Hello. I am a transwoman in the creative sphere. I haven't really thought this ask through at all, so bear with me a little...
Seeing your posts about transfeminism has really lit something in me. It has made me want to be more direct in depicting transness in my creations. My main project does have a transfem lead whose journey is meant to mimic my own, but I've been a little wishy-washy about it. I suppose part of me is scared that making it more direct will result in it being less likely to get picked up by a studio. I'm also scared of going indie with it, because I feel like that would be like admitting it's not worth existing the same way other shows do, but also, I don't feel that way about other indie projects at all. I believe indie projects are just as good, if not oftentimes better than non-indie stuff. Perhaps I'm just getting in my own way, but I'm scared. I want it to exist, but I'm not sure how.
This may be an incredibly broad question, and I am so sorry if this is all too much for you. But... what do I do? How do I stop being scared?
I was concerned for a long time about the mainstream palatability of my work, and how being direct about transgender writing may affect that, but I've reached a point in my transfeminism where I know I'd be incredibly regretful if I put something out there and it touched people, but I had shied away from doing it the way I wanted to, the way it felt right to me
If I do it trans and it does touch fewer people as a result, then honestly... fuck it? We deserve art that isn't shy about us, that doesn't dance around us, that is uncompromising in its representation of our voices, and you deserve the catharsis of making it
All that said, and this is a little embarrassing to admit, but I am still concerned about the mainstream palatability of my work. What I do with that, though, is I let it fuel me to make my work even better, to make it unignorably good. The love and care I pour into each corner of my work is about the love of the work and the process themselves, but as a bonus, it's also about trying to make it unignorably good, and touching more people in the process
One of the best comments I've ever gotten on Enter the Wyrm was by someone who said the game looked unique and amazing, but that they wouldn't be paying for it because of the transgenderism. I want to force people into the tension between their prejudices and their genuine desire to experience this thing I made. If that person pirates the game, they will be exposed to its transfeminism as they play it, and that's worth more than anything
(Also, a small note, you can do what you please of course, but I would encourage you to write "trans woman" with a space in between like so, instead of as "transwoman," because the latter is often used as a deliberate dogwhistle to subtly imply we are not women. We don't write "tallwoman," "shortwoman," "asianwoman", "blackwoman," or even "ciswoman," after all. "Trans" is just an adjective!)