Transgender Representation in Fantasy Fiction
A look into the past
Despite the extraordinary possibilities of fantasy fiction, its early iterations in the 19th century reflected the heterocentric standard of the time. Described as the genre of “what if”, mainstream fantasy still suffers from “persistent conservatism” when it comes to queer, let alone transgender representation (Kenneally, 2016, pg. 9). Though dragons may be fought, and civilisations rebuilt, speculative writers of the 19th century remained “unselfconscious in their reproduction of the heteronormative environment in which they were written” (Pearson and Kenneally, 2016, pg. 9). However, as within a rigid heteronormative society, queerness is a “consistent, marginal, and often hidden presence within the genre” (Kenneally, 2016, pg. 10). Though, how sexuality is represented within fantasy fiction is beyond the scope of this literature review, overtly queer characters appeared in fantasy texts before transgender representation. Transness, when it appears, is cloaked and side-stepped, in that characters are “transgender by association rather than by explicit presentation” (Kenneally, 2016, pg. 202).
Magical transformations
A magical transformation between genders is an early example of explorations into transgender embodiment. Whether by magic, curses, or divine intervention, characters suddenly become the other sex. This tropehas a long history in folklore and myth, such as in the Greek myth of Tiresias, who is transformed from male to female and back again after striking a pair of mating snakes. Or within the tale of Hermaphroditus, who is attacked by Salmacis who desires his divine beauty, and in that attack, the two merge to embody male and female aspects.
In modern fantasy examples, such as Gael Baudino’s ‘Dragonsword’ Trilogy (1988 to 1992), a number of men are permanently transformed into women. These characters are cisgender before their transformation and suffer greatly in their new bodies and role in society. It is in the painful experience of “sex/gender disparity” that these characters can be read as transgender (Kenneally, 2016, pg. 203). The characters cross the bodily divide between sexes, and become immediately legible as the other sex. The transformation is instantaneous and on the level of flesh, fantastical. This trope appears again in Judith Tarr’s A Fall of Princes (1988) wherein a prince undergoes the transformation from male to female willingly for political reasons. Although she doesn't suffer quite as much as the characters in Baudino’s work, the new princess does experience the anxieties of social transitioning, such as coming out and pronoun usage. Representation of transness through the creation of “analogous transgender characters” was a way to explore the transgender experience from a safe distance but does little to normalise transness on a broader scale (Kenneally, 2016, pg. 204). On one hand, the magical transformation trope is often linked with a gained “insight into experiences of a more comprehensive humanity by overcoming the seeming gender disjunctions” (Klonkowska & Bonvissuto, 2019, p.67). However, in modern Western society, transgender individuals are not afforded this respect but are instead pathologised and dismissed. This trope also reinforces the pervasive “wrong-body” paradigm, which is a simplistic narrative of transness that inherently frames “non-trans as right” and transgender “embodiment as dangerous, unsettling, impure” (Nirta, 2021, p. 340).
Read More
