Dragon Age, and "superficial" transgender representation.
So, this is going to be a post about a small snippet of dialogue I've seen from a game I haven't played, and how I saw someone respond to that. I want to make clear I do not have an opinion on the game. I also want to make clear I support this person. I think the root of my difference in feelings stems from us being at two different points along what are maybe two different journeys. And as I think about it I think there is depth to this which maybe lessens the resultant irritation I felt.
Here's the dialogue:
Rook: I used to tell myself things that sound like what you're saying. I felt wrong in my own skin. Rook: I'd grown up being treated like a man and I... hated that. Being a man didn't make me happy. Rook: Being a woman did.
And the person who posted this said "best trans [main character] ever made". That response, I think, is what gave me a gut reaction of "damn, that's all we get?".
I don't dislike this dialogue, especially out of context. That is simply how a lot of trans women feel. I don't care if it is or isn't heavy-handed. Media can be that. This character made someone feel seen and known in a way she hadn't felt before. That is good!
Where I chafed is that, well, I've been gender-nonconforming for approaching twenty years. Sometimes openly, sometimes closeted even to myself, but most of my life has been in open or quiet revolt against gender. So I think the feeling I had was "this is extremely basic. it's year one shit. can we not be afforded a deeper look into the trans experience, even in big-budget games?"
But I think there's a couple of things to unpack about this that undercut the validity of those feelings:
Basic is fine. The nature of being transgender in a world that asserts gender roles at every opportunity is not a nature of you are or you aren't. It's a myriad of journeys from a myriad of points to a myriad of destinations. And nobody is at the same exact point nor are they headed the same exact way. Essentially, we need representation that is simple in a way we need children's books: because that is where some people are at and that is what they need. Just because I don't need it doesn't mean it's valueless.
This is not the best trans main character ever. Duh. This one's obvious. There's no such thing. And there's so many other options, which of course I can't reference because I don't read a lot of personal works or play many personal games. But also: what this person is saying is not a literal statement of fact. What she is saying is "this character means more to me than any others have before". I should be celebrating this, not denigrating this.
Sometimes people do feel fine in a binary gender role (at least for a time). Revisit the dialogue before reading this one. I wholly sympathize with most of it. Where I chafe is that being a woman eventually very much did not make me happy. It fucking sucked, too.
The social affirmation of my "feminine" traits was counterbalanced by the social rejection of my "masculine" traits. I was simply a woman in a world that is not kind to women. Except when I was a "fake woman" in a world that is not kind to "fake women". I felt that I had merely traded shackles for heavier shackles.
But not everyone feels that way. My gut tells me that, given enough time and critical examination, most people would. But that's living in a land of the imagined. What is real is that here and now, some people find this affirming. This is what they need to get to whatever their next step ends up being.
And as such it is much better for me to dissect these thoughts here instead of just being like "um this sucks actually, it's super basic, you shouldn't feel good about this, there's much better trans representation". I should just feel happy that a comrade who needs positive affirmation got positive affirmation. And I do.