title: Still Trapped in the U.S. Media's Closet: Representations of Gender-Variant, Pre-Adolescent Children.
abstract: Many studies have examined representations of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the U.S. media. Yet they have centered on portrayals of adults or teenagers. This investigation considered a potential LGBT population that has been neglected in media research, namely gender-variant, preadolescent children. Surveying the U.S. media at large but with an emphasis on television, the article reveals that gender-creative youth are nearly invisible. When depictions of gender-variant kids do appear, they often focus on either children who express extreme gender dysphoria or in some way signify the "tragic queer" motif (or both). The implications of these findings are discussed.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Mass Communication , Iona College , New Rochelle , New York , USA.
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kelso
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media; D009040:Motion Pictures; D009524:Newspapers as Topic; D013690:Television; D063106:Transgender Persons; D014481:United States
keywords: LGBT media representations; LGBT youth; gay media representations; gender-creative children; gender-nonconforming children; gender-variant children; symbolic annihilation