Nonbinary gender in fiction: Difference between revisions
→Gender nonconformity in fiction: added The Gods Themselves
No edit summary |
imported>AndyTehNerd (→Gender nonconformity in fiction: added The Gods Themselves) |
||
| Line 114: | Line 114: | ||
* In the comedy series ''SheZow'', the legacy of a super-heroine has been passed down through generations of grand-aunts to grand-nieces when they inherit a magic ring that grants feminine-themed powers. For the first time, the ring is inherited by a boy, Guy Hamdon. Whenever he's being SheZow, which entails wearing a pink costume with a skirt and long hair, he has to keep up the appearance of being a girl in order to protect his secret identity. If anyone finds out who SheZow really is, his whole family will have to be relocated to the moon. Aside from his hair, SheZow's body doesn't change, and he has to remember to speak in a higher voice. Shezow often insists that his friends who are in the know need to call him by "she" pronouns whenever he appears in public as SheZow, and grumbles whenever they mess it up. When a friend hesitates and asks in private which pronoun Guy prefers, Guy shrugs and replies, "Eh, it depends on what I'm wearing." In other words, Guy's pronoun preference while being SheZow is "she," and is "he" while in his secret identity. Guy overcomes his initial discomfort and finds empowerment and confidence in femininity, even while remaining happily masculine when presenting as a boy. While this comfortable alternation between male and female presentations could be seen as a [[genderfluid]] or [[bigender]] character, the show creator has stated in an interview that, to the best of his understanding, this isn't so: "SheZow is not transgendered. He's a boy, his gender never changes, he's just trapped in a silly costume."<ref>Reiher, Andrea (1 June 2013). "'SheZow' creator talks 'transsexual' criticism, a 'coming out' episode and more". Zap2It. Retrieved 11 February 2014.</ref> As such, Shezow/Guy is a gender nonconforming cisgender boy. | * In the comedy series ''SheZow'', the legacy of a super-heroine has been passed down through generations of grand-aunts to grand-nieces when they inherit a magic ring that grants feminine-themed powers. For the first time, the ring is inherited by a boy, Guy Hamdon. Whenever he's being SheZow, which entails wearing a pink costume with a skirt and long hair, he has to keep up the appearance of being a girl in order to protect his secret identity. If anyone finds out who SheZow really is, his whole family will have to be relocated to the moon. Aside from his hair, SheZow's body doesn't change, and he has to remember to speak in a higher voice. Shezow often insists that his friends who are in the know need to call him by "she" pronouns whenever he appears in public as SheZow, and grumbles whenever they mess it up. When a friend hesitates and asks in private which pronoun Guy prefers, Guy shrugs and replies, "Eh, it depends on what I'm wearing." In other words, Guy's pronoun preference while being SheZow is "she," and is "he" while in his secret identity. Guy overcomes his initial discomfort and finds empowerment and confidence in femininity, even while remaining happily masculine when presenting as a boy. While this comfortable alternation between male and female presentations could be seen as a [[genderfluid]] or [[bigender]] character, the show creator has stated in an interview that, to the best of his understanding, this isn't so: "SheZow is not transgendered. He's a boy, his gender never changes, he's just trapped in a silly costume."<ref>Reiher, Andrea (1 June 2013). "'SheZow' creator talks 'transsexual' criticism, a 'coming out' episode and more". Zap2It. Retrieved 11 February 2014.</ref> As such, Shezow/Guy is a gender nonconforming cisgender boy. | ||
** There are other gender noncomforming characters in Shezow than the title character. Shezow's evil clone, Shezap, can look like Guy or like Shezow. When they open a portal to a gender-swapped alternative universe, Shezow discovers that the version of herself there is Dudepow, a hero with masculine-themed powers who is secretly a girl. | ** There are other gender noncomforming characters in Shezow than the title character. Shezow's evil clone, Shezap, can look like Guy or like Shezow. When they open a portal to a gender-swapped alternative universe, Shezow discovers that the version of herself there is Dudepow, a hero with masculine-themed powers who is secretly a girl. | ||
=== Books and Literature === | |||
* ''The Gods Themselves'' by Isaac Asimov - The 2nd part of this book features an alien species that reproduces by different means than humans, resulting in an alien culture with different gender roles. However, the 3 fictional sexes are ''not'' used as justification for these characters having nonbinary gender identities, as the protagonists are depicted as being gender non-conforming by the standards of their own society. Most notable is Dua, the "emotional"/"mid" member of a triad, who has always struggled to fit in with the others of her sex. She's explicitly non-conforming, exhibiting traits normally associated with the "rational"/"left" sex of her species. As a result, her peers use the slur "left-em" against her, which she would eventually reclaim as her own identity, along with "queer". Would she also qualify as nonbinary (technically non-trinary) transgender? This is open to interpretation by the reader. | |||
==Nonbinary genders in fiction== | ==Nonbinary genders in fiction== | ||