Five Trans Fem Authors Talk Romance, Monstrosity, and Fantasy — Part 2

This roundtable is done by contributors of the My Monster’s Valentine 2023 bundle. Part one can be found here.

Benjanun: One of the elements I’ve really enjoyed in everyone’s stories is that they’re hopeful — many of the characters have come from grim circumstances (‘i am a mad animal’ especially), but in the end they get to forge their own paths, achieve what they want on their own terms. Often this means embracing monstrosity, which is a very different narrative from the conventions of the cis, heterosexual happily ever after. What, to everyone, is the draw in queer art? Do we feel it offers greater room not for escapism alone, but for images of what liberation could look like?

Jemma: Basically, yes. I think trans people have very little time for stories of misery or total tragedy. In the unlikely event that a trans person likes misery, well, the whole political system is there to provide it for her!

So, yes, I think it’s both escapism and images of liberation, and it’s often the same thing. Of course, sometimes the escapism might be literally impossible; considering it hates us having HRT, the medical establishment would frown at rituals that make you into a dragon, for example. But metaphorically, the idea of finding kinship in a group, or of just not passing, or integrating kinks and fetishes, or just plain polyamory: these are not just escapism in stories, but also real and useful things.

I wonder whether the TERFs will regret that in the end; they have made it impossible for us to live routine, boring lives. Some of us die, which I will never forgive those fuckers for, but others live strange lives, frightening the conservatives. And they should be frightened. We will win, eventually; never bet against monsters and warlocks, especially versus the most boring people in the world.

So, yes, images of what liberation will look like; unusual, striking, odd and very very wonderful.

Meghan: There’s a temptation to provide a complete counter-narrative here because I think I probably am one of those trans women with a lot of time for miserablist writing (when asked by friends I have sincerely said the funniest book I read last year was Conspiracy Against the Human Race) but I do think Jemma is basically correct here. There’s something especially resonant about the usefulness of working queerness into stories, little acts of survival. I often think about the phrase “queer futurity” in relation to this sort of question, the idea that queer people get to exist and grow old and die happy like everyone else, and how fiction can be a means to stress that, to assert ourselves.

And perhaps that’s the liberatory link for me! What queer art can do for us is make it known that we were here, are here, will stay here. The power and the freedom of it all for me comes primarily from the fact that it is queer, I think queer art is freeing and vital whether it’s hopeful narratives like some of our work in this collection or a piece of bleak existential horror (which isn’t exactly under-represented either) or anything in between; what matters to me is that it’s us and it’s loud.

C.S.: Hah, ahah. I sometimes feel bad with the way the protagonist is left in the end of These Gears of Mine but in a sense I wrote it as a cautionary tale? Coming out for me has been a lot of pouring over old facts and trying to determine which fit — which to keep or throw away. Facts that have become more akin to ‘presumptions’ and ‘unobserved biases’ than anything solid enough to build a new self on. And so, the story is hopeful in that even when one makes mistakes, one can still define themselves even without a past to derive an arc from. It recommends compassion to the ‘you’ that kept you alive even when you didn’t know you were drowning. It’s an insistence of compassion towards your former, and present self.

Emily: Hmmm, liberation… possibly, but I’m personally not too interested in offering images of queer liberation with my stories. Nor is providing escapism my primary goal, either, though I certainly don’t mind if my stories offer either as a bonus! But my primary goal is offering hope, as you noted, and mostly; meaning to the struggle. I think most of my readers and myself will not experience full queer liberation within our lifetimes, so what I want is to offer reasons why we struggle anyways. This could be for the benefit of those who come after us, or it could be little victories in our own lives, things that bring joy and are worth living for despite all the pain and sorrow and difficulties.

Lastly, I also try to carry the message that even if you scored no victories at all, still the struggle isn’t meaningless — it mattered that you tried! If the choice is giving up, a 0% chance of success, and trying and having a 10% chance of success, and you try and fail — after all, there was a 90% chance you would! — it can seem in hindsight like trying was pointless! And the life of a queer person is often going through that again, and again, and again. So it’s important to remember that it wasn’t pointless, you chose to take a chance, and you might have succeeded, whereas your other choice would never have accomplished anything. Taking chances like that is the only way to get anything done in the face of great adversity, ever! So it always matters that we try, even if nothing succeeds, it is not meaningless! That’s something I really try to impress upon my readers. It’s never meaningless.

That really sums up the kind of stories I write most often: they are extremely grim and dark, but never grimdark, because I will never write a world where things are hopeless and meaningless. My stories will always be about how it’s not meaningless, no matter how grim.

Benjanun: A considerable portion of published sapphic fiction is fairly cis-centered (and we certainly can joke about how a lot of it is about two cis white femmes holding hands), but I feel trans women bring incredible energy to the genre. Lesbian narrative spaces can be liberating, allowing for broader gender presentation, the celebration of many kinds of beauty and romance rather than just conventional ones. What does everyone think?

Jemma: I’m probably the worst person to answer this question, because my romances are pretty conventional. Okay, they might be three or more people, and they will definitely all be women, but still pretty traditional (for all that tradcaths would disagree). Obviously, that isn’t because I think that’s the one true model romance (“A marriage has three women, and as many sniper rifles.”) But still, my writing is lacking in the “broader gender presentation”; no cute enbys or cool he/him lesbians. This is something I do want to do! But I also want it to be a good representation, and I’m not there yet, at least for romantic characters. It is a problem for me; I don’t want to ignore these people, who want and deserve to see themselves in stories, but I also don’t want to accidentally lapse into caricature. It’s a work in progress.

It actually reminds me of one of the reactions to “The Shadow and her Tiger”; a reader asked “Visceral plural feels. Are either of you plural?” And the answer was no, but Emily and I have both talked to plural friends about this in the past. So, while it wasn’t a story deliberately about being plural, we were very happy that it hit that meaning for people.

And that’s kind of the attitude I take toward this sort of thing; I’m a she/her trans girl lesbian, and I can write confidently about that, but for an enby character? Well, I’m definitely not going to expound on what it means to be non-binary. Doesn’t mean I can’t have a nb character, just that the writing can’t be about being non-binary. Same as I have British and, say, Korean characters; only one is going to expound about how crap their country of birth is!

Anyway, yes, keen to read more unconventional romance, but not sure I’m there as regards writing it yet. I suppose I’ve got cis lesbians, but being cis just makes them a little more boring!

Vyria: I think for me it’s a matter of cishet society doing every possible thing it can to alienate us and sever us from it. That’s what makes me want to explore new ground. I’m a nonbinary transfem whose gender can be best described as ‘As if an AI discovered femininity and fell in love’. The average cis person, if I tell them this, will look at me very confused. But that’s alright, it feels right for me, they don’t need to understand. If I am to be alien to their understanding of the world, let me be inscrutable. That’s also how I approach stories. My primary goal when writing is to write to and for people like me, especially those who don’t know it yet. I want to leave tracks that others can follow to find their identity. And I think this is complementary and wonderfully enmeshed with being a lesbian as well. On every axis, we depart from the demands of cishet culture. Exploring nuances of gender and sexuality, finding comfort in our shared alienness, our ‘monstrosity’ that flies in the face of what is ‘normal’ and acceptable.

For this reason, I also really enjoy writing lesbians who aren’t cis and aren’t binary either. He/him lesbians, lesbians with neopronouns, lesbians who present in any way that they might desire, these are the types of characters I really enjoy writing. In Wyrmheart, Adelia is not interested in fitting in. She doesn’t want to be cis and she isn’t attached to being human either. Why would she? People like that have only tried to stifle her potential. So when she’s offered a chance to cast aside her humanity, she does so with glee. And she finds love in the process. Because there is love, especially sapphic love, in the monstrous and alien.

Anyway, this is long and rambly and I think I forgot the point I was trying to make because I keep thinking about how hot monstrous lesbians are. I hope this is a useful ramble at least.

C.S.: This one is fun! The main thrust of my story is the protagonist trying so HARD to be cis. She wants to skip the whole trans thing and be Very Cis and Normal, and like — there’s no way to do that. You will always have a layer of Becoming in your history. There is always some portion of intentionality in the what, when, and how, you express yourself and your body even if you fight the premise of it entirely.

Of course this is true for cis people as well, but more often than not it’s unobserved. Trans-ness demands observation, and a decision of action or inaction. There is no abdication of agency in this case. And that’s where the fun comes in! When a character is trans there’s so much intentionality present — much in the same way a character might present their sapphic nature to the world with a butch presentation or femme or something else entirely, there’s gender there as well. And all of this depth compounds into a number of new looks and flavors and sensitivities and strengths.

Also, like, the fact that every character is inhuman in some way helps. Bugs and clockwork are going to get up to some nonsense cis bodies could never dream of.

Meghan: I don’t think this is necessarily exclusive to lesbian writing or trans writing but it’s one of the better places to go when you believe that it’s good when people are weird. People should be more weird.

Emily: Yeah, I think this is always an interesting question… Society at large only defines womanhood as the opposite of manhood — is in fact incapable of defining one without the other! So what does womanhood become in the absence of men? Exploring that is sort of a shared global project that we’re all contributing little bits to!

Meghan: Here’s a question: I’ve been thinking about the nature of a “shared universe” project like the bundle and how the idea of this urban fantasy world gets refracted through our different ideas and perspectives (obviously with a great debt owed to Bee and Devi’s very fun worldbuilding). What is it about a shared setting that appeals to you? And what did you feel the need to do with your writing to make it feel sufficiently Chainversey?

Jemma: Personally, the shared setting appeals in several ways. Sometimes it is just an excuse to shitpost; for example, on the difference between B&D’s Cecilie (scary, evil, insect mage) and fan reaction (‘implant me, swarm mommy’). Sometimes it builds on existing structures; Tiger and her Shadow wouldn’t work unless the Viveca-Yves-Dallas-Olesya relationship already existed — for Emily and me to disrupt! And I like coming up with what’s happening off to the side of the main stories; Olesya’s sniper’s downtime, or Savita’s not relevant-to-the-plot friend. I suppose it’s a bit ‘Deathstar contractors’, but I like that.

So, what do I do to make it feel sufficiently Chainversey? Actually, not a lot; apart from trying to get the ‘facts’ right. (Emily and I discussed timelines for a while!) But in terms of mood and theme? I think that, (youth pastor voice) like this ‘shared setting’ we call the Earth, the Chainverse can support lots of different stories, all happening at once. So, personally, I have a notch more humour and sex than ‘baseline Chainverse’, because that’s what I like. I think it makes the setting more real to have everybody’s different styles in place like that. It’s like being queer on twitter; an odd mix of tragedy, horniness, rage, laughter, discourse and shitposts. That is what a world is like.

Emily: The thing about the shared setting that appealed to me is the company! You can brainstorm and exchange ideas with all the other writers working in the same setting, and take inspiration from each other! And because you’re all working in the same setting, everyone’s interested in and excited about each other’s ideas!

Fanfic is notoriously hard to sell (this bundle really is an exception, and only thanks to Bee and Devi being so supportive), so I’ve been trying for a while to write original stories, or preferably even a whole book, but I really struggle because it’s such a lonely process. Sharing a setting with other writers helps so much!

And honestly, I actually tried to make my writing as un-Chainverse as possible! I tried to make it comply with canon in terms of the ‘facts’ of the universe, but other than that, as different as possible, because the fun and appeal in my opinion is in providing different perspectives and angles on the same world! If people want more literal exact Chainverse, that’s what Ruin of Beasts is for! (And before that, The Serpent of the House of Hua, coming out right after our bundle sale is over, don’t miss it!)

Benjanun: Thank you, everyone, for participating! This has been an incredible discussion, everyone’s super insightful and smart. Here’s hoping we will get to do this again. :D