Jem and the Holograms and How we Sacrifice Trans Women Artists on the Altar of Discourse

I was kind of angry when I initially read this review of Jem #12.

To summarize the issue, or at least the relevant part of it: Blaze — recurring friend (and maybe on-again off-again romantic interest?) of Clash, the Misfits’ groupie and confidant — tries out as replacement lead singer of the band while Pizzazz recovers from a throat injury. She does so great she’s invited to tour with the Misfits — and then freaks out, deciding she has to disclose to them that she’s trans. Clash provides emotional support as she comes out to the rest of the band, who react positively (and, I thought, non-patronizingly. They do not tell her she’s so brave). Then she takes the job.

(This all happens, I think it’s maybe important to emphasize, in one single issue, over several continuous pages, not broken even with a jump cut to whatever the Holograms are doing — which is being possessed by a goth cybervirus that makes them act rude and dress incredible. There are no cliffhangers about whether or not the band will accept her.)

The review makes the point that it’s kind of fucked up that Blaze should be expected to disclose her trans status. I don’t disagree — though I think it’s pretty reasonable that, in her position, she would feel like she had to disclose. She’s about to go on tour with a famous all-girl band — as someone who’s gone through the experience of being non-consensually outed, I find it believable that she would want to know from the outset that the cis women in the band will support her. Defending the storyline isn’t really what i’m here for, though.

The real weirdness of the review is the assumption it makes that the storyline is the creation of a cisgender person. Here’s the deal with Jem: the writer of the comic, Kelly Thompson, is a cis woman, and the illustrator and character designer (at least of the current storyline, and the the comic’s initial storyline) is a trans woman, Sophie Campbell. To me the assumption that Thompson is solely responsible for this storyline is weird and erasing, and kind of nonsensical.

Maybe it’s just that I follow the authors on Twitter — Thompson and Campbell seem like they’re really close, and like their process is deeply collaborative. I have a really hard time believing Thompson would “take the lead on” a story involving a trans woman when her co-creator is trans. And sure enough, Campbell confirmed on Twitter that she co-authored the story — in fact, that Blaze is essentially a self-insert character.

That means that the rhetoric surrounding the issue (I’ve seen stuff on Twitter like “you’ve failed trans women”) reflects back on an actual trans woman artist. And this is the point that I want to make here: that trans women artists are under an incredible amount of pressure from all sides. I think it’s partly a consequence of there being so little representation of trans women in media (and so much bad representation of trans women in media)— it puts us in the position of always having to be really critical of whether a piece of media is “the right kind” of representation or not.

(And admittedly, I’m prone to this too. I think my feelings around Nevada are more a product of seeing it held up as some representative statement on What It’s Like to be a trans woman than they are of the text itself.)

The consequence of all this, though, is that every trans woman creator is laden with the burden of representing all of trans womankind. Those are really high stakes — in the high-pressure environment of trans Twitter, it’s easy for a trans woman artist to be branded Problematic, and to lose the necessary support of other trans women. Trans women creators are essentially not allowed to fail, not allowed to fuck up, not allowed to get anything wrong. Or they’ve Failed Trans Women.

There’s already so much pressure on trans women from the outside world — our femininity is under constant scrutiny, and by extension the authenticity of transfemininity in general. Trans women creators are caught between twin blades — the judgement of a society that can withhold from them work and safety and the judgement of a community that can withhold from them support and acceptance. Both are necessary for survival. Trans women artists are in a tight spot. Trans women artists could use a little room to breathe.

In my own work, it was a long time before I started telling explicitly trans stories —making explicitly trans characters. That’s because it’s so much scarier to be making art about trans people. At least if you’re just making art about cis women, you only have to worry about anger from bigots — not from your own community. And yes, when I finally did make art about being a trans woman, I did receive messages that I was doing it wrong. (In fact, I receive messages from other trans women all the time, coded or explicit, that I’m being a trans woman wrong.)

I’m not asking for an end to criticism. I think it’s useful to talk about the narrative of disclosure can be harmful, can be a dangerous thing for a little trans girl to see when she picks up a comic book. But I think when it comes to new trans creators, their first experiences of telling trans stories are so often met with an avalanche of criticism (as well as imperious statements like “you’ve failed trans women,” which are emphatically not criticism) and very little celebration or encouragement.

And then they decide that maybe writing trans characters isn’t worth the risk for another five years.