Random but nice

[jethrien]

In the last couple weeks I've read not one but two books that featured transexual major characters. (Probably not a total coincidence, they're both from the same publisher--Fly into Fire, and a story in the anthology A Series of Ordinary Adventures, which I haven't finished yet.) In both cases, it's treated very matter-of-fact. Not a plot point, not a shocking reveal. It's a major and important part of each character's backstory, but only in the sense that it informs the person they've become, not in the sense that it defines them. Renna is a reluctant heroine, impulsive, scared, and generous, who happens to be trans. Cynthia is an artist recovering from the death of her partner, quiet, shy, and protective, who also happens to be trans. They each worry a little about how people will react to their histories, but it's not a driving motivation--Renna cares mostly about helping a group of refugees escape from an oppressive government while Cynthia cares mostly about taking care of an egg she found and piecing her life back together. They're normal people in extraordinary circumstances, and the fact that they're trans is important but only about as important as if they'd been, say, adopted. It's refreshing.

Comments

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

This is one of the (many) things I enjoyed about the film, A Single Man. The story did not center on the main character's crisis over his homosexuality because he had no crisis over his homosexuality. And none of the other gay characters had crises over their homosexuality either. It was, to echo your post, refreshing. I highly recommend the film - it's not without its problems, but it's beautiful and bittersweet. I firmly believe that Colin Firth should have won his Oscar for this, instead of The King's Speech, but what can you do.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I have had a nice experience with gay characters on The Wire which I just started watching. One of them is a drug-dealing scumbag, whose sexual proclivities are mocked by the other drug-dealing scumbags because they don't like him and harping on his being gay is just part of that. But his character isn't any different or better than the others. He just happens to be gay. Ditto one of the cops who is a lesbian. She has issues for being a cop and she and her partner have to deal with it. Their life is so...normal. So unmelodramatic. It's also, by far, the most diverse cast I've ever seen in any production outside of shows on BET and the old UPN.

There's also a show on DirecTV now with Chloe Sevigny as a hitman undergoing gender reassignment which is almost irrelevant to the story. I hear great things.

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

They're normal people in extraordinary circumstances, and the fact that they're trans is important but only about as important as if they'd been, say, adopted.

Being trans has become enough of a non-issue to many people in the last decade that it's probably no surprise that it's slowly but surely becoming a non-issue in books too. I think TV shows and movies (at least fictional ones) still have a way to go though. It really irks me how many trans women are still being played by cisgender women who go to lengths to look more masculine for their role.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Probably the same way Hollywood is convinced that all brown people are interchangeable, and there's no difference between a Native American, an Indian, a Hispanic, and an Arab. Sigh.

But it's nice to see at least some representations in a form of media in which it's just a detail, not the sole characteristic of a character.