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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.
no subject
As a result of that post, I actually went and read a bunch of genderswap fics on recs from people, and enjoyed quite a few of them. And I did get a quite a bit of insight into why people write them. But I wasn't able to deal with the shit-storm of angry comments that I got from people, some of whom came only to slam genderswap (which wasn't what I wanted), and some of whom came to attack me as if I was intending to attack all genderswap readers/writers (which was also NOT my intent). Apparently, on LJ... ask a simple question... ignite WWIII.
So, I apologize, but I f-locked the post. I don't want or need another shit-storm.
no subject
Your post belongs to you and no one else, and I've removed the link since you have friendslocked it. To be honest, when I first read your post I cried, pretty hard, as it read to me as a demand that people who like genderswap justify what we are doing, and the first wave of comments were quite emphatically negative. Words can be imperfect carriers of meaning, sometimes woefully so.
no subject
I think the reason I asked that question, at that time, was because there seemed to be a "wave" of genderswap fics around a time I was having some intense gender identity thoughts of my own. (I'm gender-queer, and wish I could transition, but other health problems would make that dangerous.) I actually had someone tell me I should like genderswap BECAUSE I was genderqueer, and it all took me a bit off-guard. I didn't know what to make of it. So I needed to understand what the writers of the trope loved in it. Once I had people explain their thoughts to me (and yes, I got some WONDERFUL replies, too), I understood. Even though it's not my preferred genre (we've all got our "things" in fanfic), I am comfortable with the concept now, and don't feel at a loss to understand it.
The reason I locked the post was because I'm just not in a place where I can deal with an influx of comments and debate. I don't want people to think that the post which is almost a half-year old is representative of what I think NOW. Like anyone else, I learn new things, I add them to my world paradigm, I grow as a person, and I move on.
I do like to see more female characters in science fiction, and I like to see good female characters in fanfic. I add a lot of female OC's, and try to balance my cast of OC's by gender. I don't think *I* could do justice to gender-swapping one of the main characters from male to female, though. Partly, I think it might be because I was born with female parts, and would give just about anything to switch in the OTHER direction. You know, that might be a small part of why the male-character-to-female-character switch made me a bit uncomfortable. I identify with the male characters in Star Trek... especially Kirk. I often see him as the gender-swapped character. To see one of my male role models taken out of that role... I think it might make me uncomfortable because of my *own* identity.
Huh... too many thinky-thoughts for this hour on a Sunday night, when I have work early in the morning.
In short... tl;dr... please forgive me for making you upset?
no subject
*nod* That sounds like a thoroughgoing mistake resulting from a deeply faulty bit of attempted logic on their part. I would say more, but I should be asleep too, and I wanted to make sure to say that I do believe you on how you originally intended your post and how it got out of hand.
please forgive me for making you upset?
*blush* Oh, goodness, yes. Of course.
no subject
"especially Kirk. I often see him as the gender-swapped character."
I read this, momentarily, as something you didn't mean, which was "I see Kirk as FtM" which would make a very interesting transgender story indeed. If I ever have time to write, after writing the based-on-a-friend's-original-microfiction radio play that's been burning in my head for six months, I'd take a stab at that.
(I could also see McCoy as having transitioned FtM, and having lost parental rights to Joanna because she wasn't his biological daughter, and feeling that having to, and being able, to do this was what caused his ex-wife to "take the whole damn planet" in the divorce, and also worries about transporters... IOW, dealing with a lot of the things I hear from transgendered friends, and hoping like hell to do it justice...)