Congress Paper Abstract

Illegible bodies: the life and death of Brandon Teena

Judith Halbestram 

Email: jhalberstam@ucsd.edu

Abstract. The murder of Brandon Teena in rural Nebraska in 1991 has prompted an outpouring of narratives about this transgender subject’s life and death. With two mainstream films in the offing, an independent video making the rounds of queer film festivals, numerous newspaper stories, a novel and a mass market true crime book already in print, this story already commands an enormous amount of both queer and mainstream attention. In this paper, I attempt to make sense of the narratives produced in the wake of Brandon Teena’s murder about gender, class, murder and desire.

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