THE PARADOX OF TRANS VISIBILITY: INTERROGATING THE YEAR OF TRANS VISIBILITY

Transgender narratives have increased in the contemporary mediascape, bringing to attention important critical questions about the types of trans representation available to audiences. Using the mediated climate of the United States as a case study representative of wider global trends, this paper employs textual analyses and a historiography of the phraseology paradox of visibility, (Seizer, 1995; Tseelon, 1995; Jones and Pugh, 2005; Barnhurst, 2007) to interrogate which transgender images are proliferated and the consequences of their consumption. I argue that there is a paradox of trans visibility, which highlights portions of transgender existence while obscuring others making it seem that society has progressed much further toward genderqueer tolerance than it realistically has. Furthermore, this paper posits that repeat representation of hyperfeminine, affluent transgender women is creating a trinary way of imagining transgender people and bodies that can intensify dangers transgender folks face.