Talk:List of books featuring transgender persons

Comments

The use of the term "rare" in the intro, albeit accurate, requires a citation. The article looks like a list of mini-summaries of novels, rather than a comprehensive article about the subgenre in general. — Emiellaiendiay 01:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps that specific word can be removed, as it's quite self-evident from the list itself. The article is a list because I have no sources for the analysis of transgender fiction as a genre, nor any indication that it's ever been defined as such. I took the liberty of expanding about each of the novels because there were so few, and because only one of them has an individual article. This was an article meant for expansion, because I didn't have much more than Google and Amazon for sources, but strongly felt the lack of material about transgender fiction. My best efforts at research only turned up these four novels, and I was hoping an existing article would encourage people to expand it. LeaHazel : talk : contribs 17:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Most of TG literature happens on the web. You can take a look at portals such as www.fictionmania.com or www.storysite.org. There you'll find a very diverse, active and creative community ! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.17.73.75 (talk) 12:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Another book

Sex and Other Changes by David Nobbs deals with a male/female married couple, where each partner secretly identifies as Transsexual, but each is afraid to tell the other. Eventually one of them is brave enough, which upsets the other - because that person is now afraid that to reveal their own feelings would seem like copycat behaviour.

That's not much of a write-up, but it's a couple of years since I read it, and don't have the book any more. Can't even remember the character names. So, it goes into Talk, not the main article. Perhaps somebody out there has a copy and can give it a better treatment? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete this article?

Is it really clear that there is a concrete subject called "transgender fiction"? This article cites no sources, let alone reliable sources and not just blog posts and the like, that mention its existence as a notable subgenre at all. For years it has apparently remained simply a list of titles that original research has claimed as being examples of "transgender fiction." Unless someone can come up with a reliable source proving its existence as a notable subject, I am going to nominate this page for deletion in a week's time. K. the Surveyor (talk) 21:37, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd say it deserves a retitle rather than a full on delete. There are a lot of notable works of fiction dealing with transgendered characters, especially in the young adult market. I know of several books on the subject that will be released soon, and several more that do not appear on this list. Czolgolz (talk) 23:05, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

It could be made into a list, "List of fiction featuring transgendered persons." K. the Surveyor (talk) 01:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

On second thought it would be more easily verifiable if we called it "List of books featuring crossdressing," thereby enabling inclusion of works for which a commenter has not explicitly used the word "transgendered" to refer to a character. I presume all persons called transgender also crossdress, so this doesn't seem askew. K. the Surveyor (talk) 05:41, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the idea that crossdressing and transgender are the same thing. Any man wearing a dress is crossdressing, be it for humor, disguise, deception, sexual gratification, or transgenderism. A transgendered person may agonize over the desire to live as the opposite gender for decades, but never once put on the clothes that they feel are 'right.' The term crossdressing, in fact, usually applies to someone who is NOT transgendered, someone who is wearing the wrong clothes. If you told a transwoman that she was a crossdresser because she wore a dress, she'd be offended, the dress would be the normal thing (at least in her eyes) for her to wear. I've actually written a book about a transgendered teen (Almost Perfect, Random House, 2009), so I've studied the subject a bit. I like your original idea, 'list of fiction featuring transgendered persons'. Czolgolz (talk) 07:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I am not saying they are the same thing. Crossdressing is a broader term not necessarily reflective of sexuality but it has the benefit of being more easily verifiable in a fictional work. Transgender is the more specific term but unless a reliable secondary source, or probably more rarely the work itself, actually uses that term to describe a character then to claim they are so winds up being original research. The meaning of the term has even evolved somewhat over time so we certainly cannot just say, "That guy seems transgender," without a reliable source. The possible problem is the exclusion of many characters that a reasonable person would likely agree are transgender but we cannot find any reliable source actually saying so. K. the Surveyor (talk) 09:29, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if transgenderism is a major theme of a novel, then check the subject list on the title page. 'Transgender people--fiction' will be one of the subjects, so it should be easy to verify and would not be original research. And how do you define crossdressing? If a transgendered man only wears pants instead of skirts, is he crossdressing? If a a prisoner dons a dress to escape custody, does that belong on this list? I feel 'transgendered persons' is the best title. Czolgolz (talk) 22:05, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Well take for example the case of "The Tale of Kamar al-Zaman" in Burton's Arabian Nights, which clearly states that a princess donned her husband's clothing, married another princess and was embraced as a son by her bride's father. Either the first or last of these conditions would be sufficient if made into a title. We could say, "characters who wear any clothing of the opposite sex," or, "characters believing other characters to be the sex other than their actual one." But these titles obviously are too long. However I think that "crossdressing" is a reasonable shorthand for the former phrase. On the other hand I think that saying this character is transgendered is too far down the road to original research. K. the Surveyor (talk) 00:29, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. Crossdressing is an act, transgender is a state of mind, and I really don't feel they are the same thing. Anyone else want to weigh in here? Czolgolz (talk) 12:50, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok. If no one else shows up we can at least make the change to "List of fiction featuring transgendered persons" since we can agree it would represent an improvement. K. the Surveyor (talk) 03:37, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much.Czolgolz (talk) 21:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I publish TG Fiction (about 30 ebooks and a half dozen paper books so far) and operate several websites dedicated to the subject. I'm in the middle of putting together a series of books collecting TG fiction from websites. Crossdressing and Transgender are not the same thing, just to contribute to the discussion. While transgender can be taken to contain crossdressing as a subcategory with a little distortion, the reverse proposition would be a much larger distortion, like declaring that everyone who speaks with an accent must be French. The list of books in the article is no where near complete, even just considering mainstream fiction, let alone genres such as mystery or science fiction. BTW, "transgender person" is considered insulting by many. "List of books featuring transgender themes" would be better.Halfelven (talk) 00:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Alert: lists of publications in Articles for deletion

Some lists of books have been added to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. You can find the discussions here. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:06, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

beginning clean up - holding pen for items for which i cannot quickly find appropriate sourcing

Beginning a cleanup process where sourcing will be required for entries. Those for which I cannot easily find sourcing will be placed here. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:15, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

• I Want What I Want (1966) by Geoff Brown. Its not in the free preview abstract, but the search preview in google scholar looked like there was something that could be used. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/377680?uid=3739736&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103974954087

redirect

Actually, this list is just a poorly sourced fork of List of LGBT characters in modern written fiction, which is in a little bit better shape. redirecting to there until there are sufficient well sourced items to spin out a daughter article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:22, 18 May 2014 (UTC)