![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On being heteronormative
I sometimes feel like I need to carry a disclaimer with me in fandom. "Warning: this person is a heteronormative able-bodied white girl with no history of mental illness. Please excuse any faux-pas made through ignorance."
I mean. Ok. Being in fandom means I'm already more exposed to alternative lifestyles and modes of thought than 98% of The Sun readership. I enjoy reading about those alternatives. Spock as a girl. Esca as the dom. Cross-dressing Harry Potter. Blind Dean Winchester. Sociopath Jim Kirk. I like to think I'm open-minded, enough that even when something throws me for a loop, I don't immediately cringe or attack.
I deliberately avoid discussion, as I am distinctly unqualified to offer opinion, in the same way I cannot comment with any authority on gay quadraplegic or black woman or trans bipolar experience. Commentary on those experiences should come from those that are living them first, before anyone as privileged as me weighs in.
But. I have a plot bunny. Because a lot of genderswap is awesomely cracktastic and I love it. I just want something a little deeper. So I brainstormed (wait, is that term considered offensive by epileptics? Please advise). I've got an idea for a fic, a genderswap that isn't cracky. I just don't know if I can pull it off, because I am female in body and mind and happily so. What if I don't see a potential problem for the characters in my fic? What if I write it but someone is offended?
These are, of course, everyday considerations. I am mostly a pacifist, and deplore confrontation of any kind. I don't want to hurt anyone. But in the text-only world of the Internet, in a corner that attracts a lot of Other-identifying people as a safe haven, it becomes especially important to guard your words, explain your meaning, and hope that everyone is as open-minded as you try to be. Even to someone as 'normal' as me.
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.
no subject
On the topic of your fic, go ahead and write it. Yes, most genderswap fic is crack-tastic, but it can be really good. I wrote a Castle gender-swap fic that, somehow, in attempting to be cracky and a bit meta, became a real fic. If anyone has a problem, address it in later chapters or something.
Good luck! :)
no subject