Exploring Trans Identity in Speculative Fiction

Every time a reader sits down with a brand-new novel, their world expands, just a little. Whether we authors set out to do so or not, when we open doors to new worlds and possibilities in fiction, we also open the door to empathy. Speculative fiction—broadly, fiction that could not take place in reality as we know it—asks my favorite question to play with as a writer: What if this happened to you? 

My own speculative time-loop novel, Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know (out now through Norton Young Readers!) is, on its face, for the young trans reader. It’s certainly the book I wish I’d had when I was a teenager, and (I hope) it’s helping to fill the representation gap, working toward a world where young people of all varieties can look to literature and see themselves. As a book about a time-loop, it’s already wildly out of the realm of reality, but I chose each additional speculative aspect (body-swapping, amnesia, men who can talk about their feelings) deliberately so that I could tell this story to the audience I wrote it for: readers who aren’t trans.  

I don’t have to ask young transmasculine readers what it’s like to be stuck in a body that feels “wrong” (I use this as a broad-brush term; mileage may vary). They already know. It’s my cisgender readers who have never had to wonder about the mechanics of this feeling. Born out of frustration over the inadequacy of translation in describing the discomfort of dysphoria, I set out to make this sensation as accessible as possible. Laurie is a blank-slate narrator—he comes to himself on a highway with no memories of his prior life, knowing only that he is not a girl, and the body he is stuck in is female. 

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This is the gift of speculative fiction. In those first chapters, stumbling through the anxiety and disorientation of not knowing who or where his real self is, Laurie experiences both the physical discomfort of experiencing the “wrong” body, and also the social discomfort of being misgendered and not feeling it’s appropriate to correct people. I vividly remember the early days of my own transition, where the space I took up felt wrong, the hairstyle I had felt inauthentic, and the physical shape of my body made me want to shrink down and disappear. I also remember the days when I didn’t yet feel comfortable asking strangers to use pronouns that contradicted my outward presentation.  

These compounding moments crafted a unique and truly horrible experience that many cisgender readers will never have had to think about. Frankly, if I were not so determined to write about hope and about coming to terms with who you really are in this one, Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know could have easily been a horror novel. So much of transitioning feels like being at the center of a horror narrative—your body changes, often in ways you’re not expecting; you can lose friends, family, and occasionally whole communities, many of which can come as a surprise; and constantly over all of this comes a sudden sense of being observed in a new way, with all the layers of expectation that come with playing catch-up to your peers and the world around you. 

So, naturally, in an upcoming untitled novel from Norton Young Readers, I am delving into the horror space. Though I would call this project equal-opportunity horrifying for readers of all genders, this one is for trans readers. In this one, the speculative element—what if your loving boyfriend suddenly forgot you were trans and swung right-wing conservative and got so violent you had to kill him—reflects the relationships you can have as a trans person and the ways pressure from conservative communities can stifle (and kill!) young trans people. Topical!  

Fortunately, there’s a light in the darkness: it’s also about the power of knowing yourself and the ways your life can change when you demand space to exist as you are. In this horror story, there may be a lot more blood involved than there was in my personal story, but I put every ounce of the power I felt from my own coming out into it, and I think the supernatural aspects only highlight that power.  

Fiction allows for conversations about these themes in private spaces. Chasing the what if question down the path of a narrative gives space for ideas to breathe and to be contemplated quietly. There is no demand on the reader to respond with an opinion; there is no room on the page for arguments, semantics, or defensive posturing. A good story simply asks to be considered. It may open a door, but it does not require entry. Speculative fiction, on top of all this, dresses up its ideas in bewildering and fantastical costumes. A time-loop amnesia trope is a trick of the light: I am asking you to consider with me, for 380 pages, aspects of the trans experience. 

This brings me to what I consider the final allowance of speculative fiction. As a writer, I consider this vastly more important than any gentle demand for empathy from allied readers:Sometimes it takes layers of impossibility to see what’s right in front of you. The monsters on the page can resemble the ones under your own bed, and once you see them, you can’t go back. It can kick-start the rest of your life; I would know. So no matter what I am writing, no matter who I am writing it for, there’s one person I always have at the forefront of mind, whom I want to hold with as much grace and gentleness and empathy as possible. I write what I write for the one who picks up a book about a trans person and quietly asks the scariest and most important what if of their life: What if this happened to me?