The History of Trans Representation in American Television and Film Genres

Trans theory: Complexifying positionality, complexifying representation

“…In her recent monograph charting the history of trans representation in American television and film between 1965 and 2018, Abbott (2022) critiqued the explicit transphobia that sustains the trope of the "trans psychotic killer" in popular crime films such as Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) and The Silence of the Lambs (Demme, 1991). While such representations might be easy to spot and may appear to be relics of an unenlightened past, explicit transphobia is still rampant in mainstream media today.…”

“…As discussed above, although there is a notable lack of empirical studies that have examined trans representation in modern language‐learning materials, experience allows me to predict with some certainty that an analysis of virtually any commercially produced language will fail to turn up any signs of life outside of cisnormativity, thus perpetuating normative erasure, or what might be referred to more specifically as cisnormative erasure . My reading of scholarship and commentary on trans representation in the media (Abbott, 2022; Andrews et al., 2023; Crawley, 2017; Feder, 2020; Johnson, 2016; Knisely, 2022; Miller, 2019) suggests that the other latent effects have been identified in many instances of trans representation. Thus, the following articulations may be useful sensitizing tools to guide the selection of affirming trans representations for inclusion as content in the modern language classroom, especially for those whose social location may protect them from feeling the sting of problematic trans representation directly.…”

Towards Representational Adequacy: A Critical Analysis of Transgender Representation in Tell Me Why

“…These cultural forces are essential contexts for understanding Tyler's significance. While transgender people have been present in the media for a long time (Cox & Feder, 2020;Phillips, 2006;Abbott, 2022), the turn toward more positive and complex representation is recent. Kidd (2015), quoting Jack Halberstam, argues that: until 10 years ago if there was a trans character … they were either a problem or a criminal … this humanization … is clearly new … and so we are reminded of the relationship between discourse and power, and of the dynamism of media representations which change over time, but often achingly slowly (p.52).…”

Troubling genderS and consumer well‐being: Going across, between and beyond the binaries to gender/sex/ual and intersectional diversity

“…Today, as reproductive rights and gender/sex/ual fluidity become increasingly acknowledged and accepted in some legal, medical, psychological, and media arenas, in large part due to the advocacy of affected groups (Berer & Hoggart, 2019;Stryker, 2006), backlash politics abound (Alter & Zürn, 2020;Elster, 2022;Pearce et al, 2020). The result has been repressive laws and bills (ACLU, 2023;Bhandari, 2023;ILGA-Europe, 2023), restrictions to accessing critical healthcare needs (e.g., reproductive care, gender affirming care) (Costa, 2023;Haines et al, 2023;HRC Foundation, 2023;Steinfield et al, 2023), bans and invasive requirements in athletics for trans people (Barry-Hinton, 2022), gender panics surrounding bathroom access (Schilt & Westbrook, 2015), misrepresentations (Abbott, 2022), policing of education that restricts how teachers talk about gender (Burga, 2023;Mason & Hamilton, 2023), and the proliferation of unsafe spaces (Fischer, 2019;ILGA-Europe, 2023; in this special issue see Duncan-Shepherd & Hamilton, 2022;Hansman & Drenten, 2024, and the panel discussion with Bettany, Burchiellaro, & Venkatraman). These conditions have detrimental impacts on well-being, which are magnified for those who already face other disadvantages (e.g., lower socioeconomic power, racial and/or disability biases, lack of citizenship status).…”