Trans Cinema
Making Communities, Identities, and Worlds
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Apr 14, 2026
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- $18.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
An exciting introduction to cinema by the trans creators who are innovating filmmaking to imagine a more inclusive world.
Since the 1990s, a largely underground upwelling of trans creativity has helped new trans identities, communities, and political movements come together. In Trans Cinema, Laura Horak provides an entryway to the wildly diverse and creative cinema made by trans creators, including those who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Overlooked until now, this rich collection of media ranges in genre from romantic comedies to horror films and asks essential questions about how to be human and how to craft a livable life in a world on fire.
Using the fundamentals of film studies, Horak reveals the innovative approaches taken by trans and gender-nonconforming artists to explore how we relate to other people, what it's like to have a body, and how we survive in an oppressive society. These filmmakers tackle the challenging paradox of representing trans lives when greater visibility is associated with ever-increasing levels of harm. In the process, they produce art that emphasizes trans survival and resilience and imagines a more expansive world for trans communities.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This expansive overview from Horak (Girls Will Be Boys), a film studies professor at Carleton University, analyzes films and videos made by transgender creators in the U.S. and Canada from the 1990s to the 2020s, demonstrating that "trans filmmaking can create new worlds of possibility." She begins by examining harmful stereotypes in mainstream media, noting trans characters have historically been used to provoke laughter, fear, or pity. The rise of trans activism and creation of trans film festivals in the 1990s led to a burst of trans-made films. This continued into the 2000s with the proliferation of affordable technology like digital cameras, editing software, and online platforms like YouTube, where amateurs could distribute their work. Horak examines key themes in trans-made films, like chosen families; often exiled from their communities of origin, trans people rely on circles of queer friends, as seen in Wu Tsang's 2012 documentary, Wildness, which explores how a bar in Los Angeles offers community to trans Latina women. Trans-made films also reveal the complex personhood of trans youth, explore sexuality and desire, and grapple with questions of embodiment and transition. Though it occasionally leans on academic jargon, Horak's survey is impressively comprehensive, as it includes big-budget films as well as short-form videos on TikTok. The result is a significant contribution to trans media studies.
