Transfixed

[bcholmes]

I've been reading trans fiction today. Some time ago, my friend Sue sent me a link to the story of Tuck, and I've only just recently started reading it. Sue speaks highly of Tuck, and I thought I'd check it out.

Something that I've been thinking about a lot as I've been reading it is the idea of agency. Trans fiction is notable for some common themes. One of the major themes is the theme of "forced feminization". Sometimes the theme verges on bondage and dominance, and sometimes it's a great deal more subtle. But, again and again, the subtext is the same: "I didn't start out trans; someone else coerced me into this role."

I remember the IFGE conference in Chicago over a year ago. I was listening to Richard Docter talking about his attempt to find different axes on which to describe different trans people, with an eye to coming up with some meaningful categories of T-ness (and, yeah, a big part of me recognizes the pitfalls of assuming that five sliding scales can describe an exceptionally diverse community like the trans community, but a part of me also likes thinking about the attempt to articulate some of the differences in the community). He was particularly motivated by the phenomenon of "identity shift" in the trans community.

There's a joke:
Q: What's the difference between a cross-dresser and a transsexual?
A: Five years.

Be aware that many, many, many trans people don't find this joke funny at all.

Anyway, after he gave his speech, some trans woman attacked him on the issue of choice. "I don't like the suggestion that people choose to do this... I certainly had no choice," she said. And while I understand what she was talking about, I think that the rant was more than just a bit misplaced. But, more than that, I also think the attitude is a bit disempowering.

I didn't choose to be trans, true. More and more, I am given to describing my transness with the language of innateness.

But I did choose what to do with my transness. I decided to come out of the closet. I decided to change my body. I decided to transition. And while, in some senses, it can be argued that it's disengenuous to talk about choice when one of the two options is to be unhappy and miserable for the rest of one's life, I am empowered by my choice. My choice has given me strength.

I've written trans fiction; I've had one particular short story published in a coupl'a different trans publications. And the thing that I was really adamant about avoiding in that story is that disempowering "someone did this to me" theme. It's hard to do. Let's face it: changing one's gender is something that no sane person dare want to do in this society. So how do you write about that? How do you create believable motivation? (I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that the audience for trans fiction is trans people -- maybe they already understand the motivation).