Care Power: Images of Medical Authority in Gender-Nonconforming Graphic Memoirs

Often, graphic memoirs about gender-nonconforming experiences depict encounters with healthcare, not as isolated events but as recurring moments affecting how identity is lived. Drawing from disability, gender, and comics studies, this presentation examines how healthcare operates as a form of cultural and institutional authority in graphic memoirs depicting gender-nonconforming experiences. It focuses on the ambivalent role of medical care as both enabling and constraining trans identity formation. By foregrounding healthcare as an everyday instrument of authority embedded within trans narratives, this presentation contributes to broader discussions of power, institutions, and queer experience.

Luciana dos Santos is a PhD student in the English program at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Canada). Their research focuses on life writing, graphic memoirs, and graphic medicine, with particular emphasis on disability studies and gender studies. They hold a Master’s degree in English: Literary and Cultural Studies from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil), where they also completed a degree in English Literature, Translation, and Language Teaching.