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. according to her, she made sure this film did that which she thought would never happen in her lifetime: cast queer actors to play queer roles, in a film directed by a queer director. 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. one tweet in particular called for "no to sogie. yes to family!", which made her want to envision different variations of what a family could be, and whether a teen-aged girl could step up as a father.