Transgender literature

Transgender literature is a collective term used to designate the literary production that addresses, has been written by or portrays people of diverse gender identity.[1] Representations in literature of people that transition their gender have existed for millennia, with the earliest instance probably being the book Metamorphoses, by the Roman poet Ovid.[2] In the twentieth century its notable the novel Orlando (1928), by Virginia Woolf, considered one of the first transgender novels in English and whose plot follows a bisexual poet that changes gender from male to female and lives for hundreds of years.[3]

Isis changing the sex of Iphis. Engraving by Bauer for a 1703 edition of Metamorphoses.

For decades, publications that covered transgender topics were mainly centered on memoirs, with a lengthy tradition that had its earliest example in Man into Woman (1933), by Lili Elbe, and that has lasted until the present times with autobiographical books like The Secrets of My Life (2017), by Caitlyn Jenner.[2] Other memoirs written by trans people that have amassed critical success are: Gender Outlaw (1994), by Kate Bornstein; Man Enough to be a Woman (1996), by Jayne County; Redefining Realness (2014), by Janet Mock; among others.[4]

Nonetheless, apart from Orlando, the twentieth century saw the appearance of other fiction works with transgender characters that saw commercial success. Among them is Myra Breckinridge (1968), a satirical novel written by Gore Vidal that follows a trans woman hellbent on world domination and bringing down patriarchy. The book sold more than two million copies after publication, but was panned by critics.[5]

The emergence of transgender literature as a distinct branch of LGBT literature took place in the 2010s, when the number of fiction works focused on the topic saw a pronounced growth and diversification, which was accompanied by a greater academic and general interest in the area and a process of differentiation with the rest of LGBT literature. This gave rise to a trend that saw more books being written by transgender authors whose main intended audience were transgender people.[6]

In 2020, Dutch-born Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, who has defined themself as a non-binary person, won the prestigious International Booker Prize with their novel The Discomfort of Evening.[7]

In Spanish

In Spanish-speaking countries, transvestism as a means of expressing diverse gender identities and criticizing conservative societies, which had traditionally penalized sexual diversity, reached its heyday in the second half of the twentieth century, thanks to the works of some of the best known Latin American writers of the time, like Severo Sarduy, José Donoso, Manuel Puig and Reinaldo Arenas. It is notable that gender-bending was, in the majority of cases, of men who transitioned to female, not of women transitioning to male.[8]

Among the best known works of this time are: Hell Has No Limits, a novel by José Donoso published in 1966 whose protagonist is Manuela, a trans woman who lives with her daughter in a deteriorated town called El Olivo;[9] Cobra (1972), by Cuban writer Severo Sarduy, that uses an experimental narration to tell the story of a transvestite who wants to transform her body;[4] and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976), a novel by Manuel Puig in which a young revolutionary called Valentín shares a cell with Molina, who is presented as a gay man but who during their conversations implies that his identity might be of a transgender woman, as its shown in the next passage:[10]

– Are all homosexuals like that?
– No, there are others that fall in love among themselves. Me and my friends are women. We don't like those little games, those are things homosexuals do. We are normal women that have sex with men.

In recent years, many books in Spanish with transgender protagonists have garnered commercial and critical success. In Argentina, one of the most famous examples is Las malas (2019), by Camila Sosa Villada, which won the prestigious Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize.[11] The novel, inspired by the youth of the author where she narrates the lives of a group of transgender prostitutes working in the city of Córdoba, became a critical and commercial sensation, with more than eight editions in Argentina alone and translations to many languages in the first year of publication.[12] From recent Ecuadorian literature, one example is Gabriel(a) (2019), by Raúl Vallejo Corral, a novel which won the Miguel Donoso Pareja Prize with the story of a transgender woman that falls in love with an executive and faces a discriminatory society in her attempt to become a journalist.[13]

See also

References
  1. Karlsberg, Michele (2018-06-21). "The Importance of Transgender Literature". San Francisco Bay Times. Archived from the original on 2018-06-21. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  2. Haldeman, Peter (2018-10-24). "The Coming of Age of Transgender Literature". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2018-10-24. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  3. Winterson, Jeanette (2018-09-03). "'Different sex. Same person': how Woolf's Orlando became a trans triumph". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2018-09-03. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  4. Jacques, Juliet (2015-10-21). "Top 10 transgender books". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2015-10-21. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  5. Athitakis, Mark (2018-02-23). "Saluting 'Myra Breckinridge' on its 50th anniversary". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2018-02-23. Retrieved 2020-09-23.
  6. Rollmann, Hans (2015-09-27). "How Do You Define the Genre of Trans Literature?". PopMatters. Archived from the original on 2020-09-21. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  7. Flood, Allison (2020-08-26). "Marieke Lucas Rijneveld wins International Booker for The Discomfort of Evening". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2020-08-26. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  8. Birkenmaier, Anke (2002). "Travestismo latinoamericano: Sor Juana y Sarduy". Ciberletras 7 (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2003-01-07. Retrieved 2020-09-23.
  9. Martínez Díaz, María (2011). "El transexual en El lugar sin límites: monstruosidad, norma y castigo" (PDF). Revista Humanidades (in Spanish). 1: 1–15. ISSN 2215-3934. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  10. Moralejo, Juan (2017-11-27). "El beso de la mujer araña: literatura, sexo y revolución en Puig". La Izquierda Diario (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2016-11-29. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  11. "La argentina Camila Sosa Villada obtuvo el Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz". Infobae (in Spanish). 2020-11-03. Archived from the original on 2020-11-02. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  12. Smink, Verónica (2020-09-04). "Es curioso que se peleen por quién recibe primero mi libro, cuando eternamente a las travestis nos han dicho que somos brutas, que no tenemos cultura". BBC (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  13. García, Alexander (2019-07-01). "Raúl Vallejo aborda la otredad en 'Gabriel(a)'". El Comercio (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2019-07-02. Retrieved 2020-01-05.
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