On Friday I’ll be giving a talk on trans characters in SF&F to a trans group in Manchester. It will be pretty much the same as the one I gave in Bristol, but I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Samuel Delany’s Triton and I’d like to know what other people made of it. Inevitably this post is spoilery, hence the fold.
It’s important to note that Triton was published in 1976, around the time that feminism was steeped in transphobia. The Female Man, published in 1975, pushes the standard RadFem line about trans women being created from men, by men, for men. Delany will have written in this atmosphere, but what did he think of it? Can Triton tell us?
At one point during the book Delany makes exactly this point. Brian the counselor says to Bron:
In one sense, though you are as real a woman as possible, in another sense you are a woman created by a man—specifically by the man you were.
But this is Bron we are talking about, possibly the most socially dysfunctional person in the solar system. If anyone was going to undergo gender realignment for all of the wrong reasons it would be Bron, and indeed that’s exactly what he did. Bron decided to become female because he was convinced that women had it easy, that men were poor, downtrodden creatures with no power or rights in society. Yeah, right.
Delany, because he’s a clever author, also provides a contrast in the character of Sam. This is significant in two ways. Firstly the standard RadFem narrative denies the very existence of trans men. Sam very clearly disproves that. Secondly Sam’s gender realignment appears to have been hugely successful. Not only is he a good looking guy with an action hero job, he’s also a sensitive family man.
So what Delany appears to be saying here is that gender realignment can work, if you are suited for it. It just doesn’t work if you choose to do it for the wrong reasons.
Now you might think that this would make him very keen on proper psychiatric testing. We don’t want to give the treatment to the wrong people, do we? But look what Bron gets told when he first presents at the gender clinic.
Ms. Helstrom, we are counselors here—not judges. We assume you have your reasons, that you have worked them out logically to your own satisfaction. I only have information, most of it biological: If this fits with your reasons, fine. If it makes you uncertain about them, by all means take as much time to reconsider as you need;
Here Delany’s character is explicitly rejecting the idea of judging suitability. It is Bron, who we know to be wrong in just about every way, who thinks people ought to be judged. In contrast the counselor accepts that most people know their own mind much better than anyone else can.
So despite the fact that Triton was written when feminist transphobia was at its height, Delany appears to be saying things that most modern trans activists would agree with.
At least, that’s my reading of it. What do you folks think?
Mostly what I think right now is that I wish I wasn’t at university this week… campaigning aside, it’d be brilliant to have the chance to hear you speak, if the talk is open to cis men… Ah well. Another time, I hope!
Sadly no. The Bristol talk was public, and consequently got very few trans people (though lots of others). This one is in a trans safe space, so I’m hoping for a lot more trans people in the audience, but it isn’t open to the public.
That… makes me happier to be at uni rather than home, since I wouldn’t be able to see you speak anyway. And pissed off that there is still the need to avoid the opportunity for abuse of the trans community, although unsurprised; it’s one of the last acceptable forms of discrimination, as far as I can see, and far too accepted… I hope the talk goes excellently!
I think I need to read that book.
Everyone needs to read Delany. 🙂
Amen to that!
Bron comes across to me as such an anti-hero from the get-go. He never seems to realize how much people can’t really stand him – even the people that befriend him or lust after him (Lawrence). Try re-reading the first section with the Spike with this in mind. It’s pretty hilarious…at least i think so. 🙂 That said, I think his sexual reassignment was doomed to fail ever since his (what I think) rather cavalier decision to undergo the physical and psychological procedure. To me, that’s a major part of this book: ‘Look how badly things can go wrong when you’re oblivious to yourself and your social environment.’
I never tire of Delany’s world-building in both physical and social senses. Triton is an excellent, concise example of Delany’s ability at what I think was the height of his power. Then again, I need to re-read Stars again; I could be off by a couple years. :p
Yeah. A lot of the point of Triton is to illustrate that even a utopian society will contain some people for whom it does not work, and who are deeply unhappy in it. I’d love to know what Bron would make of The Culture.