Why It Took Me So Long to Write a Trans Character
Writing our own voices
I began writing fiction in 2015 and published my first novel in 2018. I’ve mostly written gay erotic romance stories featuring gay, cisgender men. When Amazon announced their new writing platform, Kindle Vella, in early 2021, I decided to dip my toe in the water and write a gay, transgender male character. While the character of Cory wasn’t a self-insert, he shared some of my experience of being transgender.
What does Own Voices mean?
The term Own Voices began as a hashtag, coined by YA author, Corinne Duyvis. She coined the term to help identify books with diverse characters written by authors who share the identity of those characters. So, if a book features a Black, bisexual, female protagonist who uses a wheelchair, and written by a Black, bisexual, female author who uses a wheelchair, she would consider it an Own Voices story.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the concept of Own Voices has fallen out of favor, because some people used it to bully writers, especially those writing queer characters, into coming out. It’s not a term that anyone should feel pressured to use when describing their own work, nor should anyone feel the need to out their full identity if they choose to label their work this way.
