rpanons | Found the token ace

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I'm having trouble deciding how to proceed with an OC of mine in terms of apping him somewhere and I'd like some advice.

The OC in question is trans. This is something that would be obvious to anyone reading his app but it's unlikely to come up ICly unless someone knows him well. He's passing, pretty private about his past, and comes from a setting (far future sci-fi) where the transitioning process is quite refined and about as smooth as any major medical procedure could be. Being trans is a big part of who he is and it's a lot of impact on his life but it's also mostly part of his background rather than something that still has a regular impact on his daily life.

In essence, I'm trying to figure out if it's acceptable to play a character that happens to be trans without making it an ongoing focus of his character, or if that would just come across as including uncommon character traits for brownie points.

i think it's a much better idea to do it this way than making it a big focus of his character. the only thing that gives me pause is the futuristic medicine aspect. does he not have any of the issues that current-time trans people have? what does and doesn't he have to deal with that a trans man in 2016 has to? i'd want a lot more answers to these questions, because if he really doesn't have any of the problems i'm talking about then yeah, it really does come across as just for brownie points.

It's not so much that the transitioning process doesn't have the same issues as it is that the technical aspects of it have all improved. So for example, he had to get a mastectomy but post surgical treatments for scars have improved enough that his are very minimal. He still had to go through HRT and struggled with the side effects but there was a much better support structure for him to rely on.

The physical, emotional, or societal issues aren't gone, but the physical process was easier to deal with and left behind less evidence, so to speak - which in turn had made the emotional and societal issues easier for him to deal with, if that makes sense?

hmmm. so, what i'm getting is that it's basically how transitioning now ideally should work, with no hella major changes? (a hella major change to me would be, like, fertility in the transitioned sex or no scars at all or non-surgical methods)

that sounds fine to me! i was mostly worried about it being basically consequence-free. i'd definitely be willing to play with this character

Pretty much! The biggest trans-specific change is that phalloplasty is much more advanced, but I figured that would be fine because A) it's even more unlikely to ever come up and B) I wasn't considering anything that isn't thought of as being possible within the next 20-30 years anyway.

Thank you so much for you feedback! I feel a lot more comfortable going ahead with an app, now.

I would have zero problem with this. As long as he's a well rounded character, I don't think including a trans backstory that he's private about ICly is going to come off as looking for oppression points.

Actually, I prefer something like that not to be an ongoing focus of the character. It's OK if it is a big focus of the character, if it makes sense for their setting or backstory, but I kind of like seeing stories about, for instance, trans people that are about them being people, not about them being trans.

(I will say that I don't have concerns about the 'futuristic medicine' example, so long as the setting is something that matters in plenty of different aspects of the character's backstory. The only thing I'd be concerned about is if the "far future sci-fi" only comes up as a reason for not having to deal with ongoing aspects of transitioning.)

I understand your concerns about the last point! Like I told the anon above, it's not that the issues are gone but that they're easier for him to cope with. I brought up the futuristic medicine thing to underscore the fact that it's easy for him to pass and really unlikely that him being trans will come up unless he specifically wants it to. It's still an important part of him, but at the same time it's become a very normalized and routine part of his life.

Found the token ace

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