¿Miedo a las trans? La representación de las personas transgénero en la industria cultural latinoamericana. El caso de Colombia y Venezuela

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation analyzes the representation of transgender individuals in the Venezuelan and Colombian cultural industries of the last decade. With a ethodological approach that combines Queer Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, Queer/Trans Theory and Film Studies, I examine an extensive corpus of digital newspaper archives as well as two filmic productions from an interdisciplinary perspective. In chapter one, I demonstrate that the Colombian press has created a stereotypical and spectacular representation of trans individuals while also appropriating and commodifying trans identities to ratify neoliberal ways of living and existing. However, this representation is contested by Colombian films such Este pueblo necesita un muerto (2008), directed by Ana Cristina Monroy. In chapter two, I argue that this documentary, contrary to the press, portrays trans identities and trans temporalities from an intersectional, queer and decolonial perspective. Chapter three explores the representation of transgender individuals in the context of Venezuela's current socioeconomic and political system, the socialismo del siglo XXI. I examine how its newspapers create a racialized hierarchy of femininity where transbodies are constructed as inferior, unsanitized, and diseased in contrast to cissexual women, particularly, beauty queens. In order to have a broader understanding of trans representation in Venezuela, the final chapter explores the depiction of trans children in Mariana Rondón’s film Pelo Malo (2008), demonstrating how this film contests, through the use of allegories, the heteronormative principles that govern sexual identities under Chávez’s regime. This research project is the first to examine trans-corporealities in Colombian and Venezuelan media discourse, and helps understand how and why trans individuals continue to be misrepresented in Latin America. It opens a space for looking at trans representation not only from a discursive and textual perspective, but also a sociocultural one that explains how socio-political systems perpetuate gender binaries while commodifying the image of trans subjects. By studying the way in which regional and global discourses of trans identity intertwine in Colombia and Venezuela, this study enriches the current debates on sexual minorities in the global South.