I wrote a thing about submissions strategies the other day and it was very much from the perspective of someone just a little bit past the beginning of a journey. I think reflections at that point can have a lot of value because you’ve started to figure out how much you don’t know and what’s important to you, and you can still easily remember what it was like to know nothing and what pointers might help someone else starting out head in the right direction.
It got me thinking about what other journeys I am at that point in. And one notable journey is that of adequately supporting people of marginalised genders. I’m thinking about transgender and non-binary people in particular, without any intent to exclude any who identify themselves as marginalised.
And I am very specifically talking about adequately supporting from the perspective of a cis person who already strongly believes in equity. I came from a starting point of respecting and acknowledging trans/gender diverse people’s identities. How to get to that point is not the focus of this post. But rather what you do once you’re there.
Why am I writing about gender specifically when there are so many marginalised voices that I could write about? It is certainly not because the others are any less deserving or any less marginalised. But from my observation, gender is the area where it is most notable that people who otherwise seem to share the same values as me, sometimes friends of mine, can have violently opposing views. That is heartbreaking and it is powerful because unlike other issues where my voice may be lost in the noise, it is entirely possible that a small action on my part could influence someone I know to make my corner of the human community safer for a group of people who are demonstrably at risk. Especially for our vulnerable youth.
A recent study (one of several such studies) [Transgender Adolescent Suicide Behaviour, Toomey Syvertsen and Shramko, American Association of Paediatrics] found that more than half of transgender male teens that participated in the survey reported attempting suicide, 42 percent of non-binary youth had, and 30 percent of transgender female teens. That is horrifying. And it’s not happening because there is something wrong with them. It’s happening because there is something wrong with us, with society. If enough of us create a safe space, if we make people rethink, if we make it too uncomfortable for people to publicise dangerous messages, we can literally save lives. To do that, the voices of the non-marginalised need to speak out. If your version of gender equity does not include trans/gender diverse people, or if your version of safe spaces leaves our most vulnerable at risk, I think you need to reassess what exactly you are trying to achieve because the data tells us that what we are achieving right now is fundamentally not good enough.
So, I will get to the point. As a writer and a human, how do you take the first steps down the road to adequately supporting those of marginalised genders? Maybe you feel the same way as me, but you don’t feel qualified to write about it (I can’t say that I feel particularly qualified myself). Maybe you’re not yet comfortable figuring out when reflecting diversity in your stories is positive, and when it might overshadow #OwnVoices perspectives, or, worse, reinforce dangerous stereotypes. Maybe you’re scared to get it wrong. Maybe you’re overwhelmed by the amount of research needed, or don’t know where to start. It’s OK to feel that way. You wouldn’t feel that way if you didn’t care. There are other first steps you can take that don’t take much time at all, and that don’t involve wading into the middle of what can sometimes be a task you don’t feel qualified for. Steps that will still nudge us in the direction we want to go.
Here’s what I have tried to do. Once again, these are the baby steps at the start of a journey, not the endpoint. They are not enough on their own, but they are something.
1. Listen. That’s it. It’s easy. Seek out LGBTQI+ voices. Seek out trans and non-binary voices. And listen to them. The emphasis here is on listen. They don’t owe you an explanation of their existence, a template for your diverse character, or a review of your work (fair exchange and payment for hard-won expertise are what you need there). Follow them on Twitter. Read their stories. It is particularly easy to find them in the speculative fiction space because gender diverse people are killing it in our field. They are excelling. They are published in the top magazines and being nominated for the top awards thanks to their talent, strength and persistence. I hope/suspect they are there in other genres, too, but I can only comment on the ones I read. It’s almost like being consistently othered by your society gives you a uniquely powerful perspective from which to write. It is not difficult at all to find them if you look and there is no excuse not to have read at least some of them if you are reading in the genre. People like Charlie Jane Anders, Bogi Takács, and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor. Or closer to home, if you live in Aotearoa like me, we have people like M. Darusha Wehm, Caitlin Spice, Andi C Buchanan, and Kyle Mewburn.
Listening also means that if someone tells you that something you said or wrote is unhelpful, you need to hear them through and reflect before you respond.
2. Be a safe space. Put your pronouns in your social media bios. For most of us, it’s only 6 to 9 extra characters. It’s not about whether you think it’s obvious what your gender is. It’s not about whether you feel a little uncomfortable about it. It’s about showing a group of people who face abuse and the denial of their identity and human rights on a daily basis that you see them and that you care. It’s about saying they are not ‘other’, that they don’t have to do the heavy-lifting to normalise their identity for society alone. It’s about creating a space around yourself that it is safe for the marginalised to enter and engage with. It’s about showing those who would attack them that they are not the majority and that their view is not acceptable.
Likewise, if you’re introducing yourself in a group consider saying your pronouns after your name. That might feel more uncomfortable if you’re just starting out. It’s public. It’s face-to-face. Imagine how scary it can be for someone in a marginalised community. Maybe you don’t want to say it first. I get that. You have a choice about whether to make yourself vulnerable and everyone has days where they just can’t do it. But if someone else does, or if you have even the tiniest inkling that there is someone who needs to hear it in the group, please do. And remember, there is really no way to know someone’s gender identity by looking at them. Try not to make assumptions based on how they present.
3. Support. If someone asks you to use a particular name or pronoun, do it. Always. A person’s identity is theirs alone to dictate. It might be a different pronoun from the one you’ve used for them your whole life, it might mean learning to use they as a singular pronoun, it might be using a neopronoun (e.g. ze/zir/zirself). If you mess up, and let’s face it you probably will, apologise and correct yourself. Don’t make a big deal about it. But do it. If someone else messes up, politely correct them. Even if no-one else is around who will care, and especially if the person who cares the most is standing right there. Don’t make them feel more alone by being silent. If someone has pronouns listed on their bio, consider yourself asked to use them and practise checking for them.
4. Boost marginalised voices. Sadly, when people feel like a group is very small they care less. This is not a particularly small group of people, nor is it a new group of people (even if it was, they still have a right to the same respect and opportunity as anyone else). Like I already said, it is really easy to boost these voices because there are so many extremely talented gender diverse writers putting themselves out there. Share, buy, review, recommend, retweet, hit that like button.
5. Deprogramme the binary. I have messed up sometimes, especially for non-binary pronouns. My brain was/is programmed to binary. They was always plural for me until relatively recently. It’s my job to fix that because it is not correct and I can only do that by practising. The easiest way to practise is with people who won’t even realise you’re doing it. That has the added bonus of avoiding inadvertently hurting someone. It isn’t difficult. It goes like this:
I’m talking to a fellow sci-fi/fantasy fan. “Did you see Andi C Buchanan has a new novella coming out next month? Their writing is amazing. I think you’d love it.” Or “I can’t believe we have a Nebula-award nominated author like Darusha right here in Wellington. How lucky for the local writing community to be able to talk to them in person.” Actively choose to do it, and to say it out loud. You don’t need to restrict your practice to referring to people who identify as non-binary either. You can practice referring to anyone you don’t know using ungendered language, given you can’t know what gender they identify as without asking: “Do you see that person over there? Their skirt is amazing!”
If you are writing and you don’t feel comfortable writing a non-binary character, you can still practise using they as a singular pronoun. Not only will it help re-programme your brain, it will help readers become accustomed to the singular use in a way that will not trigger defence mechanisms from those people with violently different views. It can help to shift our collective default. For example, that character sitting in the shadows with the cowl over their face in the corner of your fantasy tavern? You may know they’re a man, but your protagonist probably doesn’t. There’s no reason not to refer to them as they.
It can be confronting realising how hard something that should be so simple can be. It was for me. I practiced writing a character I referred to as they and every time I wrote fast and lost myself in the story, my they became a she. It was mortifying. It was a weakness in my writing that I needed to fix.
Practice makes progress. Please keep trying. Please take every step you feel you can. We owe it to each other. We owe it to those with the incredible strength and resilience to speak about their experience and push for change, but even more so to the vulnerable who hide silently in their shadows hearing words that shatter them more often than we realise.
And to those who identify as trans/gender diverse. I am here for you. You are not alone. I am doing my best, I am learning, and I am sorry when that is not enough.