TransSF

[bcholmes]

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.

Comments

[purplesofa.livejournal.com]

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?

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

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.