‘Stanley Schupak doesn’t live here anymore’: un/becoming transsexual and coming home in Duncan Tucker’s Transamerica

This article analyses the representation of male-to-female transsexuality as represented in Duncan Tucker's film Transamerica (2005). Using a combination of transgender theory and textual analysis this article argues that there is a normativising agenda in this film that makes transsexuality pallatable for non-transgender (or cisgender) audiences by aligning it with idealised (and conservative) conventions in Western culture for women, those of motherhood, heterosexuality, and family-centricity.