redamancer:gailsimone:rememberwhenyoutried:gailsimone:gre...

redamancer:

gailsimone:

rememberwhenyoutried:

gailsimone:

greenwolfmusic:

So, I want to introduce you to two characters. On the left is Claire Augustus from Jeph Jacques’ webcomic Questionable Content and on the right is Alysia Yeoh from Gail Simone’s Batgirl. These two have a great deal in common, stemming from the fact that both characters are transgendered. Both were create with a deliberate eye to improving the representation of transpeople in the media and I think its eerie how similar the methodologies of both Simone and Jacques are in this regard.

I think the thing that interests me the most about these characters is the fact that their sexuality is not the main focus of their character. Both are written as well rounded individuals who, incidentally, happen to be trans. The fact that they are trans is not played for conflict in any way, and in both “coming out" issues, the respective protagonists in each series take the character’s gender in stride. In Alysia’s case, the character is a “civilian" in a superhero book, which I understand was a very deliberate choice by the author. Furthermore, neither character is illustrated in a way that differentiates them from the cis females in the same book. These characters look to  represent transpeople in a very human way. Again, it’s refreshing to see a representation that does not focus on the sexuality of the character in question.

That having been said, these characters do frustrate me a little. While on the one hand they represent very character driven portrayals, I’m concerned with how insignificant their genders are to their stories as a whole. Both authors use “coming out" as a trope to solidify the friendship between the protagonist and the trans side character. However, beyond this, these characters’ trans status is not used for any other sort of development. These characters could very easily be replaced by cis characters without dramatically affecting the narrative of the stories they appear in.

So, on the one hand I do appreciate that both authors have put tremendous effort into creating realistic trans characters. And, I admit, I like the idea of portraying trans characters without making their gender the defining aspect of the character. At the same time, neither series has thus far meaningfully delved into what it means to be trans. We haven’t seen either character deal with gender dysphoria, discrimination, transphobia or any of the other struggles that transpeople face.

Representation is a tough nut to crack and I do think that both Jacques and Simone deserve a great deal of praise for these characters. This isn’t meant to be overly critical. I think that the point I want to make is that these sorts of representational struggles represent a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t" sort of situation. I suspect I would be just as disappointed if Batgirl became a supporting character in her own book so that Alysia’s struggles as a transwoman could take center stage.

In the end, I think the secret is diversity. While works of the sort that Simone and Jacques are producing help, we need writers to tackle trans related issues in a variety of ways. After all, I do not think that the issue is that there are not enough LGBT characters in the media; the problem is that most LGBT characters fall into one or two predictable roles. So I think that the key is to broaden the diversity of said characters, which is exactly what these two are doing.

I agree with everything you have said, here.

I realize that by showing Alysia as accepted well by her family, and immediately by Barbara Gordon, that we took one path down a crossroad.

At that point, we could have shown Alysia saying that her family had rejected her, or that it had been a long struggling process, or we could have had Barbara react in shock and dismay (which is a little harder for me to picture, knowing Barbara).

And that would represent the experience of a lot of trans folk, absolutely. And there is always value in showing that people survive adversity.

I gave this a ton of thought, I talked to a lot of trans writers and creators and bloggers, and I read a lot on the subject, none of which even remotely makes me an expert. I knew it was an important choice to make.

In the end, I wanted the first such character in the bat universe to have had a positive experience coming and and transitioning. If she’s the first, that means she may be the first such character some readers have ever experienced in a comic. So after a lot of thought, I made that choice.

But I completely agree that there needs to be balancing portrayals to show that not everyone has that perfect family, that accepting friend.
I do have another trans character on the way in a few months and his experience is different.

I hope that makes sense. And again, ALL credit goes to the lovely trans community that helped educate me enough to hopefully create a character that is meaningful for some.

Thank you for writing this, great stuff.

I kind of think — and this is just a gut reaction — that transgender stories that deal with the (potential) negative repercussions of being trans ought to be written by trans authors. I’m super pleased to see cis authors writing trans characters who are happy, accepted, and just getting on with their lives and I definitely think it’s important to have those portrayals out there; god knows there were none when I was a kid.

When things go badly, though? I want one of us writing it.

Gaiman’s Sandman and Sky Atlantic’s Hit & Miss both tried to show us trans women in adversity, and while I think H&M got a lot closer to not-awful than Sandman did, neither rang true for me, and reading and watching I rather felt like a zoo exhibit: here are our lives, filtered, edited, re-arranged and re-presented for your pleasure.

That’s a fair point, as well. 

Also, I apologize to everyone for only talking about ONE issue raised by the OP, I’m at a deadline and only had a few minutes to spare.

There are a couple trans writers in comics that I am aware of, and they happen to be damn good writers. Would love to see them do what you are talking about here in a mainstream book like a bat- or spider- title.

i’d also like to point something out, at someone who’s lived in singapore and knows trans* and queer people

i was really shocked with alysia’s family apparently being fine with her being trans, like it wasn’t a huge issue

she’s singaporean

i dunno what people have told you gail, considering you’ve been here a few times (we met once! i gave you a singlish book!) but the social environment here is terrifying for trans people. even the prime minister has gone on record saying he thinks being gay is ‘some kind of fad’.

most if not all of my local singaporean friends are terrified of coming out to their parents

it doesn’t help that every male singaporean citizen has to serve two years military service.

the military here considers being gay or effeminate a mental disorder and in fact has a seperate division for gay and ‘effeminate’ people to keep them far away from all the normal men for two reasons. the first is that because all males serve in the singaporean military, you will get the large amount of homophobes who will kick the shit out of you if they get even an inkling that you’re gay. so they keep both parties away from each other.

the second is the idea that men will be ‘corrupted’ by the gays.

i’m not saying ‘all singaporeans are transphboic’ but unfortunately (especially in traditional chinese-singaporean envrionments) there is a huge danger in revealing you are any part of the queer spectrum, for fear of being disowned or being ostracised or just having someone finding out and then…being attacked

it’s a minor thing, but it is also important to recognize that the culture here in singapore, (apart from wonderful events like pink dot) is incredibly unfriendly to queer people

gay sex is still a jail-able crime here

tl;dr: singapore and singaporean families are typically not great(tm) for anyone of a queer persuasion, and i found it really quite unbelievable that alysia’s family would be cool with it, and the fact that being a trans* person from a country notorious for it’s oppression of queer people is kinda brushed aside is…problematic

No, I’m aware of all of that and have spoken at great length with people from Singapore about it, particularly people in the lgbtq community there. The person Alysia’s name is taken from is lgbtq herself. And you mention pink dot yourself which would have been unthinkable not that long ago.

I’ve written in the past about some of the homophobia we experienced while in SIngapore on our first visit, it was very depressing, in such a beautiful country full of such amazing people. Trigger warning here for homophobia, but at the very first panel I gave in Singapore, a really handsome young man who wanted to be a writer and was a fan of mine got up and asked, “How do you write gay characters in your comics? Because the thought of that makes me want to throw up."

mean, I thought this kid WAS gay and was going to ask how to get to write gay characters, but then he added that second sentence and a bunch of people in the audience started nodding their heads like it was a good question. I’m sure there are some people here who were at that panel, the room was just deadly quiet and I was too stunned to say anything brilliant, I just felt crushed..

To this day it just makes me sad.  After the panel was over, there was another young man in glasses just sitting there alone, thinking, and I asked if he was okay, and he said, “I wish I lived somewhere where people like that didn’t hate me."

That stuck with me. I didn’t know what to tell him, there are homophobes everywhere, it seems. I don’t cry a lot, I’m pretty tough, but in the hotel room that night I just wanted to curl up and bawl. It was awful.

But I don’t think it’s fair to brand a fictional Singaporean family as anti-lgbtq AUTOMATICALLY.  I have a ton of lgbtq friends there right this moment and I usually vet this stuff with people who live there. The response I got was that there’s still a lot of cultural and political homophobia, but that there was a lot of tolerance in many families, so that’s what we tried to reflect.

I appreciate the post…some of that stuff is just sad to hear.

I’d love to hear from more people from S’pore…do you guys think the lgbtq acceptance is getting better?