“They’re so normal I can’t stand it”: I am jazz, I am cait, transnormativity, and trans feminism

Abstract

McIntyre identifies that docusoaps featuring transgender celebrities Caitlyn Jenner and Jazz Jennings, respectively, are particularly potent in their endorsements of transnormative ideology. The chapter analyses Caitlyn Jenner’s docusoap I Am Cait and Jazz Jennings’ docusoap I Am Jazz, arguing each manifests the specific conventions of docusoaps to make a spectacle of certain transgender subjectivities while simultaneously “normalising” them and perpetuating transnormativity. McIntyre finds that these transgender-themed shows’ manoeuvrings of transgender celebrity representation and docusoap aesthetic strategies serve to uphold gender binaries, align gender transition with medical discourse, and articulate restrictive transgender life narratives. The chapter also applies a trans feminist lens to reveal how these celebrity disseminations of transnormativity feed into broader social frameworks that subjugate femininity and womanhood, especially trans womanhood.