Writing a trans character/checking my privilege
So I'm writing a story in which the narrator character is trans. He's trans, but the story isn't about him being trans, if you get my meaning. But I'm cis, and so I messaged one of my trans friends today, to school me on what I thought would be a fairly basic nuts and bolts question about legally changing one's name and gender on government ID documents. And, in the manner of things, it turned into a whole nother conversation. Background on where I'm coming from: though I'm cis, I have multiple genderqueer/trans/gender nonconforming friends. I don't say this to imply that that means I'm totes the most awesome ally, but just too convey that I'm not a total novice (and my friends, particularly the one I was talking to today, have historically been willing to call me on my shit or answer my trans101 questions on the occasions when I slip into privileged straightness). My basic philosophy about genderqueerness of all sorts is that I basically don't care. I mean, I want to get your pronouns right. I want to honor the person you are. I want to give credence to your experience, and I know a lot of that experience involves various shades of being unsafe or unhonored. And one of the ways I try to counter transphobia that is that I rarely talk to my trans friends about their gender unless they bring it up. Their whole life isn't about being trans; not all our conversations have to be about that. I figure they have their gender questioned in any number of myriad ways every single day, the least I can do is not be another voice in the choir. Lets talk about Buffy or X-Men or something. But as I was talking to my friend about name changes, and about going through airport security when you have a binder on, I realized that the very thing that makes me an okay trans ally is what's going to work against me if I'm going to get my character right. If I'm going to honor his experiences as a transperson, it's going to touch every moment in the story, whether the story it's about his gender or not (it's not). And I find myself thinking of the institutions that he's going to be interacting with as people--big, blank, implacable people--that he's going to bounce off of. They're characters I have to think about. And this is where my mindset, and my privilege, work against me. Because to me it doesn't matter if my friend is trans. But it matters to him. It effects every minute of his life. And it matters to a lot of the people he interacts with (even though it shouldn't). So that all had to play a role in how this character walks through the world. I still want to write a story with a trans character that is not about that character's coming out process. And I think that I can (particularly if one of my trans friends ends up being willing to give the story a check to make sure I don't end up being a total asshole). But, as my friend reminded me today, "You can't just be casually trans."