Gender pronouns after sex change.

[OldHideki]

I have a sci-fi story that has a protagonist where his wife cheats on him. He ends up with a medical condition, is shipped off for medical treatment, where he goes through an involuntary gender change. He never returns to the marraige, and the cheating wife eventuality dies. I want to include a sentence like:

She is going back to the United States, so she can piss on his ex-wife's grave.

I used "she" on the first two pronouns, because it is in the present, and the protagonist is female. I used "his" on the last pronoun, because at the time of the relationship, the protagonist was a male.

Is this correct?

I have a second question about gasps of air while talking. Such as:

Sally sobbed, "I (hic)... don't (hic)... have (hic)... anywhere to go"!

Is this how it should be written?

Thank You, for your responses.

 

[Bramblethorn]

In real life, the general etiquette is that you refer to somebody by the name and pronouns they prefer, even when talking about their past when they might have been addressed differently. The state of their genitals doesn't come into it. For instance, one of my stories has something along these lines:

"Back when we were dating, I thought Edgar was a cute butch lesbian, and so did he. Eventually he came out as transgender, changed his name to Ed, and started going by 'he'."

I would only mention Ed's previous name if it was necessary to avoid confusion (e.g. talking to somebody who only knew Jake pre-transition) or if I was quoting somebody who had used that name. Even there, I would consider using marked edits as a courtesy:

"In 2012, before he transitioned, Ed was given an award. The citation read: 'To [Edgar] Smith for [his] esteemed service.'"

For somebody who has been surgically modified to have a female body, but still IDs as male, I'd just continue to use male pronouns throughout, just like if I was talking about a guy who'd lost his penis in an accident.

OTOH, if they now ID as female (which would be an unusual outcome, but could happen), I'd be using female pronouns throughout, even when discussing her past.

That's present-day etiquette. But in your setting things might be different, and depending on who's telling the story, they might not abide by whatever the etiquette is at the time.

 

[AlinaX]

Agree with Bramblethorn there.

Surgical changes don't change someone's gender, but could be a catalyst for self-discovery. ("Seeing myself this way, I could no longer deny, as I had for years, fearing the consequences of a life of difference, that at heart I was not a man, but a woman. Seeing myself in the mirror was seeing my true self revealed.")

Although you could argue for a sci-fi conversion therapy drug. ("I could feel myself becoming more feminine, and not just in appearance. The face and breasts that had seemed so unnatural only the day before no longer horrified, and instead the memory of my true self became tinged with a profound revulsion.")

Q2. Maybe: Sally sobbed, "I hic! don't hic! have hic! anywhere to go!"

 

[SimonDoom]

The OP's question raises some interesting questions in my mind.

Suppose one is writing a story in the third person POV, past tense, and the story narrates the tale of a person going through the transition. What pronouns do you use:

1. When at the beginning of the story the character identifies as a woman but later identifies as a man.


2. When at the beginning of the story the character retains male sex organs but goes through surgery during the course of the story.


3. At what point in the change in self identification should the narration switch pronouns, assuming they should be switched?

4. What if the story is about gender confusion, where the character, for whatever reason, switches back and forth between male and female identity? I suppose in that case it could be useful or proper to switch back and forth.

 

[AlinaX]

I think it always matches the character's identity at the apparent point of narration.

Suddenly reminded of Orlando. "He - for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it - was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters."

 

[Handley_Page]

Personally (and being rather old), I take the view that if the person under discussion had a penis, it's a HE. After the surgeons have done their work and registered the change in sex, it's a SHE.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Personally (and being rather old), I take the view that if the person under discussion had a penis, it's a HE. After the surgeons have done their work and registered the change in sex, it's a SHE.

Or take it a step farther... the DNA of the individual will still come back as Male no matter what a surgeon does to make HIM look like a HER. Just saying.

And why did the OP feel the need to post this twice?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Personally (and being rather old), I take the view that if the person under discussion had a penis, it's a HE. After the surgeons have done their work and registered the change in sex, it's a SHE.

My understanding is that there have been quite a few soldiers who lost their penises to war injuries, but were nevertheless still referred to as "he".

Contrariwise, when my mother had to have her womb, ovaries, and breasts removed due to cancer, she was still "she".

People are not defined by their genitals.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Or take it a step farther... the DNA of the individual will still come back as Male no matter what a surgeon does to make HIM look like a HER. Just saying.

And why did the OP feel the need to post this twice?

Just so I'm clear here: you're saying that anybody who shows up XX on a blood test is female and anybody who shows up XY on a blood test is male?

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Personally (and being rather old), I take the view that if the person under discussion had a penis, it's a HE. After the surgeons have done their work and registered the change in sex, it's a SHE.

But you realize that you're imposing your personal ideas about gender on someone else's identity, right? And that gender and sex aren't the same thing?

It seems to me that the respectful thing to do is to accept people as the gender they say they are. Nobody can put themselves inside someone else's mind to assess gender. Checking the genitalia (not appropriate anyway!) only answers the question of sex (maybe). If the respectful thing to do with real people is to accept the gender identity they adopt (because it's their opinion/knowledge that matters), the respectful treatment of it in fiction is to use the pronoun the character would choose.

I think the OP's question was consistent with that approach. If I understand correctly, part of what underlies his question is how the character views her gender identity at the point in time when she identified as male. I agree with Bramblethorn and Alina. I tend to think that whenever a person is referring to themselves, they're going to use the pronoun that conforms to the person's current gender identity.

Not being transgender or transsexual, I'd of course defer to anyone who is, but that's how I see it as someone who tries to be responsible about the treatment of transgender and transsexual people in fiction.

I think this was a good question to ask because many of us are still trying to sort through the pronoun issue and more importantly, to understand how transsexual and transgender people view the evolution of their recognition of identity.

Fun note: I wanted to make sure I didn't need to hyphenate transsexual, so I typed "transsexual" into the Google prompt. Try it. You get a neat little rainbow border at the top of the page. This works for "transgender," "gay," "lesbian," "bisexual," "queer," "asexual," and "pansexual," but not "nonbinary"

I wonder what other fun borders I can get?

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Or take it a step farther... the DNA of the individual will still come back as Male no matter what a surgeon does to make HIM look like a HER. Just saying.

And why did the OP feel the need to post this twice?

Are you being deliberately offensive to get arise out of people, or do you really think like this?

 

[SimonDoom]

Personally (and being rather old), I take the view that if the person under discussion had a penis, it's a HE. After the surgeons have done their work and registered the change in sex, it's a SHE.

I'm old enough that I used to think this, and young enough that I don't think this anymore. As others have pointed out, it's not simple. You can have XY chromosomes and be born without a penis because of a genetic condition.

But without wading into the weeds of the science and politics, it's an interesting question for a narrator. I like AlinaX's approach that, generally speaking, the pronoun use at a given point in a narration should match whatever the character's identity is at that point. But it could be tricky IF the story is about the process of transition and change in identification, and if the character is confused, as I imagine does happen in real life. There's no reason to believe that gender identification is either/or any more than sexual orientation is either/or. Most things fall on a spectrum.

Perhaps the narrative should expressly deal with the shift in pronouns by delving into the character's thoughts. E.g., (simplistically):

Harold sat on the couch. He realized, once and for all, that he was not a "he" but a "she."

She stood up.


The mechanics of it could be awkward.

 

[AlinaX]

Dear gods. I see enough terfery on twitter without needing to see it here.

If you think someone is incorrect about their own sexual/romantic/other orientation and/or gender identity, then you're almost certainly wrong, and either way you should keep that opinion to yourself.

 

[AwkwardMD]

"Waaah. I'm on the wrong side of history and that makes me cranky."

 

[AwkwardMD]

I'm old enough that I used to think this, and young enough that I don't think this anymore. As others have pointed out, it's not simple. You can have XY chromosomes and be born without a penis because of a genetic condition.

But without wading into the weeds of the science and politics, it's an interesting question for a narrator. I like AlinaX's approach that, generally speaking, the pronoun use at a given point in a narration should match whatever the character's identity is at that point. But it could be tricky IF the story is about the process of transition and change in identification, and if the character is confused, as I imagine does happen in real life. There's no reason to believe that gender identification is either/or any more than sexual orientation is either/or. Most things fall on a spectrum.

Perhaps the narrative should expressly deal with the shift in pronouns by delving into the character's thoughts. E.g., (simplistically):

Harold sat on the couch. He realized, once and for all, that he was not a "he" but a "she."

She stood up.


The mechanics of it could be awkward.

Plenty of trans writers have written about this. The solution is exactly like writing characters of color; listen to them rather than guessing and trying to tell them what their experience is like.

 

[SimonDoom]

"Waaah. I'm on the wrong side of history and that makes me cranky."

Although I agree with what I believe is your position on this specific issue, I'll just note that NO ONE should ever claim to be on the right side of history, because we have no idea what's going to happen in the future, or of how that future will look back on our present time as its history.

 

[AlinaX]

History is written by the politicians, and I fear for the U.K. and its regressive politics. British history may soon be triumphant about the eradication of the rainbow.

Still, there's probably only another decade or two of history to go...

 

[SimonDoom]

Plenty of trans writers have written about this. The solution is exactly like writing characters of color; listen to them rather than guessing and trying to tell them what their experience is like.

But that doesn't really fully answer the question, does it? Because in any group of trans writers, as in any group of anything anybodies, there will be a range and diversity of experiences and points of view. Plus, an author is not necessarily limited by reality, or by the views of some particular group as to what reality is, as probably at least half of Literotica stories illustrate on a daily basis.

I would quibble, too, with whether by writing a story about a trans person one is "trying to tell them [trans people] what their experience is like." I think an author is fully entitled to say "I'm just telling a story about what my fictional trans person's experience is like."

 

[Bramblethorn]

The OP's question raises some interesting questions in my mind.

Suppose one is writing a story in the third person POV, past tense, and the story narrates the tale of a person going through the transition. What pronouns do you use:

1. When at the beginning of the story the character identifies as a woman but later identifies as a man.

Depends on how I'm telling the story.

If I'm writing third person close, and I want the reader to experience things as that character experienced them, I would keep the pronouns consistent with the character's ID at that point in the story, changing them at the point where that self-ID changes.

If I'm writing third person omniscient, or from the perspective of another person who knows how the story turns out, then I'd be more likely to stick to male pronouns throughout.

2. When at the beginning of the story the character retains male sex organs but goes through surgery during the course of the story.

Surgery wouldn't have any bearing on my choices around a character's pronouns.

There's a common misconception about medical transition that it's this single standard all-encompassing surgery which marks the point at which somebody officially changes sex.

In fact: medical transition can encompass a bunch of different processes (not all surgical) which might take place over years, not all trans people get the same package (many don't seek out surgery at all, or can't afford it), and the surgical part often takes place long after a person has socially transitioned - in many places this is a legal requirement, you simply can't get SRS until you've lived as the gender you want to be for X number of years.

Which puts a lot of trans women in a really crappy position - can't get surgery until you've lived as a woman for several years, but people won't accept you as female until you've had "the surgery" (sic) which you can't yet access. Being a non-passing trans woman is really dangerous and these processes force trans women to spend years in that position. Insisting that these people should still be called "he" is very much punching down.

Meanwhile, the surgical options for trans guys aren't that great; top surgery is helpful for passing and often for body dysphoria issues, but we're not really at the stage where we can give a trans guy a fully functional dick yet.

 

[ElectricBlue]

In real life, the general etiquette is that you refer to somebody by the name and pronouns they prefer, even when talking about their past when they might have been addressed differently.

Interesting for me that this has come up, as my current work in progress includes a person who is transitioning. I'm writing it in my usual slow meandering way and don't explicitly reveal anything until 10k words into the story - it's not broadcasting anything, and she's written as a young woman because that's who she is. I jumped on line to read in on ways folk refer to themselves, their genitalia, and what they do or don't do with it. That was enlightening, and I hope I'm treating my character appropriately. I wondered the same thing when I wrote my story about a woman with a broken back and the able bodied man who falls for her, and I seemed to manage that one okay.

She's a she in the story - that's all very straightforward. The real problem I've given myself is that her sexual partner is also a woman, so I've encountered the issue YukonNights raised a while back - how to keep clarity about whose bits belong to which woman, and who's doing what to whom. THAT'S the difficult bit, the gender and identity stuff is a cinch, by comparison. To make it easy on myself, I've also got her twin brother who also gets on with the same lover. My other dilemma will be category - I don't really want to drop it into T&C because that not what the story is about, not really, and that just badges it. I don't know what to do there, at this point. I'll figure something out.

And no Simon, the story ain't turning south to the Antarctic!

 

[SimonDoom]

Does anyone know: Have any trans fiction authors written specifically about this subject? I'm more than happy to take up AwkwardMD's suggestion to read what trans persons or authors have had to say on this subject. Are there any Literotica stories or articles that touch on this subject?

 

[ElectricBlue]

...but we're not really at the stage where we can give a trans guy a fully functional dick yet.

Figure out how to solve the problem of only having enough blood to have one thinking head at a time, and you're on a winner.

Doesn't a trans man have the natural advantage of being able to multi-task, or does that disappear with the change?

 

[SimonDoom]

If I'm writing third person omniscient, or from the perspective of another person who knows how the story turns out, then I'd be more likely to stick to male pronouns throughout.

I'm having difficulty seeing how this would work in practice. Any examples?

There's a common misconception about medical transition that it's this single standard all-encompassing surgery which marks the point at which somebody officially changes sex.

.

To be clear, I do not share this misconception, and nothing I wrote earlier was meant to say that I did.

 

[SimonDoom]

Meanwhile, the surgical options for trans guys aren't that great; top surgery is helpful for passing and often for body dysphoria issues, but we're not really at the stage where we can give a trans guy a fully functional dick yet.

When medicine reaches the point that it can graft on a fully functional new dick, you can be sure that the primary consumers of said new technology won't be trans men but cisgender men looking to upgrade.

 

[AlinaX]

Does anyone know: Have any trans fiction authors written specifically about this subject?

Possibly of interest:
https://thestoryanditswriter.wordpr...riting-a-transgender-or-non-binary-character/

"In Narration – This is the worst time to misgender a character. To misgender a character in narration, especially in third-person narration, is the same as saying you as the author don’t respect your character or their identity.

"In Flashback – When flashing back to a time pre-transition, obviously most people, if not all of them, will misgender the character, either because the character is not yet out as trans, because not everyone knows they are, or because people who might later accept them have not yet. Mind you, this is not always necessary; among the trans community, we often adjust names and pronouns when telling stories about our pasts."