Popular and Contextual Trans Representation : A Case Study of Normative Trans Representation in the Media

Sammanfattning: This thesis represents an investigative critique of ethics in mass media representation of trans people. It advances its respective set of ethics regarding trans representation by critically examining how contemporary capitalist media produces a more "sanitized" trans representation that fails to reflect the material living conditions of the immense majority of trans people underneath the regime of capitalism. This study also advocates a black feminist-positive transfeminism that critiques the assimilationist trans narratives reproduced across mass media and social media. This thesis thereby constitutes a case study of trans representation in media. It specifically implements critical discourse analysis and comparative case studies as its research methods, with critical media studies as its methodological discipline. This approach critically engages with the material in unison with trans studies, transfeminism, and media studies theoretical frameworks. This study thereby builds on and contributes to the research field of transgender media studies. Core findings in this thesis involve that neoliberal media integrates a preoccupation with predominantly white, "passing," and indifferent trans women who firmly rejects critical self-reflection. That is, a media fixation with trans women who essentially "blend in" among cisgender people as if these women allegedly represent the "exemplary" trans people distinguished from "undesirables." This thesis discerns this capitalist arrangement as a prejudiced groundwork that ultimately engenders conflict rather than cooperation between the academic labor of Black feminism and transfeminism.