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I haven't seen a lot of discussion on here about this topic, so I thought I'd pose the question now: for you authors who write gender change or transgender fiction, how do you incorporate the gendered experience into your stories?
I've become somewhat jaded (heh) by the treatment of the subject on Fictionmania. FM's fiction is supposed to explore "what it is to be a woman". Well, based on a lot of the writing on the site, "what it is to be a woman" means (for most people) loving clothes and shopping, wearing heels and makeup on an almost daily basis (and being ostracized if you don't), being leered at or (at best) never treated as an equal by men, and the constant looming fear of sexual assault. Here, things are better by far; that being said, even the best authors, who normally avert these tropes, can't avoid occasionally using them in some way. Yes, I know tropes aren't necessarily bad, but I have to say, I find it rather distressing; I'm more optimistic, and I'd like to think things have improved greatly for women more than that (at least in the Western world). Do any of you find yourselves doing the same? And if so, does it reflect your own experiences?
Comments
Here are my thoughts on the subject
That could entirely depend on what you mean by trope. That being said, I find it is in how you use them.
The fact is that most have in mind what a particular sex enjoys. So, in general, a trope can be women want to shop. In addition, a trope can say men want to play or watch sports. Both of those are tropes that show up in my stories at times.
What I think is a better question is to ask whether authors wish to use tropes to build and create a story that is worthwhile entertainment for the many or just the very few.
In this regard, I was discussing the topic with an author here via PM one time. She wrote an incredible story that was a blatant fetish taken to the extreme in which an individual descends into being a ponygirl for life losing all of her humanity in the bargain. What made it different and brilliant, I told the author, was instead of it becoming just a fetish piece, it really was a story that talked about at what point does your want or desire remove your humanity or your grasp of reality of living and growing. Looking past the blatant fetish in the story and the creepy way it progresses, I could tell that as an author she was exploring how a transgender person’s humanity is affected by being transgender. At what point does your transgenderism cut you off from the riches that life has to offer in so many ways beyond our sexual identity. Her story really made me think.
I contrast that with a multi-chapter story I recently read on Fictionmania in the last few weeks. You too may have read a story about a younger sister trapping and turning her teenage brother’s friend into a sissy. The problem I have with the story is that in a chapter when she puts her brother’s friend to bed dressed in a nightgown, she tenderly kisses him and walks away. This scene ought to have offered a chance to explore feelings of the character, their desires, their goals, and their nature. Instead, the author has the little girl come back in the morning and blackmails the sissy once again losing the touching moment the night before. The author goes on to have the sissy get aroused and orgasm. In so doing, the author failed to grow as well as the characters in the story because the fetish trumped what the characters were experiencing.
This to me illustrates the difference between a trope being used to further the exploration of a character while telling a good story versus a trope being used just to get the writer and possibly the reader off on a fetish, or shallow scene, and not going any further in exploring our human nature and existence.
One use of a trope leaves the reader thinking and growing using a trope as a vehicle. The other use, the later use of a trope, leaves the reader right where they were before they read the story with no growth, reflection on life, or realizing the time spent reading the story was truly rewarding. In fact, I feel the later use leaves the reader feeling more empty and more unfulfilled than before they read the story.
I think that is one of the reasons I love BC so much. There are so many good authors here who make me laugh and cry while taking me on a journey I don't regret taking when I read their story.
Hope that helps answer your question.
AuP
The Gendered Experience
How some of my favorite stories here illustrate the gendered experience—is by “community.” The ‘sisterhood’ relationships that form between women/girls. It’s refected in the intimacy of sharing (whether it is secrets, clothing, duties, desires or etc.)
In my writing, it’s how those relationships/communities are built when fostered and disintegrate when threatened. How the binds of being ones false-self, inhibits the forming those relationships. How the freeing of those same binds, foster access to those relationships, but only in ‘alligator arm’ fashion. The main character still has to put forth the effort. So while I use expressions of femininity or the trappings of femininity... They aren’t the focus of the ‘gender experience’ in my stories. The trappings serve as a manifestation of the knife that cuts the binds that keep the protagonist bound. When freed, the main character may become aware of the community, but still must share/participate to establish themselves within the community.
Not sure that I’m answering the question posed...
Hugs,
Leila
Actually...
That was exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. Thanks, Leila!
It all depends on the author.
It all depends on the author. There are a lot of authors who use the same formula over and over again without varying their stories. There are some who try new things but fall back into their old habits partway through the stories. If they can keep the story's originality going it can at least make up for the rehashed storyline.
Regarding tropes: It's not that you use them, it's how you use them. It depends on the context and how it fits into the overall story.
I use the shopping trope when I feel that it fits the story, like say when a kid/adult literally has nothing but the clothes on their back to wear. It's unavoidable with some stories, you have to have people shopping but what you do during the trip is important. One story I used to showcase that one child wasn't really a boy, another it helped a boy see that his father was a complete idiot and real men were nothing like what he was forced to believe they were. Same goes with makeovers and makeup, I have used them to help calm a girl who is just starting to transition calm herself and show that she was among people who supported her then in other stories I used it to give an outlet for little kids who are annoying their older siblings and family but shaked things up by showing that one recipient was more than he appeared which set up another story down the road.
To each their own. I can understand FM being repetitive, but there are some OK authors there who doe have some nice works even if they are repetitive.
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
Why I stopped using FM
I just go so depressed at the sheer number of teenage forced fem/blackmail/cheerleader stories.
The forced fem stuff really got very pornographic at times.
In the end, I just stopped visiting as there really was nothing new (in terms of story ideas) being posted.
As efindumb has said, most of it was a rehash and often a very bad one at that of another story.
It became a total waste of time.
For a lot of us here, our teenage years were a long time ago. I really don't want to be reminded of how bad it was everyday thank you very much.
Samantha
FM does have its use
I find I can use FM to identify what not to do in a story. Seeing how an author can sh** on their own narrative is instructive.
And, it makes me appreciate how really good BC is when it comes to encouraging quality stories by so many authors, like yourself.
The Transgender Spectrum
What people need to realise is the transgender spectrum is huge...from the hairy-panty-wearer (HPW) to the fully transitioned woman who no longer even identifies as trans.
I have been a crossdresser/transvestite (you pick the label) for a very long time and I know that I fall into the category 'fetishic transvestite', while I spend a lot of time in my femme identity, I do not and don't want to identify as female. Yes I love the clothes, the makeup, the shoes, presenting as female and have been out and about many times and 'passed', but I don't want to be woman.
And yes a lot of it is about the sex I'll admit it.
Me and my type are often berated for 'sexualising' transgenders, creating a stereotype that is not what most transgendered women are about, but there is huge community within the trans spectrum that are about just that (just look on xhamster) and considering the LGBTI community is supposed to be all embracing it is often wicked to fetishic crossdressers. One of the reasons I was banned from TVChix was because I argued with a moderator who wanted to push her ideals of what it is to be 'trans' on me and hated me because of my moral code.
There are thousands of transvestites out there who love the 'forced feminisation/blackmail/caught with consequences' genre and nobody has the right to take their inventory and somehow stand on a soapbox and tell them they are inferior.
Sorry for the rant but I am so over the 'I'm further up the trans ladder than you so I can look down on you with disdain' attitude that I find on so many trans sites.
I had the opportunity to live my life fully transgendered and decided it wasn't for me; I applaud those who do, but you are not a better person than me because of it.
Good on you HPWs, weekend closet queens, try-hard glory-hole hanger-outers, there is room for you too and if you identify with stories about about being forced to dress enfemme and blackmailed into being bummed and find you like it, so be it!
Let the moral high grounders enjoy living in their castles in high places casting their soiled panties and stockings down upon us; what they don't know is we recycle their nasty castaways and sell them on eBay!
Yup.
Far too many stories on FM these days are basically "porn with plot". (Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you; I just like to see a little more substance and variety. There seemed to be a lot more of that in the early days of the site.)
It is not just that.
I was thinking about the story I was referencing in my original posting. I read it because I was curious to see what the author would do with it. Since a few of my stories have minor children, I wanted to see how far an author might go in handling sex.
I realized that by the author sticking with the fetish, it did't just become porn, it also became child porn.
And that has me thinking of editing a few stories of mine, or, at least remove the more overt aspects of what constitutes age appropriate behavior. I want my teenage stories not to have sex least they appeal to certain readers for the wrong reason. But, I also want to convey the notion of sexual awakening in a way that doesn't excite, if you take my meaning.
Oops.
I was trying to respond to Samantha's comment. But yes, I agree. The sheer number of stories on FM tagged with "Diapers/Little Girls" and "Cheerleaders" is disturbing, to say the least.
I mostly agree
with Au Previner. That said there is a real difficulty here as in both cases a cis woman writing M2F transgender charcters as well as a trans woman writing about being female I'd like to quote what I put in the mouth of my latest creation: "I began to understand what being a woman means. Not only the physical aspects, those, I realised I would never completely understand, as I knew I’d never be able to conceive or give birth."
Neither of the two writers can ever get an experience of what it means, ths cis woman what it means to be M2F trans, nor can the transwoman experience physiclly being a woman completely. That said we all here rely either on our imagination or experience or both, but the information is by necessity lacking in certain respects.
As to gendered ... What does that mean exactly? I try to write transwomen, who become out of the ordinary women. The gender stereotypes I unfortunately meet every day when shopping, having a stroll for pleasure, meeting clients ... there is no escape. Sometimes I think there are far too many with only half a brain out there. But those humans, who prefer to form herds, just love conformity and feel threatened, if it is broken, so as a good herd-animal, they become sheep, think like sheep and bleat like sheep.
Writing tropes is just like that, joining a herd of misfit sheep and it's still bleating in my opinion. Anthing that only gives a hint of forced fem, sissi life, fetishism etc. I stay away from. I write about people, who one way or another become strong and independet females, people, whom others be they male, female or somewhere in between can look up to.
Monique S
Would you use a trope to define or stifle a character though?
One of the big problems for me to balance in a story is to make sure I am not letting a trope only define a character. However, in Mourning Dew, a story you left such a lovely compliment on, btw, I let a trope about the main villain put him into the mode of being a sexual pervert so everyone finds it easy to hate him. I boxed him in using a fetish and deviancy never giving him the chance to escape.
But, what if I decided to say that he was using the heroine of my story Mourning Dew, Camille, to break free from his prison of deviancy?
I think that in terms of genderizing and breaking out of a trope is something I tried to explore when I wrote "Here, but Forgotten," where I had the TG heroine become a mother because of the callous disregard of life by two referenced Bonnie and Clyde types who fit a trope. The heroine didn't need breasts full of milk or a 'C' section to delivery a baby to grow into motherhood.
Just Like I Said
Watch yer heels don't get stuck in yer soapbox!
So now we are misfit sheep....well bah! bah! bah!
RE Monique S
I have never known Monique S aka Nowawoman to be standing on a soapbox to speak. Instead, she leads by example! I know because I hear the click of her heels as I write my stories trying as best I can to follow in the lovely footsteps of one of the classiest and kindest writers on BC.
One of the best signs that I have done well as an author is when she leaves a comment on a story of mine. She is the kind of person worth looking up to. It is a real joy to write a story that pleases her.
A Good Story That Happens to Include a TG Character
Quite a few years ago an author contacted me. She hadn't written anything other than technical manuals and wanted to try fiction.
She said, "I'm not interested in writing the kind of stories that dominate FM. I want to write a good story that includes a TG character."
She sent me an outline. I directed her to several websites to help her with a background. She then sent me a first draft, which I dissected. We went back and forth over a dozen times until she had the story she wanted. As I recall, we argued a lot about the ending. In the end -- she was right because her story was, and is, beautiful. Those who have read my stories will probably hear my voice in her story. I was new, at that time, to the "editing" process and wrongfully stepped over the line -- more than what I would do now.
https://www.fictionmania.tv/stories/readtextstory.html?story...
I've written stories that rely heavily on tropes. Usually, I've used tropes for negative space. By and large, I agree with Dimelza . . . write a good story that has a TG character.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Mister
I read that story. Actually I loved it. Perhaps it was your influence that made it the kind of story I like, as I always like your stories. But you're right, it is a beautiful story.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Mister
I had not seen the story Mister on FM, so I followed your link and started to read it. However, it wasn't long before I had to give up, because I couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to continue. I'm not sure what state the story was set in, but I'm not aware of any state which does not allow a beneficiary of an estate to disclaim his or her interest. Oliver was not in any way obligated to either accept custody of the child or fight a legal battle to contest the will. His obvious reluctance was enough that the executor, Ms. Griffith, should have advised him of this right to disclaim. By telling him that he could only accept or contest the will, she was committing legal malpractice.
The story has 64 comments as of today, and not one of them pointed out this flaw. It was, as I said, serious enough that I was unable to continue reading the story.
We All See Things Differently
Is it possible that you have a legal background?
I've used dozens of attorneys as a defendant and a plaintiff. I've used attorneys for numerous other tasks. I created an insurance company and served as the CEO for a number of years. We used dozens of attorneys to defend our various battles with which I interacted on a daily basis.
There are marvelous attorneys. However . . . at least 25% of the attorneys I worked with were incompetent and should have been disbarred.
At least another 25% were dishonest. I have sued for malpractice and found how the system protects their own. Judges recuse themselves because the attorney is in their "bar association." Most attorneys will not sue another attorney. One attorney cost me grievous embarrassment and several $million.
Attorneys commit malpractice every day. It's a fact of life. To me, it was very believable that this attorney would knowingly lie. She thought the child and "Mister" would benefit. She thought the arrangement was suitable. Many, many lawyers declare themselves to be judge and jury. That's the legal system I know. Seeking action through the bar association is a joke. The panel of lay people who heard my complaint told me it was the most egregious case of attorney fault they'd ever seen. yet, the bar association failed to act.
The 64 comments on this story almost universally stated this to be not only a readable story. . .but one of the best they've ever read.
I'm sorry it wasn't your cup of tea.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Speaking of which
The best lawyer jokes I ever heard cost me $150 an hour.