Category: gender

Categories
gender personal sexism writing

Too long for Twitter: I used to be a “strong female character”

I’ve realized that one of the reasons I’ve become increasingly frustrated with the whole you can tell she’s a strong female character because she spends all of her time rolling her eyes and threatening to punch the boys (as seen in The Maze Runner, for example) is that as a teenager I basically was that character. I spent a lot of my time threatening to punch people and hanging with the guys by being pretty aggressive.

You know what that got me told? You’re not like other girls. You’re cool.

And in a sort of chicken and egg feedback loop, that made me willing to laugh at and tacitly encourage some incredibly misogynist joking and “pranks.” Which also, by the way, apparently later fed into the idea that I was a butch lesbian and it was totally cool for guys to engage in some pretty sexist banter about various other women with me.

I’m ashamed of a lot of that in retrospect.

I obviously don’t think there’s anything wrong with being butch or having a masculine presentation. (Duh.) But the more I think about how that so often translates out into buying in to the most toxic aspects of masculinity:

  1. Casual violence
  2. Casual misogyny
  3. Belief that the masculine is on its face superior to the feminine
  4. Being not like the other girls or cool means abandoning other women and considering them inferior

…the more it really upsets me.

I’d like kids who were like me, struggling with being a girl while finding the feminine an ill-fitting societal construct, to be able to read about characters like them. I pretty much stopped reading books about girls/women at that age because I was reading adult SF/F and there weren’t a whole lot of female main characters to begin with, but also because in all honesty, reading about female characters putting on makeup and dresses and carrying their vampire killing guns in their purses—all of which are perfectly okay things, please don’t get me wrong here—made me feel inadequate and like an outsider. Like my books were telling me I was doing the whole being a girl thing wrong. And at that point, I generally defaulted to reading about men, because at least men got to wear trousers and sensible shoes.

(Nowadays, I do not have a problem with this any more. Probably because I’m no longer an adolescent, self-hating hot mess, and I’ve also developed a lot more empathy as a reader; I like reading about people who are very different from me.)

So basically what I’m saying is that I want to see female characters who are strong in a lot of different ways. And I want to see female characters who get to be “masculine” without doing it in a toxic, hurtful way. I want to see “masculinity” used as a character trait, not the marker that a character is different and better and strong.

Because as I’ve pointed out before, not threatening to punch people actually takes a hell of a lot more strength.

(Was going to tweet these thoughts. Realized I had way too much to say. Apparently 500 words of way too much to say.)

Categories
gender logical fallacies science fiction

Geeze, Larry Correia, leave some straw men for the rest of us.

So, Larry Correia wrote a fantastically dickish blog post about Alex Dally MacFarlane’s post on Tor.com in regards to the default gender binary represented in mainstream SF literature. The post in question involved Alex making the incredibly revolutionary1 observation that transwomen and transmen, you know, exist. As well as other people who do not conform to the strict, aggressively Leave It To Beaver-ish gender binary that’s still presented as the default. And it’s time to get away from that being the default. And hey, there have already been works written that touch on the issue, so let’s discuss those and then move forward. (Alex, if you ever happen to read this, I hope I have not misrepresented your position overmuch in my rather flippant summary.)

Jim Hines, bless him from his shiny head to his sofa-marrying heart2, possesses such intestinal fortitude and abundance of spare time that he’s done a point by point take down of Correia’s post.

My normal inclination here is to have the same response as I had to John C. Wright and his wall of misogy-text, namely: would you get a load of this fuckin’ guy. But there are a few things that are bothering me particularly, though. In short:

  1. Correia spends the whole time calling Alex “he” in his original post. (Alex isn’t a man. It takes exactly one google search or two clicks to double check that.[ETA] Her bio is literally at the bottom of her post. What kind of fucking laziness does this take?) I actually went and looked at Correia’s blog to see if he corrected himself, and he did… kinda? Somewhere in the word salad of this long response to Jim he corrects himself on Alex being “she,” airily dismisses it as a mistake and says he further doesn’t care anyway BECAUSE IDEAS NOT PEOPLE. Perhaps at this point misrepresenting someone’s gender feels like a drop in the ocean of douchery, and that’s the excuse for not taking two seconds to type out the word ‘sorry.’ But it’s a damn pathetic excuse.
  2. Seriously, what is with the dog whistle liberal versus conservative culture war bullshit framing? Perhaps this is bothering me more than normal because in my offline life, I just had a strong reminder that being conscious of gender identification isn’t a default liberal versus conservative issue, it’s a not being a douchebag issue.
  3. Correia’s thesis as written seems to be that (a) straw Alex wants all books to be nothing but non-standard characters and there will be checklists nothing but checklists forever, (b) this would make everything a preachy issue book (presumably because straw Alex does not care about story?), therefore (c) that would destroy the genre of science fiction.
  4. The “I don’t like thing X, therefore if you write thing X IT WILL DESTROY THE GENRE,” line has gotten so common that I believe it deserves its own name. It’s like an appeal to consequences and appeal to tradition got together and had an ugly, whiny baby. Any suggestions? The best I’ve got is Appeal to Destruction, and that’s admittedly tepid.
  5. Correia keeps coming back to story being the most important thing. I don’t think there’s any halfway decent writer who would argue the point that story is where it’s at. So where the fuck is this disconnect? How does what Alex actually said in any way preclude the primacy of story? How does even making a conscious effort to write non-default characters equal preachy issue book? Is there some kind of mathematical proof I’m missing out on here that shows the number of transgender or genderqueer characters is inversely proportional to the amount of story and/or fun?
  6. Geeze, dude, leave some straw men for the rest of us. Seriously. Worldwide shortage.
  7. Cisgender hetero guy with enormous biceps kills vampires and then must face their sire in a world-shattering showdown versus Transwoman with slightly less enormous biceps kills vampires then must face their sire in a world-shattering showdown would both be driven by the same basic story. Each would be distinct because, say, for option B you’d have to consider how the heroine’s status as trans would effect her interactions with other characters and all of their choices–yet in the end it’s still about some badass killing a shitload of vampires and saving the world.
  8. I do not tend to buy books that promise to preach at me. But you know what I will go out of my way to buy? Books with female protagonists. Books with explicitly bisexual protagonists. Because like all human beings, I’m an egocentric jerk and I enjoy being able to see people like me in stories, saving the world and doing other badass shit. [ETA: I would hope this goes without saying, but you never know. I want good and interesting books with the aforementioned and following. Books with excellent story, which very much do exist when combined with “non-default” main characters. Yeesh.] But you know what else I’ll go out of my way to buy? Books with genderqueer protagonists. Books with non-white protagonists. Books with protagonists from cultures other than my own. Why? Because I want to imagine things outside of myself as well. And imagining ye olde heterosexual white dude? We all basically know how to put those shoes on mentally before we can tie our literal shoelaces in the real world.

 

1 – Mmm, sarcasm italics. How I have missed you.

2 – Some of the comments on Jim’s post are gold.

Categories
fashion gender

Sharp Dressed (wo)Man (2)

When I was thinking about the awesomeness of wearing ties, something else struck me: I’m really lucky.

I’m lucky that I’ve got a couple of stores I can go to that have “masculine” clothing that’s cut to fit my proportions. (Thank you, Brooks Brothers and Saint Harridan.) And other stores I can go to for men’s suiting that have always welcomed me. (Thank you, Men’s Warehouse.) Brooks Brothers and Men’s Warehouse are just mainstream retail stores; they aren’t specialty stores that cater to women who basically like to cross dress. (And here I mean cross dress in the sense of simply wearing clothing considered to be for the “opposite” apparent gender rather than the performative sense of drag.)

But that’s because it’s still way more acceptable for women to cross dress in the US. It’s more acceptable for us to adopt “masculine” fashions. Sure, here and there you might get called a dyke or get some weird looks. But I have a lot of male friends who cross dress and transwomen friends, and it’s so much more difficult and even dangerous for them. It sucks, and it’s total bullshit.

I guess we’re all supposed to want to be manly men, and it’s cute when women want to try but hey it’s harmless we’re just trying to hit the pinnacle of humanity or something. I don’t know. It’s all artificially drawn lines that ultimately serve no purpose except to try to control other people. The more people I know, the more I’ve seen that sexuality and gender are sliding scales, and very few of us actually fit inside those harshly delineated boxes.

What harm does it do to anyone, if my male friend wants to rock that super sexy dress? But think of the children! Maybe one of those kids would like to wear that dress some day and not have a fucking complex about it. I have yet to hear a justification for censure on this regard that didn’t amount to “Because reasons!”

Fuck your bullshit, controlling reasons.

This utter societal stupidity was a major source of personal misery for me from high school on, because I never felt like I fit in the “girl” mold. It’s a sad statement that it took me thirty years to realize that I don’t have to. It’s okay that I don’t like dresses and skirts and makeup. I don’t have to. It’s okay if I’d rather walk barefoot over nails than wear cute women’s shoes. I don’t have to. If anyone else doesn’t like that, they can fuck off, because it’s my life and none of their business.

And if someone’s daughter sees me and gets it in her head that it’s okay to be a dapper sir, I will be happy to give her advice on how to properly do a half Windsor (because women normally have such narrow collars we can’t do a full) and be overjoyed she doesn’t have to waste decades hating herself in the mirror.

I know how amazing it feels to me, when I get to wear something that makes me feel truly like myself. I finally feel like I’m wearing my clothes, instead of like my clothes are wearing me. It upsets me in a deep way that my male and trans friends sometimes face a lot of nastiness because they want that same, simple thing.

Life is short. You should be able to wear whatever the fuck makes you happy. Wear what makes you feel like you and you know what? You will look amazing in it.

And for anyone else, they should be asking themselves what goddamn right they have to try to suck even one drop of happiness out of the world. And then they should shut the fuck up.

Categories
fashion gender

Sharp-Dressed (wo)Man (1)

In case you hadn’t noticed, I like ties.

IMG_20130831_180740_749I really like ties.

While I was on my tie binge during Worldcon, I had several men (including Jim Fiscus–love ya, Jim) ask me the same question: I’ve been trying to escape wearing ties all my life, so why are you willingly wearing one?

Because I like ties.

I guess you could see some of the lure of the forbidden in there. There are some fairly masculine cuts for women’s clothing these days, but you generally still don’t see women in ties unless they’re upscale waitstaff. And men, on the other hand, are required to wear ties at certain times… which if you don’t like them or don’t like the level of formality that denotes, makes them a miserable experience.

I don’t know why I like ties. I don’t think it’s just a desire to thumb my nose at gender expectations, but I can’t really sit down and write you a list of reasons why I like them. But why does anyone like the clothes they enjoy wearing? It’s all in the murky depths of our psyches, preferences and aesthetics we’ve formed that I think aren’t entirely conscious.

Why does anyone like wearing what they do? Because they like how it looks on them. I’ve been told time and again that a dress or a skirt or a blouse looks good on me, but when I look in the mirror I just feel awkward. I feel silly, like I don’t look like myself. I look like someone else’s idea of what Rachael Acks is supposed to look like, because hey that’s what girls wear, amiright?

I know it always sounds kind of funny when I talk about Project Runway, because let’s be serious. Fashion and I have never been friends. And the fashion on PR? Very not my kind of fashion, since it’s all skirts and purses and heels and the few times they attempt mens fashion it’s always a hilarious disaster.

But the one thing that show has done for me, season after season, is send the message that clothing isn’t supposed to be a punishment. Clothing is supposed to be something that makes you happy. Clothing should allow you to express yourself. Ideally, clothing should make you more you or more who you want to be.

So I guess the thing with the ties is that I’ve finally figured out how I want to express myself and who I want to be. For the first time in my life, clothing makes me feel good. For the first time in my life, I care about styling and colors and actually playing with my clothes, coming up with combinations and outfits. They make me feel bigger than myself (but in a good, standing tall way) and not like I want to shrink away and not be noticed. I actually want to be noticed now, because I feel damn good, I feel happy, and I want to share it.

I put on a button shirt and a tie, and I feel powerful. I feel like me.

Categories
gaming gender

My life as a female gamer (a quick and incomplete summary in 10 questions)

Remember this survey my friend is doing? Here are my answers. If you’d like to participate, there’s still a little more time!

1. How long have you been gaming?

Since high school, I’d say. My family actually played board games fairly regularly when I was growing up, but it didn’t quite feel the same.

2. List the games that you enjoy or have enjoyed playing (table top or on line rpgs, computer/videogames, MMOS, board games LARPS or others)

All right, it would be a long list, but if we’re literally just going with games that I have enjoyed: (off the top of my head, the ones I found most memorable)

  • MMOs: Ultima Online, Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft
  • LARPS: Vampire: the Masquerade, Mage, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Changeling
  • Tabletop: Serenity, Mage, Werewolf, Shadowrun, a couple different homebrew games, Legend of the Five Rings, Paranoia
  • Videogames: Anything Final Fantasy (except for FFVIII and XIII) but particularly Final Fantasy Tactics, All Silent Hill but 3 and 4, All Fatal Frame games, Katamari, Heavy Rain, Trauma Center, Suikoden 4, Harvest Moon, Bioshock, Portal, Soul Caliber, Kirby’s Epic Yarn
  • Board/Card Games: Pandemic, Arkham Horror, Ra, Settlers of Catan, Cards Against Humanity, Things, Dominion, Munchkin, Ticket to Ride, Small World, Carcassone, Twilight Imperium, Agricola, Puerto Rico, Mansions of Madness

3. Tell the story of how you started, what or who drew you into gaming? How were your first gaming sessions? Etc. etc.

I think what really got me started was Magic: the Gathering in high school. I was a lonely nerdy kid at the beginning of high school, and having a permanent seat at the M:tG table meant that I had a social group that always welcomed me. So that’s what really set up gaming as a way to socialize with other people, and it gave us a starting point to start bonding because it was a springboard to talk about other intensely nerdy things.

4. Do you enjoy playing with others or alone the most?

I prefer to play in a group, and I actually like team-based games the most.

4b. If you have a clear preference, could you please motivate why you prefer one over the other.

For me, gaming is very much a social activity. I’d rather just have other people around for it, whether they’re competition or not. And I’ve felt that way more and more strongly as time has gone by. I used to play a lot of video games, and most of the time those are solo endeavors. At this point I’d rather just hang out with someone else and watch them play a video game (or play while they watch) rather than just mash buttons by myself. I played WoW for years and years and was part of a fairly tightly knit guild. That meant even when I was doing things solo, I was still always socializing with others, or felt like other people were around.

5. If you play or have played in groups, do you have any preference on gender balance in a gaming group? (somewhat equal in gender ratios, mostly females, mostly males) Please motivate why you have a preference, if this is the case.

It really depends more on the other people. At this point, I’m used to playing with all male or predominately male gaming groups, because that’s how it always was from the beginning. In high school, 90% of the time I was the only girl playing M:tG during lunch. But I’ll admit that it’s nice when there are other women in the group. And actually in the case of MMOs and LARPs, unless I’m in group with nothing but men I know, my preference is to have several other women in the group. It means you have someone to watch your back if the guys start being jerks. In an environment where I know all of the other people really well, the gender mix is less of a matter for concern.

6. Have you ever experienced, in any gaming setting, being treated differently as a gamer because of your gender. Please tell the full story if the answer is yes.

God yes. I have more examples than I could really share in this space. So I’ll just bring up a few major ones.

To begin with, the reason I ended up with the M:tG nerds in high school instead of the D&D nerds (and in the high school nerd hierarchy, D&D actually rated above M:tG) was because I wasn’t welcomed into the all-male D&D group. And some of the M:tG group played D&D as well, and the interest I expressed in it was pretty soundly smacked down. No one ever came out and said it was because I was a girl, but that was the feeling I definitely got. Though who knows, maybe if I’d been a girlier girl instead of a flannel and combat boot wearing wannabe dyke, I would have been more welcome. I don’t know.

I got creeped on occasionally when I LARPed in the Camarilla, and that normally only occurred when I was playing a character that required me to wear a corset. Go figure. That really wasn’t so bad, particularly in comparison to how some of my friends who were less physically intimidating were treated at times.

Where I’ve encountered the most gender-based treatment has been, without a doubt, in MMOs. I would say that’s likely because it’s a much larger sample size, and also because in the smaller worlds of organized LARP and the lunchtime M:tG table, someone being that much of an asshole is harder for the group to ignore. (Though I have seen it happen.) When it’s the huge player base of an MMO, and particularly when you’re doing random groups and can be fairly certain you won’t encounter someone again, I think that takes the brakes off.

That said, in the course of doing random dungeons and raids in WoW, I’ve been called every name in the book. I’ve been kicked from groups specifically because I was a girl. I was repeatedly skipped for loot because I was a girl and none of them were my boyfriend. (No, really, ask your boyfriend for that armor you need.) I’ve had my intelligence insulted and heard more dick “jokes” and rape “jokes” than I care to repeat.

It got to the point that when I was doing randoms and the group insisted on voice chat, I just told everyone my mic was broken. A lot of guys play with female toons, so that often got me out of the worst bullshit. Though a lot of people also assumed I was a woman when I was playing a healer because, I don’t know, healing is girly? And even when I didn’t own up to being a girl, I got to listen to a lot of shit talk in voice chat where, if I made a mistake, they immediately began to guess it was because I was a girl or had girl-like qualities. Or if I didn’t manage to heal the tank, it’s because I was a stupid girl and not because he pulled too much trash at once. And all girls suck at playing games because I made a mistake. Or the guys would just shit talk at each other about things like, “Oh that mob just pounded me so hard, my vagina hurts.” I actually dropped several groups because I just couldn’t handle listening to them talk any more, it was too gross.

And of course, it was also always fun when we pulled non-guild members in to raids and they started trying to talk shit, before they realized that the raid leader (normally me) was female. I had several alternate characters in other guilds, and I noticed that guys tended to be a lot less free with their misogynist trash talking when the guild leaders were women. I also seem to remember at least one of our guys getting a ration of shit for being in a guild where the top two officers were both women, but don’t quote me on that one.

I played FFXI before I ever played WoW, and I never really had those same problems. I don’t know if that’s because the crowd in the game was just different, but I also normally played a character that was male in that game. (As opposed to WoW, where I actually liked the female character designs better, even if they had the most stupidly skimpy armor.) I was a tank in FFXI and even when I screwed up, I don’t recall anyone ever pinning that on the failings of my ladybrain.

7. Do you think there is a general difference in style or culture between female gamers and male gamers? (if yes, please elaborate)

Yeah, female gamers are a lot less likely to talk about their vaginas than male gamers are about their hypothetical ones, as far as I’ve observed. Honestly, most of the women I’ve ever played with in MMOs were a hell of a lot calmer than the guys, and less likely to turn into ragey assholes if someone made a mistake. (Though I’ll own up to getting frustrated at times when I was a raid leader. However, one thing I never did was insult someone’s gender because they fucked up, though I don’t know if that’s a woman thing or a just not being an asshole thing.)

I’ve seen some women engage in classic trash talking, but it was actually fairly unusual and mostly occurred in PVP (something I avoided). Particularly in WoW, there was definitely a feeling of women trying to stick together. I had some really sweet (but incredibly sad) private chat conversations when there was another woman in a particularly dicky group and we were both just trying to get through and ignore what the guys were saying.

8. What about the games themselves, have you ever experienced that games or game developers cater to a specific gender? (if yes, please elaborate)

Seriously, just look at the T&A in every videogame ever. I might swing both ways like a garden gate, but those character designs were most definitely not made with my gaze in mind. (And no, the over muscular male character designs do not count. I challenge anyone who has ever claimed that to actually find a critical mass of gamer women who actually find those attractive.) Most of the videogames I have ever really loved (exceptions: Portal, Fatal Frame 3, Silent Hill 3) have had male protagonists. In most RPGs (with exceptions I can count on one hand) the female characters are secondary to the male, and their personal plots are really just there to help the male main character develop… if they don’t just get made outright into damsels in distress.

There’s also a lot of stuff like what happened in Heavy Rain, which was a game I actually liked. But the one female playable character, Meredith Page, starts the game having an incredibly rapey nightmare that involves her running around in her underwear, which wasn’t something that happened to any of the male characters, and ends up with the main character in two of the endings. I just get really tired of rapey stuff and breaking down and crying stuff; it’s something that really never happens to male characters.

9. Recent studies have shown that about half of all gamers are female, and yet some male gamer groups have expressed surprise at these statistics. Why do you think this comes as a surprise to many? Could female gamers be less visible in various settings, and if so, how come?

Well, I’d think we’re less visible in a lot of MMOs if nothing else because we’re flying below the radar in order to avoid being badgered by people while we’re trying to relax. I’ve also done some board gaming at conventions, though it’s been a few years. Back when I did do that, most of the gamers were male. I don’t think that’s necessarily because more gamers in general are male; I think it’s because male gamers in general are more likely to be willing to be gamers in public, and to game with groups of people they don’t know.

There were quite a few women in my WoW guild, and several of them would not do random groups because they just didn’t want to deal with the toxic environment; they stuck with the group of people, male and female, that they knew and trusted to not be jerks. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s like that in real life at conventions and competitions as well.

Games are supposed to be fun. Feeling like people are waiting for you to make a mistake so they can tell you to “go cry about it, little girl” or make declarations about how women can’t play games because you lost is very not fun. Hell, even listening to men insult each other by basically calling each other women is upsetting. It’s stressful. Why be stressed out when you want to have fun?

10. Would you please share your favorite gaming anecdote here, if you have one.

To this day, the most fun I’ve ever had gaming was at an ICC when I was still in the Camarilla. It was at the werewolf game, right before this epic final battle. I’d gotten special approval for my character to do a ritual that would basically give everyone who participated one free willpower retest during combat. And we did the ritual for real; I walked around to every played and put a streak of black down their nose and said the words and by the time I was done, I had no goddamn voice left. And then we all howled. To an outsider, it was probably the dorkiest thing that has ever occurred. I felt like I could take on Hell itself, and I hope everyone else did too.

Categories
gender lgbt worldcon writing

[Worldcon] Writing Gender Roles in Science Fiction

Friday (August 31) at 0900: Writing Gender Roles in Science Fiction
Panelists listed in program: Joan D. Vinge, Julia Rios, Catherine Lundoff, Victor Raymond, Anne Lyle (Note: Joan D. Vinge was definitely not in attendance.)

Disclaimer: These are my notes from the panel and my own, later thoughts. I often was unable to attend the entire panel, and also chronically missed panelist introductions. When possible I try to note who said something, but often was unable to. Also, unless something is in double quotes it should be considered a summary and not a direct quotation. 

Works in which characters that are outside gender norms but not as a reaction to an oppressive government (incomplete list):

  • Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories – Sandra McDonald
  • Bone Dance – Emma Bull
  • The Tawny Man trilogy and The Farseer trilogy – Robin Hobb. (Everyone tends to refer to the Fool as male but it clearly is not quite in the binary.)
  • The Einstein Intersection – Samuel R. Delaney
  • The Female Man – Joanna Russ
  • Fly Into Fire – Susan J. Bigelow (Transwoman protagonist)
  • Dragonsbane and Sisters of the Raven – Barbara Hambley

George R. R. Martin does a lot of good stuff particularly with his older women – as working within strictures of misogynistic society. Early books at least, Anne Lyle has issues with the later books it sounds like. Goes off the rails bit after the first book.

Writing characters of different genders; do you consciously decide to present them in ways you consider “good”?
Catherine Lundhoff: In sf/f there are very few female werewolves. There are very few middle-aged men already as protagonists, there are even fewer middle-aged women as protagonists. They tend to just be the evil queen.
Anne Lyle: I just write people and see how they turn out.

Mary Robinette Kowal – “Jane Austen with magic.” First book very traditional, second book (Glamour and Glass) has main character after she’s married, in Belgium at the point Napoleon comes out of exile. Goes into a war situation as a married woman who has strict social moors and must break out of it for reasons of plot.

Lois McMaster Bujold – Cordelia, working within the restrictive society to try to open minds while playing by their rules. The Vorkosigan saga “A Civil Campaign” is a comedy of manners set in scifi.

Audience question: Recommend stories that have alien cultures with something beyond the gender binary (e.g. 3 genders, etc)?
Source Decay in Strange Horizons

I asked for examples of transmen in sf/f since there had been several named for transwomen:

  • The Courier’s New Bicycle – Kim Westwood
  • A Civil Campaign – Lois McMaster Bujold
  • Steel Beach – John Varley
  • Recognizing Gabe – Alberto Yáñez (Strange Horizons)
  • Supervillainz – Alicia Goranson [ETA: Catherine Lundoff tweeted this one to me today]

Also, it was noted that transmen (and transwomen) are much more common in erotica than in sf/f. I very nearly stumped the panel with this question.

#

I thought this was a solid panel with good discussion, though I missed a significant portion of it. I actually ended up buying a copy of Catherine Lundoff’s Silver Moon in part because of this panel. There really aren’t older female protagonists very often, and I’m charmed by the idea of one being a werewolf.

The reason I asked the question about characters who are transmen is I’ve noticed generally that transwomen seem to be a bit more visible in pop culture and sf/f. Sometimes it’s very negative (eg: news stories about a transwoman being attacked are far more common than those about transmen) and on the more positive side I’ve seen more transwomen activists than transmen. When there are trans characters in the genres I read (and this happens rarely as it is) they’re almost always transwomen.

I wonder if this is partially because transwomen are to a certain extent more transgressive than transmen. From the viewpoint of a society where being white and male is still the “norm” it must seem more transgressive for a man to “wish to be” a woman than for a women to “wish to be” a man, because it’s a movement counter to the center of power.

Transmen also seem to have better luck “flying under the radar” than transwomen. (Transmen – nature’s ninja?) I wonder if this is connected to the way, say, drag queens tend to be far more culturally visible than drag kings. There’s the titillation factor, of course. But there’s also the fact that if you see someone your brain identifies as female, if they’re dressed in male clothes it doesn’t tend to really register in the same way someone who may be male in female clothes does. Women regularly wear men’s clothes, or clothes that are styled after those men wear.

Of course, this is on my mind because I’ve got a short story in which the main character is a transman. (And the plot for a novel as well, yikes.) Here’s hoping I can find a magazine that’ll want it at some point…

Anyway, I’m hoping we generally see more diversity in characters in the future, and not just in regards to gender. The fact that people are having conversations about this is definitely a step in the right direction. And of course, with more e-publishing and small presses springing up like wildflowers, I’m hoping to see more diversity as well.

ETA: Catherine Lundoff has a more complete reading list from the panel at her livejournal.