• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Is main stream publishing ready for transgendered characters? Opinions anyone?

Blayze

Dreamer
Okay, so I am writing my first attempt at a sci fi/ dark future fantasy novel - working title is Tribes. The main character begins male, and is unavoidably turned female, so effectively becomes Transgendered as a result. Is this part of the story line likely to seriously effect publishing efforts, and or efforts to find beta readers etc.

I would love to know what the MS community thinks. Am I likely to have to bin a core part of the story to get published?

Cheers
 

Xavorn

Minstrel
Hello,

So is it that you're wondering if people find that kind of a twist acceptable or not?

-Xavorn
 

Eimingami

Scribe
In Sci Fi it's not an issue. Was it Greb Bear (is that his name?) that wrote that great book with assemblers etc? Basically the characters reassemble themselves into whatever they want, woman, man, centaur. That said, it's not 'about' that but rather it's just another amazing sci fi thing within the novel.

Now, any true reader of books will absorb any well written story. I mean, lolita is about a pedophile. However, I can't say that it's 'main stream'. Main stream is glittering vampires and lightsabers.
 

Linqy

Scribe
The Mistborn series also has creatures in it that can take any shape their want, be it human or animal, male or female.

but I'm guessing you mean actually changing from a normal male (human) into an actual female? And would this change be surgical or magical (because personally magically wouldn't bother me a single bit as magic just allows to break taboos very easily). A surgical sex change would be more controversial XD
 

Xavorn

Minstrel
Hello,

As Linqy says, shapeshifting with magic is just fine, but seemingly this is about a surgery change, which is too much in my opinion. :D

-Xavorn
 
In Charles Stross's novel Glasshouse, the main character is forcibly changed from male to female as part of a sociological experiment. Of course, that's SF, not fantasy. Still, I'd be unsurprised to find that there have already been fantasy novels involving transgendered characters.
 

Lordfisheh

New Member
Depends if you're writing a transgendered character or a character who is transgendered. With the former, where the character is written around a single attribute, you risk having a gimmicky character, or worse, people will feel like they're having a 'message' rammed down their throat. Make it a natural part of a rounded character and it should work fine. Ian Banks' Surface Detail, published recently, had one of its three main characters as a neuter from a society where the norm is to change sex on a whim. So the simple presence of transgendered characters won't preclude a book from being published; it just has to fit and be written well.
 

Blayze

Dreamer
Thanks for your replies everyone. The intention was to have it as simply another aspect of the story, although as the charcter comes to terms with the events it becomes less of an issue. So far as how the character is changed, well he has an unfortunate encounter with nano tech after discovering an artifact. Who was it who said that if the tech is far enough advanced it might as well be magic?

I have looked at the guidelines for showcase, which unfortunately seems to rule out Synthaera, (fan fiction), which is a pity as i had hoped for feedback about how it is written as opposed to the story and how it fits in the WU universe. Is there an alternative area in MS where fanfiction can be opened to review?
 
Libba Bray, a very popular YA author, had a book called Beauty Queens published within the past few years. It had a transgendered character. Of course the whole point of that book was to force feed readers the author's "message" like we were too stupid to think for ourselves, so... yeah. Like someone said though, as long as it's more about the character than the "message," you'll be fine.
 

Thursday

Scribe
I think it would be accepted just fine and actually might pick up a bigger audience because of it thanks to people like Chaz Bono and whatsername Arquette.
 
Top