Depiction in Fiction

[auntysarah]

Having read the first two of China Meiville's Bas-Lag steampunk novels, Perdido Street Station and The Scar, I've started reading the third, Iron Council.

Now in his fantasy world they have a magical surgical technology called Remaking, which is much more advanced than anything we have, and is capable not only of organ transplants, etc., but can blend two different species together, as well as blend human and machine. It's mostly used as punishment.

That being that case, it's somewhat surprising that it took him until the third novel to bring up trans people. When he does, they're all desperate male-to-female sex workers living in squalid and marginal conditions.

Now while that's a little disappointing, it's perhaps forgiveable because a major theme in the Bas-Lag novels is that the vast majority of the population are pretty downtrodden, living at the bottom of the heap in an anarcho-capitalistic oligarchy. What really bugged me is that there are gay and bisexual characters, and that's presented as part of their identity; the "men remade as women", however, are introduced in a brief aside as if they only exist as a product, because there are those who have a fetish for having sex with them. They're not trans because of who they are, they're trans because trans women are needed to cater to the market segment which exists because there are Bas-Lag's equivalent of trannychasers.

Comments

[snakey]

Are there other sex workers in the series (of any gender)? How are women portrayed generally? I don't particularly like Melville's style of writing, so I haven't read these....

The point about the image of trans women as (exclusively) commodities is really interesting when applied to the real world. Hmm. I need to think about that.

they have a magical surgical technology called Remaking, which is much more advanced than anything we have, and is capable not only of organ transplants, etc., but can blend two different species together, as well as blend human and machine

And that sounds ideal for trans men, but of course we don't exist.

Though now I kind of want to write a dystopian spec fic story with downtrodden female-to-make sex worker living in squalid and marginal conditions because there's a market of women who have a fetish for sex with Feminist Decaf Men....

[auntysarah]

There are other sex workers, yes. They're mostly female. There is a bit about the militia posin as gay male prostitutes to entrap the unwary too, though.

And that sounds ideal for trans men, but of course we don't exist.

Indeed. Trans women are there for the sexing, and there are no trans men because, well, obviously, right? *growl*

[eisen]

I think, in the context of Remaking, the usage of SRS as punishment/induction into slavery makes sense; I think, really, that I am pretty sick and tired of the trope where sex reassignment only ever occurs against someone's will, but given the nature of Remaking the fact that this exists as a form of Remaking doesn't surprise me or seem out of place.

But what pushes this beyond "Oh, well, that makes sense, but it's annoying" into full-on "oh dammit Miéville" territory for me is that while this makes sense in the context of New Crobuzon it would not make sense in the context of, say, Armada, where Remaking is contextualized as, if not a good thing, at least an un-hated and sympathetic thing. I was fine with it not coming up (except in a roundabout, subtextual, probably unintentional way with the Sheke/Angevine/Tanner Sack plotline) when I figured that it was just an aspect of the universe Miéville didn't care about, being used to not existing in novels, but now I'm pissed because apparently I do exist on some level - as a fetish object, and nothing else. (Again.)

[static_hiss]

Interesting. I tried to read a Mieville book once, but only got about a chapter and a half into it before I trailed off. I always had a bad taste in my mouth for Mieville, because the person who so insistently lent me the book I started to read was a creepy chaser type, and things ended badly between us. :|

[ex_boi759]

Haven't gotten that far in those books, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for it now.

I just finished Bangkok Tattoo, which is a thriller/mystery with some issues regarding culture but I was surprised to find that one of the secondary characters was mtf and it was accepted pretty easily by everyone in the novel, which also mentioned the mtf sexworkers in Bangkok (of course, half the characters were prostitutes or pimps so the topic didn't seem particularly out of place).