No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

pockettbear-deactivated20220320 asked:

Hello Mr Gaiman, for the occasion of Trans Awareness Week, i am very curious to ask: which of the many characters you have created are either explicitly and canonically transgender, or were created or thought of from you as transgender without it being explicitly shown/said? This, of course, is not meant to take away from people's freedom to interpret or headcanon characters as such

Let’s see: Wanda and Hal in Sandman are both trans, Desire is Trans (and in the Big Universe there are versions of the Endless that include all genders — we got to see a female Dream in Sandman Overture). There are trans characters in Miracleman, but that’s a plot point that’s been waiting 25 years to be told, and you’ve met a trans character in Neverwhere, and although that’s not apparent in Neverwhere itself it will be if I ever finish the Seven Sisters. Kalanu in American Gods is trans, everyone pretty much in the short story “Changes”…

And I just got the call saying it’s time to go back to the house and start cooking for Thanksgiving, and I don’t know how to save these as drafts, so I will post it now, and expand further on it later.

…

korrathevampireslayer3791

Miles and Masculinity
tolkienaboutscifi.wordpress.com

On the Vorkosigan Saga’s militaristic planet Barrayar, masculinity and capability are inseparable. Because of Miles Vorkosigan’s disability, by Barrayaran standards he qualifies for neither. Miles has other ideas.

Barrayar barely survived nuclear annihilation after decades of fighting its rival empire Cetaganda. Scraping by with victory, Barrayaran society still bears the marks of war. Young men aspire to join the military and serve their country as it extends its power out into the galaxy. The ideal soldier is tall, able-bodied and strong. Unfortunately for Miles, he does not fit Barrayar’s concept of an ideal soldier by a long shot.

Injured in utero by a gas attack meant to assassinate his father, Miles was born with bones so fragile he can break his own wrist with his other hand. When he gets his bones replaced with synthetics, it leaves him with long, painful scars and joints stiff with scar tissue. His spine is crooked and stunted, putting him far below the height of other Barrayaran men. Because of the radiation from the war, Barrayarans screen all fetuses for mutations. Once born, a baby with a mutation—or what looks like a mutation—is often killed. Not only does Miles not meet the physical requirements set by the military, he is shunned for his mutant-like appearance. The cause of his disability is teratogenetic, not mutagenetic—a distinction he has to repeat constantly—but it hardly matters on Barrayar. Even his grandfather wanted to kill him. When Miles fails basic training, he feels like a disappointment not only to his father but his whole society.

Although Barrayar is a sexist, feudal planet, Miles doesn’t apply its patriarchal rules to the women in his life. Instead, he turns them in on himself. Aware that he does not meet Barrayar’s masculine standard, he makes it his life’s goal to prove everyone wrong.

‘If you can’t be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart.’ – Labyrinth

In The Warrior’s Apprentice, Miles accidentally acquires his own army through an insane combination of lying, charisma, wit and sheer luck. But he has more than enough smarts to keep the charade going. He becomes the leader of the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, and proves that he has the leadership to get his men and women out of almost any scrape he can get them into. His government allows him to keep his fleet under the condition that it will serve Barrayar, and so the Dendarii Mercenaries become a pseudo-Barrayaran special ops lead by the youngest “Admiral” in Barrayaran history.

In typical Milesian fashion, Miles is not satisfied. Though he has proved that he is a capable leader, strategist and soldier, and achieved things that most Barrayaran men will never achieve, he still wants recognition for accomplishing things no one ever thought he could accomplish.

‘Hi, I’m a hero, but I can’t tell you why. It’s classified.’ – Cetaganda

In Borders of Infinity, Miles’ disability is highlighted to the extreme. Trapped in a Cetagandan prison camp where prisoners on the verge of insanity and starvation are forced to be naked, Miles can’t even hide behind clothes. So it is ironic that against this backdrop, and the judgement of his body by the other prisoners, he orchestrates the largest prison break of Barrayaran POWs in history from a prison that had never seen a single successful escape.

On Barrayar masculinity isn’t just about masculinity, it’s about the performance of masculinity, and Miles wants an audience. Never mind that he has averted wars, saved Barrayar’s Emperor, and organized the largest prison break of Barrayaran POWs, he is still perceived as unmasculine and weak because of his appearance.

As a young man, Miles believes that no woman would ever be interested in him. He is jealous of his cousin Ivan, handsome and tall, always with a lady on his arm. Miles’ appearance as a mutant means that a lot of Barrayaran women would never marry him for fear that his genes are contaminated. This puts Miles’ desire to have children on the long list of things his society wants to withhold from him.

But Miles quickly learns that women are interested in him—mostly non-Barrayaran women—and is eager for the attention. He doesn’t feel emasculated by the height difference—luckily enough, he has quite a thing for tall women—and pours all his energy into proving that he is a good lover. As Ivan says, Miles lives by the idea that anything worth achieving is worth overachieving. But it’s not just Miles’ winning but occasionally insane personality and, ahem, skill as a lover that keeps women around. His self esteem was destroyed to such an extent that he actually doesn’t realize that women think he’s physically attractive. He eventually ensnares a wife, a Barrayaran one, and is extremely proud of the fact that she asked him to marry her, not the other way around—something that doesn’t usually happen on Barrayar.

As Miles grows older, his desire to serve his country doesn’t fade, but he recognizes that other people’s opinions don’t matter as much as he thought they did. Always afraid of proving the “mutant villain” stereotype correct, he is at first horrified when a murder is framed around him, threatening to destroy his political reputation. But his father gives him advice based on decades of his own political experience:

‘Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.’ – A Civil Campaign

Honor is fundamentally more important than reputation, and Miles knows this from years of diplomatic negotiation, rescue missions and spy-work where saving lives, not public recognition, was the most meaningful part of service to his country. With this reminder, he outlasts the political scandal with a clearer understanding of what he wants.

Miles falls head over heels for many women, is not attracted to men at all, but eventually realizes his attraction to Bel Thorne, a member of a bi-gender race created as a scientific experiment. Bel made their interest in Miles obvious for many years, but it is only when Miles stops caring about what other people think that he is able to recognize his own bisexuality. Nothing can come of this realization, though—by this time Bel has found themself a wife, a member of a different scientific experiment designed to live in zero g. It’s lucky that Miles marries a woman too, because Barrayar likes “sexual deviancy” just about as much as they like “mutants.”

You could say that Miles proves that appearances are deceptive, but to say that would be admitting that we expect people with disabilities not to achieve anything great. It’s wrong to have any preconceptions of a person’s heroism that are based on whether or not they are able-bodied. And Miles doesn’t just achieve greatness—he achieves mind-boggling things that no one else in his country’s history has come close to with flair and charisma that can’t be imitated. (Can you tell I love him?) It is also horribly simplistic to say that he was able to do these things despite his disability, or in some way over come it, when it was this exact disability and the stigma that went with it that drove him to prove everyone wrong.

Miles’ disability is lifelong, but his need to perform masculinity isn’t. As he becomes comfortable with himself, he decides to use other people’s misconceptions about him to his advantage and stop caring what they think. Still, it’s satisfying to have moments when those stupid backward Barrayarans are confronted with the fact that their worst mutant nightmare is actually a hero, and shown that there’s more to being a man than the physical ideal of masculinity. It’s something our society could learn too.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Miles and Masculinitytolkienaboutscifi.wordpress.com

Miles and Masculinity
tolkienaboutscifi.wordpress.com