Queer Transgressive Cultural Capital in When the Moon Was Ours

Abstract

In this article, we examine Anna-Marie McLemore’s When the Moon Was Ours (2016) through the theory of Queer Transgressive Cultural Capital. In doing so, we argue that queer and trans characters subvert existing Westernized systems of care, which are frequently reified in existing queer and trans young adult literature. We first explore how McLemore’s text uses magical realism to disrupt common trans narratives in Western contexts, in addition to exposing the norms that continue to haunt contemporary queer texts. Next, we draw from the history of trans medicine in Western contexts to examine how multiple characters in McLemore’s novel use their cultural knowledge and practices to examine their identities, think about their gender and sexuality outside of Western models of care and medicine, and challenge the normative ideals that threaten queer and trans lives, both real and fictional. Lastly, we consider When the Moon Was Ours’ potential to challenge the norms of whiteness, medicine, and the body present in the larger corpus of YA literature. We end with a consideration of the implications of teaching When the Moon Was Ours and including trans narratives in the classroom.

Keywords

• transgender literature
• queer literature
• cultural capital
• when the moon was ours
• western medicine