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Recognition of Transgender Individuals:

As more transgender people are exposed and included within the realm of mass culture, it is important to note that the stigma that is associated with being transgender can influence the decisions, ideas, and thoughts based upon it. The wikipedia page for transgender lacks thorough information on how transgender people are viewed through the eyes of popular culture and mass culture. There is a short section on the religious aspect of it, followed by a link that contains the main article of religious views on transgender people. Rather than explicitly creating a section and naming it as “Stigma” (this would give negative connotations) the proposal is to create a section that would be titled “Recognition” and would incorporate not only how transgender people are perceived, but also how media representation, culture industry, and marginalization apply to the topic. These terms play an important role in the formation of notions for those who have little recognition or knowledge of transgender people. This section would mainly discuss the analytical side with a historical and political background on how transgender groups apply to the terms stated above.

A section about tolerance and political correctness should be added detailing the reasons why specific terms are considered rude and/or offensive.The lack of information and almost disinformation, intrudes on people’s beliefs. In other words, it challenges their opinions on what they know of as right and wrong. In religious thinking there is a definitive line between what is right and what is wrong and this polarity of thinking helps define their world. When the world becomes ambiguous those it called into question not only question what they believe but the who they are. Gender identity and the transgender community throw shades of gray into what would otherwise be a black and white issue.

The term “media representation” lacks a wikipedia page for itself, but plenty of other websites describes what media representation means, and whether or not the portrayal of different groups are shown respectfully and articulately enough. Many go into depth with the different types of representation- minimal and positive representation. Elizabeth Fierro (2013), describes minimal representation as representation that requires very little effort but appears to privileged populations as “diverse,” which results in two-dimensional characters and overdone stereotypes that become a disappointment for those who want to see themselves portrayed honestly in the media. Many of these groups identities, specifically speaking on behalf of transgender groups in this case, should not be glossed over and should not be the main aspect of their character as everyone has a variety of traits. When this happens, those associated with their specific group will sometimes feel the burden of having to represent a “conventionally positive” side of their culture/heritage/stereotype in order to avoid misrepresentations by others of who they are and how they are seen to society.

“Culture industry” is another important term to discuss in relevance to the topic of transgender people. The idea hints at popular culture standards and the applicability and significance in mass culture as well. What is described as popular culture contains ideals that are permeated through everyday lives, ingraining what we think to be normal. Some will say that this is essentially a form of manipulation resulting in large economic profits for those in power. Most of the endeavors of cultural industry become focused on economic success, and this becomes a key underlying role on how popular culture is perceived and absorbed. I would add proven real-life circumstances that have been a result of cultural industry to the wikipedia page because it would provide a much better understanding of how it affects society. For example, According to money.cnn.com (2004), when LGBT culture became more prominent within society, MTV capitalized on it and created a channel solely dedicated to that specific group. It was intended to provide a place where the LGBT community could look to as their form of representation within society. However, one of the largest issues of it was how it only represented a miniscule spectrum of the transgender group, so essentially those that were shown where the only interpretations and ideas society had of them. This, in turn, creates the issue of marginalization.

For the term “marginalization,” the wikipedia page for it contains multiple issues, mostly technical- additional citations are needed for verification, recognition is needed to comply with layout guidelines, and most quotations are too lengthy for an encyclopedia entry. Social exclusion is also the name of the entry for marginalization, so the term seems only present in the context of what social exclusion itself entails. Considering this, There could possibly be a separate Wikipedia page for marginalization and we could revise the meaning of it. Marginalization itself is a bit different in terms of how it is perceived from social exclusion- social exclusion accounts for ideas that have been conditioned by society and systematically mandated into certain social populations whether it has been consciously or unconsciously made; marginalization depends on factors that may or may not depend on human perception of preconceived notions.