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.
Everyone’s already given great advice, being a person comes before being trans is the most important imo. I also think it’s worth considering how far along this character is in their transition, be that the physical, social, internal/mental etc. and how that interacts with the rest of their personal development.
The important thing is that zooming out, many of the challenges we face aren’t necessarily trans things: we all want to be liked, to be happy, to be able to express our genuine selves etc. For those of us who are trans, achieving those things might look different and come about in a different way, but it’s still a classic story of self discovery with the same goal of becoming a complete person. As long as their self actualisation is wholistic you’ll be okay.
I deleted a big ramble, but the important part is that it’s fantastic to explore their character arc from a trans perspective, but the arc itself should go beyond being transgender, real people have huge and complex worlds. Ultimately we’re all just people trying to get through life and gender isn’t a story on it’s own, but it is a part of every person.
If an example helps, becoming myself has been equal parts transitioning, finding my true community through activism and discovering the things I want to spend my whole life doing like making music and feeding people. All of those things are deeply connected: transitioning gave my licence to explore being outwardly punk, activism gave me the space to stop living as someone I wasn’t and my love of music changed the way I see the world so much that it stomped out my internalised transphobia, made me an objectively better person, and gave me a deeper and more solid connection to my new community, to my home. It’s all caught up in my being trans, but it could easily mirror a cis person’s story, even much of the dramatic external change.
I’d definitely get at least a couple of transpeople to bounce ideas of or to proof read your drafts for potentially harmful stereotypes and stuff, it’s a learning process but worth it. Including well written trans people in your work is valuable and I highly encourage it, inclusion can mean a lot to people and you’ve no idea who you might end up helping.