Debating Authenticity merges phenomenology, paratextual analysis, genre studies, cultural theory, and trans scholarship to investigate emerging debates regarding trans media's authorship, authenticity, and aesthetics across the first two decades of the twenty-first century.
By questioning how trans people, both on-and offscreen, are deployed within mainstream cultural industries as representatives of political and cultural progressiveness Paige Macintosh interrogates consultancy roles and their authorship status. Building on trans scholars' new attention to trans aesthetics, they also consider how scholars might productively counter the charged debates currently informing trans media scholarship by reconsidering the categorisation of trans media and beginning to reroute the power of canonisation from cis industry elites to trans viewers. Looking to genre studies
particularly the intersections of gothic horror, science fiction, and spectacle-driven genres like the musical or melodrama
Macintosh outlines their own variation of trans aesthetics, one that is capable of countering trans cinemas melancholic tendencies.
By:
Paige Macintosh (Victoria University of Wellington)
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781399540124
ISBN 10: 1399540122
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 01 January 2026
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Prelude: A Message From the Cover Artist Part I. Introduction Introduction: Critical Contexts Part II. Credibility, Cultural Capital and Contemporary Trans Films on the Festival Circuit 1. Trans Cinema’s Cultural Value on the International Film Festival Circuit 2. Performing Authenticity: A Fantastic Woman as a Breakthrough Text 3. Festival Credibility: Trans Consultants and Lukas Dhont’s Girl 4. Activism, Authenticity and Authorship in Rhys Ernst’s Adam Part III. Trans Branding in the Multi-platform Era 5. Emerging Trans Content and its Cultural Value in the Multi-platform Era 6. Ryan Murphy, Janet Mock and the Cultural Legitimacy of Pose 7. Transgressive TV: Euphoria, HBO and a New Trans Aesthetic Part IV. Towards a Trans Aesthetic 8. Generic Hybridity and Haptic Imagery in Jupiter Ascending 9. Pursuing Genetic Perfection: Trans Embodiment in Repo! the Genetic Opera 10. Trans Utopia in Steven Universe Part V. Conclusion Conclusion: Joyful Resistance Bibliography Filmography Index
Paige Macintosh is a trans media scholar based in Aotearoa New Zealand. They completed their doctorate in Film Studies at Te Herenga Waka University of Wellington in 2023. Previous work published in Global Storytelling and The New Review of Film and Television Studies demonstrates an ongoing interest in merging industrial, paratextual and textual analysis, while more recent scholarship is attentive to evocations of trans embodiment in genre filmmaking, particularly science fiction body horror. They currently serve as a steering committee member for Te Herenga Waka's Rainbow Research Network.
Reviews for Debating Authenticity: Authorship, Aesthetics and Embodiment in Trans Media
This is the first book to explore the value of trans content for global art film and US television media industries and the contradictory position of trans creatives within these industries. It helpfully contextualizes the ways that fans and industry figures alike frame trans creatives as emblems of authenticity and invites us to understand trans media more capaciously. An essential read for understanding of twenty-first century trans film and television.-- ""Laura Horak, Carleton University""
