26.068 - What's New(s) About Queer and Trans Youth in the Media Today?

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium session explores the current moment of media representation of queer and trans youth issues, subjects, and experiences. Echoing the frequent critiques of LGBTQ representations as lacking in their portrayals of people of color, trans people, gender-nonconforming people, poor and working class experiences, and differently-abled bodies, the papers in this symposium complicate this narrative of these representations as being “never enough” and texturize the conversation by asking: 1) What are recent media portrayals of queer and trans youth and experiences doing towards the educational experiences of queer and trans youth?; and, 2) How is this media presence acting pedagogically towards the constitution of varied queer and trans youth subjects and subjectivities?

Sub Unit

• SIG-Queer Studies

Chair

• Sam Stiegler, The University of British Columbia

Papers

• "He Wants to Sing 'Summer Nights' and Wear Poodle Skirts": The Fictional Imagining of Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Students in School Environments - Hélène Frohard-Dourlent, The University of British Columbia

• The Figure of the Trans Child: Tracing the Pedagogical Impact of Popular Representations - Ricky Gutierrez-Maldonado, University of Utah

• Looking Down: Why TV Won't Let Gay Men "Grow Up" - Sam Stiegler, The University of British Columbia

• The Etiology of Real Girlhood: Trans Childhoods in the Media - Mara Conroy Hughes, Rutgers University

Discussant

• Susan Talburt, Georgia State University