Trans Men on Film

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to present and discuss some of the characters in films that identify themselves as transgender or transsexual men (or just as men, but are born in a body that is yet considered to be female in society). Because of the lack of good representations of trans men in cinema, and also because of the only recently available history, only five characters are selected for discussion in this entry. The characters are: Brandon Teena, of Boys Don't Cry (dir. Kimberly Peirce, 1999), Shy and Valentine of By Hook or by Crook (dir. Harry Dodge & Silas Howard, 2002), Mikhael of Tomboy (dir. Céline Sciamma, 2011), Pierrot of Pierrot Lunaire (dir. Bruce LaBruce, 2014), and Lukas of Romeos (dir. Sabine Bernardi, 2011) all of them with some specificities that contribute to complexify self‐identification and hence trans representation.