ABSTRACT

While transgender people – Sistergirls and Brotherboys – have reportedly been part of Australian Aboriginal/Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander culture long before European colonisation, it is only relatively recently that documentaries and short documentaries (short-docs) have focused specific attention on the Brotherboy community. The term Brotherboy (sometimes “Brothaboy” or “Brotha boy”) is used by Australian Aboriginal female-assigned individuals who identify as, and live partly or fully as men. Within a cultural moment tracking the beginnings of a broader visibility of Brotherboys within contemporary Australian film and television programs, this article explores the ways in which the documentary as a form of visual representation not only confronts the discourse of Brotherboy invisibility in terms of self-representation/trans representation, but also how the form itself operates to inform Australian Indigenous communities of the various challenges Brotherboys face in negotiating their transition alongside strictly observed Indigenous cultural practices, and, in many cases strictly held spiritual beliefs in the expression and fashioning of the self.

摘要

虽然据报道跨性别者（姐妹女孩和兄弟姐妹）早在欧洲殖民之前就已成为澳大利亚土著/土著和托雷斯海峡岛民文化的一部分，但直到最近，纪录片和短纪录片（简称“短文档”）才将重点放在兄弟男孩社区上。澳大利亚土著女性分配的个人使用“兄弟男孩”（有时称为“ Brothaboy”或“ Brotha男孩”）一词，他们识别为男性，部分或全部生活在男性中。在一个文化时刻中，追踪“兄弟男孩”在澳大利亚当代电影和电视节目中获得更广泛知名度的开始，