#ill do proper checks with trans people that might writing isnt shitty once ive actually written this

[sleepymccoy]

I'm trying to write a story where the pov character transes their gender during the tale. Mtf. My relationship to gender is much more chill than the conversation I see on tumblr a lot, perhaps because the people who care are the ones writing about it and the people like me who are just kinda eh aren't bothering to write it up. I'm non-binary, but in a very I don't care way. Everyone sees me as a woman, it's fine. Sometimes I am a woman, maybe I'm gender fluid! Maybe I don't care! It's whatever.

Obviously this isn't true for a lot of other people where misgendering and dysmorphia are upsetting events.

The story isn't exactly about being trans, it's about complex conversations and learning to understand people who aren't like you. So the trans thing is showing the character learning to recognise their feelings because they're having these long debates with a friend, and through that learning to understand themselves better. The other characters (who uses it/its pronouns) has an attitude more like me about gender, so it's confused by the need to care about gender. It's not transphobic in that it'll use whatever pronouns it's told to, but they're having deep conversations and it just doesn't understand gender as an impacting feature of life

So I'm comfortable having him at the start of the story use male pronouns for himself because that's where he's at. Then later once she's figured out the transition using female pronouns! But the bit in the middle I'm a bit stuck on. There'll be a chapter where I write their internal thinking about gender and pronouns, and I think I'm leaning towards habitual male pronouns while considering being a woman. He thought maybe he was a woman, if all being a woman was was enjoying being a woman, what else did he need to bring to the table? But then there's a period of being new to female pronouns where you make mistakes. And I'm not sure what to do with that.

Like, there's humour in "would you stop calling me dude, you shit head! I'm a woman now, is it so hard?" he snapped. Fuck, he realised. She said. He was still- she! She was still getting the pronouns wrong. No need to admit to that out loud, though. But I don't want to be flippant or disrespectful about it.

Perhaps the pronouns slip when she's particularly stressed and not thinking about what she's saying so much. Or perhaps I just hand wave the errors and make her use female pronouns perfectly as soon as she decides to.

None of it feels quite right yet

What do you guys think? Whether you're trans or not, feel free to give me a vibe check here.