Transcendent

[anarfea]

I took Vulgarweed's advice and purchased the book Transcendent: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction. I read the first story, and I think I made the right call in scrubbing the name "Molly" (or whatever I would have called them) from the novel. The first story, The Shape of My Name, is quite careful never to use the protagonist's deadname, At one point, the character "you" (the protagonist's mother) says, "I need you to watch--". Other times the name is referenced as "the name you called me," or "the name that was never mine." Anyway, deadnaming seems to be a sore subject for the readers who I hope will make up my audience, so I'm going to try to avoid ever having anyone call my protagonist anything but "Hooper" or "Doctor Hooper" until Holmes asks him what he wants to be called and he says "Colin." Then Holmes will call him Colin in private and everyone else will continue to call him "Hooper" or "Doctor Hooper."

The one place I'm unsure of is what name Hooper should use at the Molly house, where everyone goes by female names. I had originally used "Molly" because Hooper can't think of a female name other than their deadname, but I'm thinking that's not the way I want to go for the novel. So I'll have to come up with another female name for the Molly house scenes, I think. I also need a female name for Holmes! 

I'm open to suggestions, if you have any.

Comments

[vulgarweed]

Maybe pilfer ACD canon for female names? Violet, Kitty, Frances, Irene, Annie, etc. Or maybe Colleen, as a play on "Colin" (pretty damn Irish though).

[anarfea]

I'll think on it. Annie is nice. Maybe Maude, for Maude Bellamy. I can't use Irene since she's referenced in the fic. Colleen is out because apparently it's offensive to pick a name that's the "opposite gender version" of the characters deadname. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case but I'm trying to be as sensitive as possible.

[vulgarweed]

But Colin isn't Hooper's deadname, it's the name he wants to be called. (I don't think one would use "Molly" in a Molly house anyway even if it is their name right? If everyone's a molly than no one is. Kind of an I-am-Spartacus thing.)

[anarfea]

Yeah, I know it's not the same, but I didn't want people to think that I was doing the "of course he'd pick the 'female version' of his name" thing. And I agree using "Molly" in the Molly house is kind of weird. Oulfis thought it could be a cute moment and people would make fun of him for being "Miss Molly," but I'm not sure. I think I want to go with something else.

[pangodillo]

"trans character chooses a real name that's a switched-gender version of their birth and/or dead name" is a trope that misunderstands the reality of most trans people. Many of us do choose names that are similar to our birth names at first, for a variety of reasons; I did this myself. But most of us end up settling on a very different real name. The trope misunderstands us and doesn't seek to understand us, if that makes sense, and that's why many of us dislike it. It feels like cis people going "this is what I think it's like to be trans" and then deciding that their assumptions are hard fact without, like, asking anyone who actually went through the process of finding a gender-affirming name for themself.

All that said, I personally am delighted by the idea of a reversal of that trope: whatever Colin's birth/deadname is, it's not Colleen, and when searching for "wait what's my name but for a girl" they immediately jump not to their birth/deadname but to a genderswapped version of their own real name. I think it would be a nice affirming little moment.

(as a side note, I don't know if anyone else draws a distinction between birth names and deadnames, but I do in my own life: my birth name is the one I was given at birth. my deadname is the name I went by for most of my life pre-transition, which is something else. my legal name is currently the same as my birth name but eventually my legal name will be Olivier. and my real name is Olli. hopefully that helps clarify at least what I mean when I use these words; as I said, I have no idea if any other trans folks make these distinctions.)

[pangodillo]

oh! and I meant to say also that I heartily approve of scrubbing Colin's birth/deadname. I tend to write the same way, unless I have a specific reason to reveal a trans character's birth/deadname. Mostly I do this because it's no one's business what a trans person's deadname is, and it usually doesn't even come up in the stories I write. In places where it could come up (like when Carlos attributes the fact that he got his legal name changed before he earned his diploma to his friend Rochelle's help), it's just habit to focus on the affirmation of the real name rather than on the deadname: in the cited example, Carlos said "she's the reason my diploma says 'Carlos'." It's not about what came before, what was pushed on us, what we had to fight to escape; it's about the now, the reality, the thing we chose and worked and fought to become.

[anarfea]

Thanks. I'm glad you approve, it means a lot to me. The only reason I didn't think that much of using Colin's deadname before was because the story starts before he really transitions. So, yes, he is working at the morgue and presenting as male during the day, but when he gets home, he's with Emilia, and Emilia would consider herself a lesbian if such a label existed at the time. She wants nothing to do with men ever again after the disastrous relationship with Sir Eustace, and so she can't accept Colin's male presentation as anything but a disguise. It's only after Emilia dies that Colin really comes into his own and is presenting as a man full time.

So it made sense to me, in the first draft, to have Emilia call Colin by his deadname. But I can avoid it by having her call him "Darling," and "love," and other pet names instead, so I will. I also don't want people to hate Emilia. She loves Colin. She just doesn't really understand who he is, unfortunately.

[anarfea]

Thank you for explaining that to me. It makes sense. And I will think on Colleen. I have a ways to write before I get there.

I haven't heard other people make the distinction between birth/deadnames, but then I think that probably most people don't have the experience you did of having a different name given at birth than the one they used most of their life pre transition.

[oulfis]

I think your explanation of the problems with the trope makes sense, though it actually doesn't match my own experience. My name is very similar to my deadname, and I really valued forging a sense of connection between my past and current identities. I think there is a really wide spectrum of name experiences-- I have an nb friend who just truncated their name to a more gender-neutral version, and a trans friend who didn't change her name because it was already gender-neutral. So the biggest problem from my point of view with the trope is the same one with most tropes -- the over-use of one "script" due to a simplistic assumption that it's universal. I agree that Colin coming up with Colleen could be a fun take on that trope. Or, maybe he picks something funny based on the name Holmes gives -- like they end up as the Victorian London version of Thelma and Louise. But I also think saying Molly in a fit of panic could be funny, cute, and poignant -- I think it's not uncommon for trans people to misgender and deadname themselves, especially early on, and sometimes our own foibles can become funny.

I'm increasingly persuaded by the idea of namescrubbing the deadname in general, though. I still get deadnamed by my dad (yes, ten years later.........) so I think I have a lot of mental energy invested in downplaying the pain of getting deadnamed, but is is really unpleasant and probably not necessary for a fun piece of fiction.

[anarfea]

Yeah, I get what you're saying. Cassidy, the code monkey of Ravelry came out as trans recently, and mentioned that "Cassidy" was actually her birth name, but that she went by something else for most of her life, and is now reclaiming that name post transition. So I know that not all trans people would feel that having a name that's a different gender version of their name is bad, it's just one of those things that I've seen trans people say you should not do, and especially that cis people should not do, and I'm trying to listen to those things as much as I can, though I realize that trans people are not a monolith and don't always agree.

I also know you were in favor of Colin calling himself "Molly" in a moment of panic, and Olli liked "Colleen," and both of those are "Problematic" and I have two actual real trans people in favor of them lol. I will give this some thought I have time.

I'm sorry your dad doesn't call you by your right name. That must fucking suck.

And yeah, I can see why Emilia would call Colin "Molly," especially since he isn't out to her. I'm not even sure if he knows his real name yet. I'm not sure when he thinks of it but it has to be by the Molly House scene for sure. And then he tells Holmes his real name after they've had sex the second time because Holmes says he feels it's wrong to continue to call him "Hooper" after they've been that intimate. So it would make sense for Emilia to call Colin "Molly" but it's a particular piece of angst I'm trying to avoid putting Colin through. I think it's hard enough that he can't be out to his lover.

[tei]

Ooh! I don't have any suggestions for specific names, but maybe something that... they either adopt in honour of someone they respect, or a moniker that someone else gives them? So that way it's more about them paying tribute to a person or idea they care about, rather than that name being an aspect of their own identity.

[anarfea]

Oh, I like that idea. I'll see if I can come up with any other female in Colin's life he'd want to honor that way.

[saraht]

W/r/t the idea of "deadnames," I know this is a tricky topic, and not one on which I speak from personal experience, but I think it might be useful for you to read the thread here, which includes several trans people expressing discomfort with the usage.

[anarfea]

Interesting. I have never heard anyone say that cis people shouldn't use the term "deadname." Thanks for posting.

[oulfis]

Huh, that's a really interesting thread! I honestly disagree with that reasoning, because I think it's useful to have a term for the verboten name (deadname), and because I think it's even more useful to have a term for the malicious act of refusing to use a trans person's name (deadnaming); I guess I never interpreted it as meaning that the person died, but rather than the name itself died. Then again, I also don't really get mad when people use terminology like transsexual, if that's the terminology that they learned originally and their actual statements are supportive -- I have a LOT more problems day to day with people who use all the right terms, but use them to say cruel things that push transphobic agendas. So I guess I'm too live-and-let-live to weigh in on what makes a term "offensive". Thanks for linking the thread, it's interesting to see how out of touch I am with the current trans zeitgeist :p

[anarfea]

I also think that it is useful to have a word for the name and the act of aggression. And I'm glad you think so, too.

Regarding your referring to yourself as being "out of touch with the zeitgeist," a bunch of trans people I know feel this way. Probably because most of the trans people I know are around my age, and the conversation, at least on the internet, seems to be dominated by the youth. And the acceptable terminology is changing really fast. And I see a lot of the trans and broader queer community tearing into itself in ways that seem really damaging to me. Like, younger trans people "canceling" older trans people for "transphobic" language which was considered politically correct at that time. And on the one hand, I think it's kind of out of hand, and on the other, I feel like I'm kind of not allowed to have an opinion on what is or isn't acceptable as I'm cis.

Like the whole transmedicalist debate. Like, during the phase where I wondered if I might be trans, part of the reason I wondered if I were trans was because I like to wear male drag and crossplay, and I feel good wearing a strap-on, and there are definitely times when I wish I had a cock. And I also don't like being female sometimes. I sometimes feel like I'd be happier if I were a man. And I've been misgendered a couple of times and been excited that people thought I was a man. But I don't feel dysphoria; I just like playing with masculinity sometimes. And I talked to a trans friend about this who was like, "if you're not dysphoric, you're not trans."

But then I was reading stuff on tumblr that was like, "you don't have to experience dysphoria to be trans, and if you say you have to experience dysphoria to be trans, you're Truscum." And there were people talking about their experiences about being trans and not being dysphoric but euphoric about finding the "right" gender. And some of that resonated with me and my feelings about my own masculinity (and I definitely want to write Colin being euphoric about discovering his masculinity).

I don't think my friend is "Truscum." But he does believe quite strongly that dysphoria is part and parcel of being trans, and I know that he experiences dysphoria, as do lots of trans people (and some cis people). I don't want to "correct" him based on my second hand knowledge about the existence of people who are trans who are not dysphoric. And actually I don't personally know any trans people who are not dysphoric, which leads me to believe it's uncommon, but I also don't want to disbelieve these people who say they're trans and not dysphoric, because what do I know, I'm cis.

But yeah I guess I concluded that I am cis. Since I'm comfortable enough with my assumed gender that I don't want to transition. But I have a complicated relationship with my gender and I know I'm not the only cis person who does. I've talked to other queer cis women with similar experiences (enjoy crossplay, want cocks sometimes, like being referred to by male pronouns while in drag, etc. etc.) I wish more cis people would interrogate their genders because I think that actually most people are at least somewhat uncomfortable with gender roles and would like to play with them and I don't think that's "appropriating" trans experience. I think it's a normal part of human experience or at least of queer experience.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'll stop now. I have laundry in the dryer that needs folding.

[saraht]

The laundry waits for no gender interrogation!

[anarfea]

Lol no it does not.

[saraht]

I can easily imagine this is an area where opinions are changing and/or diverse, and some will object to the term where others won't. I just wanted to share the information, since I know anarfea is trying to be very careful here.

[anarfea]

I was so curious about this that I put up an unofficial poll on twitter. I'm curious what others say.

[saraht]

I'd be interested to hear the results. I hope it didn't sound like I was trying to call you out.

[anarfea]

Oh, no. I didn't feel called out at all. I was just surprised because I'd never heard that and I feel like I try to be aware of these things. So far the poll is unanimous that it's okay for cis people to use the word, but it hasn't gone outside my immediate circle of friends and my trans friends are older than I imagine the people in this thread are (I could be wrong, but my take was that those people were young).

[oulfis]

Thanks for bringing my attention to this book, I'm going to check it out! Reading trans fiction in general does indeed seem like really helpful background for your novel (and a key way to avoid the "American Dirt" phenomenon) -- if you read more I'd love to hear your thoughts and especially recs of your favourites!

[anarfea]

It is a very good book. Though so far my favorite story, I regret to say, is one of the ones that has no trans characters in it? "Into the Waters I Rode Down." It's a beautiful story about an older, disabled, neurodivergent woman who has a telepathic link with this alien creature they refer to as "catsnake." I don't know, it just punched me right in the guts.

But yeah, I'm trying to read more fiction by trans authors in a variety of genres. I'm reading fic, of course, and also these speculative fiction stories, and I want to read some memoirs as well. I'm looking particularly for stories with transmasculine and genderfluid characters, but one of the reasons I picked Transcendent is because there's a diversity of trans voices. I will rec my favorites!