trans | Oct. 18th, 2006

Has anyone else read the new Transgender Erotica anthology edited by M. Christian. I was so excited to see it and immediately bought it, but I'm pretty dissapointed. I mean, there was some great work in there by a few well known trans authors. But there were some pieces in there that seemed incredibly inappropriate. Several stories had protagonists that used inappropriate (or more specifically non-consensual, as the authors usually didn't tell us specifically what the character's pronoun prefence was). There were also some really weird fetishizing language describing sex with a transperson as like having sex with two people, "a new twist on the menage a trois." Other things like revealing a woman's trans status, then calling her a "she-male" and using male pronouns for the rest of the story -- even the line, "If you're a man, fuck me like a man, goddammit," (referencing someone on the MTF spectrum).

The thing that really feels weird about this, though, is the inclusion of some big name transfolk. With contributions from Patrick Califia and Raven Kaldera (Granted they probably didn't see the other contributions). And even a recommendation from Jamison Green and other trans movement leaders (and they must have read the manuscript). That's why I assumed it must be a good book. It makes me wonder, am I the only one who sees this? What's going on? I'm not being oversensitive, right?

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