Trans Memory as Transmedia Activism

Abstract

This chapter describes how transgender people and their allies in the US combat trans erasure—the exclusion of trans people, especially trans women of colour, from public discourse and history—by producing transmedia texts (i.e., new versions, re-tellings, or extensions of narratives across multiple platforms) that are trans memory projects. The authors frame these trans memory texts as instances of transmedia activism, in that they bring trans people into American cultural memory and recruit support for the trans rights movement. The trans memory projects discussed are: social media protests against a commemoration of the 1991 documentary Paris is burning and against the Roland Emmerich film Stonewall; crowdfunding campaigns for films about Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and Cece McDonald, as well as for those trans women’s support and maintenance; David France’s documentary The death and life of Marsha P. Johnson and criticisms of that film; and the Ryan Murphy–produced television drama Pose, which employs trans writers, producers, and directors as well as the largest cast of transgender series regulars ever assembled.