Transitioning Together: Negotiating Transgender Subjectivity with Family and Other Trans People on Reality Television

ABSTRACT

The emergence of transgender-themed reality television demonstrates the shifting transgender media representation to focusing on the trans characters’ relational negotiation with family and other trans people. Through a discourse analysis, the present study investigates how reality television programs represent 1) the main transgender characters, 2) family relational negotiation process, and 3) negotiation with other transgender people in relationship to transgender subjectivity. This study found that the main trans characters subscribe to the normative cisgender White womanhood and heteronormativity. However, presenting the negotiation processes with family members and other transgender people not only brings diversity but also makes visible transgender subjectivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Transgender
• reality television
• transgender subjectivity
• family
• counterdiscourse
• media representation
• transnormativity
• relational negotiation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.