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rmThis panel was the "after-dark" sequel to the Beyond Binaries 101 panel I was not a part of. Other than a bit of comedy, by and large the content of this panel didn't really seem to need to be "after-dark" -- third-gender topics are not, and should not be, inherently adults only -- but I'm not sure anyone knew where the panel was going to go when it was conceived of.
The panel benefited from a wide-range of expertise including a panelist who is both widely-published and can tell you more about insect reproduction than you ever wanted to know. This was, believe it or not, totally useful and entertaining.
Overall, however, we often struggled to get "beyond binaries," causing the session itself to demonstrate in many ways just how challenging it is to present in fiction a paradigm other than the gender-dichotomous and usually heteronormative narratives most of us live. This became particularly obvious (and, I felt, problematic and hurtful) when a panelist asserted that readers can only relate to human characters and so third-gendered aliens cannot be narrators in successful stories.
The assumption that third-gendered characters must be alien was a problem. Trans people, queer people, genderqueer people, intersex people, third-gendered people exist, right here, on earth, right now, and are human, and in a well-executed story can be narrators that are effective, plausible and easy to relate to.1 The desire for stories of characters like this, are, additionally, not limited to people who hold these identities, but to those who know them, love them or just want a story about something other than their own damn life.
Books that I mentioned included:
Elizabeth Hand's out-of-print Aestival Tide (non-linear sequel to Winterlong, which I believe is still in print), which features a young hermaphrodite named Reive2 who everyone is afraid of because her (this is how Reive is pronoun-ed in the book) eyes are green, the color of death in a domed city on a future, broken America's gulf coast.
Clive Barker's Imagica that features a character named Pie'oh'pah who appears as what the person zie is interacting with most desires. Pie's true form can only be seen by third party observers, and not even always then. This book can be problematic, Barker isn't great at female characterizations and Pie can read as a "mystical negro" character (although this is complicated by Pie's ability to reflect desire, as well as a number of details regarding Barker's personal life if you choose to consider authorial intent).
Octavia Butler's Xenogensis series, which features a human population's contact with another, differently gendered species and the subsequent absorbtion of the two biologies and cultures into each other.
Many, many other books came up, but I wasn't taking notes, so the comments to this post are a good place for that.
This was one of the panels where the audience asked "what can we do to get more stories that are relevant to us?" I felt this discussion was problematic in the sense that the answer from several of the panelists was "You can't." While the business conservatism of the publishing industry is extremely well, and certainly deserved to be noted and discussed, I thought the attempt to shut down any attempt that was made to be empowering or offer alternative ways of demonstrating and responding to need regarding certain narratives was hurtful.
Not that panels should be all nice and lovely places -- in fact, I thought this panel benefited in terms of entertainment from the frictions amongst the panelists -- but this panel was, from my perspective, largely designed for members and allies of marginalized communities, and I think it's inappropriate in those circumstances to only be able to say "yup, you're marginalized, get used to it." The marginalization and glacial pace of change in the publishing industry, at minimum, merited more possibility-focused discussion.
This was one of the panels I most enjoyed (and was the most well-moderated -- for all the disagreement, everyone stayed gracious. Thanks,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
novelfriend!), and I thought it was also one of the most important that I was on, although in the future, it would be wonderful and appropriate to find a trans or intersex writer or critic to be present (Guess what? They exist! And are human and right here on earth!). As a genderqueer person I'm a good step, but certainly did not provide enough diversity in and of myself.
This panel is also one of the ones that's lingered with me in an unsettling way. That has value, and I hope the panel will return again next year, and can perhaps serve its audience better and with more awareness, even as I don't expect anything will have radically changed in the publishing industry between now and then.
If you were there, thank you for attending. Thank you also to the SF & Fantasy Literature Track for hosting the panel and seeing the value in this topic. Feedback is welcome as are book recs and other discussion in comments.
1 This listing originally contained "asexual." As asexual is an orientation, not a gender, listing it in the manner I did was inappropriate and offensive, and I am sorry. The reason for that initial listing was to note that asexual identities did briefly come up in the panel as we tried to get away from the panel's nearly relentless drift back towards discussion of M/F relationships (see: space brothels). I hope this clarifies, and I, of course, stand by the assertion that asexuals exist and that asexual characters can be humans and awesome narrators.
2 Full disclosure: I went by Reive on the Internet for many, many years, and never ran into another one. So if you want to dig around in my sordid past, there you go. I love this book with all my heart.
The panel benefited from a wide-range of expertise including a panelist who is both widely-published and can tell you more about insect reproduction than you ever wanted to know. This was, believe it or not, totally useful and entertaining.
Overall, however, we often struggled to get "beyond binaries," causing the session itself to demonstrate in many ways just how challenging it is to present in fiction a paradigm other than the gender-dichotomous and usually heteronormative narratives most of us live. This became particularly obvious (and, I felt, problematic and hurtful) when a panelist asserted that readers can only relate to human characters and so third-gendered aliens cannot be narrators in successful stories.
The assumption that third-gendered characters must be alien was a problem. Trans people, queer people, genderqueer people, intersex people, third-gendered people exist, right here, on earth, right now, and are human, and in a well-executed story can be narrators that are effective, plausible and easy to relate to.1 The desire for stories of characters like this, are, additionally, not limited to people who hold these identities, but to those who know them, love them or just want a story about something other than their own damn life.
Books that I mentioned included:
Elizabeth Hand's out-of-print Aestival Tide (non-linear sequel to Winterlong, which I believe is still in print), which features a young hermaphrodite named Reive2 who everyone is afraid of because her (this is how Reive is pronoun-ed in the book) eyes are green, the color of death in a domed city on a future, broken America's gulf coast.
Clive Barker's Imagica that features a character named Pie'oh'pah who appears as what the person zie is interacting with most desires. Pie's true form can only be seen by third party observers, and not even always then. This book can be problematic, Barker isn't great at female characterizations and Pie can read as a "mystical negro" character (although this is complicated by Pie's ability to reflect desire, as well as a number of details regarding Barker's personal life if you choose to consider authorial intent).
Octavia Butler's Xenogensis series, which features a human population's contact with another, differently gendered species and the subsequent absorbtion of the two biologies and cultures into each other.
Many, many other books came up, but I wasn't taking notes, so the comments to this post are a good place for that.
This was one of the panels where the audience asked "what can we do to get more stories that are relevant to us?" I felt this discussion was problematic in the sense that the answer from several of the panelists was "You can't." While the business conservatism of the publishing industry is extremely well, and certainly deserved to be noted and discussed, I thought the attempt to shut down any attempt that was made to be empowering or offer alternative ways of demonstrating and responding to need regarding certain narratives was hurtful.
Not that panels should be all nice and lovely places -- in fact, I thought this panel benefited in terms of entertainment from the frictions amongst the panelists -- but this panel was, from my perspective, largely designed for members and allies of marginalized communities, and I think it's inappropriate in those circumstances to only be able to say "yup, you're marginalized, get used to it." The marginalization and glacial pace of change in the publishing industry, at minimum, merited more possibility-focused discussion.
This was one of the panels I most enjoyed (and was the most well-moderated -- for all the disagreement, everyone stayed gracious. Thanks,
novelfriend!), and I thought it was also one of the most important that I was on, although in the future, it would be wonderful and appropriate to find a trans or intersex writer or critic to be present (Guess what? They exist! And are human and right here on earth!). As a genderqueer person I'm a good step, but certainly did not provide enough diversity in and of myself. This panel is also one of the ones that's lingered with me in an unsettling way. That has value, and I hope the panel will return again next year, and can perhaps serve its audience better and with more awareness, even as I don't expect anything will have radically changed in the publishing industry between now and then.
If you were there, thank you for attending. Thank you also to the SF & Fantasy Literature Track for hosting the panel and seeing the value in this topic. Feedback is welcome as are book recs and other discussion in comments.
1 This listing originally contained "asexual." As asexual is an orientation, not a gender, listing it in the manner I did was inappropriate and offensive, and I am sorry. The reason for that initial listing was to note that asexual identities did briefly come up in the panel as we tried to get away from the panel's nearly relentless drift back towards discussion of M/F relationships (see: space brothels). I hope this clarifies, and I, of course, stand by the assertion that asexuals exist and that asexual characters can be humans and awesome narrators.
2 Full disclosure: I went by Reive on the Internet for many, many years, and never ran into another one. So if you want to dig around in my sordid past, there you go. I love this book with all my heart.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 02:09 pm (UTC)I got tired of the dismissiveness of some of the other panelists when it came to getting stuff published and in general thought the two who appeared to be cis men were actually superfluous. They did not add enough interesting to the conversation to merit their inclusion.
I think the fact that they are older and more connected to old school publishing made them unaware of just what sort of impact the internet has had on story telling and just how diverse has gotten and is continuing to get.
Sorry I didn't pop by afterwards and say hey but I'd been fighting dehydration and a miraine much of the day and was wiped. In general, I thought all off the panels of yours I attended were interesting.
Here's 2 more books
Date: 2010-09-09 02:27 pm (UTC)On a alien planet, heterosexual reproduction fails. Hermaphrodites are able to aid in making reproduction work.
Empress of Clouds, Diana Hignutt.
I haven't read this one, but the protagonist is transsexual, IIRC.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 02:46 pm (UTC)The assumption that third-gendered characters must be alien was a problem. Trans people, queer people, genderqueer people, intersex people, asexual people, third-gendered people exist, right here, on earth, right now, and are human, and in a well-executed story can be narrators that are effective, plausible and easy to relate to.
While I'm, again, grateful you realize asexuals exist, I'm not quite sure why you included us in this list. While there certainly are asexual people who are also third gendered/defy the gender binary, many (I don't think any studies have been done, so I'm not even going to try to guess percentages) do indeed identify with one of the traditional genders.
I don't think being asexual inherently makes someone third-gendered--they can co-occur, but don't have to. It's entirely possible to be asexual and cis. Or are you saying that the fact that I happen not to feel sexual attraction inherently makes me less female? Because I'd object to that.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 02:49 pm (UTC)I did not mean to in any way question your or anyone elses gender by that listing, and will remove the reference, perhaps making clear that this was also touched on in the panel elsewhere in another paragraph. I apologize for the offense.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 02:59 pm (UTC)I wasn't at the panel, but I can definitely imagine how something like that would be likely to go all over the place. Thanks for the write-up, it's very interesting. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 03:00 pm (UTC)*big hugs*
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 03:01 pm (UTC)I honestly wish I had a transcript of that panel. It was so remarkably emblematic of the anxieties in the SF/F lit community about marginalization, old vs. new publishing, diversity, sex, that it was astounding. I don't know if we got anything done, but it was a pretty amazing live-action demonstration.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 03:20 pm (UTC)I think the panel achieved something just by showcasing those anxieties.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 03:25 pm (UTC)In the future, I'd really love to try to do recordings/transcripts of some panels if folks are okay with that. Aside from more access to information for more people, it has the potential to be a valuable historical record in terms of the evolution of the genre.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 03:26 pm (UTC)just mental doodling
Date: 2010-09-09 04:16 pm (UTC)Re: just mental doodling
Date: 2010-09-09 04:37 pm (UTC)Re: just mental doodling
Date: 2010-09-09 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 06:35 pm (UTC)Are there internet resources you would recommend as reasonably knowledgeable on the subject, for beginning reading? Books are fine too, though it'll take me longer to get to them (and I suspect would be somewhat less up-to-date than the tubez, but more information is always better.)
I hope this doesn't come across as yet another 'educate me about your life' request, it's certainly not intended as such. :) Thanks for any info you can provide. :D - Ophy
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 06:47 pm (UTC)I really like this site from the BBC as a starting point:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A4455263
Also, there's AVEN, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network:
http://www.asexuality.org/home/
There are lots of articles there, links to blogs, a forum, and even a Wiki.
Hope this helps! :)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 07:10 pm (UTC)If you have any specific questions, feel free. (Keeping in mind of course that I'm just me, not the official spokesperson for all asexuals or anything. *g*)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 07:34 pm (UTC)in case that helps. it's very new, but there are some links to meta tucked in there...
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 09:21 pm (UTC)I wonder if the track committee would be interested in watching for Tiptree nominees in the future? There's a massive pool of writers who work with sexuality and gender and do a damn fine job of it. I'd love to see more folks like that on panels like this.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 09:23 pm (UTC)And the LeGuin book totally came up (I'm terrible and haven't read it, which I need to remedy).
no subject
Date: 2010-09-09 09:24 pm (UTC)Re: just mental doodling
Date: 2010-09-09 11:51 pm (UTC)About the only thing I liked about that ep was that it showcased the strength of Worf's friendship...
Re: just mental doodling
Date: 2010-09-09 11:52 pm (UTC)Re: just mental doodling
Date: 2010-09-10 12:03 am (UTC)On the plus side, at least it's not Angel One! ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 12:53 am (UTC)I mean, seriously--SF/F is supposed to be the literature of the possible that isn't, and when we go to panels we're told that having a SF/F literature of our actual isn't possible.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 01:40 am (UTC)I'm still familiarizing myself with third gender issues and working on becoming a good ally, and it's remarkable how hard it is for me to break the binary-thinking "programming". Learning the correct words (intersex, genderqueer etc.) helps me enormously - I find it's easier to get my head around something when I know the proper names to use, if that makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 02:17 am (UTC)i work for a small publisher, so i do know that this is not the best time in the industry, but i do not understand this notion that books with third-gendered characters, or any other group that has traditionally been marginalized, can't get published and won't be read. i read all kinds of books featuring all kinds of narrators who are all kinds of things i'm not. what i look for, and what i think at least some other readers look for, are compelling stories with interesting characters. bascially, good writing. their excuse really is just plain old conservatism, no matter how they try to sell it. i don't think this will save publishing, and it does a deep disservice to every reader and every writer who has that door unjustly slammed on them.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-10 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-12 10:00 pm (UTC)Book Recs from Panel
Date: 2010-09-12 10:46 pm (UTC)Ethan of Athos - Lois McMaster Bujold
Their Majesty's Bucketeers - L. Neil Smith
Dreamsnake - Vonda N. MacIntyre
The Lovers - Philip Jose Farmer