Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
At my first college job, I ran into my first transgender situation. It was weird. This is because at the time Transitioning or anything LGBTQA+ was all hush-hush. Since the job required secret clearances, the person transitioning sent out a public announcement to the company about the upcoming surgeries and hormone therapies. In the company, being gay or having an affair didn’t matter so much as wanting to hide being gay or an affair – because then Spies could use that to blackmail you and steal secrets. To maintain their job, the person let everyone know.
And that helped shaped my view of the community. There was nothing wrong with being who you are; be up front and open about it. In college I also ran across the concepts of living together without marriage (ever), gay and lesbian relationships, bi-sexual, and polygamy.
Later I learned about asexual as the internet let people know they weren’t alone with that rare variation of human sexuality.
In college, I also learned about hate and racism and gender crimes and all that horror. That shook my world far more than discovering my personal sexuality didn’t match other people. I just don’t get hating a person for who they are.
Well, I do. Being on the autism spectrum (and female), I’ve been the brunt of a lot of attacks varying from microagressions to firecrackers being thrown at me.
But you can’t change being on the spectrum. Learned behavior modifications control the majority of it – but I will never be “normal”. Why would I throw stones at anyone else for something they are born with?
At the end of the year (2019), I published the flash “Dumped“. The main character is the same as in “Lost Doorknobs” (2016). I’m not sure what the order of the two stories should be yet. I would like to continue this story line and eventually have the POV character start a romance instead of the present dumpster fire with the ex-.
The story is harder to write than most because I am endeavoring to have the POV character be genderless/not gender defined. I don’t know if they were born male or female, and in the end, it doesn’t matter because their genitals do not define them.
Have you ever written something with a character from the LGBTQA+ community, one that doesn’t match your sexuality?
WRITING EXERCISE: Write a flash from the LGBTQA+ community. Preferably asexual, transitioning, or genderless/gender queer. (Romance and Urban Fantasy has given most writers a fairly good handle on Lesbian, Gay, and Bi, as well as Poly relationships. But if you haven’t explored those variations in your writing, go for it.) The main character cannot match your personal sexuality.
Have them in a normal situation. Don’t have the flash centered around a hate act. Make them a person who is just dealing with something everyone deals with. For example, an ex- who is stalking them. Maybe making a dinner and a relationship bump when one member of the couple wants a child really bad (such as is in Special Night).
Did their sexuality change the story? What did you learn about yourself writing the story?