Entry tags:

trans

Okay, so I am of course adding all the relevant fics from lgbtfest to my master list. On my list I put whether the fic is about ftm, mtf, genderqueer, or intersex characters and sometimes I can't tell from the summary what's going on, so I have to skim the fic to find out.

This is one I came across tonight.

Here's the prompt:

RPF - Pundits, Rachel Maddow, I look like a dude, I dress like a boy, I'm kind of mannish -- Rachel wishes someone would just take the hint and ask

Here's an excerpt:

Rachel wants to both blame someone and not blame anyone but herself when someone at the table jokes that she's just 'one of the guys.' It's frequent, expected, and not in the way that might make her uncomfortable. She likes that they can treat her with both respect and something like how they treat each other, with stereotypical back-slapping and borderline dirty jokes.

[...]

But it's missing something. Even when she's sitting back, wanting to kick her sneakers up on the table, there's a lot of her that wants to say what's been burning her up ever since she started hanging out with them. It's not like she's lying to them, but it feels like it is in another sense, that she actually is one the guys.

Here's the thing:

This is a story about Rachel being a trans woman.


Now, I was not the person to suggest this prompt, but I can't imagine it was meant to be about mtf!Rachel. How on earth would "looking like a dude, dressing like a boy, and being kind of mannish" be hints that Rachel had been assigned male at birth? And yet that's what the writer assumed. And then took it one further by outright saying Rachel "actually is one the guys".

The rest of the story is...odd. Clunky. Not terribly offensive in and of itself. [After reading the rest more closely, there are definitely other bits that make me D:, such as the implication that only a cis woman can be a tomboyish woman, and underneath that, that therefore a trans woman is not a woman at all.] But even if the fic were perfect, I just cannot get over using that prompt in this way.


I'm trying to think of what to say to the author, if anything.



*Yes, it's true. I actually gleefully click on each fic, desperately hoping to be slapped in the face by something hurtful. It's what I live for.