I guess there were lots of factors that made me change my mind re Hooper's gender identity. The biggest was the critique I got from my beta on the short-story version: that because of the way that I presented it, with Hooper starting out appearing more trans-masc at the beginning of the story when he meets Holmes and becoming more fluid after he discovers Holmes' attraction to Irene Adler, that it came across that somehow Holmes as a man made him more of a woman. That's the last thing I want. And I'm not sure that I know how to entirely avoid that given the relationship arcs.
The second issue is regarding the subplot with Mycroft. Mycroft thinks he's being supportive; his stance on queerness is 'do what you want behind closed doors but for god's sake keep up appearances.' And he thinks Hooper would make a good wife for Holmes. Hooper actually considers Mycroft's proposition, mostly out of guilt because the blackmail is ongoing and he knows he could stop it. It's Holmes who says "no, we're not doing this; it isn't you." So the idea of marriage is vaguely tempting to Hooper even as a man. Another one of my betas suggested that if he were genderfluid, it might be more logical for them to get married; I know multiple afab enbies married to cis men who sort of "round themselves up" to female, at least outwardly, and keep their real gender private. And while I think there probably were lots of Victorian lavender marriages, that isn't what I want for Holmes and Hooper.
So yeah, I do think it will be easier to write Hooper as transmasculine, but that's not the only reason I wanted to write him that way. If I were super convinced writing him genderfluid was the story I needed to tell, I'd do it.
But what's most important to me was to reconsider the narrative that the afab people who presented as men in past eras were cis women in disguise. I just wanted to challenge that idea of "woman dresses as a man to make it in a man's world" and make it a story about a trans man finding his place in the Victorian London queer scene.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-09-11 03:58 am (UTC)The second issue is regarding the subplot with Mycroft. Mycroft thinks he's being supportive; his stance on queerness is 'do what you want behind closed doors but for god's sake keep up appearances.' And he thinks Hooper would make a good wife for Holmes. Hooper actually considers Mycroft's proposition, mostly out of guilt because the blackmail is ongoing and he knows he could stop it. It's Holmes who says "no, we're not doing this; it isn't you." So the idea of marriage is vaguely tempting to Hooper even as a man. Another one of my betas suggested that if he were genderfluid, it might be more logical for them to get married; I know multiple afab enbies married to cis men who sort of "round themselves up" to female, at least outwardly, and keep their real gender private. And while I think there probably were lots of Victorian lavender marriages, that isn't what I want for Holmes and Hooper.
So yeah, I do think it will be easier to write Hooper as transmasculine, but that's not the only reason I wanted to write him that way. If I were super convinced writing him genderfluid was the story I needed to tell, I'd do it.
But what's most important to me was to reconsider the narrative that the afab people who presented as men in past eras were cis women in disguise. I just wanted to challenge that idea of "woman dresses as a man to make it in a man's world" and make it a story about a trans man finding his place in the Victorian London queer scene.