferman during the show’s first season. “When I transitioned, my professional life was like, Oh, that’s so cool, that’s great,” said Howard. “Family was trickier, it was harder, it took a longer time and there’s ways that people know you and don’t let you move forward. I’ve recognized that part in Maura’s story. “I reached out to Jill first season, because I just was excited about it, I wanted to throw my hat in the ring. I was very overt about that,” said Howard. The feeling was mutual, and as production for Season 2 got underway, Howard was invited to take over the set as the show’s first trans director.