Removing the radical: Irish trans masculine individuals’ engagement with offline media representations of trans identities

This paper explores how trans masculine people living in Ireland perceive and engage with representations of trans identities in different outlets of popular offline media. Drawing on qualitative interviews from 2019 with seven Irish trans masculine individuals, aged 19-37, this study explores these participants’ perceptions of offline media representations of trans people as overwhelmingly sensationalist and reductionist, while investigating the meaningful ways they have been able to engage with limited nuanced representations. Placed within the cultural context of contemporary Ireland, this article examines the tensions these participants described between popular narratives of transnormative gender identities and their own lived experiences of gender. This study’s findings suggest that reductionist and tokenistic offline media representations of trans identities were regarded as harmful and devaluing of these individuals’ experiences, while select nuanced representations were used as sites of self-reflection and initiating dialogue with others. The majority of participants agreed that trans representation in offline media could play an influential role in shaping individual experiences and expressions of trans masculinity and conveyed their desire for more varied trans representation in Irish and international offline media.