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scans_daily2010-02-20 02:13 pm
shemale) wrote in scans_daily2010-02-20 02:13 pm
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I went through a period a while back where i was looking for trans women characters in contemporary comics and graphic novels* and a lot of people referred me to Neil Gaiman, with The Sandman series in particular, and told me about how he's friends with ~real live trans women~ and all that. And i still see him referenced, here and elsewhere, as providing some of the best inclusions of trans people in those forms of visual media to date.
The problem was, I already owned the entire series (for a long time; i got them when i was in my mid teens), had gone back and read it again, and found it disappointing in most parts which included trans women and in others it actually brought up feelings of body dysphoria and memories of violence. And while i do appreciate some of the more gender fluid characters in the series--especially Desire--they're not trans women.
The first trans woman in the series, if i'm remembering correctly, got one panel in the second volume of the series, and in that panel, she was fucking dead, murdered by a serial killer (who's talking about it at a convention for serial killers). He's nicknamed "The Connoisseur," and only killed "preoperative" trans women because he finds "something brittle and bright in the back of their eyes; he loves them...[but] always feels they're laughing at him."
[Note the super classy way her genitals are silhouetted]
And it's just dropped from there, and the story moves on to other characters without comment. And it seems like there's absolutely no reflection on the part of the author that trans women are at such a high risk of being victims of murder and violence in general.
And, as i'm going back and reading this, i'm like "oh god this is terrifying what the fuck" and then "well, he is a serial killer, and this was written in the eighties; maybe we'll move on to something that makes up for it."
So I read on, and on, and on to the fifth volume in the series.
Enter Wanda Mann. Seriously, her name is Wanda Mann.
[Is anyone else noticing a trend here?]
Again with the focus on her genitals and their configuration, bot visually and as a core part of her identity.
Now really, i'm all for open representations of trans bodies, but with this series it begins to get pretty voyeuristic.
And again with the killing! As an aside, Wanda also gets killed off, in the process of protecting a cis woman.
[Gaiman is a proud supporter of the No Tranny Left Alive program]
But it's alright, because she's apparently better off dead.
Anyway, before she fulfills her inevitable role as a trans character and dies off, her Raison d'être is to be a case study illustrating the maleness of trans women. This includes a dream sequence in which she's forcibly given genital reconstruction surgery by Bizarro Superman (and experiences some pretty extreme body horror, which frankly i found a little contagious), and her exclusion from a moonblood ritual and other forms of ladymagick. No seriously there's a moonblood ritual:
[Author is trying to show his egalitarianism by being almost as fucking creepy about cis women's bodies as he is about trans women's. Also, MOON CHROMOSOMES]
And, reading this, i'm like, my god, this is some of the best, least cissexist inclusion of trans women in comics?
So yeah, i don't know, i'm mostly posting this here for the discussion (which i won't, unfortunately, be able to participate in beyond this post until later tonight)--what do you think about Gaiman and the stories i've posted scans of, where have you seen trans women in comics that i've maybe missed, and so on and so on.
*Somewhat unsuccessfully, unfortunately
The problem was, I already owned the entire series (for a long time; i got them when i was in my mid teens), had gone back and read it again, and found it disappointing in most parts which included trans women and in others it actually brought up feelings of body dysphoria and memories of violence. And while i do appreciate some of the more gender fluid characters in the series--especially Desire--they're not trans women.
The first trans woman in the series, if i'm remembering correctly, got one panel in the second volume of the series, and in that panel, she was fucking dead, murdered by a serial killer (who's talking about it at a convention for serial killers). He's nicknamed "The Connoisseur," and only killed "preoperative" trans women because he finds "something brittle and bright in the back of their eyes; he loves them...[but] always feels they're laughing at him."
[Note the super classy way her genitals are silhouetted]
And it's just dropped from there, and the story moves on to other characters without comment. And it seems like there's absolutely no reflection on the part of the author that trans women are at such a high risk of being victims of murder and violence in general.
And, as i'm going back and reading this, i'm like "oh god this is terrifying what the fuck" and then "well, he is a serial killer, and this was written in the eighties; maybe we'll move on to something that makes up for it."
So I read on, and on, and on to the fifth volume in the series.
Enter Wanda Mann. Seriously, her name is Wanda Mann.
[Is anyone else noticing a trend here?]
Again with the focus on her genitals and their configuration, bot visually and as a core part of her identity.
Now really, i'm all for open representations of trans bodies, but with this series it begins to get pretty voyeuristic.
And again with the killing! As an aside, Wanda also gets killed off, in the process of protecting a cis woman.
[Gaiman is a proud supporter of the No Tranny Left Alive program]
But it's alright, because she's apparently better off dead.
Anyway, before she fulfills her inevitable role as a trans character and dies off, her Raison d'être is to be a case study illustrating the maleness of trans women. This includes a dream sequence in which she's forcibly given genital reconstruction surgery by Bizarro Superman (and experiences some pretty extreme body horror, which frankly i found a little contagious), and her exclusion from a moonblood ritual and other forms of ladymagick. No seriously there's a moonblood ritual:
[Author is trying to show his egalitarianism by being almost as fucking creepy about cis women's bodies as he is about trans women's. Also, MOON CHROMOSOMES]
And, reading this, i'm like, my god, this is some of the best, least cissexist inclusion of trans women in comics?
So yeah, i don't know, i'm mostly posting this here for the discussion (which i won't, unfortunately, be able to participate in beyond this post until later tonight)--what do you think about Gaiman and the stories i've posted scans of, where have you seen trans women in comics that i've maybe missed, and so on and so on.
*Somewhat unsuccessfully, unfortunately
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I also suspect there's a bit of unreliable narrator on the part of the face, as Gaiman would certainly know about the transgender aspects of some Norse gods, who appear in the series. Or he could just have not thought it through, I guess.
I think by the appearance with Death at the end, he meant to indicate that ultimately, Wanda was a woman, whatever anyone else said. But his execution certainly left a lot to be desired.
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