WisCon: Not Letting Go of a Topic

[bcholmes]

The other trans woman on "Transsexualism as Trope" panel posted her assessment of the panel on her journal. Which, of course, fires a lot of thoughts in my brain that I want to respond to. I want to be clear that I'm not say, "no, no, no, Charlie has it all wrong!" But I do think that the points of disagreement are interesting sites of exploration.

I think, at the high level, I'm moved to explore, in greater depth, these three points:

1. Why Can't They Call Themselves Trans?
2. What do I mean when I say I'm interested in seeing "Transsexuality as Process"?
3. When does a metaphor end?

This post will probably only really touch on the first bullet item.

Part the First: Why Can't They Call Themselves Trans?

I think I've only recently become clear about something: I think I was arguing two things in the panel, and probably wasn't arguing them as distinctly as I could. Let me see if I can tease them apart.

Here's a question I find myself thinking at this exact moment of time: are Brainiac 5 and Shadow Lass good, non-white characters? When people of colour look at historical examples of representations of non-white characters, do they say, "Hey, back in 1961, DC Comics was breaking good ground by showing a super-genius person of colour?" If not, why not?

Okay, that's not a terribly deep question. No biscuit. But I pose it to frame another question. The panel description for "Transsexuality as Trope" reads:

Much science fiction and fantasy of recent years deals with changing sex. But it treats it as a trope rather than a process: Larque on the Wing, I Will Fear No Evil, "Changes," the work of John Varley. While there is no denying the usefulness of transsexuality as a trope in discussing the social construction of gender, what are we missing by eliding transsexuality's nature as a process?

Is it clear to you precisely when and why this conversation traverses from talking about science fictional forms of changes of sex and when it talks about transsexuality? Did it seem to you that it was using those concepts interchangeably? Are they interchangeable?

One of the introductory points that I made on the panel was this: that I've often had the experience of sitting in on panels about "GLBT Characters in SF". And at some point in such panels, usually some (non-trans) panelist says, "and of course there are lots of representations of trans characters in sf: take Left Hand of Darkness, and Steel Beach, and The Marvelous Land of Oz" And I wonder: are you sure that those characters are trans characters? Have they ever uttered any of the trans words? Or are they trans characters in the same way that Brainiac 5 and Shadow Lass are people of colour?

I'm not trying to invoke any sort of essentialist argument here, but I do think there's something flawed when the characters who represent the trans constituency in these list-making exercises don't actually self-identify as trans. And, increasingly, it has really started to bug me that GLB people are checking off their lists and saying, "it's okay; trans people are well-represented. No work required."

That's a very specific message. I am not saying, "all trans stories must look like the Transsexual Road Map". But if you're gonna tell me that there are a host of trans depictions in sf, can the stock answers at least include one book where the character in question self-identifies as trans? And, really, is there no room in all of those books for a trans protagonist whose life looks similar to someone I might have met? Do they all have to be the victims of evil, personality-switching aliens (as in The Identity Matrix) or involved in a strange alien gender experiment (as in Commitment Hour)?

And, no disrespect to those books. I liked them. Well... that is... I liked Commitment Hour.

So that's one of the two points I was arguing.

Comments

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

My gut reaction is that there aren't *enough* trans characters (in literature of any time), and until there are more, there won't be more diverse representations of them.

In answer to your question, no, it wasn't clear to me at first that the third sentence in the panel description wasn't equating "transsexuality as a trope" with "changing sex[...] as a trope". Now that you've elaborated, it seems obvious to me that you were shifting gears, but I didn't catch it when I was reading the description here or elsewhere.