3 Weeks for DW: Transfic Mini Fest

ETA: While cis people are more than welcome to participate (and many have), please be aware that this is not for you or about you. The goal of this fest is to increase representation of trans people in fanfic and to celebrate the diversity of the trans community. I would like this fest first and foremost to be a safe space for trans people, one in which we are the norm and don't have to explain or justify ourselves. Both prompts and fills may contain terms, concepts, etc. that are unfamiliar to cis people. If you find yourself confused, hit up Google or Wikipedia. Do not ask people here to educate you.

three_weeks_for_dw starts on Monday the 26th, so I want to start collecting prompts for the transfic mini fest.

This is going to work like a kink meme, with one prompt per comment and then people post fills directly in response to the prompts. It will be open for new prompts during the fest as well, but I wanted to get the prompting started a little early so that there is stuff there once the fest officially starts.

Please don't post any fills until Monday (in your timezone), but you can start writing right away if something catches your eye.

Since I'm not compiling prompts, there's no specific format. Be as brief or detailed as you like, but make sure to include the fandom and characters (or specify "any fandom/character").

Prompts can be from any fandom, RPF or FPF, and can focus on either canonically trans characters or characters who are trans for the purposes of the fic. Prompts can be het, slash, or gen. No restrictions on rating. Really, no restrictions on anything, except be respectful, which should go without saying.

Prompts do not have to be "about" being trans. They can be something as simple as a pairing or a pairing + word/kink/lyrics. The point is simply to have more stories starring trans people. So if you want to write about issues, that's cool. If you just want to write a PWP, that's fine, too. Just one or more of the main characters in the fic needs to be trans. You can specify in your prompt who you want to be trans and whether you want them to be mtf or ftm, or you can not specify anything and leave it up to the writer.

For the purposes of this fest, trans means anyone who does not identify as the gender they were assigned at birth. Genderqueer and intersex characters are also welcome.

What I am not looking for is traditional "genderswap" fic, stories about cis people crossdressing, etc. and if you choose to leave/fill a prompt for intersex characters, please no sci-fi/fantasy "hermaphrodites", only real intersex conditions.

Feel free to ask questions if anything is unclear.

Anon commenting is on, so feel free to leave anon prompts and fills if you want.

After posting a fill, consider reposting to transfic or (after the three weeks are up) the trans stories collection on AO3. If you post to AO3, there is now a canonical tag for the fest that you can use. And of course I'll be adding all fics to my transfic master list on delicious. :)

ETA (4/26/10): It is now the 26th in my timezone! You may begin posting fills!

A few guidelines for posting:

If posting a fill longer than will fit in one comment box, please post any subsequent parts as replies to the fill, rather than the prompt, so that it may be more easily linked.

Please put "fill" and the title of your fic (if you have one) in the subject line, so it's easier for people to find the fics.

Prompts can be answered more than once.

You may repost immediately on your DW or in another DW comm, but remember, no reposting outside of DW until three weeks after the date you post the fill.

ETA (5/18/10): The three weeks are over, but I will not be officially closing the fest. Please continue to leave both prompts and fills as long as you like.

The master list of fills is here.

I will have a master list of prompts at some point in the future as well, but it's a bigger job.

Memery (aka Why "Gay For You" Bothers Me So Much)

First off, thank you to everyone who commented on that meme. There were a couple of anon comments I wanted to address, and I figured doing so in my journal meant people might actually see the answers.

Someone said they're sad I never comment on their posts and that I probably don't read their journal, and I just wanted to say that if I have you friended, either on LJ or DW, I read your journal 100% of the time. I never filter my reading list. I'm sorry if I haven't commented on your posts, but I don't comment on the majority of what I read on my flist. Doesn't mean I didn't read, just that I either had nothing to say or didn't have the energy to engage.


The other thing I wanted to address was a comment that said "while I appreciate your recs, I am often surprised how limited I find your attitude towards sexuality to be--particularly in cases of bisexuality in fics or historically accurate approaches to sexuality".

I think this is a really profound misunderstanding of what I find problematic in a lot of fic. I am totally pro-bisexuality and love to see it in fic. The thing is, I don't see it that often.

Say there's a story about John and Rodney and they both have only been attracted to women until they meet each other and fall in love. They are functionally bisexual in the story, because they have had have sex/feelings/relationships with both women and men (or a man, rather), but because most fics like this are romance, and romance tends to emphasise "true love", it comes off as this gay relationship simply being an exception to their heterosexuality. Often the attraction is expressed entirely as an attraction to the person's personality, with no accompanying physical attraction at all. Combined with the fact that they have never looked at another man before and never will again, thanks to this being OTP romance, it ends up feeling like a story about heterosexual people who happened to fall in love with someone of the same sex.

Literally, the minimum I am asking for is an acknowledgement that they are attracted to men, not just to each other. What I would love, of course, is if it were shown. Have John check Rodney out. Have him think Rodney is hot before he falls in love with him for his great personality. Give me a John with past experience with men as well as with women. If you want this to be his first ever relationship with a guy, how about falling in love with Rodney makes him realise that he has always been attracted to men, just suppressed those feelings?

And before you comment to tell me there are people who do fall in love with someone of the same sex* without ever having any attraction to anyone else of the same sex...I know! I am not saying this is a totally unrealistic situation. I am not saying it should never exist in fiction. All I am saying is that in a genre that is supposedly about same-sex relationships, there is a dearth of people who are actually attracted to people of the same sex and it hurts.

It wears me down to read fic after fic after fic and see the same thing. I understand why this story is popular. For some it may be because they don't want ick gay cooties on their favorite characters, but I think that is probably a much smaller group of people than it used to be. The main reason is that it's romantic. I get that.

But I do think it's problematic when that story is so common that it's hard to find stories about people who aren't "gay for you". And I refuse to believe that being disappointed with the preponderance of Gay For You stories is somehow anti-bisexual.

As for the second part of the statement, that I am against historically accurate portrayals of sexuality, I can only assume this is in reference to Holmes fic, as it's the only historical fandom I read. I am very much for historical accuracy. But historical accuracy does not mean erasing queer people. Of course they would not use 21st century terms, but that is not what I'm asking for. Again, I am simply asking for a Holmes and Watson who are attracted to men (either exclusively or in addition to women), not just to each other. It is not historically inaccurate for a man to know he prefers other men (or is attracted to both men and women), whether it is something he struggles with or accepts about himself. (And I highly recommend this book if you still insist that historical accuracy precludes that sort of self-knowledge. Or even if you don't. It's an awesome book.)

All I am asking when I complain about yet another Gay For You story is that there be a little more queer representation to balance it out. That or maybe people start warning for it. :p But it's so normalised that it's not something anyone even considers putting in the headers or tagging for. It's just how things are.

It's not that Gay For You is, taken on its own, a bad story. It's that too often it's the only story. And so even in slash, it's once again a hunt to find stories about queer people.

ETA: Maybe a better way to phrase it is that I'm looking for is stories where the character's sexuality is not directly linked to the person they're in love with.



*The concept of same/opposite sex is flawed, I know, but I'm not coming up with another word to express what I mean.