Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to American Prison Writing and Mass Incarceration
- The Cambridge Companion to American Prison Writing and Mass Incarceration
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword: Messages from the American Prison
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Forerunners
- Part II Revolutionaries
- Part III Witnesses
- Part IV Survivors
- 15 Men’s Prison Memoirs of Trauma and Recovery
- 16 Reading Wounds in Women’s Prison Writing
- 17 Susan Burton’s New Beginning
- 18 Qu(e)erying Orange Is the New Black
- Guide to Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To Literature
18 - Qu(e)erying Orange Is the New Black
Black Gender Nonconformity behind Bars
from Part IV - Survivors
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 October 2025
By
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to American Prison Writing and Mass Incarceration
- The Cambridge Companion to American Prison Writing and Mass Incarceration
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Foreword: Messages from the American Prison
- Acknowledgments
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Forerunners
- Part II Revolutionaries
- Part III Witnesses
- Part IV Survivors
- 15 Men’s Prison Memoirs of Trauma and Recovery
- 16 Reading Wounds in Women’s Prison Writing
- 17 Susan Burton’s New Beginning
- 18 Qu(e)erying Orange Is the New Black
- Guide to Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To Literature
Summary
The TV series Orange Is the New Black(2013–2019), created by Jenji Kohan, became a site through which to contest and explore Black gender nonconformity in ways rarely seen on popular television. In its first season, the show’s depictions of Black gender-nonconforming characters – Suzanne Warren (Uzo Aduba) and Sophia Burset (Laverne Cox) – produce variable results. This chapter argues that the middle-class back story of Burset as a firefighter produces a plea for relatability, distancing her from the common experiences of transwomen of color who might typically be imprisoned in the US. By contrast, the character of Warren is depicted as anti-assimilationist and threatening to the prison system, even as her characterization draws on racial and gender prison stereotypes. The exploration of Black gender nonconformity complicates historical tropes of Black women in prison with varied results, providing insight into ideologies of criminal behavior, queerness, and blackness.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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