Robin asked Karin Bishop:

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Karin Bishop Yes, a significant amount of my books feature protagonists that fit your description (not all, by any means!) and those books are usually cited at the bottom of the Amazon synopses as "A Transgender Young Adult book by Karin Bishop".

There are two reasons for these young trans girls fitting your description (although I'd hesitate to say "too-perfect"). The first is the least satisfying, and is purely objective: Readers like them. I get emails (my contact information's at the end of every book) and there are those who identify with the girls, and there are emails from parents of teens who are grateful for the stories. As to the troubled relationships with fathers, I note with joy the news articles from enlightened fathers of trans daughters -- but the fact that they are fathers is the news, not that they are accepting parents, because the accepting, supportive father, sadly, still seems a rarity. (One of the books I'm working on has a supportive father and antagonist brother)

There are as many varieties of trans girls as there are any other group. I have never written about a trans "mean girl" or bully, or a morbidly obese trans boy, or a crippled trans kid, yet those are very real people. Perhaps at one point I will try writing about someone like that, but there are other authors who cover the less happy lives many trans people live.

As to the denim skirt, I have worked with high school drama programs, and I can testify from observation (or even a day at a mall) that the denim skirt is overwhelmingly popular among teen girls -- the ones who aren't in jeans, that is. Putting on that skirt is not only a way for the trans girl to fit in better, but it's an emblem of commonality with girls her age.

And that leads to my second reason, my most important reason for my trans girls being as you described. I am primarily interested in the differences of gender roles; large and small, subtle variations or glaring oddnesses, both internally and externally.

What does my protagonist experience in the process of (to simplify) "being born a boy and living as a girl"? There are two or three stages of major worldview shifts. In two-stage, the protagonist has always known they were different-gendered, and makes that knowledge a physical reality. Or three-stage: they were living as their assigned gender, not really happy but not really questioning things, then discover that their unhappiness is gender-related. And the final shift for both types is when they are living in their proper gender. Both of these types also experience the transition phase (and, yes, that first denim skirt!).

I am most interested in what happens within the character's sense of self, as their "position in the world" becomes unfixed from their birth assignation and moves across the gender spectrum and my goodness that sounded highfalutin', didn't it?

The internal worldview shifts are matched by the external ones -- what does it mean for parents, siblings, friends, teachers, religious figures in a trans kid's life, when that "fixed position" changes for them as well?

To be overly simplistic, there are three general outcomes post-transition (I'll use trans females, assigned-at-birth as males). The first is that the trans individual still bears so many masculine physical and movement markers that they will never pass -- the "man in a dress" outcome.

The second is that they're not overtly physically masculine and have trained hard to move and speak as femininely as possible -- the "is that a man or a woman?" outcome.

The third possible post-transition outcome is acceptance by strangers as a female. This outcome is more likely to mean the transition period is easier, less fraught with danger at being "read", and so on.

That third outcome is, let's face it, far more likely with "small-framed, naturally feminine" girls (also those with certain genetic markers, such as Scandinavian or other heritage with reduced facial hair, smaller frames, etc.).

Let me state again that there are authors out there with characters that fit the first two outcomes; the books show suffering from bullies, physical abuse, and mental anguish. My personal feeling is that they are unpleasant to read -- even as they answer the demand that those kinds of stories be told -- and for me, there is an almost fetishistic obsession with their agonies.

In those kinds of books, it seems to me that the agony becomes the story, piling injustice upon misery, whereas my primary interest is the characters' movement across what I'll call "the gender acceptance spectrum" -- both their internal acceptance of Self and their external integration in society -- then, yes, a significant amount of my trans girls fit your definition.

I went into this at length because you are not the only reader that has asked this and you took the time to give specifics. For what it's worth, I also have readers write, "I love your books with adult characters; why do you waste your time writing about teenagers?"

And my final statement is that the teen years are the most fluid, the most malleable, the most transitional -- in every sense of the word! -- for all children, regardless of gender, race, religion, whatever. We are not the same people at twenty that we were at ten; we're usually not even the same at eighteen as we were at thirteen.

At no other time in life do humans go through so much flux -- it's as if there's nine months of change in the womb, and nine years of change as a teenager. The teen years are the time when children become, more or less, the adults they will be. The teen years are also the time when sexuality is discovered, and in a cosmic joke of bad-timing, it is the time when personal appearance is most critical and agonized over ("A zit?? But it's Prom!!").

It is for these reasons that I write (most of) what I write.

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