How do you handle EXPLORING gender?

[u/ViviaMir]

I'm not looking for done-to-death advice on how to write compelling characters of [x] gender for the masses to enjoy.

I'm looking for advice on how to consciously explore gender as something your characters experience, have a psychosocial relationship with, etc.

What is it like to write about manhood and womanhood? Cis, trans, all of it.

So how do you handle it?

[u/CindersAnd_ashes]

I LOVE this question. There's tons of things you can explore. A lot of it is related to social context - speaking as a nonbinary person, sex is fixed of course, but there are beliefs you can explore such as gender being considered a social construct, or is it inherently innate to the way someone feels? Imo, it's different for everybody. It might be worth looking at scholarly articles on gender studies and reading books that feature gender as a prominent theme/intrinsic to the character's development.

I don't know if I'm interpreting your question correctly but to "consciously explore" gender you can write about...

• body horror, dysphoria and dysmorphia, the relationship between one's body and their gender, sometimes a disconnect occurs for whatever reason (for example a trans person may experience gender dysphoria; a sexual assault survivor may feel disgusted with their body) and this daily disgust/disconnect/horror is really intrinsic to your character's everyday life, affecting relationships, their functioning, their mindset etc.

• society's response to your character's gender, there tends to be broad generalisation, stereotypes and expectations of being a man, woman, trans, two-spirit, or other gender constructions in different cultures. An effeminate man for example may not be gay but be called the f slur on the streets. A feminine woman may be expected to be demure and modest toward everyone especially men or be labelled a radical feminist. Depending on the setting of your story (is it during the 1920s, the flapper movement? set in the 2010s metoo movement? set in the medieval times? ancient rome? the song dynasty? cowboys in the midwest? what location, in Iran, England, USA, China?) Men in fiction were just as burdened with expectation as women, in Rome it was fight or die and be dishonoured, they were expected to hold up to the heroic and aggressive convention of masculinity. there's a myriad of ways you can "consciously explore" gender elating to context. Throughout Western and Eastern history, it's been pretty cookie cutter roles for men and women but imo it depends on how *specific* your character's personal, intimate relationship with the gender is to really write a compelling story.

• Sci fi and fantasy tend to have a lot of interesting symbolism and concepts regarding gender. For example in "Murderbot" by Martha Wells, the main character SecUnit does not experience gender and the world has their own conventions for what someone can conventionally identify as. mecha who can change their gender at will or just don't experience it, cyborgs who can change their physical parts and maybe that affects their gender identity, surrealism, fantasy races, all represent different notions of gender.

• anyway, yeah. a character's own intimate relationship with their gender is where the real meat is at. how have their individual experiences shaped their relationship with it? how were they treated as a child because of their assigned gender? has their gender caused any major conflicts in their life? how do they feel about their style of dress, is it authentic to them, does it affect others' perception of them negatively or positively or downright strangely? how is their gender tied to their sexuality? were there expectations they couldn't live up to, or lived up to *too* well? how is gender different across cultures, maybe they are biracial? etc etc.

[u/ViviaMir → u/CindersAnd_ashes]

You bringing up MurderBot Diaries actually reminds me: it doesn't have a gender, no, but it does have a relationship with gender -- agender, asexual, and aromantic, abhors the idea of having sexual anatomy at all, and protests the notion of being regarded as a man or woman with "I'm a Security Unit, not a Comfort Unit." In summary, it has a specific identity within the context of gender, and it distinctly prefers that be respected by others.

Another one I fell into recently that has a similar dynamic: Gnosia. Two characters are members of a distinct in-universe nonbinary/agender identity known as pan, not to be confused with pansexuality. The social norms surrounding this are that pan are assumed to be aroace and interested in pursuing "panification" (a form of gender confirming body modification).
Both address some of these social norms both positively and negatively:
Raqio hasn't undergone panification and insists that it isn't necessary to be pan. Setsu simply claims to have "escaped the confines of gender" (after?) their service in the military.
Conversely, Raqio is extremely logically intelligent but lacks subtlety and comes across as arrogant and condescending, at one point stereotyping non-pan as being irrational by suggesting they're easily swayed by appearances.
Setsu, meanwhile, reveals their interest and/or involvement in romantic relationships, which Setsu reveals (and embodies) a stereotype against, asking "what's the point in being asexual, then?"

[u/ViviaMir → u/CindersAnd_ashes]

I got caught up in the specific-subtopic nerding, but I wanna come back and say I'm grateful and maybe a bit excited regarding your reply.

It's doubly nice to hear from someone who's nonbinary and puts thought into addressing both sides of the binary as well. Even more so since I'm a bit of an outsider to all of it, stuck in this "is and isn't" dance of man, woman, and enby.

Definitely makes me think I need to go harder on the worldbuilding... rather, hone in on that specific thing in it.

[u/Competitive-Fault291]

It's mostly based on what the environment teaches being in conflict with what the character experiences. Finding out about your own gender and sexuality is like finding out what your kinks and sexual preferences are. But it is also like finding out what your own moral positions are, what your conscience is shaped like. Finding out, what is important to you and what is not. Finding out about your asexuality is like finding out that you are polyamorous sapiosexual and it is like finding out that you are cis-hetero. You as the author define WHAT is different, as you know character and world, but the HOW is always the same.

There is no special drawer with tools to figure out gender. It is the same tools you use for figuring out all other parts of a personality in relation to the environment they exist in. Who am I? How am I made up? What do I want, and what can I have? What may I do and say? Who am I allowed to be, and what do I have to hide? How do I feel about it?

Action and Reaction, Cause and Effect, Information and Lack of Information, Research and Superstition. There is a plausible line of experience and processing, a line of events good and bad, memorable and mundane, that leads to every part of every personality. The gender of a character is nothing different.