i was talking abt this a little on twitter and kind of realized that like… the fact that nb rep is so often aliens/monsters/robots/etc, i.e. non-human creatures who have no concept of gender and that’s “why” they’re nb, is something that gets talked about, and it’s usually framed as the problem being that it’s dehumanizing. and i do agree with that criticism even though it’s usually not something that bothers me personally, and i think it’s a meaningful way to discuss it. but i always felt like there was something ELSE about it that bothers me too, that’s separate from the issue of human vs. inhuman, and i think i finally figured out how to articulate it
when all your nb rep is nb BECAUSE they’re not human – because their alien race doesn’t have the concept of sexual dimorphism, because they’re an angel and they can’t wrap their head around it, “i am not a man or a woman i am a computer,” whatever – these characters are never nb in defiance of a birth assignment. they’re nb because it’s “normal” for them to be. they’re nb because that’s all they know. they are not “trans” in a way that is relatable or meaningful to me, and their identity is (usually) not a trans identity in the context of the fictional world, and their narrative is (usually) not a trans narrative in the context of our world. THAT’S what bothers me, THAT’S what i find unfulfilling and unsatisfactory about characters like this. that these nb characters are not socially trans in a way that reflects the experience of being assigned one gender and surrounded by two genders and realizing that none of them are actually right.
i love nonhuman nb characters. i have tons of them. i love the trope of nonhuman characters being bewildered by/contemptuous of the concept of gender, etc. and these are character archetypes that i’m not really interested in getting all prickly over if it’s other trans people who are doing it. but i want nb characters who are SOCIALLY TRANS, too! whether they’re human or not. (and people who just want fucking HUMAN nb characters for once are obviously correct in their criticism too, that’s just not rly what i was thinking about in this case)
