From Fascination to Fear: Perceptions of Transness in Postwar America

Author: Rey Griffin

Field of Study: Arts and Humanities

Program Affiliation: Source Project Research Program

Faculty Mentors: Will Glovinsky

Easel: 73

Timeslot: Midday

Abstract: A common piece of American transphobic rhetoric holds the belief that transness is a “new” concept, or merely a trend of the 21st century. Yet publicly out trans figures, such as Christine Jorgensen, have been advocating for transgender rights since the 1950s––and, indeed, were treated shockingly well by the media. This discrepancy reveals how perceptions of transness have changed with time: as transness has become more public and common, it has become a convenient scapegoat within American political campaigns. Drawing on understudied trans print culture such as the magazine Transvestia and the FtM newsletter (from the 1960s and 1980s, respectively), this paper seeks to track this shift, and understand how conditions have developed and perhaps worsened. As transgender individuals have altered their own terminology and fought to be understood, beginning with the work highlighted in these archives, they have only become an easier target. Due to the portrayal of transness as an attack against traditional family values in present-day media and politics, views of this marginalized group have shifted from fascination to outright fear.