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browngirlHaving 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
Date: 2011-03-28 11:15 am (UTC)They don’t have to but they do. I see a ton of genderswap stories. I don’t see many about transgender individuals.
All right. Suppose I stopped writing my genderswap stories and deleted the ones I've written off LJ and AO3. Suppose I never wrote another word of any fic. Would that magically cause stories about transgender characters to appear, whether written by me or by other authors? Will we get more stories about transgender characters by attacking the writing of genderswap?
The thing is -- in your examples of bad genderswap stories and bad het stories -- why don't the bad slash stories also invalidate the good ones? If they don't, how come the bad genderswap and het stories can somehow invalidate the good ones, such that they shouldn't exist? I can't unwrite bad stories, I can just write mine as well as I possibly can, and I am no more responsible for every single bad genderswap story than you are for every single bad slash story.
The thing is men and women are wired differently.
Humans are an incredibly social species; from before birth we are influenced by each other. Are you absolutely certain that the differences between men and women are innate and inflexible? Have you never, for instance, met siblings who are uncannily similar though they're brother and sister? Besides, one of the reasons I'm writing genderswap stories is indeed to explore the differences socialized into us.
just my opinion which I know varies from everyone else’s.
Actually, as I addressed in the post before this one, there are a great many people who agree with you. My post here was an attempt for once to start a discussion of genderswap from the POV of someone who doesn't disapprove of it. Besides, if you're right that I can't write genderswap without having these horrible reasons and invoking these horrible consequences, then it's not just your opinion, it's a reason for me to stop writing, so I have to address it.
Look, you don't have to like genderswap. De gustibus non disputandum and all that. But I don't have to accept the idea that I write it because I'm an idiot or a bad writer or transphobic, either.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 09:56 pm (UTC)No, you didn't. You stated that much outright, when you said this:
*emphasis mine
I'm not going to touch your argument itself, because it looks like the justifications are grounded in a combination evolutionary psychology which I have a standing policy of not engaging, as well as a small sample size. However, to deny you said something which you clearly did say is just flat-out ridiculous.
Maybe in the future you'll consider how your words might be read before you say them, rather than apologizing with an "I didn't mean to" after the fact.
--C., anon for a lack of desire to see the response in her inbox.