In my story, magic has the ability to change certain things about the body. I had the idea that it would be great for trans individuals to use that magic to transition. Not everyone can use magic, so it would only work for those who can. Would that be an acceptable thing, or would it diminish trans experiences with the process of transition, if it can happen magically?
I talk more about this in this post but essentially, as long as you’re careful and think everything through that would be fine. I typically steer people away from having that kind of thing in their stories because it’s frequently done in a dismissive hand wavy way (whether that is intentional or not) and is done in a way which perpetuates certain myths regarding being trans and about gender as a whole (more about that here). People have pointed this out in the comments and is something I’ve been meaning to address.
The safest way I think to include magical transitions is to, instead of completely changing their body, have them be able to make edits and shift to their body (preferably gradually as that will best mirror what trans people go through when medically transitioning) over time (which I do mention in the previously linked post). Obviously that does depend on how your magic system works and all that fun stuff but I think it’s a good starting point when thinking about this.
However, the rules you have for changing someones body or appearance should apply to all in the same way and it would be strange if trans people were the exception. So if someone could shift into a humanoid luminous lizard in point three seconds then trans people should be able to change their appearance to look more masculine/feminine in the same amount of time. This kind of stuff is complicated and deserves a fair amount of thought and a lot of balancing between “this is how this happens for real life trans people” and “this is how my magic system works”.
Thank-you for asking and I hope that helped rather than just bringing up more questions.
- Mod Emery
