Date of Award
5-10-2026
Date Published
June 2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Media Studies
Advisor(s)
Rebecca Ortiz
Keywords
fetishization;gender;masculinity;pornography;trans;transgender
Subject Categories
Communication | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
Trans people, especially trans women, are a highly-targeted minority group and suffer rapidly-increasing discrimination, often predicated on the notion that trans women are dangerous sexual deviants. Further, trans women are often fetishized in their day-to-day lives, regularly manifesting as abuse. At the same time, demand for porn featuring trans women has skyrocketed, but literature about trans women in porn remains extraordinarily lacking in both quantity and quality. My research critically examined how trans women are represented in mainstream internet pornography consumed by a cishetero audience. I performed textual analysis of internet porn featuring trans women through a theoretical lens of pornographic gender hierarchy, masculinity and homosexuality, and dominance and submission, using my own reflexivity as a trans woman to provide a unique and much-needed perspective to the topic. I found that trans women were often portrayed as a subordinated masculinity akin to that of a homosexual man. Further, a great number of portrayals were informed by existing bigotry against and stereotypes of trans women, such as the trans woman as a dangerous predator infiltrating women’s spaces or the trans woman as a man attempting to perform femininity. These findings demonstrate that, in pornography, trans women are often portrayed, either subtextually or overtly, as men instead of women, informing and being informed by bigoted societal rhetoric.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Van Linden, May, "Feminization, Fetishization, and Gender Hierarchy: How Trans Women are Represented in Porn for a Cishetero Audience" (2026). Theses - ALL. 1018.
https://surface.syr.edu/thesis/1018
