Gender play in Shakespeare and fanfiction

[gement]

ALFRED: You’ll both go either way in the end. We all do.
- me, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Magic, Act II, Scene ii

I identify as genderqueer and pansexual. Trying to capture the sense of permutation available in sexual and gender expression, in the voice of a character who isn’t long on rhetoric or academic gender vocabulary, is an exercise in frustration, and I will have excluded people. Starting with myself.

Here is about 1000 words of me chewing on that problem if you’re into that sort of thing. Discussion welcome.

Here is a list of ways gender and sexual orientation have commonly been manipulated in Shakespeare and English language stage/screen:

• Elizabethan-era male actors playing women (“Skirt roles”)


• Restoration-era female actors playing men (“Trouser roles”)


• Skirt or trouser roles in which the character then cross-dressed as the actor’s gender
• -- frequently resulting in romantic complications for the (presumed) heterosexual characters, but always given a cis-het resolution


• Modern reinterpretations where pronouns and small details are changed to match the actor’s gender (e.g., the 2010 Tempest with Helen Mirren as Prospera)
• -- sometimes resulting in a same-gender romantic relationship


• Modern stagings where pronouns are not changed and no comment is made on it (effectively skirt and trouser roles again, but with different cultural assumptions)


• The original impetus for skirt roles was that women were not allowed to be actors. In modern stage and screen, it is similarly remarkable to see an openly trans actor in any role; canon trans characters in stories about trans lives are usually played by cis actors.

I have seen R&G Are Dead in two live productions. In one, R&G were played by women. In the other, the Player was played by a woman. The characters are rarely if ever referred to by pronouns in the play. Whether they intended the roles to be read as men, women, or ambiguous is an exercise for the reader. The presumption that the actors I read as women actually identify as women is also an exercise for the reader.

I’m pretty sure the Player meant for the character to be read as a woman. R&G? Completely up in the air. They wore modern men’s vests and had their hair pulled back, but weren’t hiding their chest shape or hair length. The roles don’t call for a lot of sexualized social behavior, unlike the Player, and their mannerisms seemed relatively neutral.

Anyway.

Here is a list of ways gender, genitals, sexual orientation, and social roles have commonly been manipulated in fanfiction:

GENDER IDENTITY AND GENITALS

• A (presumed) cis man re-envisioned as a (presumed) cis woman, or vice versa


• A cis character hit by a Body Swap plot and given unexpected genitals
• -- which may or may not lead to gender identity/presentation questions


• A cis character re-envisioned as a trans character of same/similar gender: a canon male character is written as a trans man.
• -- Usually a character history story.


• A cis character re-envisioned as a trans character of different gender: a canon male character is written as a trans woman or (rarely) non-binary/agender/another culturally defined gender.
• -- Usually a coming out story.


• A trans character re-envisioned as cis ahahahah oh wait we’d need some canon trans characters first ahem where was I
• -- Except we do have a few trans characters (Orange Is the New Black, Wandering Son, Gatchaman Crowds) and some fans do rewrite them as cis or minimize their trans-ness.

ORIENTATION AND RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS

• A (presumed) het character re-envisioned as identifying as gay/bisexual/queer/etc., or (rarely) asexual/aromantic/etc.
• -- or queer to het, which again, due to scarcity, is rare, but it happens


• A het character forming a same-gender romantic or sexual relationship
• -- and consciously changing identification to gay/bisexual/queer/etc.
• -- or identifying as het (“It’s not men. It’s just him.” — canon Ianto Jones)
• -- A canon queer character forming a man/woman relationship can be the vice versa here, or not, depending on the framing and their flavor of queerness


• Queering or straightening an existing romantic relationship by changing the gender of a character
• -- Changing a character’s genitals may or may not queer a relationship, depending on the perspectives of the characters and the audience.


• Queering the sex lives of characters through gender-based roleplay or clothing.


• Making a same-gender relationship more heteronormative by adding traits socially coded as contrasting-gender
• -- look I’ll be blunt, one of the guys gets a frilly apron and starts crying a lot
• -- and usually prefers submissive receptive sex
• -- and that’s the one that somehow gets pregnant without the aid of body swap
• -- See also “omegaverse” dynamics
• -- [To be very clear: there are many reasons people write this dynamic and Your Kink Is OK if you are one of them. Just please be aware that one of the effects is that it has a loud heteronormative echo.]

Here’s what I’m wrestling with. When I wrote this line and hadn’t found a scene or speaker for it yet:

"You’ve the prettier face, but you’ve the longer hair. Could go either way. Not that it matters. You’ll both go either way in the end. We all do."

My presumed primary context was that last point, the deliberate feminization and implied heteronormativity, in which the prettier of a pair of male characters will be consistently feminized in fanfiction. To “go either way” is classic slang for bisexuality, for both giving and receiving penetrative sex, and for BDSM switching, which is all fitting here.

The line is currently framed in a discussion of shifting gender identities, when they’ve been discussing Alfred’s simultaneous stories as a trans woman and a cis man. “You’ve done it yourselves … didn’t even notice” was meant as a reference to stage productions and fanworks where they’ve been played by/portrayed as women, without comment or surprise.

Unfortunately, these cis male iterations of R&G, who are not gender theory veterans, inevitably presume a risk of body swap and check for their own cis male genitals, even though the only example they’ve actually seen was Alfred as a trans girl.

Suddenly the framing is binary Rule 63 and I’ve lost the point about heteronormativity. It is all there. It is all what is happening, and all what Alfred is experiencing and trying to explain. I want the line to be about all of it, and I do not know how to get there.

I’m open to suggestions on how to improve the nuance in this scene, add more dimensions later in the work, or do better next time.

Comments

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

I have read all of these words and I have a crush on your brain.
Whether or not the thinky-thoughts I now have in my own brain ever coalesce into a useful thought, I thought I should let you know that you are being read and causing thinky-thoughts.

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

I have no suggestions to offer, but the fact that you think these kinds of things is why I want to be friends with you.

[gement.livejournal.com]

*beam* Your comment prompted a chemical reaction in my brain that I believe matched your intent of making me feel all glowy and grin like a fool. Thanks.

[gement.livejournal.com]

You as well! I will work in Downtown Seattle starting, um, Monday. We should get together and do a thing.

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

We should! Except I won't have time to breathe until the 10th of October. If I email you then, will you remember we consider each other mutually awesome and thus work with me to set up a time for lunch or dinner?