anarfea

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.