So, this is for a Slytherin!HP story I'm plotting and thinking about

I thought it would be interesting to have a trans-gender Blaise transform from a boy to a girl. Both for the characters - to illustrate Harry's character, and create a bond of thankfulness between Harry and Blaise - and for the magic, and to illustrate how powerful magic really is, and how different some kind of ritualistic potion can really be (this is not 100% yet) with different parts.

But I also keep thinking about how insensitive it might be, for trans-gender people IRL. It isn't super needed, and while it would probably better than 90% of gender swap that's written (sturgeon's law), I don't want to write something that might put somebody in depression, or send them spiralling out of control.

What do y'all think?

 

Ok, so my instinctive reaction is that it's a bad idea, but I've thought about it for a bit, and:

Spoiler

It's a bad idea

 

can you expand? Or just flat out bad idea?

 

Does it add to the story/plot? Or is it done for the sake of a hook?

 

either or. started as a random nod to fandom and contrarian point to mugglewank, but can be easily cut out or subplotted.

 

Well, ok, fine. I have (at least) three issues with it.

1. Fanfiction may not be the best medium to tell a story about someone transitioning.

2. Even if this weren't the case, its not the type of thing that can be easily made into a subplot ('Oh, we have to beat Slytherin at Quidditch to win the House Cup' vs 'Oh, we need to search into the library to find a spell to alter a fundamental part of someone's sense of self, likely at the back of his parents, his friends and society as a whole.)

3. I would not trust the standard fanficiton author to be abe to treat the topic with any semblance of competence (no offense), and thus if I was reading a campy Harry Potter story about an orphan defeating evil and then said orphan suddenly finds himself in the process of helping a friend transition I'm hitting that red x faster than you can say quidditch, and I suspect I wouldn't be the only one.

 

There's a few things this can be, and the fact that you're not really sure which it is is a bit telling, and not in a good way.

You can 'drop it in' as a fandom nod to the simple fact that Blaise was often assumed female in early fanfic, but then 'revealed' to be male by later canon. This only really works as a throwaway joke, I think ('Here, is that Blaise? She looks... different.' 'Actually, it's 'he' now.') and not something to be dwelled on. If it's not important to the plot or primary character arcs making it anything more than throwaway feels a bit... exploitative. It takes you into the thorny region of transparent author tract, which is something to avoid.

It can be a significant plot aspect, or sub-plot, in which care it really has to be an informed part of the whole. You can't really have the rest of the story be a fun adventure, or a thoughtful inspection of magic as the thematic whiplash of going from something so deeply personal to more standard fanfic tropes and then back again would be distracting in the extreme. The thing is that significant plot arcs or sub-plots should ideally influence the main character in some meaningful way, and it would be jarring to have such a deeply personal struggle influence the main character only because of the interesting magic it involves.

That's not to say it's impossible, but I do think that having it simply be a vehicle through which Harry can experience the wonders of magic is less than ideal. If the main character is close to someone opting to go through the transition, seeing their struggles with family/society/etc, and the biggest thing they take from it is 'wow, magic is amazing' then it is both a missed opportunity, and frames the main character as being impressively unsympathetic to the plight of their friend.

Of course I would never say that a story cannot address these issues. Of course they can, and even should, but I think you're going about it the wrong way. If it's a 'throw it in' then don't try to make more of it than it needs to be, and if it's a major component of the story, you need to make the story work together with it.

You can't take any random primary plot X, and smash it together with sub-plot Y with no thematic links between the two. Either embrace the story's core value of self-identification, or accept that a sub-plot dealing with a character's transition is probably both extraneous to the needs the story, and likely to do a disservice to the difficult personal journey being (kind of) depicted.

 

I have no issues with it, but I think it will drag attention away from what you were trying to convey.

On the first glance, points you are trying to make are friendship? between Blaise and Harry, and highligh the existance of powerful ritual magic. Both good points, both possibly relevant for the plot.

But, seeing the current ao3 and hpff readers, they might both focus on the actual transition, psychology behind it, character's coping and so on.

So while you go on, thinking the point concluded, readership might still linger with Blaise, and expect more, and more, and more, since it is clearly an issue they are personally attached to, for whatever reason.

So if handled compepently, demand for more of that will rise (and if you comply it will hurt your story), and if handed badly, you will lose readers over something that really isn't the point of the plot.

It's a lose lose situation, I'm afraid.

P.S. Sorry for generalization if someone feels called out.

 

Oh, and let’s not forget that the trans community have a particular view on JK and in terms of readership treating this topic insensitively when a lot of trans HP writers and readers are having a huge, thorny knot with the material, and you would be injecting yourself into the middle of this for not much reason?

It’s just a wider extension of, can you write well about this? As a royal you, someone *could*, but could you personally? I know I couldn’t. I know most people here couldn’t and wouldn’t even with a lot of them being far better than me.

 

I take the complete opposite view to the above: jump into the controversy feet first and see how many people you can offend at once. Bonus points if you manage to offend both trans activists AND terfs.

Nothing will generate reviews more than a good bit of controversy, and at the end of the day, isn't that what writing is all about? I bet that guy who writes about Harry genociding ethnic minorities has tons of reviews just from people telling him he's a horrible person.

 

This is it.

Yeah. This.

Ha, this.

That is both not what I'm hoping for and irrelevant - IDGAF about keyboard warriors, I'm genuinely worried about (sigh) downplaying RL issues with the transition / triggering someone to illustrate a different point about friendship and magic.

Thanks to all.

 

What does it add to your story that any other example of the advantage of magic over mundane methods wouldn't? If the answer is 'nothing', reconsider.

 

As with all complex issues, if you only touch on it without exploring the complexities then you risk being seen as either making light of it or being ignorant.

If you were to do it, then I'd say if you to make an ongoing part of the story and have Blaise face and deal with realistic challenges, even if only in the background of the ongoing story, then its not an inherently bad idea.

But tied into that, I'd also encourage you to make sure that it is relevant to the overall story you're writing. A frequent flaw in fanfics is having sub plots that don't actually form part of the overall story, but which the author thinks are cool or fun. Generally everything you write should be linked into the overall story in some way.

Also worth noting that however you chose to write it, you'll offend someone, likely more than 1 person.

 

You could always have it as almost an aside, as a divergence that it's just really not an issue for magicals because changing gender is not a complicated thing for them. Could be another thing they look down on the Muggles for, making such a big deal over something so simple, and their disagreements over the topic another sign of their barbarity.

 

I think if you're going for a story where transitioning is a big part you'll want to incorporate it into some wider themes so that you can use it as a story progression device. Self-identity, relationships between individual and society, coming of age. They're all well established tropes that you can use for a topic like this and can help guide you in ways of dealing with it without being insulting/making caricatures.

You'll want to map out plot arcs for difficulties your transitioning character will face, including family/friends, classmates, teachers, and wider society. Ideally you'll want the character and protagonist to be able to affect this in some way, with winning over a sceptic being a good milestone. You'll also want to tie this in to the wider plot. Maybe the sceptic holds some necessary plot information and winning them over gives affirmation of the transitioning character and forwards the main plot at the same time.

There's also room for some fun bits and pieces in there, like the Gryffindor stairs to the girl's rooms interacting with the character in weird ways even prior to their transition. The Sorting Hat knowing their 'true self' is a bit cliché at this point, but works for a nice bit of reflection after the character starts actively identifying as the opposite gender. "The Hat even said I'd find out what I wanted to be in this House. I didn't think it meant literally." Lean into the whimsical side of magic and have little bits and pieces scattered about that hint that this character is going to transition without outright stating it.

 

This was back when my English was very poor so I was limited to Polish language fanfic, times have changed yada yada etc, but I remember a story (just tried to find it, unsuccessfully) where Blaise Zabini was either a magical creature or just afflicted with some spell/curse that caused him to switch genders. It wasn't a major plot point, more like a curious detail the author added to background worldbuilding. In one scene Blaise would be a dude, in the next she'd be a girl. None of the characters pointed it out as something strange, as far as I can recall.

 

1. Pretty sure there's a few hundred of these stories already. Maybe not Blaise and Harry specifically, but... yeah. I see them pop up every now and again. I'm not talking about the potion experiment gone wrong for an excuse for Harry/Draco. Hell, I think there's one or two on Sufficient Velocity regularly updating right now.

2. People get offended over every single little detail anyone writes in a story about anything. Seriously, when has been the last time you haven't seen a dozen or so comments about something someone doesn't like.

There's no point worrying about this. Write the story if you need to get it out of your head. Be as respectful as you think you need and don't write about something you don't know and can defend it if need be. If you don't know anything about gender dysphoria then don't write about it or educate yourself on the subject. And for fucks sake don't publicly ask for any input on the story itself (as you're posting) or you'll be rewriting it 50 times every chapter just to please every reader that has an opinion on the subject.

 

If you're worried about being insensitive, go take a took at trans!Harry fics on AO3.

It's clear there are a lot of trans people who are writing escapist stories on the theme and I don't think they'd take offence at you writing one in good taste.

 

This is an interesting idea. I second what others have said above about being sensitive to trans issues and representations in the fic. I think if all you want to do is include something meta, you can make it a joke of misrecognition with Blaise, as Steelbadger suggested. It seems like you want to incorporate this more into your story though, so that could be interesting. It can be done well in a fantasy setting with younger characters and by a cis author. I'm thinking especially of Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase trilogy. Alex is genderfluid and the child of Loki (Loki is actually Alex's mother in the books). Loki can change gender too, so this is an inherited trait in a way. Alex also has some magic pottery skills and learns about gender nonconformity in his/her Mexican heritage/ (Alex prefers these pronouns over the gender neutral "they").

I really like the idea that a character's gender nonconformity would result in a different , e.g. the girls' stairs. In The Magicians, magic has a grammar that is conjugated and declined just like a language, and the students have to practice casting spells in different circumstances including on the moon, as a man and woman, etc.

This reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's work. Sex, reproduction, and childcare are often decoupled in his work because of genetic/technological advances. In 2312, the main character (who is a woman and assigned female at birth) from Mercury has added male genitalia and she eventually falls in love/has sex with a partner (a man born male at birth) who has fathered and mothered a child. Men who have had similar treatments are called "womb-men" in this piece. There are other names for varying gender combinations that I can't remember right now.

I think it makes sense with the Alex from Magnus Chase as well as the techno sci-fi examples that gender fluidity could be achieved by magic and maybe is not that rare. I also think of Eragon (not sure which book, I never finished the series) when the title character meets a bunch of elves who have transformed themselves in various ways to be more like trees or certain animals, etc. This would be different than being an Animagus, a kind of posthuman wizard.

This would be a great perspective to take if this is going to be a major part of your plot. Ursula K. le Guin used the newcomer ethnographer/anthropologist type to introduce readers to new and alien societies. You could use Harry as the central POV (remember the first law of HP fanfiction!) to highlight how strange and wonderful the magical world is in respect to gender. I think it may be something easily brushed off by wizarding folks--think of the semi-public bathing scenes in Taure's AP/VP with the Muggleborn squeamishness about swimming nude. The wizarding-raised children find this totally normal and don't understand the reaction. Magicals could have a similar reaction to Muggleborns' confusion about gender and sex in the 90s.