Visual Framing Of The Transgender Community Analysis

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The Visual Framing of the Transgender Community
Background
“Transgender” is a term used to describe individuals whose gender identity is different from their birth sex. This term can also refer to intersex people and genderqueer people who consider their gender either both female and male or neither male or female (Capuzza, 2016). An abundance of prejudice against the transgender community stems from cultural assumptions about gender and sex. Society largely believes that there are only two genders, and gender must align with biological sex. Additionally, transgender expression is often associated with sexuality, even though the two are not related. The transgender community is diverse in gender and sexuality which creates a challenge for accurate …show more content…

Since the 1930s when the press started telling stories of transgender individuals in society, the transgender community has been depicted negatively. They are thought of as “social deviants or medical oddities” (Capuzza, 2016). In 1952, Christine Jorgensen, a trans woman, became a celebrity for having a sex reassignment surgery. Capuzza (2016) argues that this changed the discourse around the transgender community and only focused on the “physical transition process”.
Currently, the news is publishing more stories about the transgender community. These articles are often lacking quality by trying to contain transgender identity and expression. The news uses tropes such as the “wrong body discourse” and “a fixable biological solution”, when in reality not all people in the trans community believe they are born in the wrong body (Capuzza, 2016). By the media only showing on definition of “transgender”, they leave out the complexity of the community. This often causes the transgender community to feel as if they must assimilate into the confined definition the news …show more content…

In Capuzza’s (2016) content analysis of the visual and textual portrayals of transgender people in the media, it was found that although the media does portray more diversity in the transgender community, they still are not portraying the full spectrum which excludes the complexity of the community. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, GLAAD, conducted a study in which they found that 54% of scripted television shows that included transgender characters depicted negative representations of the transgender community. Additionally, only 12% of their sample contained fair and accurate portrayals (Victims or Villains,

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