ABSTRACT
This chapter places queer and transgender studies of digital media in longer legacies of queer and transgender media representation, cultural production, audiences, and regulation. Tracing the emergence of the concepts ‘queer’ and ‘transgender’ in relation to critiques of ‘normalcy’, the chapter explores how digital media and geopolitical power relations forge what we can call ourselves and how we can live our complex gendered and sexual selves. The chapter explores the tension between ‘queering’ and ‘transing’ media, as in looking for queer and trans sensibilities behind apparently straight and cisgender surfaces, and the current wealth of queer and transgender media representation, production, and online communities. However, the increased visibility has not been just liberating: it also contributes to regulation, censorship, and violence towards queer and transgender content and users. Although transgender studies focus more on gender and queer studies more on sexuality, the chapter argues they are connected in their quest to critique limiting notions of ‘normalcy’ and envision sexualities and genders as plural and in motion. The chapter is followed by Zhuanxu Xu’s critical discussion of the changing trans terminology in China through the influence of platform economies.
