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myrdschaemThere is a reason I cannot let go from fiction and especially written fiction. The good ones? They set my blood on fire, they energize me, they make me want to live by burning. This is story is one of these. I'm probably what might qualify as "manic" in other circumstances, fresh from reading this an hour ago. I posted it everywhere else to talk and no one did, so I'm posting it here too. So others will read it.
Link before we dive in: clarkesworldmagazine.com/fall_01_20/
If you are unaware, the title comes from the one "joke" transphobes have, which is telling anyone that they "identify as an attack helicopter." It was boring and tired years ago. It got ignored because it is trite. But the best way to fight back? Treating the shitty hateful things seriously. And this is what this story does - take a single, bullshit line and turns it into solid gold. I am livid with how perfect this is.
A sort of plot overview, if you aren't convinced yet: The plot of the short story is Barb, narrator, together with their Gunner Axis on a mission to bomb a school. They succeed and on the way back get spotted by a fighter jet. There is some intense action on how to avoid that. Interspersed with that is Barb's ruminations on gender. The "attack helicopter" is, again, literal. In this future the army has weaponised gender by remapping those systems. If you identify with your military role, it is more instinctual to fill it and you react faster, better. I should take my time with this, but instead I will just give you a quote from the polished story to drive the point home:
Have you ever guarded anything so vigilantly as you protect yourself against the shame of gender-wrong?
The same force that keeps you from gender-wrong is the force that keeps me from fucking up.
My word, there are so many good lines in this, it is hard to choose. But that's the essence of the "how could anyone be an attack helicopter." The author handles it with style. On top of that, the attack helicopter is two humans, Barb and Axis. However, while on the mission, Barb notices Axis hesistating: They are experiencing gender dysphoria.
That's right. This author goes hard and jumps to the next logical conclusion right away: If the binary system of the current gender norm is thrown out for all these new possibilities, like enby, demi-woman and so on, are we done? And of course we aren't. There are new "liminal genders", as they are labeled here quite precisely that will come up. Eat your fucking heart out.
Before I go on a brief rant about the language - the LANGUAGE, dear reader, you have no idea! - I want to give a shout out to all the world building and idea lifting in the background I cannot focus on right now. Barb and Axis are in the American military - but this isn't todays, of course. In this future, the Climate Crisis is driving people away from the equator to find more temperate living. The US splintered under this. The "enemy" is on former territory here - it's Pear Mesa Budget Committee, a former credit union. In the Climate Crisis the AI that did stocks turned towards managing rations and so on for the humans living in the territory. That algorhythm is a black box and it's not clear why it makes which decisions. But, hold on to your seats, America is also governed by a black box AI! The actual "problem" is that the AIs can't be linked, Pear Mesa isn't programmed to surrender and so on. In this context, Axis has doubts. About their gender and about their mission of bombing a school. Anyway, hattip to the militarism and algorhythm critique thats unfairly sidelined because the Gender talk.
So, language. This story is fucking polished. Small sentences and word choices for maximum inpact. Dear me, I am inconsolable. I didn't check indepth, but a lot of the analogues and metaphers refer gender - man, woman, but also enby, Queens and others. A quick taste:
The reasons for war don’t matter much to us. We want to fight the way a woman wants to be gracious, the way a man wants to be firm. Our need is as vamp-fierce as the strutting queen and dryly subtle as the dapper lesbian and comfortable as the soft resilience of the demiwoman.
These similies are all over the text and it's SO SMART. Gender is subtly referenced through out, even in the action. One way to turn the attention of the radar away from them is a plasma shield - shortened in the military talk to Gown. So now we have our attack helicopter duo flying around with their Gown down, trailing behind them. These choices here always fit with both the military aspect and say something about the gender. And thats just one of many brilliant ones. It also shows how gender is just always there. There is no way to leave gender out of the equation in a situation - it always plays a role. Or, the role it plays it that it is empty, if you are agender.
All these more or less subtle references also help unravel the issue at core of the story: What is gender? We get told about other genders attributes through them. They make clear that gender is not body itself (though it is part of the system, of course!), it's a social role cluster. And of course you can break those even within a gender but. Are you willing to pay the price?
Barb talks about the time when they thought they were a woman and how that manifested: They wanted to be good at filling that societal role - essentially gender euphoria. But they also saw things that were mechanical, that fit way more with their current gender. In their narration, the idea of the gender "attack helicopter" gets fleshed out. It's being efficient, it's being stealthy, it's mission oriented in some ways. But unlike jets they are not sleek. They are messy in some ways. This is the core of this amazing story - from rolling your eyes at the transphobic barb misunderstanding gender you get convinced by Barb. They promise to prove it at the beginning and at the end, you are convinced.
In fact, this story is sleek and to the point it convinced myself, too. I don't really fit my assigned gender role, but since people can and do break those constantly, I wasn't sure if I was trans by that measure. I definitively don't have a strong affinity to another gender right now, I think. And multitudes can fit under the label of "female". Well, I still don't have a gender I know I fit in with, but this story? Just blew any doubt away that I was cis female. Boom, it's gone. I mean, I guess I could try and fit in with there, but that's what I have been doing. It's just a chore and doesn't feel natural to me. Hell, even if it was going well, like Barb fit more or less into "woman" before (and they did much better than I do right now), it's okay to want more. To want to find a better fit, even if one doesn't know which it is yet. I don't think I get dysphoric or I wouldn't have stayed here, but I do not get euphoria from this gender. This story drove the difference home better than anything before for me.
So, you know. Read it, maybe discuss it with me and if you are eligible, that thing is going to win a Hugo down the line. Have fun.
Edit: Prettyarbitrary mentioned some discussions more critical on it on twitter. I just saw one and I also agree with the points there? I have to investigate more deeply later. As I said above, I wrote it in a slightly manic way because I had to talk about it. People on twitter mention that they get inauthencity vibes from it and why they think it might be a trojan horse. I will evaluate tomorrow my time again, I think. People already had more time to go over it and I need to calm down. This might make me even more angry that it was this text if it comes from a shitty TERF. But this was still the one, I guess.
Link to a bunch of twitter conversations: twitter.com/MariaHaskins/status/1215755339485732864
Link before we dive in: clarkesworldmagazine.com/fall_01_20/
If you are unaware, the title comes from the one "joke" transphobes have, which is telling anyone that they "identify as an attack helicopter." It was boring and tired years ago. It got ignored because it is trite. But the best way to fight back? Treating the shitty hateful things seriously. And this is what this story does - take a single, bullshit line and turns it into solid gold. I am livid with how perfect this is.
A sort of plot overview, if you aren't convinced yet: The plot of the short story is Barb, narrator, together with their Gunner Axis on a mission to bomb a school. They succeed and on the way back get spotted by a fighter jet. There is some intense action on how to avoid that. Interspersed with that is Barb's ruminations on gender. The "attack helicopter" is, again, literal. In this future the army has weaponised gender by remapping those systems. If you identify with your military role, it is more instinctual to fill it and you react faster, better. I should take my time with this, but instead I will just give you a quote from the polished story to drive the point home:
Have you ever guarded anything so vigilantly as you protect yourself against the shame of gender-wrong?
The same force that keeps you from gender-wrong is the force that keeps me from fucking up.
My word, there are so many good lines in this, it is hard to choose. But that's the essence of the "how could anyone be an attack helicopter." The author handles it with style. On top of that, the attack helicopter is two humans, Barb and Axis. However, while on the mission, Barb notices Axis hesistating: They are experiencing gender dysphoria.
That's right. This author goes hard and jumps to the next logical conclusion right away: If the binary system of the current gender norm is thrown out for all these new possibilities, like enby, demi-woman and so on, are we done? And of course we aren't. There are new "liminal genders", as they are labeled here quite precisely that will come up. Eat your fucking heart out.
Before I go on a brief rant about the language - the LANGUAGE, dear reader, you have no idea! - I want to give a shout out to all the world building and idea lifting in the background I cannot focus on right now. Barb and Axis are in the American military - but this isn't todays, of course. In this future, the Climate Crisis is driving people away from the equator to find more temperate living. The US splintered under this. The "enemy" is on former territory here - it's Pear Mesa Budget Committee, a former credit union. In the Climate Crisis the AI that did stocks turned towards managing rations and so on for the humans living in the territory. That algorhythm is a black box and it's not clear why it makes which decisions. But, hold on to your seats, America is also governed by a black box AI! The actual "problem" is that the AIs can't be linked, Pear Mesa isn't programmed to surrender and so on. In this context, Axis has doubts. About their gender and about their mission of bombing a school. Anyway, hattip to the militarism and algorhythm critique thats unfairly sidelined because the Gender talk.
So, language. This story is fucking polished. Small sentences and word choices for maximum inpact. Dear me, I am inconsolable. I didn't check indepth, but a lot of the analogues and metaphers refer gender - man, woman, but also enby, Queens and others. A quick taste:
The reasons for war don’t matter much to us. We want to fight the way a woman wants to be gracious, the way a man wants to be firm. Our need is as vamp-fierce as the strutting queen and dryly subtle as the dapper lesbian and comfortable as the soft resilience of the demiwoman.
These similies are all over the text and it's SO SMART. Gender is subtly referenced through out, even in the action. One way to turn the attention of the radar away from them is a plasma shield - shortened in the military talk to Gown. So now we have our attack helicopter duo flying around with their Gown down, trailing behind them. These choices here always fit with both the military aspect and say something about the gender. And thats just one of many brilliant ones. It also shows how gender is just always there. There is no way to leave gender out of the equation in a situation - it always plays a role. Or, the role it plays it that it is empty, if you are agender.
All these more or less subtle references also help unravel the issue at core of the story: What is gender? We get told about other genders attributes through them. They make clear that gender is not body itself (though it is part of the system, of course!), it's a social role cluster. And of course you can break those even within a gender but. Are you willing to pay the price?
Barb talks about the time when they thought they were a woman and how that manifested: They wanted to be good at filling that societal role - essentially gender euphoria. But they also saw things that were mechanical, that fit way more with their current gender. In their narration, the idea of the gender "attack helicopter" gets fleshed out. It's being efficient, it's being stealthy, it's mission oriented in some ways. But unlike jets they are not sleek. They are messy in some ways. This is the core of this amazing story - from rolling your eyes at the transphobic barb misunderstanding gender you get convinced by Barb. They promise to prove it at the beginning and at the end, you are convinced.
In fact, this story is sleek and to the point it convinced myself, too. I don't really fit my assigned gender role, but since people can and do break those constantly, I wasn't sure if I was trans by that measure. I definitively don't have a strong affinity to another gender right now, I think. And multitudes can fit under the label of "female". Well, I still don't have a gender I know I fit in with, but this story? Just blew any doubt away that I was cis female. Boom, it's gone. I mean, I guess I could try and fit in with there, but that's what I have been doing. It's just a chore and doesn't feel natural to me. Hell, even if it was going well, like Barb fit more or less into "woman" before (and they did much better than I do right now), it's okay to want more. To want to find a better fit, even if one doesn't know which it is yet. I don't think I get dysphoric or I wouldn't have stayed here, but I do not get euphoria from this gender. This story drove the difference home better than anything before for me.
So, you know. Read it, maybe discuss it with me and if you are eligible, that thing is going to win a Hugo down the line. Have fun.
Edit: Prettyarbitrary mentioned some discussions more critical on it on twitter. I just saw one and I also agree with the points there? I have to investigate more deeply later. As I said above, I wrote it in a slightly manic way because I had to talk about it. People on twitter mention that they get inauthencity vibes from it and why they think it might be a trojan horse. I will evaluate tomorrow my time again, I think. People already had more time to go over it and I need to calm down. This might make me even more angry that it was this text if it comes from a shitty TERF. But this was still the one, I guess.
Link to a bunch of twitter conversations: twitter.com/MariaHaskins/status/1215755339485732864
no subject
Date: 2020-01-11 07:34 pm (UTC)Almost immediately the discourse around it began flying fast and furious and it's frankly easier for me to parse my thoughts about that. Mostly people are arguing whether it's a good story or not, whether it's a good representation of gender or not, whether it's an 'own voice' story or not. Which, mostly, makes me tired. I'm from a lit background myself; I'm more than familiar with the purpose and validity of literary analysis and critical response. But also this is exactly why non-cis folks don't write own voices stories. It's painful to lay yourself out there and then have people from your own community reject its authenticity.
But mainly I've been thinking about the immediate and blazingly powerful reaction I'm seeing to the story from readers and I ask, how can it be anything but a great story when so many people respond to it so ferociously? How can it not be worthwhile, 'own voice' or not, if so many people see their own struggles and questions and experiences in it?
I've never seen a scifi short story go this viral this fast.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-11 08:17 pm (UTC)I think I can see a fear of giving more ammo to transphobes from this, but on the other hand... They already do it on their own. I think the prediction of the story is accurate - when binary trans people become palatable to the mainstream, the next target will be non-binary. And so on. Going along with that ends in respectability politics, which I have no interest in.
Everything else is up in the air I think. From the reaction, I would put a fucking check behind good story, because thats what a good story does. It clarified things on gender for me and overall it is very tightly scripted and edited. There is never going to be a chance of being neutral to the right on this. I think the author was careful and it's written compellingly. It cuts the feet out of the usual bullshit arguments. Even with that, they are just going to lie about it anyway, but to the more open readers, it's a boon. E.g. self. No story is perfect, but this took all the necessary precautions it could.
I absolutely agree with the own voices thing. We don't know the gender of the author - either because they are totally new or because this is a new pen name. But if it resonates, what does it matter?
I also thrive from how involved with other issues this is. I think I tend towards own voice because it resonates and because they were willingly taking the risk of going with a clearly flawed protagonist. The war part alone is so indepth! But we just don't know.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-12 01:50 am (UTC)I also appreciated the transhumanist angle on expanded genders. Not the gender-hacking--that was just a narrative conceit--but the idea behind it, that as society begins to accept more gender fluidity, we will immediately find ourselves tangling with forces of capitalism and others that will attempt to co-opt it for their own purposes. And that however wide the borders expand, there will always be borders and there will always be people who stand astride those borders.
I was a bit disappointed (although not surprised) by the immediate discourse attempting to establish or invalidate the 'authenticity' of the story, because compared to what else is going on here, that seems sadly limited. There are people who respond very positively to this story (me included) and people who respond quite negatively, and I think talking about THAT and understanding what's leading to those respective responses is a much more productive and interesting path of conversation. I don't despair, though. Considering how this is going viral, I'm quite confident those conversations will be starting too, even if I don't happen to have seen them yet.