Edit, 3/28/09 – I’m attempting to organize my thoughts on trans fiction here. That page contains links to all of the blog posts I’ve written on the subject, as well as a (growing) collection of links to sites focusing on trans fiction, and particular trans-themed authors/stories I like.

So I spent a chunk of this evening (gods it’s nice to be done with a show and not have rehearsal!) (gods it sucks that we have pickup rehearsals this week) reading trans-themed fiction. A couple of sites I’ve become fond of are Sapphire’s Palace and Fictionmania, as well as some of Brandy’s work and the Seasons of Change series. And, of course, I can’t leave out the Saga of Tuck (though I can’t decide if it’s actually less good now or if I’m just no longer 14…).

I’ve been thinking about what type of trans-themed fiction I like, and why I like reading it. Most fiction dealing with trans themes or found on trans-fiction sites deals with men who are somehow forced or coerced into becoming women. Definitely not all trans fiction has those themes – the Whateley Academy stories have some really great characters who actually identify as trans – but a lot of ‘em do. And I do get a lot more enjoyment out of reading stories with characters who do identify as trans. Just as it was fantastically helpful to read an experience that fit with my own in Whipping Girl, it’s really satisfying to read fiction with characters who I can identify with.

But why do I keep reading stories with forced (or at least unintentional) feminization? Part of it is simply that there’s not a ton of trans-themed fiction out there, period. So, to some extent, I’m willing to take what I can get for any moderatly well-written fiction (and occasionally less-than-well-written) with trans- or gender-related themes.

And yet, inevitably, my mind turns back to Serano’s passage from Whipping Girl:

When I hit puberty, my newly found attraction to women spilled into my dreams of becoming a girl. For me, sexuality became a strange combination of jealousy, self-loathing, and lust. Because when you isolate an impressionable transgender teen and bombard her with billboard ads baring bikini-clad women and boys’ locker room trash talk about this girl’s tits and that girl’s ass, then she will learn to turn her gender identity into a fetish.

I would agree that my sexuality is a wholely fucked up realm, but a subject for another post. But I think similar issues that I have with sexuality are cropping up in the fiction I’m reading: characters who hate their experience as being put into the ‘wrong body’ (in this case a woman’s) but come to enjoy the experience by the end of the story. Likewise, being thrust into a world of femininity and being terrified of being ‘discovered’ does resonate more than a little with my life experience…

But I would say that all three of Serano’s emotions – jealousy, self-loathing, and lust – are at play when I’m reading fiction about non-trans characters in ‘gender reversal’ situations.

-R