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The UCLA Film & Television Archive holds a wide selection of motion picture and television titles made by or depicting transgender, two-spirit, gender-expansive and intersex (TGI) people. These moving images span from the early 20th century to today and provide an opportunity to survey a complex history of representations related to TGI people within the commercial mainstream media—made by predominately cisgender filmmakers—and the diverse range of productions from TGI media makers.
Most cinema and media studies writings about media and TGI people emphasize on-screen representation rather than work by TGI creators. Laura Horak’s article, “Tracing the History of Trans and Gender Variant Filmmakers” (Transgender Media, 2017), and the development of the Transgender Media Portal are helping to change this narrative. In reflecting the scope of the Archive’s holdings, this research guide draws on how Horak uses the terms “trans” and “gender variant” to encompass people who find or historically have found any of the following terms meaningful for themselves: “transgender, transsexual, transvestite,” “butches, faeries, sissies, drag queens, drag kings, travestis, intersex people, and professional gender impersonators” (Horak, p. 10). Other key scholars in this subject area are Jack Halberstam, Cáel M. Keegan, Helen Hok-Sze Leung, José Esteban Muñoz, Eliza Steinbock and Susan Stryker.