One of my favorite characters I built (years ago) for D&D years was magically created to be transgender by a devil playing at being a god. She looked like a woman but possessed male genitals and was mainly attracted to women, though she could be flexible. Back then, things were different socially and the character didn’t bother anyone because she was a strong moral person and it wasn’t a sexual thing. I really enjoyed the headspace and exploration for this character as she developed and came to accept her uniqueness.
Fast forward a decade, I’ve begun writing for fun and I’ve been considering going back to this character and resurrecting her. I am concerned that as a CIS male that the very idea of my writing such a character would immediately touch a nerve and set off a firestorm. So, that made me decide to come here and ask this community their thoughts on transgender characters as written by non-trangender authors.
Make sure that they are a fully developed and well rounded character, who happens to be trans. It’s part of who they are, it’s not all of who they are.
I would also consider how your trans character fits into the world. Your character isn’t trans like we are. Your character is magically trans, in a world full of completely different sentient races, and also one where shapeshifting exists. How does being trans interact with that world? Transmutation spells exist. Does it say something about this character that they have a mismatching gender presentation in a world where it would be trivial to magically alter their body?
The idea that people can only write about people like themselves is silly. As a writer you have to be able to write convincing characters regardless of who they are. There are no stories where every character is a copy of the author. Be respectful, be informed, think things through, and write a compelling character and its all good.
Transitioning is only trivial in some D&D settings. Polymorph is a high level spell, so it would cost a lot of money to have a wizard cast it. Whether other spells or potions for transitioning exist is something for the GM to decide
This is why pf2e is based. 60gp common item
That’s still more than a year’s wages for a peasant. About 24,000 dollars in the USA. Being a trans adventurer is easy, but being a trans commoner is as hard as it is in the real world
Fitting into the world is where things got interesting. Not only was she transgender, but she was considered an abomination because of the dark magic that created her. Priests of the ‘good’ gods would try to smite her regularly because she stank of dark magic. So a lot of drama was centered around how she saw herself and coming to accept that she wasn’t a monster (for either reason). But I can see how being transgender in and of itself wouldn’t be some kind of world-shattering difference.
It would be a very good idea to have several characters be trans that aren’t in a similar situation to avoid the one trans character being a ‘dark abomination’ and stink of dark magic. That will absolutely be interpreted as being intertwined.
The concern I have with that is that a story with too many trans characters won’t read authentically. We are a very small minority. Its rare to run into another trans person. Being trans can be lonely and isolating. You have to actively work to find or make communities with other trans people.
If your character just happens to run into trans people often during their adventures, it will feel off. A chance encounter with one trans person is plausible. More than that should have some explanation as to why or how that group of trans people connected.
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There could be plenty of magical reasons that a character is unable to change their genitals. Honestly this reeks of the same sentiment as “there can be no disabled characters in DnD”.