Temporalities Beyond Transition: Form, Genre, and Contemporary Trans Novels

Popular narratives about trans identity traditionally rely on a metaphorical understanding of trans embodiment as a linear and unidirectional journey. This paper discusses how this temporality is questioned, reshaped, interrupted, and sidestepped in five recent novels by trans and non-binary authors...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStudies in the novel Vol. 55; no. 4; pp. 492 - 508
Main Author Pellegrini, Chiara
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Denton Johns Hopkins University Press 01.12.2023
Subjects
20th century
Autobiographies
Bildungsroman
Colonialism
Dawson, Juno
Gender
Genre
Lawlor, Andrea
LGBTQ literature
Literature
Narratives
Non-binary gender
Novels
Peters, Torrey
Rumfitt, Alison
Science fiction & fantasy
Solomon, Rivers
Transgender persons
Women
Young adult literature
Young adults
United States > US
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Summary:Popular narratives about trans identity traditionally rely on a metaphorical understanding of trans embodiment as a linear and unidirectional journey. This paper discusses how this temporality is questioned, reshaped, interrupted, and sidestepped in five recent novels by trans and non-binary authors: Torrey Peters’s Detransition, Baby (2021), Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (2017), Juno Dawson’s Wonderland (2020), Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts (2017), and Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless (2021). The spatiotemporal organization of these novels negotiates the linearities that are conventionally employed in relation to trans stories, as each text engages with the conventions of specific genres—from the Bildungsroman to the picaresque, from science fiction to “chick lit,” from young adult literature to horror—in order to move beyond the structure of the personal transition journey.
ISSN:0039-3827
1934-1512
1934-1512
DOI:10.1353/sdn.2023.a913308