One of my favorite characters I built (years ago) for D&D years was magically created to be transgender by a devil playing at being a god. She looked like a woman but possessed male genitals and was mainly attracted to women, though she could be flexible. Back then, things were different socially and the character didn’t bother anyone because she was a strong moral person and it wasn’t a sexual thing. I really enjoyed the headspace and exploration for this character as she developed and came to accept her uniqueness.
Fast forward a decade, I’ve begun writing for fun and I’ve been considering going back to this character and resurrecting her. I am concerned that as a CIS male that the very idea of my writing such a character would immediately touch a nerve and set off a firestorm. So, that made me decide to come here and ask this community their thoughts on transgender characters as written by non-trangender authors.
Make sure that they are a fully developed and well rounded character, who happens to be trans. It’s part of who they are, it’s not all of who they are.
I would also consider how your trans character fits into the world. Your character isn’t trans like we are. Your character is magically trans, in a world full of completely different sentient races, and also one where shapeshifting exists. How does being trans interact with that world? Transmutation spells exist. Does it say something about this character that they have a mismatching gender presentation in a world where it would be trivial to magically alter their body?
The idea that people can only write about people like themselves is silly. As a writer you have to be able to write convincing characters regardless of who they are. There are no stories where every character is a copy of the author. Be respectful, be informed, think things through, and write a compelling character and its all good.
Transitioning is only trivial in some D&D settings. Polymorph is a high level spell, so it would cost a lot of money to have a wizard cast it. Whether other spells or potions for transitioning exist is something for the GM to decide
This is why pf2e is based. 60gp common item
That’s still more than a year’s wages for a peasant. About 24,000 dollars in the USA. Being a trans adventurer is easy, but being a trans commoner is as hard as it is in the real world
Fitting into the world is where things got interesting. Not only was she transgender, but she was considered an abomination because of the dark magic that created her. Priests of the ‘good’ gods would try to smite her regularly because she stank of dark magic. So a lot of drama was centered around how she saw herself and coming to accept that she wasn’t a monster (for either reason). But I can see how being transgender in and of itself wouldn’t be some kind of world-shattering difference.
It would be a very good idea to have several characters be trans that aren’t in a similar situation to avoid the one trans character being a ‘dark abomination’ and stink of dark magic. That will absolutely be interpreted as being intertwined.
The concern I have with that is that a story with too many trans characters won’t read authentically. We are a very small minority. Its rare to run into another trans person. Being trans can be lonely and isolating. You have to actively work to find or make communities with other trans people.
If your character just happens to run into trans people often during their adventures, it will feel off. A chance encounter with one trans person is plausible. More than that should have some explanation as to why or how that group of trans people connected.
In a high magic setting with easy access to polymorphing. The very concept of transgender as we know it basically would not exist.
Your more likely to have prejudices against trans-species people. Since in most d&d settings, gender plays almost a non-factor of a role to most parts of society due to magic and tools being available.
While species tend to be rather insular and there is large amounts of conflict between territories and species.
Dwarves versus elves half elves the draconic races and kobolds for the semi-civilized races such as goblins or knolls.
So having say human that identifies more in line with orcish cultures in the orcish mindset, polymorphing himself into an orc would probably face serious backlash from more conservative or traditional orcs.
Dwarves, for example wouldn’t really care either about gender but for a elf or a goblin to trying to integrate into dwarven society. Not as their own race but polymorphing into a dwarf would be seen as absurd and extremely bad.
You also have to factor in polymorphing in almost all fantasy settings is generally speaking extremely frowned upon if it changes your race or your identity in major ways.
Since it would be a common thing that spies assassins, thieves and other such unpleasant folk would do. Not to mention high-level mimics dragons and other polymorphic creatures that would infiltrate society to eat humans elves dwarves and other quote civilized people.
So you also have to kind of think at what level is polymorphing acceptable? If it’s a full ban then yeah you could go all the way to real world examples of transgender prejudice. If it’s only a slight ban or requires you to declare that you are a polymorphic individual then it’s going to be less so.
If you’re going by strict d&d logic and you need true polymorph to make it a permanent change. Then actually having access to that sort of magic would be so unreasonably hard to obtain for the average person that if someone did come across fully polymorphed then that’s not someone that anyone is going to be prejudice against because they could blast them from the other side of a continent with a whim.
So to find someone polymorphed in that case, you’re so powerful that it’s not a factor into your relationship with other entities or civilization. It’s purely a personal thing.
So much of transgender issues come from the interaction between you and the people around you. Gender roles. Gender norms all of that is built up by the society in rules that you grow up in.
Without that society, you really only have the physical personal body dysmorphia issue. Which could be a great reason to become a Bard or a wizard. So you can learn polymorphic magics to fix what you believe is a physical wrong with yourself. But realistically speaking there would be no prejudice problem till after the polymorphing happened given most d&d settings.
Which is also kind of a neat thing to think about. You have a personal, mental and physical issue. You sought out untold magical powers to fix this problem. Society has no issue with you, by fixing the problem, you create a issue that society would see with you. But in doing so you’re also now so magically powerful that no country could bring issue against you as a wizard who can wield 7th, 8th or 9th level magic is untouchable.
There could be plenty of magical reasons that a character is unable to change their genitals. Honestly this reeks of the same sentiment as “there can be no disabled characters in DnD”.