bcholmes | TransSF

In the last bunch of cons I've attended, queer sf panels have talked about a number of trans sf stories: Commitment Hour, Steel Beach, The Left Hand of Darkness, Identity Matrix and others. Usually, this discussion comes off sounding as though trans people get better representation in sf than gay/lesbian/bi people. People point to I Will Fear No Evil and even The Marvelous Land of Oz and say, "Hey, trans people have been represented for a long, long time".

But I don't see these examples as trans sf. Similarly, I don't see Ethan of Athos as gay sf.

That's an oversimplification. I do think that speculative and fantastical treatments of gender are things that trans discourse should be interested in. But there are attributes of the type of trans people that I know that are missing from this so-called trans sf.

I remember a good panel from WisCon called GLBT 201. One of the panelists talked about the problem that sf has in representing queer people. Because sf often presents the future, there's usually an assumption that people have gotten over queer prejudice. But, the panelist said, if you're not writing about the conflict that queer people have with society, in many ways you're not writing about us.

That's a big part of what I feel is missing from so-called trans sf. There's no conflict of gender. There's no agency about addressing that conflict. There're no real coming out scenes.

I'm sure I'm blanking on some examples, but Neil Gaiman's A Game of You is probably the closest thing I've seen to real trans sf.

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Where does Emma Bull's Bone Dance fit in? It's not about trans per se, but it seems to include some of the elements missing in the other books you mention. (I agree A Game of You is a super example.)

That's a good question. I do think that Bone Dance is a good example. It's certainly outside of the "cross-dresser/transsexual" space that comprises most of what many think of as the trans community. But it's certainly a good example of trans sf.

I haven't read it in too long to recommend or disrecommend it, but I'd take a look at John Varley's "Options," a short story about the early days of easily available trans-shifting. And I would argue that LHoD does have conflict of gender, although it shows up in Genly Ai, the human male character, rather than in the Gethenians.

Nonetheless, an interesting point. Write something?

And I would argue that LHoD does have conflict of gender, although it shows up in Genly Ai, the human male character, rather than in the Gethenians.

That's an interesting point. One half of my brain is now saying, "Ah! Genly Ai represents the mainstream person in crisis when confronted with the differently-gendered." Not the "insider" view I was looking for, but an important perspective, nonetheless.

The other half of my brain is thinking of Ai as a representative of someone whose idea of gender is in conflict with everyone around him. There's something about that that I'm still struggling to put words around. I remember someone once talking about queer subtext and asking when it became time that we could be text, instead. Remember the panel you were on about when "the alien" can't be used to tell certain stories about difference?

Write something?

I tried one story. I'm not completely happy with the end result, but I was interested in writing about an sf society in which trans people weren't effectively rendered invisible or not worth mentioning. I think I'm way too close to the material to make it really work, though.

I'd definately think that Random Thing Happening To Protagonist Ending Up In Gender Change doesn't really address anything like what people have to actually deal with In Real Life. Everything in the stories fits into either "Now how do I get out of *this* fix?" or "Look how advanced I am for not having any trouble coping!" -- neither of which deals with the situation, but instead attempts to ignore it as much as possible. Am I grasping at least part of your thoughts?

a-ha!

so it feels to you like people are trying to skip a step.

i'm not sure i'm talking about this very well; so please bear with me.

there's the stories where people (and i'm using this word in the "feminism is the theory that women are people" sense) have to deal with the other, and it's weird and wrong.

there's the stories where people have to deal with the other and they congratulate themselves on doing it well.

there's the stories where the other is shown to be as competent as or as good as people, and isn't that amazing! (i'm thinking the "sword and sorceress" anthologies here, for women being the other.)

then the coming out stories, written from the perspective of the other. (s&s occasionally hits this category, too.)

and then there are the stories where it's not an issue anymore. some of these stories are good and pleasing, and some of these stories are overassuming and don't know what they're going on about.

it sounds to me like, in my terms, you're saying that those last three steps have been mostly skipped, and people are going straight to "it's not an issue", and they're doing it poorly.

blather blather blather blather. ask me to rant at you sometime about the disability in sf panel at wiscon a few years ago.

p.s. if you don't submit a panel idea or two on this, i shall be very cross. :)

How about "Science Fiction and the Oversimplification of Difference"?

submitted. :P

(but i had to make up a description. hope i got close to what you were envisioning.)

I guess that's the radical/liberal thing. I'm a liberal, so I say that a story about two people of the same sex loving is (one kind of) gay story, no matter what society it's set in.

In the human species, transsexuality is statistically rare. If it were more common, our society would be more comfortable with it. Our story of transsexuality is about the growing acceptance of a rare phenomenon. (This is rather like "disability", our society's label for a relatively rare lack of facility in walking, learning, etc. Had a good conversation tonight about this. I don't have an "illustration disability" just because I'm lousy at drawing. Society accommodates my lack of drawing facility much better than it accommodates my ex's difficulty with walking.)

In SF, societies can be created where transsexuality is common or rare or nonexistent; and acceptance can be complete or growing or nonexistent. These levels are simply descriptions of the fictional society - but we read them through our own social lens, and we know they come from the author's social lens. So when you wish SF would portray transsexuality more, or differently, are you commenting on the fictional society, or the author, or the readers?

I think I am both commenting on the authors and the readers. I guess I dislike the fact that authors mostly aren't telling stories about trans people. But at the same time, readers are claiming that there are all kinds of good trans sf stories because they're including any story that has something to do with speculative gender to be included as trans sf.

In sf, trans people are invisible, and their invisibility is denied.

in the second volume of j. michael straczynski's "rising stars", one of the characters comes out as trans (though it had been pretty clearly foreshadowed) in the moment of hir rather melodramatic sacrifice (sie catches a nuke and saves the other folks). i was never quite sure how to take this. generally i was annoyed by the overall tone of tragedy associated with the character, though of course itwas nice to see anything even remotely approaching a sympathetic treatment.

another place where the idea of transness is used as a storytelling device without necessarily going into "trans experience" is the character of pie'o'pah in clive barker's "imajica".

Hi. I'm just another schmuck with waay too much time on her hands --- but I saw your posting. John Varley is great - try _Steel Beach_ for all your sf needs. :)

TransSF

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