Karine Solène Espineira’s documentary Transgénérations is not a film to be merely watched, but a work to be absorbed slowly, almost like a manuscript set to moving images. Released in 2010, it stands as both a playful experiment and a deeply scholarly meditation on how transgender women have been framed by cinema and television since the late 1950s. Espineira brings together fragments of films, talk shows, news reports, debates, and fictional scenes, forming a kind of audiovisual family album that compiles decades of seeing and misseeing, of fascination and fear, of clumsy curiosity and genuine admiration. The documentary is dense, layered, and unapologetically reflective, and it is structured around reading as much as listening. Words slide across the screen while music dominates the soundscape, inviting viewers to engage through reflection rather than passive consumption.
The project began as an exercise in style, something joyful and even mischievous, although its tone deepened with time. Revisiting it today, Espineira has described the film as a perfect illustration of her academic work, a kind of living footnote that honors the many voices that were silenced, distorted, or erased in public discourse. Throughout its montage, the documentary holds up a mirror to the chaotic landscape of representation, exposing the ways in which transgender people were spoken about, spoken over, or presented as curiosities rather than individuals. It also revives lost and forgotten moments when some women dared to speak anyway, even when social norms tried to push them back into secrecy.
The material included in Transgénérations ranges from tender to outrageous. There are scenes in which interviewers display a bizarre mix of fascination and misplaced politeness. There are moments of theatrical melodrama, such as news presenters warning the public about the supposed scandal of reassigning one’s sex, as if it were a threat to the moral order. One sequence recalls how, for years, France did not recognize a single transition, not because no one transitioned, but because no official path existed. People who wanted to change their legal documents were confronted with procedures that stretched over years, and the demand for unquestionable proof of transformation was laid out with an almost bureaucratic cruelty.
The film brings in archival material about Coccinelle, the iconic French performer who dazzled audiences in glamorous costumes, sometimes described as a Marilyn Monroe who had eaten too much chocolate. Her presence on stage was both adored and mocked, admired for its spectacle yet never allowed to blend into the category of ordinary womanhood. Espineira juxtaposes this with televised debates where experts argue whether transsexuality is a perversion, a sickness, or simply a misunderstanding of nature. The tone of the era is present in every frame. A doctor announces that society is built on two sexes, as if repeating the claim loudly enough could erase the reality of people sitting right in front of him.
The documentary captures the frustration of early activists who begged for the most basic dignity. They asked for protection from exclusion, the right to work without ridicule, the right to change documents without needing to endure multiple surgeries, the right to step out of the shadows of prostitution and precarity. In one sequence, a trans woman speaks about the exhausting cycle of medical gatekeeping, the endless demands to live in a certain gender for a prescribed period before doctors considered her worthy. Her tone is calm, but her eyes carry a storm of fatigue. Espineira lets that moment sit long enough for the viewer to feel its weight.
There are scenes from fictional works too, moments in which trans characters appear as victims of violence, mysterious figures, or narrative twists. A patient lies bleeding in a hospital while doctors hesitate to treat her because they recognize her as trans. Another character declares herself to be a woman with a kind of defiant clarity, a line that carries more truth than all the pseudo-scientific commentary that surrounds it. Moments like these reveal how often the stories of transgender lives were filtered through drama, crisis, and misunderstanding.
Yet the documentary is not only about the pain of misrepresentation. It is also filled with glimmers of resilience. A woman proudly states that she loves who she has become, even as she regrets not being able to live as a mother. Another describes living as a man and then as a woman, and how both experiences have given her a depth of knowledge unavailable to those who never cross these boundaries. Espineira’s montage allows these voices to rise, not as curiosities but as testimonies of lived experience.
By bringing together so many scattered pieces of media history, Transgénérations exposes the patterns that shaped public perception. It shows how trans women were often treated as spectacles, as medical puzzles, or as moral warnings. It also shows how these same women pushed back. They appeared on stage, on television, in films, and in debates, insisting on their right to exist, even when that existence seemed inconvenient to the social order.
The documentary eventually becomes a conversation between the past and the present, a dialogue between decades of misrepresentation and the growing clarity of trans voices. The juxtaposition is sometimes shocking, sometimes painful, and occasionally unexpectedly humorous. Strange lines from dated programs appear like unintentional satire, while the women in the footage reveal a sharp intelligence that the camera sometimes tries to ignore but cannot hide.
Espineira’s work reminds us that representation is never neutral. It shapes how people are seen, how they are treated, and how they come to understand themselves. Through its collage structure, Transgénérations becomes both critique and celebration. It celebrates the courage of those who came before, those who spoke even when it was dangerous, and those who insisted on being visible. It critiques the systems that sought to define them, explain them, or control their narratives.
Today, the documentary stands not only as an archive of media history but also as a declaration of continuity. The stories it contains did not end in the twentieth century. They extend into the present, into every conversation about gender and identity, into every fight for legal recognition, and into every young person discovering themselves in a world that is still learning to understand difference.
Transgénérations is ultimately a testament to the power of voices that refuse to disappear. It gathers those voices, restores their dignity, and lets them speak again, this time without interruption.
Image credits: dailymotion.com
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