Trans Identities in the French Media: Representation, Visibility, Recognition

197 Pages·2022·4.17 MB·English

by  Romain Chareyron

Trans Identities in
the French Media

Trans Identities in
the French Media
Representation, Visibility,
Recognition
Edited by Romain Chareyron
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

I want to thank Judith Lakamper at Lexington Books
for her continued support throughout this process.
I also want to thank all the contributors for making this project come to life.
My deepest gratitude to Jeffrey Klassen,
whose input was instrumental in the completion of this book.

Contents
Introduction: Trans Identities in the French Media 1
Romain Chareyron
Chapter 1: Trans Kids in France: Unpacking the Media Frenzy 23
Charlie Fabre
Chapter 2: Mobile Desires: Paul B. Preciado’s Un Appartement sur
Uranus and the Marginal Western Subject 43
Leah E. Wilson
Chapter 3: Multiple Bodies: The Digital and the Physical in Arthur
Cahn’s Les Vacances du petit Renard (2018) 61
Brian J. Troth
Chapter 4: Dubbing Transparent (2014–2019): A “Ballsy”
Translation? 77
Justine Huet
Chapter 5: Trans(ing) the Rural: Metronormativity and Melancholia
in Sébastien Lifshitz’s Wild Side (2004) 101
R. Cole Cridlin
Chapter 6: Transfeminine Embodiment in the Films of Sébastien
Lifshitz and Lukas Dhont 123
Laurel Iber
Chapter 7: Circus Freaks and Pretty Monsters : Fighting and
Reclaiming a Transphobic Stigma 141
Arthur Ségard
Chapter 8: Peau d’homme: A Different Kind of Happy Ending 157
Annick Pellegrin
vii
viii Contents
Index 173
About the Editor 185
About the Contributors 187
Introduction
Trans Identities in the
French Media
Romain Chareyron
“LA QUESTION TRANS”
“La Question trans” took center stage on the radio show Répliques broad-
casted on September 11th, 2021, by the French public radio channel France
Culture1 and hosted by French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut.2 During the
hour-long program, Finkielkraut led a debate on the issue of trans identities
in contemporary French society with his two guests, Claude Habib3 and Serge
Hefez. Habib is a French academic who specializes in French literature from
the eighteenth century, but who has strayed from her specialty with her most
recent publication that also happens to be titled “La Question trans.” Hefez
is a French physician and psychiatrist as well as the Head of the Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry Service at the Pitié-Sâlepétrière hospital in Paris. As
the debate unfolded, two visions of trans identities were brought head-to-head.
Habib advanced the idea that in recent times, the prefix ‘trans’ is mainly used
in a declaratory manner, implying that the majority of people who use the
term ‘trans’ today have not undergone gender reassignment surgery and have
no intention to do so. Unlike former generations of trans people who under-
went hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, Habib explained
that younger generations have no qualms in declaring themselves ‘trans’
“without doing anything about it” (“sans rien faire”). For her, this attitude
is symptomatic of a society in which social media offers a soapbox for indi-
viduals questioning social norms. For Habib, this is not a step toward greater
acceptance in terms of gender diversity, but rather serves to hold people in
1