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These Are My Reasons: Why I Like Genderswap, Part Two
Having written an entire entry disavowing and countering commonly cited reasons attributed to those of us who like genderswap, here's an entry where I try to explain what my reasons actually are.
Soon after I got into the Star Trek Reboot fandom, when everything felt wide open and full of limitless possibilities, I read this post by Liviapenn where she cast STXI with a gender-reversed set of actors. This post, and the discussions I read subsequently both on and off![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
st_genderswap, galvanized my imagination; I haven't yet written a story where I have genderswapped everyone, but I've thought about what changing any one or more of them might do to their trajectory in the fictional universe.
One character I've written a great deal about is Leah McCoy, MD, CMO of one version of the ISS Enterprise. I put Leonard McCoy through two transformations at once, to the Mirrorverse and from [assumed to be -- more on that later] cisgendered male to cisgendered female; I did so at first because an intriguing prompt caught my eye, but I've kept writing about Leah McCoy because I find her a fascinating character, exploring how she is and isn't like Leonard McCoy, the intersections of how being female changes her and how the Mirror Universe changes her.
Generally... one of my reasons for writing and reading genderswap overlaps with one of my reasons for writing and reading about minor, unnamed-in-canon and offscreen female characters. For me, my primary canon for Star Trek Reboot is a two-hour-long movie (I was not particularly a Star Trek TOS fan) and there's one major female character and a handful of secondary characters. I love that major female character, but Nyota Uhura isn't and shouldn't have to be the entirety of womanhood in the Star Trek universe, so I write and read a seemingly disproportionate amount about minor female characters, and I also ask myself what the fictional universe would look like if a larger proportion of characters whatsoever were female. That's my main reason for writing genderswap. The specter of 'Mary Sue' is invoked nearly any time we write about female characters, including against genderswap, but I think female characters are worth considering and that the threat of Mary Sues is greatly overblown (but that's another discussion).
As I put it elsewhen, "I first picked up a genderswap prompt because I thought, "What if Character X, with Y canon role, were female instead of male? And then I ran with it. There's no more complicated reason than that, putting more women into the fictional universe and seeing how being female affects a character's in-universe life and in-story 'jobs'."
Although, I've since found that it is more complicated. For instance, I elided at least two aspects of genderswap in my explanation above.
One: despite![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
liviapenn's brilliant fancasting of Leonard Roberts & Tom Welling, I haven't switched a female character to male. I have seen that presented as a challenge to writers of genderswap, essentially, "Why do you ignore the female characters?" Ignoring them isn't my intent; however, because I want more women in the fictional universe, I'm not as interested in changing the female characters that exist to male. It could make for a very interesting story to write the dynamic of a crew composed of one man and several women and to compare it with the dynamic of one woman and several men, or to mutually swap a het canon couple (Georgina & Winston?) but I haven't written those stories yet, is all.
Two: In my entire discussion above I've conflated 'male' with 'cisgender male' and 'female' with 'cisgender female', and now I want to pull that apart. Another valid and underdone way of writing stories that include more women would be to write about transgender women, as part of writing more about transgender people, who aren't included anywhere near as much as they should be. I've been thinking about this more than my fic output so far likely suggests, since I have only one story so far that could be said to be about a transgender character. As with any other important subject I have not personally lived, I want to do my best. However, as I said in my last post, I don't think stories about transgender characters and stories about cisgender genderswapped characters necessarly occupy the same space, nor do they need to crowd out each other. I'm not done writing yet, and I for one intend to write both genres if I can do so successfully.
I wrote this entry because most of the discussions I've seen of genderswap have been negative portrayals of the practice, so I wanted to start from a positive take on the subject. My friendazephirin asked once: Do you just plunk the traits of the canon/original version onto their alternately-gendered counterpart, or do you consider how the character would relate to hirself and society as a person of another gender, which tends to change things somewhat? Her words have inspired me ever since.
Soon after I got into the Star Trek Reboot fandom, when everything felt wide open and full of limitless possibilities, I read this post by Liviapenn where she cast STXI with a gender-reversed set of actors. This post, and the discussions I read subsequently both on and off
st_genderswap, galvanized my imagination; I haven't yet written a story where I have genderswapped everyone, but I've thought about what changing any one or more of them might do to their trajectory in the fictional universe.One character I've written a great deal about is Leah McCoy, MD, CMO of one version of the ISS Enterprise. I put Leonard McCoy through two transformations at once, to the Mirrorverse and from [assumed to be -- more on that later] cisgendered male to cisgendered female; I did so at first because an intriguing prompt caught my eye, but I've kept writing about Leah McCoy because I find her a fascinating character, exploring how she is and isn't like Leonard McCoy, the intersections of how being female changes her and how the Mirror Universe changes her.
Generally... one of my reasons for writing and reading genderswap overlaps with one of my reasons for writing and reading about minor, unnamed-in-canon and offscreen female characters. For me, my primary canon for Star Trek Reboot is a two-hour-long movie (I was not particularly a Star Trek TOS fan) and there's one major female character and a handful of secondary characters. I love that major female character, but Nyota Uhura isn't and shouldn't have to be the entirety of womanhood in the Star Trek universe, so I write and read a seemingly disproportionate amount about minor female characters, and I also ask myself what the fictional universe would look like if a larger proportion of characters whatsoever were female. That's my main reason for writing genderswap. The specter of 'Mary Sue' is invoked nearly any time we write about female characters, including against genderswap, but I think female characters are worth considering and that the threat of Mary Sues is greatly overblown (but that's another discussion).
As I put it elsewhen, "I first picked up a genderswap prompt because I thought, "What if Character X, with Y canon role, were female instead of male? And then I ran with it. There's no more complicated reason than that, putting more women into the fictional universe and seeing how being female affects a character's in-universe life and in-story 'jobs'."
Although, I've since found that it is more complicated. For instance, I elided at least two aspects of genderswap in my explanation above.
One: despite
liviapenn's brilliant fancasting of Leonard Roberts & Tom Welling, I haven't switched a female character to male. I have seen that presented as a challenge to writers of genderswap, essentially, "Why do you ignore the female characters?" Ignoring them isn't my intent; however, because I want more women in the fictional universe, I'm not as interested in changing the female characters that exist to male. It could make for a very interesting story to write the dynamic of a crew composed of one man and several women and to compare it with the dynamic of one woman and several men, or to mutually swap a het canon couple (Georgina & Winston?) but I haven't written those stories yet, is all.Two: In my entire discussion above I've conflated 'male' with 'cisgender male' and 'female' with 'cisgender female', and now I want to pull that apart. Another valid and underdone way of writing stories that include more women would be to write about transgender women, as part of writing more about transgender people, who aren't included anywhere near as much as they should be. I've been thinking about this more than my fic output so far likely suggests, since I have only one story so far that could be said to be about a transgender character. As with any other important subject I have not personally lived, I want to do my best. However, as I said in my last post, I don't think stories about transgender characters and stories about cisgender genderswapped characters necessarly occupy the same space, nor do they need to crowd out each other. I'm not done writing yet, and I for one intend to write both genres if I can do so successfully.
I wrote this entry because most of the discussions I've seen of genderswap have been negative portrayals of the practice, so I wanted to start from a positive take on the subject. My friend
azephirin asked once: Do you just plunk the traits of the canon/original version onto their alternately-gendered counterpart, or do you consider how the character would relate to hirself and society as a person of another gender, which tends to change things somewhat? Her words have inspired me ever since.
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And then there's the fact that, even in a canon with many interesting female characters, it's often the case that certain archetypes are reserved for men. I almost never see "team mentor" as a woman. I almost never see "ideological opponent of the good guys, who is a decent person but whose sincere beliefs drive them to fight the good guys" as a woman. I almost never see "trickster" as a woman. And we got to see exactly one female starship captain in action, and while she was a great character, she belongs to an overall very poorly written series.
So my feeling is, I want women back in my stories. I want women leaders with *strong* male second in commands. I want women leaders with strong *female* second in commands. I want women scientists who don't somehow end up deferring to men in everything. I want to see female Vulcans who actually use Vulcan superior strength to kick some ass like Spock did. I want to see women doctors who are cantankerous assholes. I want to see women who founded and trained superhero teams. I want to see mysterious female wizards. I want to see women who don't want to kill you, but if you continue to stand in their way, they will do so with regret. I want to see women who mock everyone.
So I write genderswaps. I have a genderswap TOS universe with Kirk and Spock swapped, where the point is to talk about TOS-era apparent sexism. I have swapped Charles Xavier and Magneto separately and at the same time. I have one X-Men based universe that swaps *all* the mutants. I swap Q all the time because it's really, really easy to do.
This doesn't stop me from writing slash, or writing het based in canon, or writing about strong female characters that actually exist, like Janeway, or writing about minor female characters and turning them into badasses, or strengthening the existing somewhat weak female characters by taking them back to their roots and writing them based on their character description, like making Troi actually a competent counselor. It hasn't stopped me from writing transgendered characters either -- I did an X-Men story in which we learn Charles Xavier was born female, based on utterly implausible canon where he had an identical twin sister. (How does that even happen, unless Xavier is a trans man?) But I think genderswap is very, very important, because we fan writers are primarily women writing about universes that were primarily created by men, and men seem to think that if more than 30% of the characters are female then the story is female-dominated. Real life has 50% women in it. Slash is not going to make up that difference and OCs, even when well written, don't have the history a canon character does and the built-in audience. The only thing that's going to add more women into a canon that hasn't got enough women, without adding OCs, is genderswap.
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It was a pleasure to read.