Dave Langford pointed me at this post on the io9 website by Jess Nevins. It is about a book called The Anglo-American Alliance. A Serio-Comic Romance and Forecast of the Future by Gregory Casparian. It was published in 1906, and Jess thinks it is “the first lesbian science fiction novel”.
The book clearly depicts a love affair between two people raised and living as women. They are depicted as a classic (stereotype?) femme and butch pair. Given attitudes towards homosexuality at the time, the book can’t be faulted for saying that they take great pains to keep their affair secret.
At the end of the book, however, Margaret, the butch partner, makes contact with a “famous Hindu ‘Vivisectionist and Re-Incarnator’ Dr. Hyder Ben Raaba” who transforms her into a man. The couple then marry and live happily ever after. Jess notes:
An Anglo-American Alliance would have been better (and extraordinarily progressive) had Aurora and Margaret lived happily ever after as women, it must be admitted. Nonetheless, An Anglo-American Alliance is the first science fiction novel with a pair of lesbian lovers as heroines, one of whom becomes science fiction’s first transgender hero.
Well yes, technically anyone who undergoes a change of gender is indeed a trans person. Also, without having read the book, I can’t say whether Margaret comes across as more of a trans man than a lesbian. But if she does then the book isn’t about lesbians, and if she doesn’t then she isn’t really a trans person.
Yes, I know, I’m splitting hairs, but let me explain why this is important. Firstly, gender identity and sexuality are not the same thing. Trans people come in all shades of sexuality. Some are straight, some gay or lesbian, some bi, and some eschew sex altogether. There’s no correlation. However, one of the most pervasive and harmful myths about trans people is that they are homosexuals who can’t stand the shame and social ostracism that they suffer because of their sexuality, so they have themselves surgically altered to allow them to appear straight.
I’m sure someone can point to a few examples of such behavior, but it is by no means common in the trans community. It is, however, the main reason why trans people are despised by significant numbers of gays and lesbians. I don’t blame Casparian for making this assumption — he may well have never met a trans person, and he’s certainly by no means the only person to suffer this confusion. I am, however, a little disappointed that Jess and io9 should let the issue go unexamined.
Also, I really must re-read Triton. I’m fairly sure that Delany gets the idea that a gender swap is not a fix for being gay, though Bron is such a sourpuss at times that it is hard to see anything making him happy.
My apologies; I was unaware of the distinction.
That said…pre-change Margaret is definitely a lesbian. Post-change Margaret, now Spencer, only has eyes for Aurora.
So what should I call Spencer? I ask this honestly and from a position of self-admitted ignorance: if Spencer isn’t transgender, what is he? What’s the preferred term?
Hi Jess,
I think the best way to describe Spencer is as a misunderstanding. In 1906 no one had a clear understanding of gender, and people still tended to think in terms of a strict gender binary, so that you could throw a switch and turn someone male into someone female, or vice versa.
These days we know that the chemical processes that operate on embryos to create bodily organs, sexuality and gender identity are very complex, and while they line up for the majority of humans, there is a sizable minority for whom they are mixed up in all sorts of ways. Also upbringing and the social environment can have an effect. Medicine can take a stab at altering bodies, but it hopeless at altering minds, so it is easier to let people be who they are.
So the book is an interesting historical artifact in two ways, both as a first for mentioning such things, and as an illustration of the odd ideas people had back then.
Having been listening to a podcast on trans history by Juliet Jacques I think the right word might be “invert”. That was coined by the sexologist, Henry Havelock Ellis, in 1897 and very much reflects the view of homosexuality and gender identity that you describe from Casparian.