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I'm Supposed to Relate to This? (Gender) Variant Edition by Valérie Robin Clayman, Kat Verhoeven
ellen_mellor's review
informative
slow-paced
2.0
I found this book - actually Clayman's Master's thesis - dry and unconvincing. I think this is partly due to her choice of 'trans moving images' that she analyses. Her conclusion that the ostensibly trans characters in three of them (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Dallas Buyer's Club and The Assignment) are not actually trans (which I agree with in respect of Hedwig - the one film I have seen) undermines her thesis. I find the fourth - Transparent - difficult because I hated it when I watched it and also because of the actions of Jeffrey Tambor that were later uncovered.
The book is more about Clayman's relation to the films than it is about any real discussion of how trans people are portrayed in the media and, unfortunately, it's very surface level with little that is interesting or engaging. The short pieces of 'autoethnography' written as scene descriptions didn't work for me as either reflections on herself being too short and constrained by the style or as scene descriptions.
The book is described as being in a 'graphic format' which I interpreted to mean as being at least partly written in comic form. What it actually means is that it is illustrated, the text pages are edged with abstract designs that I found distracting and the text is broken up into text boxes making it sometimes difficult to follow the flow.
There were a couple of points which I found difficult from a trans perspective. Firstly, at one point she talks about the T being separate from the LGB which, while true to a certain extent needs to be examined rather than thrown in as a passing remark. Secondly, she talks of 'removing the trans umbrella' from problematic trans portrayals in order to reduce harm to the trans viewer. While I can understand what she means - by refusing to recognise this character as 'like me' in any way it is no possible for it to hurt me - it is potentially problematic on itself. If you do not consider representation (a) a trans character because you don't identify with it, does that mean that someone who does see themselves in that character is not trans? While I am not going so far as to suggest that Clayman is a 'trans medicalist', this is certainly a version of the view that trans medicalists put forward.
There are good points - it is well written, readable, and thought provoking. The art is a nice cartoony style. The bibliography is extensive which gives a good starting point for one's own examination of the subject. Most of all, the book's existence - an analysis of how a trans person may relate to trans media - is an excellent addition,no matter how flawed I may have found it, to the slowly growing library of trans academic work.
The book is more about Clayman's relation to the films than it is about any real discussion of how trans people are portrayed in the media and, unfortunately, it's very surface level with little that is interesting or engaging. The short pieces of 'autoethnography' written as scene descriptions didn't work for me as either reflections on herself being too short and constrained by the style or as scene descriptions.
The book is described as being in a 'graphic format' which I interpreted to mean as being at least partly written in comic form. What it actually means is that it is illustrated, the text pages are edged with abstract designs that I found distracting and the text is broken up into text boxes making it sometimes difficult to follow the flow.
There were a couple of points which I found difficult from a trans perspective. Firstly, at one point she talks about the T being separate from the LGB which, while true to a certain extent needs to be examined rather than thrown in as a passing remark. Secondly, she talks of 'removing the trans umbrella' from problematic trans portrayals in order to reduce harm to the trans viewer. While I can understand what she means - by refusing to recognise this character as 'like me' in any way it is no possible for it to hurt me - it is potentially problematic on itself. If you do not consider representation (a) a trans character because you don't identify with it, does that mean that someone who does see themselves in that character is not trans? While I am not going so far as to suggest that Clayman is a 'trans medicalist', this is certainly a version of the view that trans medicalists put forward.
There are good points - it is well written, readable, and thought provoking. The art is a nice cartoony style. The bibliography is extensive which gives a good starting point for one's own examination of the subject. Most of all, the book's existence - an analysis of how a trans person may relate to trans media - is an excellent addition,no matter how flawed I may have found it, to the slowly growing library of trans academic work.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia and Homophobia
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