TFS: Trans characters (spoilers marked)

[Joanna Chaplin]

Little late in the month, I know, but I had completely forgotten about this issue until I listened to the wrap-up.

I was just realizing that this is one of few epic fantasy stories I've read with trans characters. That is, characters who identify with and present as a different gender then the one they appear to be born with. Although the Stillness doesn't appear to have a special term for transgenderism. There's at least one background character in the Fulcrum dormitories who appears to appears to be a young transman, although he gets no name.

But then much later, it is revealed (view spoiler)[that Tonkee is a transwoman, and Essun doesn't seem to care very much. It's made a much, much bigger deal of that she's actually Binof, the arrogant Leadership child that she knew from before. (hide spoiler)]

I don't want to say that this is the first epic fantasy book with trans characters I've read, but I'm having trouble coming up with another example. There's a transman in Indexing, but that's urban fantasy and thus in theory usually trying to be contemporary.

[E.J. Xavier]

Hmm. I had to think about this one for a while, but I'm in the same camp. Most of the notable examples that spring to mind are science fiction, not fantasy.

I seem to recall Robin Hobb has an ambiguous possibly trans character in her series but it's been so long since I've read it that I can't recall the details.

Virginia Wolf's "Orlando" , but I'm not sure if it qualifies as "Epic Fantasy"

I remember a conversation where I was told that Le Guin's "Left Hand of Darkness"'includes trans themes, but I haven't read it myself so I can't confirm.

That's all I can come up with. While I can think of plenty of fantasy books with Gay/queer themes, trans seems to be rarer and mostly in science fiction.

[Silvana]

Yes, that Robin Hobb's character is The Fool, who's appeared as a he at first, but later it was unclear.

[Joanna Chaplin]

The Left Hand of Darkness is about a far future subspecies of humanity who normally are agender but basically occasionally go sort of into heat "kenner", where they temporarily become male or female and then become sex crazed. So it plays with gender ideas but I don't think it really counts as transgender. More like usually agender but breaking out into binary to mate, but with no pair-bonding.