Brown Trans Figurations
ISBN: 9781477322147
Platform/Publisher: De Gruyter / University of Texas Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited

Galarte, a professor of gender and women's studies at the University of New Mexico, analyzes contemporary depictions of "brown trans people" in this scholarly debut. Documenting the murders of two Chicana/Latina trans women in 2002 and 2008, Galarte examines the killers' transphobic legal defenses and media depictions of the victims to reveal how "nontrans people understand transgender people, as opposed to how trans folk understand or construct their own narratives." Galarte also examines evidence of "Chicano/Mexican American FTMs" (female to males) in the historical record. The book's most accessible sections provide thorough and rewarding analyses of popular culture, including The Christine Jorgenson Story, a "trashy" film adaptation of trans pioneer Christine Jorgensen's autobiography, and A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story, a Lifetime movie about the 2002 murder of a trans woman in California, and a mural depicting "racialized queer pride" in San Francisco's Mission District. Academic jargon clutters the analysis elsewhere, and Galante cites other academics so much he overshadows his own ideas. Still, scholars in the fields of Latinx and gender studies will appreciate this detailed look at an underexplored subject. (Jan.)

Francisco J. Galarte is an assistant professor of American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of New Mexico. He is a coeditor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly and the author of the essay "Transitions: The Dolorous Return of a Chicana/o Trans-Fronterizo," in Claiming Home, Shaping Community: Testimonios de los valles . His work has also appeared in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies and Chicana/Latina Studies .


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