Transgender On Screen


Book Description

This is an exploration of the cultural representations of transvestism and transsexuality in modern screen media against a historical background. Focussing on a dozen mainstream films and on shemale Internet pornography, this fascinating study demonstrates the interdependency of our perceptions of transgender and its culturally constructed images.




Transgender Cinema


Book Description

Transgender Cinema reveals the scope of how trans people have been depicted on screen, starting with Charlie Chaplin's comic drag scenes and culminating in current hits like Transparent and A Fantastic Woman. It analyzes classic Hollywood movies, indie films, documentaries, world cinema, television, and trans filmmakers and actors.




I Am J


Book Description

J, who feels like a boy mistakenly born as a girl, runs away from his best friend who has rejected him and the parents he thinks do not understand him when he finally decides that it is time to be who he really is.




Out Online: Trans Self-Representation and Community Building on YouTube


Book Description

Trans people are increasingly stepping out of the shadow of pathologization and secretiveness to tell their life stories, share information and to connect with like-minded others, using YouTube as a platform. Out Online: Trans Self-Representation and Community Building on YouTube explores the digital revolution of trans video blogging, addressing ’trans’ in its many meanings and configurations to examine the different ways in which the body in transformation and the vlog as a medium intersect. Drawing on rich, virtual ethnographic studies of trans video blogging, the author sheds light on the ways in which the video blog (or ’vlog’) as a multimodal medium enables trans people to tell their stories with the use of sound, text, music, and pictures - thus offering new ways to construct and archive bodily changes, and to revise the story endlessly. A groundbreaking study of the intersection between trans identity and technology, Out Online explores the transformative and therapeutic potential of the video blog as a means by which trans vloggers can emerge and develop online, using the vlog as a site for creation, intervention, community building and resistance. As such, it will appeal to social scientists and scholars of cultural and media studies with interests in gender, sexuality and embodiment.




Corpses, Fools and Monsters


Book Description

A radical history of transness in cinema, and an exploration of the political possibilities of its future. In the history of cinema, trans people are usually murdered, made into a joke, or viewed as threats to the normal order — relegated to a lost highway of corpses, fools, and monsters. In this book, trans film critics Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Catelyn Maclay take the reader on a drive down this lost highway, exploring the way that trans people and transness have evolved on-screen. Starting from the very earliest representations of transness in silent film, through to the multiplex-conquering Matrix franchise and on to the emergence of a true trans-authored cinema, Corpses, Fools and Monsters spans everything from musicals to body horror to avant garde experimental film to tell the story of the trans film image. In doing so, the authors investigate the wider history of trans representation — an exhilarating journey of compromise, recuperation, and potential liberation that they argue is only just the beginning.




We See Each Other


Book Description

A groundbreaking look at the history of transgender representation in TV and film, by an of-the-moment and in-demand culture reporter. WE SEE EACH OTHER is a personal history of trans visibility since the beginning of moving images. A literary reckoning, it unearths a transcestry that's long existed in plain sight and in the shadows of history's annals, and further contextualizes our present moment of increased representation. The films and television shows that Tre'vell covers include: Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, Psycho, Holiday Heart, Boy's Don't Cry, America's Next Top Model, Some Like It Hot, Survivor, Tangerine, Pose, RuPaul's Drag Race and much more. Though there have been trans memoirs and histories, there has never been a book quite like this, nor is anyone more suited to write it than Tre'vell. "I don't remember exactly when I was taught to hate myself," says Tre'vell Anderson in We See Each Other's introduction. As the narrative unfolds, Tre'vell knits together the history of trans people on screen with stories of their life growing up and their formative experiences as a Black, trans journalist.




Beyond the Gender Binary


Book Description

Pocket Change Collective was born out of a need for space. Space to think. Space to connect. Space to be yourself. And this is your invitation to join us. "Thank God we have Alok. And I'm learning a thing or two myself."--Billy Porter, Emmy award-winning actor, singer, and Broadway theater performer "When reading this book, all I feel is kindness."--Sam Smith, Grammy and Oscar award-winning singer and songwriter "Beyond the Gender Binary will give readers everywhere the feeling that anything is possible within themselves"--Princess Nokia, musician and co-founder of the Smart Girl Club "A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change."-- Kirkus Reviews, starred review "An affirming, thoughtful read for all ages." -- School Library Journal, starred review In Beyond the Gender Binary, poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocate Alok Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary. Pocket Change Collective is a series of small books with big ideas from today's leading activists and artists. In this installment, Beyond the Gender Binary, Alok Vaid-Menon challenges the world to see gender not in black and white, but in full color. Taking from their own experiences as a gender-nonconforming artist, they show us that gender is a malleable and creative form of expression. The only limit is your imagination.




The Transgender Studies Reader


Book Description

Transgender studies is the latest area of academic inquiry to grow out of the exciting nexus of queer theory, feminist studies, and the history of sexuality. Because transpeople challenge our most fundamental assumptions about the relationship between bodies, desire, and identity, the field is both fascinating and contentious. The Transgender Studies Reader puts between two covers fifty influential texts with new introductions by the editors that, taken together, document the evolution of transgender studies in the English-speaking world. By bringing together the voices and experience of transgender individuals, doctors, psychologists and academically-based theorists, this volume will be a foundational text for the transgender community, transgender studies, and related queer theory.




Trans Britain


Book Description

Over the last five years, transgender people have seemed to burst into the public eye: Time declared 2014 a ‘trans tipping point’, while American Vogue named 2015 ‘the year of trans visibility’. From our television screens to the ballot box, transgender people have suddenly become part of the zeitgeist. This apparently overnight emergence, though, is just the latest stage in a long and varied history. The renown of Paris Lees and Hari Nef has its roots in the efforts of those who struggled for equality before them, but were met with indifference – and often outright hostility – from mainstream society. Trans Britain chronicles this journey in the words of those who were there to witness a marginalised community grow into the visible phenomenon we recognise today: activists, film-makers, broadcasters, parents, an actress, a rock musician and a priest, among many others. Here is everything you always wanted to know about the background of the trans community, but never knew how to ask.




Being Jazz


Book Description

Celebrate Pride every day with the teen advocate, trailblazer, and reality show star Jazz Jennings—one of Time Magazine's "25 Most Influential Teens" of the year. In this groundbreaking memoir, she inspires people to accept the differences in others while they embrace their own truths through sharing her very public transgender journey. "Jazz is one of the transgender community's most important activists." —Cosmopolitan "A role model for teens everywhere." —Seventeen At the age of five, Jazz Jennings’s transition to life as a girl put her in the public spotlight after she shared her story on national television. She’s since become one of the most recognizable and prominent advocates for transgender teens, through her TV show, interviews, and social media. Jazz’s openness has led to bullying and mistreatment from those who don’t understand her choices. She’s fought for the right to use the girls’ bathroom and to play on a girls’ soccer team, paving the way for others. And in this book, Jazz faces an even greater struggle—dealing with the physical and social stresses of being a teen. But being on the front lines of trans activism doesn't stop Jazz from experiencing the joys of growing up, from day camp to first dates. Jazz Jennings is one of the youngest and most prominent voices in the national discussion about gender identity. This remarkable memoir is a testament to the power of accepting yourself, learning to live an authentic life, and helping everyone to embrace their own truths.