Writing a Transgender Character

When writing character who is transgender, how do you ensure the reader will think "oh this person is definitely 'gender they identify as'"? I don't want to exaggerate their gender expression too much or they will seem overly stereotypical or just Camp Gay. Can anyone else any other tips to keep in mind while writing this?

Refer to them by the proper gender pronoun is a good place to start. And don't write gender, write a person.

I was planning in doing that. So just try to write a person rather than writing a man or woman?

That's the idea; unless the plot is about the topic of gender and/or the character's struggle through his/her identity and individuality, the emphasis should be simply being on the character. Character's whose sole shtick is being "what they are" rather than "who they are" tend to be poorly received in a plot that doesn't focus on that (not to mention a rather ironic message).

Of course, even if the plot is about the hardships of being in a body that's wrong to you and the societal stigma associated, the character must be individualised and made a believable human being rather than simply "a man or a woman".

edited 14th Jul '13 2:58:07 PM by peryton

Research it. Go on to forums or other sites that have testimony/stories from TG people, and learn from their personal experiences.

Actually, that's my answer to your other posts, too.

If it's a guy you don't have to make him all macho. Either make him insist on his gender ("Mom, I don't feel like a boy. I am a boy.") or make everyone just accept his gender by treating him as one of the guys with brief mention that he was born into a girl's body.

One thing to remember is that transsexuals get depicted so rarely in fiction that there are very few cliches to avoid - and most of those are the blatantly offensive shit you can figure out not to do with five minutes of research.

I was planning on further research anyway. But that is good to know :) I just want to be careful about the whole "non-offensive depiction/representation" thing because the story also has some other LGBT themes and one thing an author doesn't want to do end up offending a good part of their audience...

The only cliché I know of that annoys the living shit out of me are people who are perfect at...passing...I guess? for their preferred gender. It seems like wish fulfillment, and a way to sideline any and all issues that actually come with it. I mean, I'm sure if you had a cast of multiple transgender folk and one person could pass no problem that'd be fine, but otherwise, it simplifies it and stuff.

(I'm referring to pre-transition, obviously)

edited 15th Jul '13 5:16:30 PM by MrAHR

It depends on age and other factors. My brother used to be able to pass for a girl easy until he was about fourteen years old and there are plenty of people with fairly androgynous features even later in life. Particularly if the person in question is of an ethnicity that isn't the standard sight in your day to day life as you grow up. If the physical markers between two ethnicities differ in a similar way as the physical markers between gender within one of those ethnicities, a male face can easily read as female and vice versa if they cross from one into the other, provided all the other indicators match that gender matrix (such as bodyshape, clothes, movement, attitude).

I think it's easier to believe that someone with soft features is a girly faced male rather than the other way around, though, most likely due to Double Standard. And in any case, passing requires rather more effort than just growing out/cutting your hair and some of it is very uncomfortable - for example breast binding seriously affects your breathing and can be pretty painful.

I'll second what Drunkie said. Transgeneder is about gender. It's at the core of their identity.

Forget anime gender bending and most cheesy TG fiction you can find on the 'net.

• Lynn Conway: she has a TS resourses page

• Andrea James's TS roadmap

great resources I found via google.

What everyone else said. This is a good thread full of good advice. I'll just reiterate that trans charas are themselves first, their gender next and their transness ought to be lower down on their characterisation. It can come up in the story and define their *plotline* but ideally, I wouldn't like it to be the biggest dimension of their *characterisation*. Basically I'd just love to see more representation of trans folk as characters rather than devices.

Hello I'm writing a very, very long story with Loads And Loads Of Characters (I like creating characters, thankfully they're divided into groups so I can easily keep track of them), and one of them happen to be transexual (biologically female, but identify as male).

Just to be clear, I didn't create him just for the sake of having a Token Minority. One day a friend of mine asked me to draw an androgynous character, so I drew it and I liked it, but I wanted to give him a gender, and in the end I decided to make him a ftm transgender (To be precise, a trans male vampire butler). Also, since in Italy transexuality is a heated topic to say the least, there will be only a few cryptic hints that he's biologically female (the setting is a medieval fantasy, so no sex-change operation) like the uniform being tight around his chest.

Then I gave him a personality, a fighting style and a role in the story, the only thing missing was a name. I've decided to give him a name which sounds gender-neutral, though leaning toward femminity since he was born female, and I came up with Frannie. However, after a while, I realized that it sounds similar to "trannie" which, if I'm not wrong, is a bad term, so, do you think it's better if I change the name?

edited 13th Aug '17 2:32:03 PM by simonsolly

Not transgender myself, but I do have acting experience and a whole lot of times, "passing" is largely due to body language more than "looking" a certain gender.

Plus if you aren't specifically looking for "transgender" individuals, most people will assume a small and slender man would be assumed as either a young man or Older Than They Look, while a tall and lower-voiced female will just be a tall and lower-voiced woman as long as the body language and mannerisms match up. And hell, there's plenty of normal reasons for why the mannerisms WOULDN'T match up.

In Mulan, they basically treat "Ping" as an awkward and klutzy teenager because really, that's what he acts like. They make jokes about how pretty he is, they put his reluctance to go swimming naked as "LOL, POOR BABY THINKS CLOTHES ARE A THING," and Ping's over-the-top attempts to be "manly" is like at least half the teenaged male population in the history of the world.

There's a bunch of different ways to write a character, trans* or otherwise. However, for your specific work, what specific reason is this character trans*? Or to look at it another way, why are any of your characters any specific gender? If you just want a trans* character, then just write them as any other character (that is, with little reference to their gender). Same if it's an arbitrary decision (i.e. "just because").

However, if the trans*-ness of this character is important to the theme of your story, then you'll want to get into the nitty gritty.

I'm one of those people who think that all of the aspects of the story should be informed by the Central Theme (because that isn't obvious LOL).

I guess what my point boils down to is...:

If it makes sense in the story in light of the Central Theme you're trying to convey, then to "exaggerate their gender expression" or for them to be "overly stereotypical or just Camp Gay" is how they should be written (Tropes Are Tools). Hopefully, they're dynamic and deep characters who change somehow over the course of the story, but if they start out as (or become) a stereotype, then that's fine so long as it makes sense for the story.

Frannie sounds like a cute name, but it may not be received positively for a trans character. What do you think about a more traditional gender-neutral name like Ashley? Too girly, maybe?

Well, when I created Frannie, I've simply thought "why not make him transgender?" though, as I've said, I prefer to not bring up the fact that he's trans, except for a few hints. And just to say it, when I create a character, gender usually doesn't influence their personality or their combat abilities (especially the latter), altough there is a "pink brigade" who is an all-female warrior brigade born decades before the story to prove that women are as capable as men etc

Now, about Frannie and his role in the story. He's not a main character, he's The Dragon (likely Dragon-in-Chief) of an Arc Villain, and for now, has appeared in a flashback, where he's a 204 year old (42 for a vampire) leader of a vampire-butlers and maids team, and he's gonna reappear MUCH later (the story is very very long, I've planned 5 books but maybe I have to split them in 10 books). In this appeareance it was shown that his teammates (the team is composed of 3 females and 3 males, included him) trust him and follow his directions, that he's a strong hand-to-hand combatant (helped by his multiple "mana-arms") and that he's narcissistic (he sometimes looks at himself in a little pocket mirror, and , when someone tells him something, he often replies "Did you say I'm beautiful? Because I know") In his next appearance, which is gonna be bigger, he's more worried for his teammates, since he's lost two members (one died , while the other one was left behind by the others to save their skin, and pulled a Heel–Face Turn) but I've not fully planned the story arc yet, so I'm not sure what else will happen to him for now. As you can see, him being trans has very little (if anything) to do with his personality, but thats because I take the "coward's route" of avoiding Unfortunate Implications.

Just to answer Water Blap, the main central theme is that everyona has difficulties and problems but is possible to overcome them, and that everything can rise even if it's at the bottom, though there are many others, like the growth to adulthood and the passing to a new generation, and that no one does bad things simply For the Evulz (either, they think they're doing a good thing, that they're justified, or they are simply sick and twisted indivuals). And possibly a Deconstructor Fleet, but that depends on how good I am at writing (little hint: I suck).

Also, one last thing, what I asked is if the name "Frannie", due to sounding similar to "trannie", is possibly offensive and it is better to change it.

Beary Scary, yeah I too think it's cute, but I'm afraid some might find it offensive, and Ashley sounds too girly to me (It makes me think of the Ashleys of Recess, is it really a gender-neutral name?) Another idea (and ulterior hint that he's trans) is to give him a name that follows the Theme Naming of the female vampire maids (the butlers don't have one): they're named after dirty things that are usually cleaned. The names for now are Dust, Litter (she has a Cat Smile) and Cinder (the one who pulls the Heel–Face Turn). But I can't think of any other related name (except Crumbs, but I don't like it) <- Take note that I'm Italian, so many readers won't get the Theme Naming.

To answer about the offensiveness of the name: YES. Yes, it kinda would be. Even if it didn't bring to mind slurs, it's also just......the type of name that nobody who isn't a horribly bad drag queen with zero self-respect would allow themselves to be called by.

As for name suggestions....take a look at the gender-neutral names on Gender-Blender Name, and come back after you've found one you think is good.

So I am writing a fantasy adventure (more Bloodborne than Tolkien in style) where a Transwoman in deep denial finds herself magically switched from her original biological male form and into a woman. She comes from a patriarchal and somewhat puritanical society and hence must forgo her life as a Knight and warrior.

There is somewhat of an identity crisis where she wonders if she should commit to being a proper woman now and get married/have children or follow her heart and try to get back into the business of fighting (in her case she finds monster hunting quite fun and is talented at it) even though society tells her that's not what a woman does.

Now, on a different forum I was told this story could be potentially offensive because I gave an easy solution to a complex problem by magically having her turn into a woman (biologically speaking). Would like to request some help with this? Does the Gender Bender trope trivialize Trans issues?

On top of this; she is in a relationship with an Inter-sexed woman since homosexual relationships are accepted in her society (but being intersex is a dangerous secret). I wanted to have some tender moments and even a love scene or two. Again I was told to cut them out since Transpersons are fetishized way too much as is. Suggestions?

edited 14th Aug '17 3:19:36 PM by SmokingBun

A lot of times, transgender individuals face a LOT of Culture Clash thanks to the general "Different for Girls" aspect of society. Male-to-female people will DEFINITELY get a lot to struggle with on a social level—they're in the body they wanted (or they're treated as such, for those who don't want therapy/hormones), sure, but they'd also lose their male privilege. They'd start getting catcalled/harassed on the streets, their abilities are questioned for almost EVERYTHING because modern women are still seen as less qualified/intelligent than men in many areas, and then there's all the stuff that ciswomen grow up knowing that transwomen don't.

With your transwoman going from male to female in a patriarchal feudal society, she'll probably end up in danger at some point because she lacks fear, which means she also lacks CAUTION. She wouldn't have grown up with her family telling her to get home before dark, or having someone come with her to the market so she doesn't get harassed, or dressing a certain way to keep men from leering at her (and that last part isn't even too reliable, since most women can get catcalled in the dead of winter, wearing clothes that have absolutely nothing showing but their face).

She also may not know how to defuse situations and just start arguing with a man for disagreeing with her, which will freak people out because a lot of ciswomen know that men can turn on a dime and physically assault you for IGNORING THEM, let alone actually raising your voice.

edited 14th Aug '17 3:56:07 PM by Sharysa

At the risk of derailing this thread. This all depends on the character and their surroundings.Someone who grew up in a bad neighborhood for example, who probably avoid being out past a certain hour no matter the gender.

edited 14th Aug '17 6:45:15 PM by DeanCole

Even women in "good" neighborhoods will follow those rules, though. She might be used to thinking "oh, this is a good neighborhood/village/town" because she was born a man, but men in THESE times are shocked by how much their female relatives prepare emotionally for going outside, getting in disagreements, or men staring at them too long. Women live in a constant state of alertness because "What if this situation goes bad?", regardless of whether they live in Arcadia or The City Narrows. THAT'S why it's Different for Girls.

edited 15th Aug '17 10:28:51 AM by Sharysa

Huh.Different experiences guess.The women around me don't really display that level of alertness.This isn't to say that they have nothing to fear. Just that they care about those fears less.

(In my own personal experience, it's less of a shock for transwomen than you may think, because oftentimes the cretins who catcall are the same ones who used to call you a faggot a few years before. When it comes to harassment, we have "applicable experience". Obviously, YMMV. )

edited 15th Aug '17 2:23:41 PM by InigoMontoya

Don't display, or don't feel? Because, while I will not say that it is impossible for someone to not feel alert in certain situations, women do a lot with their emotion and it is possible for a woman to be afraid and freaking out with nobody in the vicinity aware of it (because to show it is to show weakness, and to show weakness is to make yourself into an easy target).

Just to put it into some context, when I go outside at night I do appear confident, but I am quite wary of basically anything that moves and half the things that don't. And I'd been raised in a place where you usually wouldn't be afraid to go out because rich people and blah (though, admittedly, I did spend enough time in other places so whatevs). Admittedly catcalling is less of an issue for me because I generally have earphones in my ears when outside so I usually can ignore them and have them assume that I simply hadn't heard (usually; I'd lost a nice umbrella one of the times when it was different).

That said, I will agree that a lot of things about the character may be influenced by where they grew up, not only as far as the neighbourhood is concerned but also as far as the kind of place is (village, small town, city centre, suburbs, middle of nowhere, an island with one palm tree, etc.) and the country itself (because people are used to different things and there are rules for different things as well).

Also, there are jobs that are female-dominated and at which women are considered better, so I will note that those jobs may be a reversal of sorts for "losing respect" when it comes to perceived competence (only, of course, from most people the respect is not freely given and has to be earned, it's just that after changing their gender they may get the opportunity to do so that they've never had before).

edited 16th Aug '17 7:14:26 AM by Kazeto