 Fantasy: June 14, 2023 Issue [#12015] |
This week: Gender Indeterminant Edited by: Dawn Embers  
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Fantasy Newsletter by Dawn
Characters are an important, central aspect to most stories and showcasing a variety of characters has more meaning more than ever. Representation is king/queen/in-between. |
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It is June and in many places in the US plus around the world, people are celebrating Pride. I like to take the chance when I can to talk about a variety of topics including those involving the lgbtqia+ community (long acronym but google can list it all out, or some depending on variety of alphabet letter). I know last month, I talked about things that make people uncomfortable and this topic might fall in that category but speculative fiction has a special place when it comes to the options for characters and their gender, identified sex at birth or any forms of identity. So, for June 2023, I am going to write a little about the options with this aspect of identity.
Some terms and meanings:
Gender - how a person identifies, expressed in a spectrum and associated with social constructs.
Sex - the physical difference between male, female and intersex. Often assigned at birth based on physical/biological features.
Transgender - individual that has a gender identity that doesn't match traditional sex identified at birth.
Intersex - individual that has a body which doesn't fit in the standard male/female binary in biological identification.
Nonbinary - gender identity that is on the spectrum, not found on either side of the social viewed binary approach.
Gender Indeterminant - Not able to determine gender. It was a joke used on Everybody Loves Raymond when Robert was dancing with a CPR dummy.
These are just a few terms that may be used but aren't the only aspect to the topic. I recommend doing research when looking into creating characters or races that may be different than what is already in your wheelhouse of knowledge.
One of the fun aspects is that there are plenty of options for characters when writing about non-humans: aliens, elves, orcs or whatever else you create.
Perhaps there are beings or characters in the story that can even change their biological sex. There are some animals, particularly those in the ocean, in our world that can do just that. And the reasons for the switch differs depending on the animal and situation. There are some that do it for population reasons, to even out the balance of the group to keep increasing or maintaining population, for example. Whether it's a type of fish, starfish, or slug, the change often relates to a reason giving an advantage. This could be interpreted to characters in a speculative fiction story. Maybe there is a race of elves that shift gender if their village or community has an unbalance. It can be done with purpose, through ceremony, or even maybe even done more than once whenever it suits their needs. There are different, interesting approaches you could take on the biological side and the sex of creatures involved in a story.
However, a character doesn't have to change their physical characteristics to provide representation for people. One can use clothing, makeup and artistic methods to show an aesthetic, a type of image, to those in the world whether it matches that birth identified sex. In our world, this is sometimes referred to as Drag (though acting could be similar cause it's dressing up as someone else...) and it can be done with any gender identity. Drag Queens are more known, though almost anyone can perform as one. In competitions I've seen men (different orientations), women and those that have transitioned: m to f and f to m. There are also Drag Kings, which is performing and dressing as men. The dress can be anything from realistic to insanely over the top (camp is one such category). The appearance changes can be for various reasons from entertainment to self joy. It can even be to keep them safe in a situation. In my epic fantasy series, when going into a villain infested village, the elves wear wigs and dress as women in order to not be seen because there is a prize for any elf that gets captured.
The identity of the character can influence the story or can be just a matter of fact. The changes can be shown through a main character, a villain or side characters seen in different sections of the world. Gender could be connected to the main plot, the side conflict, influence a romance or be mentioned with limited focus. How you write it, that is up to you.
What is important is that people aren't afraid to write different characters. Representation in any type of story can provide comfort and acknowledgement. It might even give knowledge to people who aren't as familiar outside the scope of their own experiences of identity. That knowledge can make a difference.
Sources:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/transgender-vs-transexual#transgender
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/sex-gender-identity/what...
https://www.science.org/content/article/knowing-when-change-sex#:~:text=Slugs%2C...
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My own story but with an intersex main character:
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Do you have any characters who are in between or identify as something other than male/female?
Last month, I focused on the topic of making people uncomfortable. Here is a comment sent in regards to that newsletter:
Comment by Quick-Quill  :
You have opened a subject most people feel uncomfortable to talk/write about. Thank you. Your first line had me thinking you were at a car race. It took the next few sentences to realize Drag was men dressing as women. I see a trend to force people to face what makes them uncomfortable. If I pick up a book and there is profanity in the first pages and it continues to be prolific I will stop and decide whether the plot is so engaging I can ignore the profanity. Most time I won’t finish it. If I have a physical book and see upfront there is a lot of profanity, I won’t buy the book. The same with topics that I don’t agree with. I probably won’t read the book. However if the book is educational about a subject I am not familiar with and want to overcome my bias, I will continue to read.
In the fantasy world while creating characters that are outside the normal world, it gives some opportunity to include topics some find uncomfortable. The subject will determine my interest.
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