Transphobic tropes in contemporary young adult novels about queer gender

Abstract

This article identifies the dominant modes of discourse and critiques the problematic tropes and conventions at work in a selection of contemporary young adult fiction novels about young people with queer gender identities. Beginning with the role of young adult fiction, the importance of resisting models of binary gender, the trope of coming out and the convention of the hero’s journey, this article then analyses transphobic tropes: how the narrative lens of pathos functions in these texts to reduce the queer to a state of victimization, invisibility, mental illness, otherness, isolation and not belonging. This article uses the phrase ‘queer genders’ and the term ‘trans*’ to encompass transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid and other gender non-conforming identities. ‘Trans’ without the asterisk is the shortened form of ‘transgender’.