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heron61For fiction, I almost exclusively read SF & fantasy, and I’ve recently noticed two interesting and positive change in novels with transgender protagonists or major transgender characters. The most obvious change is there are considerably more such novels than there were even a decade ago.
I first saw novels where the focus was (unsurprisingly) on coming out and traying to gain acceptance for being trans – in short, the focus of the character was being trans. Such novels are important and necessary, but just as every novel with a lesbian, African American, or other minority character shouldn’t primarily be about their status as a minority, all novels with trans characters shouldn’t solely be about the character being trans. Also, if you are looking for such novels, you can’t go wrong with the two superhero novels Dreadnaught: Nemesis and Sovereign: Nemesis, both by April Daniels, much excellent superhero fun, and the antagonist in the 2nd novel is a truly noxious TERF who most definitely gets her comeuppance.
In any case, I’ve now noticed this starting to shift. I recently read a quite fun novel, Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender – I picked it up because I enjoy novels about people learning magic and attempting to overthrow unjust systems, and discovered that the protagonist was a transman – it was an important aspect of the character, but not a central one. The same was true with The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas – a excellent novel about a competition between the children of various deities, where the protagonist is also a transman, and again the character being transgender is important, but the plot has absolutely nothing to do with them being trans. There are three protagonists in the deeply odd but wonderful Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, where one of the protagonists is a young transwoman, and her being trans is important to the novel, but the plot is a glorious romp involving deals with the actual devil, classical music, and interstellar refugees who run a donut shop. The strangest of such novels is definitely The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall, which is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, set in a bizarre and eldritch city, where the version of Holmes is an overly dramatic sorceress, and Watson mention he’s a transman in a single not terribly clear line early on and no further mention is ever made of it – far more focus is given to the fact that in wartime he was shot with an “extratemporal jezail” which still troubles him – it’s a lot of rather odd fun and is also the second oddest Holmes pastiche I’ve ever read [1].
[1] The oddest Holmes pastiche I’ve read (by far) is definitely The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes by Jamyang Norbu, where the author is a Tibetan activist and author who wrote a novel where Holmes and Moriarty are both enlightened mystics of greater supernatural power, where the novel is set between “The Adventure of the Final Problem” and “The Adventure of the Empty House”, when Holmes was canonically in the far east – it’s deeply odd if also well written and enjoyable, but also entirely devoid of any queer content.
I first saw novels where the focus was (unsurprisingly) on coming out and traying to gain acceptance for being trans – in short, the focus of the character was being trans. Such novels are important and necessary, but just as every novel with a lesbian, African American, or other minority character shouldn’t primarily be about their status as a minority, all novels with trans characters shouldn’t solely be about the character being trans. Also, if you are looking for such novels, you can’t go wrong with the two superhero novels Dreadnaught: Nemesis and Sovereign: Nemesis, both by April Daniels, much excellent superhero fun, and the antagonist in the 2nd novel is a truly noxious TERF who most definitely gets her comeuppance.
In any case, I’ve now noticed this starting to shift. I recently read a quite fun novel, Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender – I picked it up because I enjoy novels about people learning magic and attempting to overthrow unjust systems, and discovered that the protagonist was a transman – it was an important aspect of the character, but not a central one. The same was true with The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas – a excellent novel about a competition between the children of various deities, where the protagonist is also a transman, and again the character being transgender is important, but the plot has absolutely nothing to do with them being trans. There are three protagonists in the deeply odd but wonderful Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, where one of the protagonists is a young transwoman, and her being trans is important to the novel, but the plot is a glorious romp involving deals with the actual devil, classical music, and interstellar refugees who run a donut shop. The strangest of such novels is definitely The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall, which is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, set in a bizarre and eldritch city, where the version of Holmes is an overly dramatic sorceress, and Watson mention he’s a transman in a single not terribly clear line early on and no further mention is ever made of it – far more focus is given to the fact that in wartime he was shot with an “extratemporal jezail” which still troubles him – it’s a lot of rather odd fun and is also the second oddest Holmes pastiche I’ve ever read [1].
[1] The oddest Holmes pastiche I’ve read (by far) is definitely The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes by Jamyang Norbu, where the author is a Tibetan activist and author who wrote a novel where Holmes and Moriarty are both enlightened mystics of greater supernatural power, where the novel is set between “The Adventure of the Final Problem” and “The Adventure of the Empty House”, when Holmes was canonically in the far east – it’s deeply odd if also well written and enjoyable, but also entirely devoid of any queer content.
