Yes, you can write characters that don't look like you...

[Ray McCarthy]

gender issues can be quantitatively and qualitatively studied by Social Sciences.

Gender is a social sciences definition, physical sex is purely biological physical science. Most of the social sciences are about examining social constructs.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

because you don't have any non-cis experience

You assume. I'm not prepared to explain what I think or know, one way or the other. Gender as opposed to sex is now a social issue. To claim otherwise is to discriminate against the LGBT community. Gender unlike sex has no scientific basis. That doesn't mean it's not a real thing. It might have a scientific basis in the future, unlike belief in God or Homoeopathy (one inherently isn't provable, and the other has been disproved),

 

[Ursa major]

You assume.

I deduce, not assume, it simply because I find it extremely hard (if not impossible) to believe that you could have both experienced being non-cis and simultaneously believe that being non-cis was akin to having a point of view.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

point of view

You are underestimating a "point of view". Ask Islamists, Evangelical Christians or Richard Dawkings. Things are totally real to people without there being any scientific basis. Some things in this category (Electro sensitivity) can be disproved. Others can't be proved or disproved (Dawkins vis belief in God, not Evolution vis Creation), others like Gender MIGHT later be found to have a scientific basis. I'm not saying that "trans" is a delusion like Electro sensitivity is, I'm purely saying we don't know why it exists, so till there is any evidence, "Gender" as it's understood today, is Social Construct based on people's experience and belief, not science, as yet.

I think you think I am criticising "trans" people. I'm not.

People also can simultaneously believe very odd things indeed. But that's another story. Probably we are both giving the wrong impression and should write about something else, as we are obviously not quite talking about the same thing. Certainly I've expressed myself badly. There are lots of things we don't have "science" for.

Sorry.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I'm saddened—but not surprised in the least—that my initial presumption has been proven true.

I'll leave the rest of this post for Neil Gaiman...

 

[thaddeus6th]

Fishbowl, I agree racism is not politically correct, but everything not politically correct isn't also bigotry.

We saw that with the nonsense when Benedict Cumberbatch, not a man routinely mistaken for Jeremy Clarkson, said coloured person instead of person of colour and felt the need to apologise profusely. That's the sort of thing most people have in mind when they rail against political correctness, whereby the slightest deviation from the currently socially acceptable vocabulary (as deemed by some) is considered to be a serious problem.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think Gaiman is talking about basic politeness. I dislike "politically correct" as a term - it was a joke phrase 20 years ago, and it seems to mean pretty much whatever the speaker wants it to mean. The article I linked to loses force by using it, but the writer did say that he was having to talk quickly. I wish nobody used it at all.

Not embracing - er - progressive activism (I can't think of a better phrase) unquestioningly isn't the same as demanding a kind of bigot's Get out of jail free card (at least, not automatically). What puts me off, and probably a lot of other reasonable people, is that what's often being demanded doesn't feel like the sort of "be reasonable to everyone" approach that Gaiman is proposing in that quote, but a mixture of constant self-flagellation and witch-hunting towards anyone who has made a slip of the tongue and become "problematic": check your prejudice (loudly) and everyone else's even more. It's died down a bit with the Requires Hate debacle, but it's still there.

Also, I do think I'm entitled to denigrate people for their culture, in certain circumstances. If your culture is to regard gays, Jews, blacks or unbelievers as vermin, or women as a slave race, then yes, your culture needs to pull its finger out, no matter what. I suppose that might be cultural imperialism to some, but as far as I'm concerned it's basic decency.

 

[Zebra Wizard]

I feel alot of this is still because the american black culture is still young and finding it's feet, they don't have a history of culture to draw upon, and what they do have is something shameful and revolting, so a large portion of this culture proceed to demand respect and acceptance. Its a vicious circle, where groups are getting segregated and when people get segregated, animosity is bound to grow.

We are lucky it is not so bad here in the UK. I would be shocked if a white person could not write a story about non-white culture here.

 

[HareBrain]

Also, I do think I'm entitled to denigrate people for their culture, in certain circumstances. If your culture is to regard gays, Jews, blacks or unbelievers as vermin, or women as a slave race, then yes, your culture needs to pull its finger out, no matter what. I suppose that might be cultural imperialism to some, but as far as I'm concerned it's basic decency.

It's a postmodernist tenet that no value system is inherently better than any other. Which is hypocritical, since that tenet is itself a value system which the post-modernists believe to be better than any other.

On the topic of the thread, I'd be interested to hear contributions from people who've had to deal with these issues in their own writing: why they decided to use more diverse characters, how they went about researching (if they did), and how their efforts were regarded by readers both in and outside the group they were writing about.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

It's a postmodernist tenet that no value system is inherently better than any other. Which is hypocritical, since that tenet is itself a value system which the post-modernists believe to be better than any other.

On the topic of the thread, I'd be interested to hear contributions from people who've had to deal with these issues in their own writing: why they decided to use more diverse characters, how they went about researching (if they did), and how their efforts were regarded by readers both in and outside the group they were writing about.

Cracks knuckles. I write quite a lot of diversity - and a lot of mental illness stuff, which I think falls under the remit (not sure, but it's often an overlooked or badly done trope.)

So, why did I choose to have the characters I did:

Army leader who is a lesbian - I wrote the short of her backstory and in it her lover was in it, who was female. It doesn't especially shape her as a character, had no bearing on the story and she isn't a butch-soldier type. In fact, as with most of my diverse characters the reveal of her diversity doesn't come until quite late. Not a huge amount of research, seeing as I know a fair few lesbians and none of them have been from a different planet.

Intelligence chief who is bi-sexual. I did a bit more research into this because whilst he isn't promicuous, as such, he'd not monogamous and I didn't want to fall into cliche. He's bi for no reason than he came out that way (excuse the pun.)

Indian girl, Belfast - this is more interesting. Belfast has very few ethic minorities but when I was growing up I had some friends who were. So, I wanted to show that there were some. Also, it's a modern Belfast and things are changing and wanted to reflect that. I did a lot of research into stories about female icons in India and Pakistan for it, and found it very interesting. I also learned how shockingly and shamefully ignorant of all things Indian.

Mental conditions - I've had a person with Post traumatic stress disorder (no prizes...) another with Intrusive thoughts/voice and, in the same book, a condition called folie-a-deux, introduced to me by a knowledgeable beta when brainstorming. I write a lot of that because, as some of you know, I have my moments of glimpsing some of that, and it is something I think we don't talk enough about, and have stigmatised.

 

[tinkerdan]

Most of what is in the original posts link makes sense and I particularly like this last piece.

We don’t need your fear, and we don’t need your guilt. Fear and guilt are useless. We need your participation. We need your action. We need you to be willing participants in the conversation. We need you to be fearless in your compassion.

Especially::be willing participants in the conversation.
I can get behind that and it make more sense than the following

Unless you're part of the affected people, you don't get to decide if there's racism, sexism, or cultural appropriation going on.

Which I've heard somewhere and I couldn't make sense of it because it seemed to dismiss the idea of conversation.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Read the article and have some issues with it. But first up I hadn't heard of Cis before - not in that sense. But I remember it being used in organic chemistry. The arrangement of atoms in a compound on both sides of a double bond are cis and trans with respect to one another. I suppose it's the same meaning.

My main thought with the article was this theme within in it that us whities don't get to not feel uncomfortable. And I'm not sure I agree with that. I understand the anger that people of various minorities may feel. Prejudice and bigotry are some of the worst failings of humanity and they have terrible prices for those who are their victims. But it's a basic rule of law that the innocent are not punished. The innocent go free. And I suspect that while the author is pretending understanding of the positions of her two friends, she doesn't really get that.

I don't know the people she's talking about, so I'll have to put this in more generic terms. People who are given advantages because of their birth are not guilty of any crime because of it. Nor are they guilty of anything if they do not understand the devestating impacts that things like racism and slavery and prejudice cause to people. That's just people not knowing what they haven't experienced. But no one knows what they haven't experienced. So for the author to then come out with a line such as why should they be the only group in the world not to experience these criticisms, strikes me as wrong.

I understand that for the author this may seem like a simple matter of fairness - everyone should be uncomfortable. But for me it's still wrong. It's about punishing people for things they haven't done. And that's the line that I think the article sort of wavers along. At once trying to be fair and yet also punishing.

Her friends are in a difficult positions and in my view trying to do the understandably sensible thing by either working on their word choice or not publishing. Whether it's actually the right thing to do or not I don't know. Maybe the world is actually being harmed by their desperate clinging to political correctness and shelving their works. I don't know. But I do know it's wrong to expect them to put themselves out there as target for the anger of others, for writing about things which they are not responsible for. Maybe the author's friends are being too cautious. Maybe the threat is only perceived. Exagerrated. But regardless people should be entitled to steer a course in life that keeps them out of difficulties. Maybe it's wrong to expect people to be courageous in areas of their lives that they don't understand.

So instead of being upset by the choices of friends etc, and annoyed / shocked by their anxiety, perhaps the author's correct response should be to be disappointed. Maybe the works they might have produced would have added to the debate and helped things. Maybe not. I don't think this article does though.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Ursa major]

But I remember it being used in organic chemistry. The arrangement of atoms in a compound on both sides of a double bond are cis and trans with respect to one another. I suppose it's the same meaning.

Whereas I first heard the term in History, in the form of Cisalpine Gaul, as distinct from Transalpine Gaul.

 

[Ursa major]

You are underestimating a "point of view".

A point of view, a perspective, is a view that depends on where one stands. While denying the existence of trans is a point of view, it's really just an opinion, one based on ignorance. That many of us are ignorant of the reality of trans isn't surprising, as most people simply don't know much about it.

Thinking of it another way may help: when just about everyone thought that the Sun orbited the Earth, that was a point of view, one that was considered almost universally, "scientifically", correct; it didn't mean that the Sun actually did orbit the Earth. Similarly, trans and cis are real things and their existence does not depend on how anyone looks at them (or whether there are words to describe them). Even if no-one ever said or knew anything about trans and cis (including those who were/are trans, but who didn't have a world view that could conceive of what this might mean, even for them), cis and trans would still exist.

 

[tinkerdan]

It might be interesting to note a few things leading to the CisGender designation.

Back in 49 or there about the term TransSexual was accepted though it was coined in 23 and it was coined to encompass those who identified strongly with the opposite sex some of which were undergoing procedures to change their physical sexual appearance (not necessarily complete changes which was considered Sexual Reassignment )

In 65 the term TransGender was coined and in around 90 it started having its present form.

In 65 it seemed the spirit of the word was to the word Gender and encompassing those who felt more comfortable in the opposite gender role from social normal or at least felt somewhat outside of their socially normal gender role.

The problem with this is that gender roles are on a sliding scale. And If one were to define CisGender as those who identify with societies proper gender for them then few would fall in that area and it would be compounded by constant tweaking in social boundaries that would not only slide within a culture, but would shift radically from one culture to the other.

So when someone got the idea in the 90's to put TransSexual and TransGender under an umbrella term of TransGender ; they came up with the antonym for that, they coined CisGender and then to add to the muddle they defined them as

Someone having a gender identity that matches with their physical sex. CisGender

Someone having a gender identity different from their physical sex. TransGender

So the terms themselves are linked both to the physical sex and social gender identity.

The kicker is that this does not even come close to touching what happens when we start talking about sexual identity; then things get really wild.

 

[thaddeus6th]

HareBrain, a mild-mannered and feminist lecturer of mine at university succinctly described post-modernism as 'up its own arse'.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

cis and trans would still exist

no, because Gender (not physical sex), is a Social Construct. Trans is only an issue because of societies expectations of Gender.
People don't feel free to express what they want to be like. Various Gender categories are not even legally recognised in most countries.
If people could behave, dress, have what ever body modification surgery they wanted (including transplants), with no expectations from society based on physical chromosomes, no segregated toilets, toys, colours, clothes etc, then you could imagine a society were someone would have difficulty explaining what Trans is, or any of the other "non-cis or non-straight" orientations, or indeed why cis-straight" orientation has any significance. Imagine a society were producing egg or sperm or neither, or deciding to swap was of no more interest to people than if people chose to pierce their ears, or had brown rather than black hair*.
No-one chooses their own chromosomes. How we feel about our own identity and how we would like to live and express it doesn't seem to be something that can be chosen either. We can only chose how we behave, how we treat others etc, not who we are. Societies decide on what are normal "identity" aspirations or beliefs and if you don't fit that it's a constant stress.
Physically we are dimorphic due to chromosomes (and hormones based on genes), so there are 1/5000 females with no womb, women that have different hormone levels and grow male like hair, males with more female characteristics due to hormones, (everyone in sense starts off female and differentiation is later, males can lactate). Some people are hard to physically differentiate at birth, visually. But your identity or the way you are attracted to others can ignore all of this. We don't know why, and it's only really a problem for people because of societies' gender stereotypes and expectations based on physical birth sex (which actually isn't even perfect or clear for everyone). In additional complication, a "trans" person might be attracted to either sex, no sex or both sexes, it's not about what other people they are attracted to, it's a separate issue to "straight", "gay/lesbian" or bisexual. It's not the same either as people that want to "cross dress", they may feel they somehow got issued the wrong body.

I'm not going to write a story specifically with these issues, because it's too complicated, too many misunderstandings and even LGBT is misleading daft umbrella simply lumping everyone with disparate outlooks etc together as they are all supposedly minorities. Perhaps also there is spectrum of all these aspects, rather than simple portrayal in media.

EDIT
[* Changing hair colour is generally quite acceptable to most people. But some condemn it. People may even darken or lighten their skin or curl or straighten hair]

 

[Ursa major]

So the terms themselves are linked both to the physical sex and social gender identity.

Both of which are not cut and dried, because they depend on a number of things, some of which are themselves not necessarily binary (so in some cases, we're left dealing with individuals lying somewhere on a spectrum with regard to these non-binary aspects). But while this adds the complication of determining where some people lie overall, it doesn't undermine the concept that people's physical and mental selves do not always match in the way we have tended to assume.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

the concept that people's physical and mental selves do not always match in the way we have tended to assume

Obviously they don't. It seems to have always been the case, and we don't know why. On a total spectrum, it might even be common. Society makes it problem for people with a larger mis-match.

 

[Ursa major]

no, because Gender (not physical sex), is a Social Construct.

Sorry, but

1. you are not the arbiter of other people's gender identity (and neither am I, for that matter);
2. you seem unable to recognise that the term, physical, encompasses more than just the shape and presence/absence of items of anatomy. Brain structure is just as physical, as is brain chemistry.