While growing up, I was obsessed with the classic, golden era sci-fi writers - Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A Heinlein as well as a healthy dose of Douglas Adams. Later, when I started uni, I got into more fantasy stories by people such as David Eddings and Raymond E Feist. I loved all of these stories, and they played a huge part in helping me to form my identity, but what do these writers all have in common? That’s right, they’re all cis-het white men.
This post isn’t going to be a rant about cis-het white men, after all, some of my best friends are cis-het white men. But, without really knowing it, part of the reason I loved the works of these writers was that when I was a teenager, their books were full of people who I assumed were like me. I was trying convince myself that all the thoughts I was having about being a girl were nonsense because it was the 90’s; I didn’t know what being trans was, I didn’t know what support was available, and I didn’t know how I would be received by those around me. This lack of information was largely caused by the fact that the internet was in its infancy and I didn’t have access to it, not that there was much information on it at the time. So, pretty much my only option was to ignore what my brain was telling me, force it down, and attempt to be a boy.
This meant that when I read books by cis-het white men, my brain would attempt to tell me that the cis-het white man protagonists they featured were representing me. I think that the first Foundation novel by Isaac Asimov doesn’t feature any women at all (I’m willing to be corrected on that kids!), and at the time, this only niggled at me a tiny bit rather than horrifying me in the way it would now.
These stories still have a lasting affect on the way I write now, however. In the story Painting the Future, in my short story collection Talking to Lobsters, a giant painting that is entirely filled in with grey appears on Saturn’s moon, Titan. The similarity between this and the monolith which appears near Jupiter in Arthur C Clarke’s 2001 and 2010 books only hit me after I’d written the story, but I left it as it was because I don’t mind wearing my influences on my sleeve. After all, the evolution of any kind of creative work has mostly been driven by people copying each other’s best ideas, but putting their own stamp on it so that it feels new.
So, the monolith was a great concept; it represented something mysterious and alien. It really fills you with the idea that you’ve no clue where this thing came from or who made it, which really drives you to want to know more. In general, I think it is concepts that I’ve been influenced by when reading the ‘golden age’ sci-fi authors. Let’s face it, their characters weren’t exactly three dimensional, but they had vast imaginations which could create incredible universes filled with wonders, and that’s always something I’ve really admired.
But then I came out, my world changed… People often talk about the process of coming out to family and friends, but they forget that the first person you have to come out to is yourself. You might spend years thinking that your feelings will go away by themselves, that they are a sign of stress, or that they are something everyone has, but in the end, they just burst out of you and you just have to admit to yourself that you’re trans, gay, or possibly, in the worst of all circumstances, a Tory.
When you do come out to yourself, however, it’s like someone has flicked a light switch on in the dark. Your perspective on everything changes instantly, which means the way I saw all of the books I’d always loved changed too. I still loved sci-fi, but I realised that I couldn’t see myself in it at all. The cis-het white man characters that I thought were images of myself were, in fact, images of someone else, and they had never been like me, I just hadn’t wanted to see it because I’d spent most of my life trying my best to be the person that everyone else thought I should be (except for a little eccentricity that leaked out around the edges!)
So, in short, I needed to find new sci-fi/fantasy books which focussed on queer women characters, and it turns out there are some fantastic ones out there!
Firstly, my wife introduced me to the Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers. These books talk about alien species who don’t decide what their gender is until later in life, species who use neo-pronouns, and humans who take all this in their stride. They are also fantastic sci-fi stories set in a universe which is teaming with life, conflict, politics, and incredible technology - i.e. all the good stuff!
Another great book which I found inspiring is the Once and Future series by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy. I know I’ve talked about both this and the Wayfarer series in a previous blog post (I think…), so you might think I’m obsessed… and I am! This is mostly because seeing myself, my actual self on the page was incredible; it helps me see myself in a more positive light, away from the shame which mainstream media can pour upon trans people. And seeing the possible futures where society is actually inclusive and people can just live the lives that they want to live gives me hope.
I guess that it’s not that I want cis-het men to stop writing, in face I cherish a lot of the books that they’ve written, but now I’m striding out into a brave new world of books which contain people who inspire me and help me navigate the world. It’s still sci-fi, but now it’s sci-fi that’s for everyone!
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