Theorizing Queer Sexualities and Transgendered Liminalities in Transparent

• In Event: 72.017 - Liminality and Twisted Normativity in Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

Objectives: This research investigated the liminal spaces occupied by the characters in the Amazon series, Transparent. The work argues that liminality of gender and sexuality as exhibited in the series functions to contest and challenge the intricacies and intimacies of becoming a transgendered woman. Further, we investigated how these liminalities afford viewers an opportunity to experience public pedagogy (Sandlin, O’Malley, & Burdick, 2011).

Perspective: The series, Transparent, illustrates the many complex issues related to becoming transgendered. “Transgenderism” is broadly defined as the “breaking of gender roles and gender identity and/or going across the boundaries of gender to another gender” (Nagoshi & Brzuzy, 2010). Transgendered individuals may or may not desire sex-reassignment surgery. Transparent traces the lives of a family whose father (the patriarch) decides to become a transgendered woman. Jeffrey Tambour plays Maura Pfefferman, a retired college professor, a divorced husband, and an overly loving father to his three twenty-something children. The strength of Maura’s character is the vulnerability she exhibits with liminality. Building on queer and gender studies theories (Butler, 1990, 1993; Halberstam, 1998), transgender theorists are beginning to unpack the intricacies and intimacies of becoming transgendered (Bornstein, 1994; Ekins & King, 2006; Green, 2004; Hird, 2002; Nagoshi & Brzuzy, 2010; Wilson, 2002). As Nagoshi and Brzuzy (2010) claim, transgendered theory employs queer theory in the service of “narratives of lived experiences.” (p. 432). The series, Transparent offers scholars the opportunity to understand the intersectionalities of gender and sexuality. We argue that the series, Transparent, operates as a fold to illustrate the intricate aspects of queer sexualities, gender, and transgenderedness.

Method and Data Sources: A content analysis of the first season of Transparent was conducted, focusing on the liminal spaces that characters occupy throughout. The authors completed analysis of the series using queer theory and the emerging field of transgender theory to examine how characters’ gender and sexuality intersect with one another. Additionally, we included materials from our semi-structured interview with the series producer, Noah Harpster, and two transgender members of the writing team to increase our attention to the fluidity of gender and sexuality in the show, Transparent.

Conclusions and Significance: This paper contributes to the public pedagogy scholarship and fulfills a needed gap in the scholarship regarding intimacies and intricacies of being/becoming transgendered. In doing so, it offers viewers an opportunity to witness the liminal becomingness of Maura Pfefferman and her family members by employing liminality with queer theory to investigate the fluidity of gender and sexuality.

Authors

• David L. Carlson, Arizona State University

• Joseph D Sweet, Arizona State University