Abstract
McIntyre identifies that docusoaps featuring transgender celebrities Caitlyn Jenner and Jazz Jennings, respectively, are particularly potent in their endorsements of transnormative ideology. The chapter analyses Caitlyn Jenner’s docusoap I Am Cait and Jazz Jennings’ docusoap I Am Jazz, arguing each manifests the specific conventions of docusoaps to make a spectacle of certain transgender subjectivities while simultaneously “normalising” them and perpetuating transnormativity. McIntyre finds that these transgender-themed shows’ manoeuvrings of transgender celebrity representation and docusoap aesthetic strategies serve to uphold gender binaries, align gender transition with medical discourse, and articulate restrictive transgender life narratives. The chapter also applies a trans feminist lens to reveal how these celebrity disseminations of transnormativity feed into broader social frameworks that subjugate femininity and womanhood, especially trans womanhood.
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Notes
- 1.
Docusoaps borrow the drama convention of concentrating “on ‘characters’, usually known by their first names” (Bruzzi 2008, 139). It is clear from their titles alone I am Cait and I am Jazz uphold this convention. In keeping with this convention and the invitation of these titles, this chapter refers to the protagonists of these docusoaps by their first names.
- 2.
The term “cis” or “cisgender” denotes those who are not transgender; that is, those whose gender-identity conforms to the gender identity they were assigned as birth due to their sex.
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McIntyre, J. (2018). “They’re So Normal I Can’t Stand It”: I Am Jazz, I Am Cait, Transnormativity, and Trans Feminism. In: Dale, C., Overell, R. (eds) Orienting Feminism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70660-3_2
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