But with her short hair and combat boots, she is a clear outlier, drawing the scorn of her fellow students, including the popular Emma.

Emma is the daughter of a single mother who is looked down upon in town, but she gains recognition as the star student and most popular girl in the school.

The complication in the story comes when Emma finds out she is pregnant with her boyfriend Miguel, whose role in her life remained unclear during her time with Billie.

Lee, who wrote, directed and produced Billie and Emma, stated that she is making movies that her younger self "needed to see", as she had grown up without seeing representation of herself as a queer youth in the media, and was left feeling invisible.

[1] Lee also relates that her trigger for writing the screenplay was actually a series of anti-LGBT tweets, particularly surrounding the legislation of same-sex marriage in Taiwan.