ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Gender, Sex and Sexualities
This article is part of the Research TopicCritical perspectives on gendered mental health issues/women’s mental healthView all 6 articles
Exemplifying Inclusion through Mediated Intergroup Contact between Cis and Trans People and Mitigating Prejudice in Select Tamil Films, Peranbu (2018) and Natchathiram Nagargiradhu (2022)
Provisionally accepted
- School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai, India
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The paper focuses on the progressive portrayal of trans women in select Tamil films namely, Peranbu (Ram, 2018) and Natchathiram Nagargiradhu (Ranjith, 2022) as there has been a significant increase in the representations of trans communities in Tamil cinema. The objective is to assess whether the select films have a valuable role to play in the prejudice reduction of trans communities. To achieve this end, the paper employs the Integrated Mediated Intergroup Contact (IMIC) model and Trans-Identity theoretical lens to undertake a qualitative textual analysis of the visual texts. The resultant combined framework of IMIC model and Trans-Identity theory suggests that positive trans representations involving dignified intergroup contact have more chances of eliciting desirable attitudes towards trans people and inclusive intergroup behaviours. The analysis spotlights that positively mediated intergroup contact between cis and trans communities through an integrated framework of both parasocial and vicarious contact can lead to empathy and self efficacy which would result in the comprehension and validation of lived experiences of trans people reducing prejudice and eliminating trans discrimination.
Keywords: inclusivity, Intergroup Contact, media representation, prejudice reduction, transgender
Received: 22 Aug 2025; Accepted: 13 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 J and C. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alamelu C
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