American Dirt and Angst About My Novel

[anarfea]

So, there's been a lot of justifiable backlash about American Dirt, because Jeanine Cummins basically exploited Latine pain for her own profit, and appropriated a Latina identity by citing her Puerto Rican grandma when a few years ago she identified as White. Anyway, I've read some pretty scathing critiques of the novel written by Latine authors, and I'm increasingly feeling anxious about my own novel project.

My own novel, for those of you who have forgotten or didn't know, is about a transmasculine person in Victorian London. And I've had some angst about writing this novel since I'm cis, and now I have more angst about writing this novel. Anyway, but there were some questions that Myriam Gubra posed to writers who want to write about characters from a group they're not a part of, and I thought it'd be a good exercise to answer them:

“Why do you want to write from this character’s point of view?”

I saw The Abominable Bride, and how they made Molly Hooper a cross dressing woman who disguised herself as a man to get ahead, and I was like, "wouldn't it be cool if he were trans?" and that was basically what got me thinking about writing this story. I feel like there are lots of stories about women dressing up as men to do things that women aren't allowed to do, and those are cool stories, but I also feel like I'm not convinced they're true stories? Just, as a cis woman, I can't imagine pretending to be a man 24/7, and I can't see why anyone would--unless they were either trans or gender non-conforming to some extent. So I feel like actually a lot of these "women who dressed as men" were either trans or otherwise gender non conforming, and I wanted to write a story about a transmasculine person in a historical setting because I feel like that story isn't told as often. And I really wanted to write from the POV of character finding their place in the world and finding community, which is what I have kind of always been looking for as a Mexican adoptee adopted by White people, but I didn't want to write that story because I don't want to write an autobiography, so writing about a character looking for a different kind of identity and belonging seemed like the thing to do.

“Do you read writers from this community currently?”

I do and I don't. I mean, I definitely try to read fic with trans characters or written by trans authors. But I haven't read any regular published books by trans people, and I definitely should. I'd been focused on finding trans sensitivity readers, but I definitely need to do more reading. And more research!

“Why do you want to tell this story?”

So, this is the one that concerns me. Because I do feel like I've maybe been a little "savior-y" in that one of the reasons I want to tell this story is because I feel like there aren't a ton of trans stories, and I know that not all trans people want to write trans stories, but I can and maybe having that story out there will help people see themselves represented and that'd be neat. But then, isn't some transmasculine person presumably better qualified than me to tell this particular story?

Also, and this maybe feels like the "but my Grandmother is Puerto RIcan, I'm Latina," I'm bisexual. So, while I'm not trans, I still feel that I'm still part of the broader queer community. I have lots of trans friends. I consider myself a trans ally. But I'm worried about wanting to tell this story for trans people is patronizing. 

And the third reason is that I'd just like to see some fucking diversity of queer representation. Maybe I'm biased because fanfic, but I feel like almost all queer media is m/m. And I's super like to see some other kinds of queer expression. That's also why I decided, after LOTS of angst, not to make Molly/Colin a trans man. Because then my story would be m/m. And my Sherlock would be gay. Not that there's anything wrong with m/m or gay!Sherlock. God knows I've read a lot of it. But a Sherlock who is usually attracted to men but maybe might just go for a woman under the right circumstances and a Molly/Colin who is usually a man but might be a woman under certain circumstances is more interesting to me because it's been done less? Not saying that being bi or genderqueer is inherently more interesting than being gay or binary trans, but I certainly feel like there's less of it which therefore makes it more interesting to me (and also potentially shrinks my audience because there's definitely a bigger audience for m/m romance but I'll worry about that later).

Finally, I just, don't get many ideas for original writing. I haven't written an original novel in all the years I've been writing because I haven't had an idea for one. And now I'm like a dog with a bone and I'm like, please don't take my bone away from me.

Anyway, I'm still going to write this novel. But I guess I should go read some transgender people's memoirs. 

Comments

[pennypaperbrain]

I sympathise with this a lot, as you know, but I’ve written a few false starts to this comment, all of which risked the kind of fail that arises from a person in a more overall privileged position holding forth on sensitivity.

It just looks like you’ve thought this through really hard, and your own positive feelings are probably a good guide for that reason. And American Dirt is making a load of white money out of Latine suffering; but I don’t suppose you’re gunning for a big cisgay dollars payday out of trans tragedy porn.

[clevermanka]

In the conversations I've heard and had with various people in the YA author community about representation and such, the impression I've gotten is that representation is great--just don't try to tell the personal story. In other words, it's great to have a trans character, but don't make the story about being trans.

Best wishes navigating this. It's a tricky thing, for sure.

[drinkingcocoa]

As far as I can tell, the problem with American Dirt was less with the book itself (it has problems and stereotypes, but so do a ton of books) and more that the publisher gave the author a seven-figure advance and marketed the book as speaking for the entire issue.

You should be fine. You're conscientious and always considerate. No one is going to market your writing as something it's not. The world needs more than autobiography.

[tei]

I think my thoughts are along the same lines as what drinkingcocoa says. I mean, I haven't read American Dirt, and have been only peripherally following the discussion about it, but it sounds like it is... a bad book, in multiple different ways. And like... there are a lot of bad books, because there are a lot of ways that writing can be bad. Which is a word I'm using a little facetiously here, but by "bad" I think what I mean is that there are a lot of books that are boring or unimaginative, and there are many books that show in the writing the author's poorly-thought-through attitudes towards other people and groups, and I think those two things are actually part of the same continuum of what we could shorthand as just being not-good, bad, shitty writing, to various degrees.

And the vast majority of the really bad books just... exist. Not that many people read them, and hopefully the author learns and grows and becomes a new person like all of us are trying to do every day, but the fact remains that they wrote a book (or a fanfic, or whatever) that showed who they were at a certain point in their life, with certain attitudes, and that's... OK. Bad art is allowed to exist. It has to exist for art to exist at all, and I think the definition of "bad art" necessarily has to include art that is bad because it's prejudiced in some way, because... that's one of the many ways that we as writers can be underdeveloped. We don't live in a vacuum, nobody can escape having the world in all its fucked-uppedness encroach on their minds. We all just try our best. My university band conductor used to say "you can't play better than you can," and I think that's true of writing as well. You can't write from the perspective of the smarter, better version of you that you're hopefully going to become.

So as far as I've read, the major problem with this book isn't that it's a shitty book, although it is that. The problem is that the publishing industry looked at this particular shitty book, and completely missed all of the ways in which it is shitty, and threw an absolutely mind-boggling amount of money and prestige at it before it had even been published. Which says so much about the people who hold the power in the publishing houses that engaged in a bidding war on this book, and the NYT and lithub and all the other people who decided to put it on best of lists and praise it and encourage other people to read and buy it, because it's supposedly representative of an experience that, according to people closer to that experience than the author, it actually isn't representative of at all. So all that money, that is going towards this thing BECAUSE it is supposedly about a specific thing, has been misdirected. There are places and people where that money SHOULD be going, that it isn't.

So... I guess the way that relates to you is that first of all, I don't get the impression that you're gunning for, or in a position to, have that kind of media reception to your book ;) I guess that's basically what pennypaperbrain summed up much more succinctly than me with "I don’t suppose you’re gunning for a big cisgay dollars payday out of trans tragedy porn." But also just... yeah, I don't think that this has to be a reason that you get your bone taken away, because you deserve this bone and you have fascinating thoughts about it. You're not stealing anything, you're writing about feelings you feel and have an interest in, and you're not taking away money or prestige from other people while you're doing it.

[anarfea]

"I don’t suppose you’re gunning for a big cisgay dollars payday out of trans tragedy porn." This is true. For one thing, this is no tragedy porn. There's a happy ending for my trans character. And for another, yeah, I'm looking to publish for a niche market and I am not doing this for the money.

[anarfea]

"it's great to have a trans character, but don't make the story about being trans."

Except that's exactly what I'm doing. Like, my POV character is trans. So, of course their transness is going to be a big part of the story. There's no getting around that.

[anarfea]

Thank you for your faith in me.

[anarfea]

Thank you. Yeah, I really don't want to let go of my bone, and I'm not going to, even though I've been told I'm doing something I'm not supposed to (i.e. writing a story about being trans). I guess I just need to do a damn good job and not write a bad book, lol.

[clevermanka]

Mmm, sorry, I phrased that poorly. "Don't make it about the process of being trans." So, like, a found-family story that is informed by the main character being trans = Okay. A coming-out story or a discovery of main character's trans self = Not Okay. I should also mention that it's been a while since I was involved in those conversations so general thoughts about this topic may very well have shifted.

[anarfea]

Yeah. I still think I'm doing the "wrong" thing. It is definitely mostly a romance/found family story, but there's an arc that involves Hooper first being in a relationship with a woman who wants a girlfriend, and being that, and then being in relationship with a man who wants to be with a man, and being that, and then discovering they want to be a man like 90% of the time but that they are a bit feminine sometimes too, and their male parter discovering that they are mostly into men but can still be attracted to Hooper's feminine side.

And this is like basically the exact thing I'm not supposed to do: write a story about a character figuring out their trans identity, but it's kind of a key component to the story I want to tell. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, I'm just planning on doing a shit ton of research, getting some trans sensitivity readers, and hoping for the best.

[clevermanka]

Ah, got it. Sounds like you're approaching it as best you can. Good luck!

[solrosan]

This is a really interesting excessive! I have a monster of a fic that I have similar concerns about and I will definitely sit down and do this to reflect on my motives a bit more.

I'm a queer cis woman, so my opinion here might not carry much weight for the particular issue at hand, but the fact that you have these concerns and going by the fics of yours I've read, I'd say you're ahead of so many writers already when it comes to dealing with sensitive topics.

The idea of just writing what you know or have personal experience with is why there are so many journalists running around solving crime and it's quite boring. Smaller communities often have to rely on people outside the community to tell some stories, or else there would be too few. Far from everyone in a community is a content creator (and even fewer are good at it). It should - if possible - be done with the help and/or inclusion of the community, and you seem to be on that! I have the utmost faith that you'll be able to tell this story in an sensitive and interesting way!

[anarfea]

Thank you. I'm really motivated to try to do the right thing by the trans community here. And I'm glad that you think I write tough topics with sensitivity. I had similar concerns about writing By His Dirty Hands We Know Him because that was taking a real tragedy and writing fic about it. But also, I wasn't looking to publish that.

I was talking to a friend who identifies as agender, and they were saying that one of the things about trans experiences (with say, dysphoria), is that every trans person experiences them differently. So in that sense there's no one right way to write about these issues. But because of that, I know that no matter what I write it's going to seem wrong to some people. And some of those people are probably going to be like, "Look, this cis person got the trans experience wrong." And I just have to accept that.

[vulgarweed]

I haven't read American Dirt and I'm not going to, but I've read some of the justifiably angry commentary and it really seems like a perfect storm of awfulness: the author isn't only writing about a community she isn't part of, but also writing it in a very stereotypical way, and also showing that she doesn't know as much about Mexican culture as she thinks she does, and also getting a huge advance that actual Latine writers don't, and also having a ridiculously tasteless launch party with a barbed-wire aesthetic motif, and....

I have a feeling that you've already done more soul-searching on this front than that author already has. And the questions you're asking yourself are very important ones.

The easiest thing you can address right now, I think, is to read more books by trans authors. I'm cis too and I don't have a comprehensive rec list but there's a very good annual collection of SFF by trans writers that's been running for several years now and has a LOT of varied perspectives: Transcendant 1

Edit: I bring that up as something you said you were concerned about. Do you follow Bogi Takács on Twitter, the editor of some of those anthologies? E is agender and sometimes has a lot of good trans recs. https://twitter.com/bogiperson

[anarfea]

Thanks for your thoughts and your links. I started following Bogi. That's an obviously Hungarian name, lol.

Anyway, I appreciate the faith in me, but like for example I saw a (presumably trans) person tweet that you should never give trans characters deadnames. And a lot of people were asking like, what if your story has scenes where the character is pre-transition, which is what I'm doing, and people were saying that they're either redacting the name (which I absolutely do not want to do), or using nicknames or whatever to avoid ever using the characters deadname. And this just honestly never occurred to me at all and it's exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid of getting called out for.

Anyway, I think it's doable. Since I'm in Victorian times, most people are going to be calling Colin "Hooper," anyway. The only person who calls them "Molly" is Emilia in earlier scenes in the novel, and I guess it's possible for her to call them pet names or something instead. It feels a little contrived but if calling this character their deadname is going to offend people I won't.

[clevermanka]

Just read this essay about a white woman's reaction to American Dirt and thought you might be interested.

[anarfea]

Wow. What a takedown. And OMG I can't believe she did an interview with Maria Hinojosa. I'd love to listen to that.

[clevermanka]

I read that article and seriously the first thing I thought was "oh, anarfea's gonna be fine" XD

[anarfea]

I just don't understand how there are so many little-known authors who pay out of their own pocket for things like sensitivity readers, and a big publishing house that has the cash to offer the writer a 7 figure advance doesn't? They had no one who was actually from Mexico look at this and see if it was accurate? It just boggles the mind. I'm a nobody, and I've got three trans friends who are offering to help me make sure my fic isn't offensive.

[anarfea]

I just don't understand how there are so many little-known authors who pay out of their own pocket for things like sensitivity readers, and a big publishing house that has the cash to offer the writer a 7 figure advance doesn't? They had no one who was actually from Mexico look at this and see if it was accurate? It just boggles the mind. I'm a nobody, and I've got three trans friends who are offering to help me make sure my fic isn't offensive.

[solrosan]

I'm way late in replying here and you might have moved on completely, but I just wanted to say that it was 'By His Dirty Hands' I was thinking about and that I really, really think you handled that topic so well.

And yes, experiences that are that personal will always ring true to some and less true to others.

[anarfea]

Thank you! I was so worried people would feel like me writing fic about a real tragedy was somehow exploitative. I guess I was coming at that from the perspective that writing fic is frivolous and writing about terrorism is serious and that they are therefore not compatible. But people gave me the benefit of the doubt.