could you expand on the ariaste trans character situation?
they don’t write transgender characters, period. and let me start with the fact that I (nonbinary) and my spouse (also nonbinary) have read EVERY book so I’m not talking out of my ass—there is a pattern. I’m a hater AND a scholar 🤓
read my review of Running Close to the Wind for an actual review and a good foundation to their writing quirks since I won’t touch on the sexualization of teens and bad writing in general here. and i also reviewed Ylfing on goodreads here (before i read any of their other works.)
in Choir of Lies (2019) they took a crack at a trans woman and made her predatory and creepy, and Some by Virtue Fall (2022) has a throwaway trans man who was lumped in with the women and treated as a woman (and there was an offhanded mention of a trans woman who (in canon!) had to leave the story to preemptively avoid being hate crimed by their society. I’m not making this up!) That’s the only 3 binary transgender characters they’ve ever written.
The rest of their books fixate intensely on cock, cock, and more cock and how yaoi = cock and and how woman = womb (I won’t even touch on the misogyny) and how pussy = woman’s parts (<quote!) It’s just the bioessentialism of it all. To the point that in Taste of Gold and Iron (2022) there’s some weird incest vibes as the protag (cis man) thinks on how his sister (womb haver) should be planning on getting pregnant again soon (SHE’S 3 MONTHS POSTPARTUM?) and by whom and how many men she should be getting knocked up by, since the more men women sleep with, the better their baby will be. I think they intended this to sound feminist, somehow.
And I know someone will say that they do a great job at nonbinary characters… do they? Is having Man, Woman and Weird liberating, or did we just reinvent the gender binary with an extra flavor? cool. I guess some people want the option to put an X on their passport instead of getting rid of the gender marker altogether. and what lies outside of that binary? (nothing :)) and when there is a character who seems to be not part of the gender binary (yay) you find out they come from a society with 1 binary gender, which they are! but don’t forget. they do have a pussy, but they own a lot of dildos, in case you were wondering how they’re having penetrative gay sex with men, for which you need a penis. I’m not exaggerating. All of this is stated on the page.
(and in canon there is a WHIFF of this character starting to explain their complicated relationship with the 1 gender binary (interesting! I want to read it!), but the protag cuts them off with ‘sorry I’m too stupid to understand. can we talk about something else?’ and the convo is dropped. presumably to avoid writing it. yay!)
also it’s interesting that intersex people in this world are assigned Gender 3 at birth (I only know this because they went out of their way to state this. For some reason.) hey, what does that mean? why are intersex babies assigned the ‘weird’ gender 3 category at BIRTH? and then why can you (presumably) transition to the Weird category as an adult? and why is Gender 3, the one for intersex people, also the one for asexuals? Is anyone else hearing this? it’s so cold and dark in here………
I wouldn't really care about their total lack of writing transgender characters if they didn’t CONSTANTLY bring up how they’re doing such #diversity win and how they’re really helping the community and how we should all be thankful for their diverse writing. Constantly. Sure, they want their fantasy world with 3 binary genders—whatever, your choice. But then to brag about how the queer community should be thankful for their total lack of transgender men and women and characters who identify OUTSIDE of the 3 gender binary? Who are living in this diverse world where everyone in fiction is so fixated on what genitalia you have? And don’t get it twisted—any they/them and çe/çir characters are side characters. protagonists are cis men. with cock. who only like other men, with cock.
Again, since this is the piss poor website: I’m not saying that nonbinary characters are not ‘trans enough’. my beef is with this specific author in particular, and how they—by definition!—will not write a character who is outside their 3 gender binary or transitions from gender A to gender B. and it’s weird that the three times they mentioned an explicit transgender character they were written… like that. and even the nonbinary gender 3 characters aren’t main characters! (And side note… all these worlds are like so insanely heteronormative? the only two gay men who seem to exist are the main couples. I guess there was a tradwife lesbian couple mentioned once, or something…) Write whatever the fuck you want, as poorly as you want, but I better not get talked down to about how these bioessentialist worlds are a blessed gift of representation to the LGBT community.
My partner asked them if their newest book will have any trans characters and they said ‘no :) but I’m nonbinary and my name is on the cover so it counts!’ And when they posted yet another ‘everyone be thankful I’m writing such genderqueer trans characters for you all’ and I (very politely!) asked ‘where? because the only trans woman you’ve written was predatory’ I was blocked without comment. Which leads me to believe they get that a lot, since they typically love to argue with haters. (Following this they went on a rant about how they don’t owe anyone anything and how rude it is to demand representation in THEIR books but like… if you’re not writing for me, a gay transgender reader, and you don’t want ME reading it, then who is your target audience? cishet fujoshis?)
and again. if they had a sensitivity reader or ANYONE to tell them hold up… maybe the bisexual men shouldn’t all be typecast as nasty whores…. There would be a glimmer of hope.
pirate their books. bioessentialist yaoi is not worth the $30 when you can read better fanfiction for free. they can’t be fucked to hire an editor or read their own writing so why should anyone pay to read it. Lol.
