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Recently, I've been learning more about non-binary people, and have been re-exploring my own identity based on what I've learned. Some (or maybe a lot) of that has been reflected in some of the stories I've written. Lately, I've been wondering how people feel about reading stories that have non-binary people as supporting characters, or the main character. While reading stories with characters like that are really interesting to me, I realize not everyone can relate to characters like that.
So, I'd like to put this question out to everyone: How do you feel about reading stories with non-binary characters?
Comments
Fine With Me...
I'd like to see more of them.
Eric.
An Air Force friend said something like this ...
"It's the avionics (flight control systems) and not the air frame that matters."
He knew several trans (and/or gay?) people, including one whose airframe (body) was so ambiguous/evenly split that they had not yet 'decided'.
The "avionics" is the mind-heart-soul of the person, and that is what matters to the story. Of course the 'airframe', the body, matters, and affects the mind, and vice versa, and, of course, other people's reactions.
(Other people's reactions often are (often excessively) affected by body, clothing, hygiene, 'race', ethnicity, sex, presenting gender, jewelry (or lack of) ... it's why we have the endless list of mistakes called racism, homophobia, nationalism, classism, xenophobia, religious discrimination, ageism, ableism, We-versus-They....)
But without person inside, acting and reacting to and with their body, to the outside conditions, to other people ... without that, we are reading a medical report, not a story.
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So I'm just fine with reading such stories.
I've been reading science fiction & fantasy for years. (Space aliens & vampires & ... & all that.) Often the space aliens have vast trouble noticing, much less understanding our 'major' differences among humans, and vice versa... These limits in perception and understanding are often the basis for the stories.
Go for it, we need more
Go for it, we need more representation! :)
Yes, but...
As someone who is, in their "heart of hearts," non-binary, though I present and live as a woman, I would like to see more stories about people who aren't binary trans female. Human beings' thinking is story-based, and it is through stories that we can get some idea of what it is like to be someone else. And there are a lot of non-binary folks out there -- the people who took the most recent US trans survey had roughly equal numbers of people who identified as trans male, trans female, and non-binary.
However, I would want them to reflect the experiences, internal and external, of actual non-binary people. My impression is that most of the people who post here are binary trans female, even if only in fantasy, and I know from experience how hard it is to get inside the head of someone who is different from oneself on such a fundamental level. I myself would not even try to write a story centered on, say, a trans guy, even though I know a number of them, because the motivations and feelings are so alien to me.
It's also important to keep in mind that there is an enormous variety among people who identify as "non-binary." I sometimes use the metaphor of colors to explain it: if trans female is the color red, and trans male is the color blue, then non-binary is the color "not-red-or-blue". Which of course includes a huge variety of very different colors.