On the Necessity of Bad Trans Objects

Abstract

Despite newly affirming images of transgender people proliferating across US visual media, there has been a concomitant rise in anti-transgender attitudes, transphobic legislation, and trans antagonistic violence. The assumption that more and better images of transgender people are key to achieving transgender equality strains under the weight of an emerging contradiction: “good” representation does not necessarily mean reduced social or political antagonism for transgender people. Rather, the emergence of “good” (i.e. marketable) trans media objects illustrates how the most politically challenging aspects of transgender identification are increasingly forced outside the horizon of representability. This essay turns away from “good” transgender representations and toward an archive of recently canceled “bad” transgender media objects, offering new assessments of their unexpected value. Claiming badness as a trans property that must be embraced to achieve sex and gender liberation, it defends bad trans objects as unrecognized sources of transformative potential.