SF Crowsnest: For All Your Whiny, Cloud-Pissing Needs
Disclaimer: Uncanny has published several of my essays, including The Politics of Comfort, which seems relevant here…
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Earlier today, the Twitterverse linked me to a “review” by Eamonn Murphy of Uncanny Magazine #14. Sarah Gailey screencapped some of the highlights on Twitter. The full review is here.
(ETA: It looks like SF Crowsnest has pulled the review.)
Murphy begins his column with the following note:
Content Warning: This review contains sarcasm.
Oh, hell. He’s going to try to be clever, isn’t he. Please tell me Murphy isn’t one of those delicate man-flowers who think Content Warnings are coddling nonsense, while at the same time getting mortally offended that nobody warned him there might be non-male, non-straight, or non-white people in what he’s about to read.
He summarizes the first story thusly:
The first fiction is ‘Bodies Stacked Like Firewood’ by Sam J. Miller. When Cyd, a transgender person commits suicide, tragically unhappy due to our rotten society, some of his friends blame themselves. The narrator is a promiscuous gay ‘bottom’ who goes online looking for ‘fuck buddies’. That’s okay because he’s not a heterosexual man objectifying women’s bodies by only wanting them for sex.
My initial response:
This is why I put “review” in quotes, back at the start of this post. Because Murphy isn’t reviewing the stories. Of the 155 words he spends on “Bodies Stacked Like Firewood,” maybe a third of it attempts to share information from the story? I wouldn’t call it a summary, because Murphy doesn’t even try to summarize the story of Cyd’s visions, or of how his suicide brings two people together, or the themes of isolation and connection.
Instead, in this case, he seems to think he’s calling out some kind of hypocrisy, that it’s okay for a gay man to be promiscuous, but poor victimized straight men like him are vilified for treating women as sexual objects instead of as people. This despite the facts that:
- The story doesn’t really present a judgement on Kelvin’s promiscuity.
- Surprise! There’s a difference between “I have a lot of sex” and “I think women are things for me to use.”
Maybe Murphy doesn’t understand that distinction? But I get the sense that “Things Murphy Doesn’t Understand — and Doesn’t Want to Understand” would be an infinite Jeopardy category.
Muphy begins “reviewing” the next story by misspelling the author’s name:
Marc Rustad is ‘a queer non-binary writer’ (look it up, Stone Age Man!) and wrote ‘Monster Girls Don’t Cry’.
Side note: Merc Rustad also wrote “Exponentially Hoping” for Invisible 2.
After pointing out that Rustad is not a straight and traditional Manly Man like Eamonn-Manly-Pecs-Murphy-whose-nipples-squirt-uncut-testosterone, our reviewer goes on to say:
This was well-written and the message of tolerance for those who look different has hardly ever been touched on by ‘Star Trek’ and similar so-called fantasy productions in the oppressive mainstream media.
I get it! Murphy’s using sarcasm to say that Rustad’s story is unoriginal because Star Trek and other fantasy productions have had stories about tolerance! Pretty clever, bro.
I guess we can all stop seeing those Marvel movies, since there have been plenty of other productions about white dudes named Chris saving the world. I’d meant to go see Rogue One, but we’ve had other stories about plucky rebels fighting fascists, so why bother? Saying “this story is bad because other stories have addressed similar ideas” is about as weak a critique as you can get.
But who knows. Maybe it really is just a Trek ripoff? Here’s the opening paragraph from Rustad’s story:
Your sister has too–large hands and too many teeth. Not in a sense that her gums are crowded or her fingers are long and she might have a career as a concert pianist. No, her hands are massive, thick–boned, tipped in wickedly sharp claws that shine like pearls. And her mouth—well. Her mouth is normal–sized, but it has so many, many teeth. When she smiles, you feel queasy. All the teeth, sharp and white, fit inside her mouth around her pink tongue, but how they fit rubs wrong against your understanding of reason and reality. You don’t look at Phoebe’s mouth, even when she smiles bright and laughs. Of course you love her. You’re both monster girls.
My bad. Murphy’s right. Rustad’s story is absolutely identical to Star Trek. (Did I do the sarcasm right?)
Some of the stories haven’t yet appeared on the public side of the Uncanny website, so I haven’t been able to read them yet. But Murphy continues his insightful commentary with notes like:
Tansy Rayner Roberts gives us a tasteless romp about dating and heterosexual love. Not a word about the cheap objectification of oppressed womankind that everyone knows is the true nature of such things. I was frankly disgusted by this appalling mainstream trash that perpetuates the white male phallocentric world viewpoint.
and
This well-crafted meditation on gods, man and fraud was entertaining, I suppose, but didn’t address any of the crucial issues of white supremacy, homophobia, neo-Nazism and misogyny which are helpfully listed in this issues editorial.
Those comments were about “Some Cupids Kill With Arrows” by Tansy Rayner Roberts and “The Unknown God” by Ann Leckie.
Short version? Eamonn Murphy has come to kick bubblegum and chew ass, and he’s all out of– Wait, that’s not right. Let me try again.
Eamonn Murphy has come to whine about people writing and talking about things that don’t center him as a straight male, and offer insightful critique and commentary. And, apparently, he’s all out of insightful critique and commentary.
Not only does Mr. Murphy start frothing at the mouth when a story includes a queer or trans character or talks about tolerance, he keeps frothing even when he thinks the story isn’t about those things. We’re talking about a man set to permanent froth, a cross between malfunctioning espresso machine and a dog who ate too much toothpaste and shat all over your carpet.
This carries over to his comments on the nonfiction as well.
I thought ‘Inferior Beasts’ by Mark Oshiro was a story because the header had a severe Content Note for descriptions of child abuse and homophobia … It turned out to be a review of J.K. Rowling’s ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’, just the sort of garbage where you‘d expect to find child abuse. Turns out a kid gets beaten by his mother. My mother hit me sometimes and I was so upset by this that I couldn’t read further to find the homophobia but I’m sure it was there.
Murphy doesn’t expand about being hit by his mother, but whatever happened to him, apparently this means (if I’m translating the sarcasm correctly) that it’s no big deal for kids in movies to get beaten by their mothers. (Or groomed and used by an evil wizard. Or, you know, murdered.)
Because what better way to class up this review than by belittling and mocking the abuse of kids, amirite?
Murphy concludes by saying:
If you’re the kind of reader who thinks fantasy should feature admirable people struggling against great odds to save other people in some sort of metaphor for the real world, too bad. If you think Science Fiction should be about engineers or scientists solving the problems of environmental catastrophe, expanding population, terraforming Mars or other real social and political issues, too bad. If you think that Science Fiction magazines should have essays and articles about real life advances in science that can benefit all mankind, well…I pity you. I pity you.
Short version? You’re doing fantasy and science fiction Wrong, Uncanny Magazine!
Slightly longer version? You’re doing fantasy and science fiction Wrong, Hugo Award-winning and Parsec Award-winning and World Fantasy Award-nominated Uncanny Magazine!
I mean, come on! What would Nebula, World Fantasy, and Theodore Sturgeon Award-nominated and Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Sam Miller know about writing? Or Hugo-nominated fan and writer Mark Oshiro know about critiquing stories? Or World Fantasy Award-winner and Nebula, Crawford, Locus, Seiun, and Mythopoeic Award-nominated Theodora Goss? Or more-awards-than-I-can-list-here Tansy Rayner Roberts?
But of course, those awards don’t count, right? Because they don’t go exclusively to the kind of people and SF/F Murphy likes.
I was going to dismiss Murphy’s column as “Old Man Yells at Cloud.”
But it’s not just some guy yelling because parts of the genre have moved on from his childhood, and authors are writing stories about people who aren’t like him. Murphy isn’t just complaining. He’s gone full asshole. He’s the old man pissing defiantly up at the clouds, with predictable and inevitable results.
Murphy has every right to his opinion. All stories have messages and political context. If Murphy doesn’t like the politics or messages of these stories? If he finds them threatening or uncomfortable or simply alien? His loss. And SF Crowsnest has every right to publish Murphy’s opinion, no matter how odious I might find it.
Just like I have the right to call Murphy a whiny cloud-pissing man-baby who’s somehow so out of touch with the genre that he was Shocked and Appalled to find that Uncanny Magazine publishes good stories from a diverse range of authors. Seriously, how did he not know what he was getting into? It’s like he stomped into a Red Lobster and then posted a vicious, poorly-written Yelp rant because they had seafood there!
I don’t know why SF Crowsnest chose to publish that poorly-written Yelp rant. But hey, it’s their website. Maybe they’re building a Safe Place for cloud-pissers?
For everyone else, Uncanny Magazine has a bunch of fiction and nonfiction to read, with more coming next month.
Paul Weimer
January 4, 2017 @ 8:14 pm
I note that SF Crowsnest has the previous Uncanny magazine reviews that Murphy has done. It seems that, reading them he was building up to this shitfest for this issue.
Thomas M. Wagner
January 4, 2017 @ 8:17 pm
Poor poor Eamonn was so very triggered.
Tansy Rayner Roberts
January 4, 2017 @ 8:20 pm
Wow, that is quite a review. Obviously I am gutted that my tasteless romp failed to be feminist enough. Must try harder next time.
Jim C. Hines
January 4, 2017 @ 8:24 pm
Thomas – Wait, so he’s *been* reviewing Uncanny, clearly hates what they’re doing, and so therefore kept on reading and reviewing them?
Paul Weimer
January 4, 2017 @ 8:30 pm
@jim Yes, with each successive review disliking the magazine more and more.
Faolchu Donn
January 4, 2017 @ 8:32 pm
Okay. I was going to look for this issue out of general spite (and because male tears are delicious don’t you know) but Tansy’s absolutely lovely response here has basically guaranteed that I have to find her story to read.
Rene Sears
January 4, 2017 @ 8:41 pm
The part about Mark Oshiro’s review of Fantastic Beasts is even douchier because Mark related that part of the movie to some of his experiences growing up. (Not that the whole ‘review’ wasn’t superdouchey to begin with.)
JJ
January 4, 2017 @ 9:42 pm
Oh look.
http://archive.is/UsTVq
Pixel Scroll 1/4/17 Four Scrolls And Seven Pixels Ago | File 770
January 4, 2017 @ 11:23 pm
[…] C. Hines answered with what I’d call a fisk of Murphjy’s review (although Hines […]
Sally
January 5, 2017 @ 2:12 am
He hated it so much he reviewed 16 issues? Years’ worth? Forcing himself to read it, even though it terribly hurt his widdle fee-fees?
There’s a word for that, but I’m afraid to say it lest poor Eamonn get triggered again.
There, there, sweetie, you don’t have to read the nasty scary magazine with all the non-SWM again. It’s okay.
Annalee
January 5, 2017 @ 11:07 am
I gotta say, I’m disappointed in the comments referring to Murphy as “triggered.” Mocking people who live with triggers by implying that his willful ignorance is in the same league as their serious health problems isn’t cool.
Murphy is being an asshole. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the idea that there are people in the world who have the audacity to consider themselves normal even though they’re not like him. That reflects poorly on him, and it’s fair game to mock him for it. But using “triggered” to imply that people are weak and stupid is a thing that ableist bigots do.
Vee
January 5, 2017 @ 11:12 am
*applauds forever*
That guy is an ass and his “””review””” made me so angry, but your breakdown brought a smile back on my face, so thank you for that!
steve davidson
January 5, 2017 @ 11:29 am
no surprise here. it’s just part and parcel of the alt-right need to DESTROY anything they find offensive (because their hold on reality and their bubble-beliefs are as fragile as a soap bubble and can bear no offrontery).
Greg Hullender
January 5, 2017 @ 11:30 am
I would be nice if people would avoid using the word “queer” as much as possible. For people like me (I came out as a teenager in the South in the 1970s) it’s a trigger word and it literally hurts to read it. I know that things are better now, but part of the reason they’re better is that people like me stood up and took the heat–which is why we have a sort of PTSD over words like “queer.” Constantly throwing this at us is a poor way to repay us for our sacrifice.
It’s the only case I can think of where supposedly progressive people persist in using a term that everyone knows is hurtful to people. It would be nice to see it stop.
Jim C. Hines
January 5, 2017 @ 11:38 am
Greg – I’m not sure how to respond to that. I don’t want to minimize or ignore what you’re saying, and growing up in the 80s, I do remember that word being hurled around as an insult.
At the same time, it’s become such a common identifier for people like Merc. It seems to be a valuable and widely-used word, both as an umbrella term for LGBTQ, and for people who don’t fit into more traditional gender or sexual orientations.
I can try to be more aware of my own usage, but I’m not going to tell people not to use that word to describe themselves. And when you say everyone knows the term is hurtful…I don’t know that that’s true.
I’m obviously not the best qualified person to get into this, and I do hear what you’re saying about that word being hurtful. But I think people also have valid reasons for using it. I don’t know what the solution is here, if there is one…
steve davidson
January 5, 2017 @ 11:42 am
@Greg: it’s been my experience that the gay community “took that word back” from the bigots and that it had become a badge of honor (even had at least one TV show using it in the title).
Not that I’ve used it myself, but I do think there may be different responses to that word in different communities.
And your objections are noted and filed (as I do for anyone who expresses such as I try to never UNintentionally offend people).
Meredith
January 5, 2017 @ 12:27 pm
Speaking personally, as someone who isn’t homosexual but isn’t heterosexual either, I self-identify as queer because it fits me better than gay (because I’m not). A lot of us feel excluded or poorly described by other terms, but are happy under the queer umbrella. I don’t want to trigger anyone, but I also feel quite strongly that the word queer is vital and important for anyone QUILTBAG who isn’t L or G, and that preventing people from using it (when it has been in common reclaimed use since the 80s) would be excluding us all over again.
steve davidson
January 5, 2017 @ 1:09 pm
MGIU – My gender is unimportant to the discussion at hand (which also means that if you were wondering and/or were planning on introducing it as a factor in the discussion, YOU need to go self-examinw and STFU in the meantime)…
or something like that seems to be needed…
Jim C. Hines
January 5, 2017 @ 1:14 pm
Steve – I’m not sure what you’re responding to with that last comment to “MGIU”?
steve davidson
January 5, 2017 @ 1:18 pm
Sorry.
Most times when folks like Murphy inject gender issues into a post, they are only doing so because their audience responds to such bigotry – not because it has any relevance to whatever is being critiqued.
When that happens, I was suggesting that we need some kind of acronym that calls it out, one suggesting that whatever is written is a piece of bigotry, or misogyny, or homophobia …
Jim C. Hines
January 5, 2017 @ 1:26 pm
Thanks! I read it the first time as a response to someone in the comments. Got it now.
steve davidson
January 5, 2017 @ 2:01 pm
understood, thanks for asking for clarification!
Genevra Littlejohn
January 5, 2017 @ 2:36 pm
@Greg–queer is my preferred descriptor for myself, and I use it frequently across a lot of media. “Everyone” doesn’t know that the term is hurtful, because LGBT people my age and younger–I’m 34–tend to use it as a pretty broad umbrella, and are proud of it. It covers a lot, for me. It covers my sexuality and how that interacts with my ethnicity, it covers the general not-like-usness that has been my entire life. I find it genuinely comforting.
I’m honestly not sure how to come to a middle ground, though. It might just have to come down to the media you choose to expose yourself to (for instance, Tumblr would not probably be the place for you). And certainly you can ask friends and close acquaintances not to use it around you. Beyond that, though, I’m not sure what can be done.
steve davidson
January 5, 2017 @ 2:55 pm
This whole conversation prompts me to ask what the hell has happened to common civility?
I was basically taught that when meeting or interacting with someone new for the first time, the proper thing to do was to use formal address, and to not make any assumptions about this new individual until after you had:
A. been granted permission to be more familiar (based on whatever social convention applied), and
B. found out, from them, whether or not is was acceptable to use less formal forms.
I can’t interpret the unwillingness to do so as anything other than mean-spiritedness – the kind of boorish behavior that leads companies to tell their employees to offer a greeting related to a specific holiday (gee, Mr, Corporation, I guess you really don’t care about me as a customer) and others to get all hung up on things like “trigger warnings” (so I guess it’s NOT ok that others have experiences different from yours), not to mention the BS that passes for discussion online.
Maybe what we really need in our schools is a bit of deportment and etiquette….
Danny Sichel
January 5, 2017 @ 3:14 pm
best thing about this mess is that now i know Uncanny has a Leckie being released next month
*adds to calendar*
PaganReader
January 5, 2017 @ 11:15 pm
Thank you for writing this Mr. Hines. I hadn’t heard of Uncanny Magazine before, so I’m glad you mentioned it.
Jazzlet
January 6, 2017 @ 2:00 pm
PaganReader you have a lot of wonderful stories and articles to dive into, I rather envy you, Uncanny is probably my favourite on-line magazine.
As for Murphy this kind of ‘review’ is boring, trying to express clearly why you don’t like something takes skills which not everyone given the position of reviewer actually has. Good reviewers tell you what they don’t like and that is useful even if you disagree with them as you can guage whether you will like something just as well from a good negative review as from a good positive review.
Kathryn Allen
January 6, 2017 @ 3:35 pm
I will admit that I was also massively triggered by ‘Bodies Stacked Like Firewood’ – and puzzled by why any SFF zine would publish a story that so comprehensively crapped on the ideas underlying the Lexa Pledge. A story in which an LGBT character commits suicide before the opening and whose death turns out to be entirely to benefit the two main characters who are his friends and subsequently will be each other’s best friends (but better for each other than they were in their friendship with Syd). It is a story, I guess… For me, that the fantasy element is wibbly-wobbly and shoe-horned in entirely to provide an SFF mechanism by which Syd can *know* how his suicide will benefit his friends just added layers of discomfort to the trope. Please, someone, tell me what I’ve missed that makes this story not just a moodily written ‘the people you love will be better off if you kill yourself’, what part of it justifies the use of a trans character’s suicide in this way, why anyone would review this positively? I’d not have been happy with the story if the lead had been straight (one of the main characters could easily be trans) but at least it wouldn’t have had the awfulness of these authorial choices. I’m not big on saying ‘this should never have been published’, but I do wonder what I should make of Uncanny having done so, and yes, my initial response to reading it was defensive snark There is such a layering of hate in the story it takes a little to recover from it.
Jim C. Hines
January 6, 2017 @ 4:46 pm
The Lexa Pledge, for anyone (like me) who hadn’t been familiar with it.
Sally
January 6, 2017 @ 11:42 pm
Regarding “queer” — Greg here is the only person I’ve seen demand that no one use the word. His feelings are valid, of course, but so are those of the millions of queer people who’ve reclaimed it and use it proudly. Especially those like Meredith and Genevra (which is a lovely name, I think, but probably another thing that’s not-like-us). L,G,B,T aren’t appropriate for so many people, but “queer” is. Other people should not use the word while in Greg’s presence, but this is the internet — should all elebenty billion people and personae censor themselves on the off-chance that one guy might be reading? Of course not.
I live near San Francisco, and thus have many friends in Team QUILTBAG. I have other friends here on the intarwebs too. None of them has objected to “queer” and some of them insist on it. It’s really useful. One of my IRL pals used to be part of the famous “Dykes on Bikes”, and if that’s not reclamation, I don’t know what is. I’d never use the word without permission myself (being a Kinsey Zero), but she did.
Murphy, is, of course, Team Dirtbag.
@Annalee: point taken. Although a late-night dorm bull session could be had on where the line between proudly willful ignorance and actual mental health problems is — though in the asshole case, it’s a self-inflicted wound. Particularly in this case, when he hated it so much he forced himself to read 16 issues of it…
But I shan’t force him out of his tiny little world. He can go back and read all the 40’s and 50’s stories that held to his limited taste. And since assholry isn’t an actual mental health problem, I will feel fine about pointing and laughing just a little.
Allison
January 7, 2017 @ 8:42 am
I just read Merc’s story (Monster Girls Don’t Cry). Wow!!!
Personally, I didn’t read it as a story about tolerance. I read it as a story about the queer experience, where by “queer” I mean what a lot of people a lot younger than me mean it — an umbrella term for people who don’t fit into the accepted gender/orientation/neurotypical categories and are rejected and shunned and put down for it. I, too, filed my horns and covered up my vestigial wings, to the extent I could stand to. And kept my self distant from people, so they wouldn’t see what was left and harass and reject me. It’s only since I’ve been in my 60’s that I’ve started to feel that “so what if they kill me? I’m going to die, anyway” feeling and started letting my monster self out, bit by bit.
I guess Murphy couldn’t relate to that experience. Funny how privilege cuts the privileged off from huge areas of human experience.
I loved the ending. Zaria and Phoebe and the other monsters asserting their right to not be “cured,” that being who they are is not a sickness. And Zaria and Phoebe offereing them a place (like my support groups) where monsters can be with other monsters and feel safe, and even though they’re so different from one another, they share the acceptance of one another’s monsterhood. Maybe they’ll give me the courage to let my horns and wings grow out all the way.
Kathryn Allen
January 7, 2017 @ 4:31 pm
To quote my own Twitter reaction :
Oh yes, I forgot to comment on A Merc Rustad’s story Monster Girls Don’t Cry – umm yes, this has been done and done again 1/
It also demonstrates why having minorities represented by aliens or monsters can be a mistake – a stereotyping in itself 2/
In parts it actually gets utterly ridiculous (the rapey boyfriend stalker is actually a doctor trying to cut off girls – oh and boys – 3/
deformities’. There’s a fight with a syringe! It’s kind of demeaning to the issue it’s supposed to be about, and I will try to remember 4/
that this kind of story is what people objecting to minorities as aliens/monsters are thinking of (rather than taking it personally) 5/5
Sure, it’s a competently written ‘issues’ story – the kind where rather than thinking up new and interesting ways to say something you paint an all black world and have your character face down malicious evil, rather than their Mother or Aunt. (And this is not about being gay because after going out with two rapists she starts a relationship with a woman and that is not in any way treated as monster level dangerous – so monsters /= gay). It’s a world in which the MC feels isolated and alone and has conflicted feelings about her more monstrous sister (pretty much in line with the upbringing given by her monstrous monster mother whose creepy deformity is mouths in her hand… so every touch is a kiss… but this is not a story for exploring the experience of being a monster among monsters that far).
The MC’s story is one of failing to fit in with real girls, as demonstrated by not having a boyfriend who won’t rape her (although they don’t know she’s a monster so that’s not a monster experience it’s just a rapey world for everyone) so she turns gay (as rape victims do).
Finally she and the reader discover that rapist boyfriend number two is a medical student, who is forcibly (or persuasively?) removing monsters deformities (like his father before him) and our heroine makes the decision to be her monster self and escapes his hospital with her sister (who he abducted). She does this with a number of other monsters (and there are boy monsters – so I’m not sure this *is* about the intersexed) who then can all live happily ever after despite the world still being all black – because once you accept you’re a monster… you’re not afraid anymore? There’s no one else to come and arrest you for keeping your deformed and insane sister locked up all her life or question your sanctuary for dangerous monsters? Oh, okay. Yes, for sure, all you have to do is step out of your closet and be empowered by your own difference and you’ll live out a life-affirming happily ever after…
Any chance of reading a story about social issues that doesn’t fit so well with the mainstream – you’ll be happy if you just stop hating yourself – and – stand up to bullies and they vanish – and – this story makes me feel better about not taking time out to think about the issues involved (I am so down with monsters being monsters if they want). Shouldn’t we be beyond stories that just say – monsters should be able to exist and possibly a little careful of when and why we use non-humans to represent other kinds of human?
Allison
January 8, 2017 @ 7:01 am
It seems to me that Eamon Murphy’s “review” and Kathryn Allen’s comments about “Monster Girls Don’t Cry” are perfect illustrations of not only the need for diverse authors, but the difficulties they have in finding a space to present their perspective. Both people (I’m guessing they’re cis, BTW) not only couldn’t relate to the story, but felt the need to disparage and dismiss it, rather than simply say “not my cup of tea” and move on. Clearly _some_ people could relate to the story (e.g., the editors), or it wouldn’t have been published in _Uncanny_.
Kathryn Allen
January 8, 2017 @ 1:26 pm
Allison – have you noticed how cis is always a label applied to people negatively? It works out that way because it’s a label chosen for a group by others in order to create a false binary. There is no solid division between the extremes of ‘obsessed with love for the body I was born with’ and ‘will undergo surgery to be another gender’ and one is created only so a line can be drawn between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Admittedly this is only the opinion of a person who you feel compelled to label – but I never see any good coming from instances where people label other people. I feel absolutely no need to tell a stranger on the internet when, how, and what bits of my gender I am or am not okay with – or when, how, and what bits of their gender *I* feel *they* are or are not okay with – unless that is the object of the discussion.
Here’s the problem with clinging to the notion of diverse authors bringing a different perspective – if they’re only allowed into zines with stories that could have been written by white, straight, men in the 60s (for Star Trek) or basically at any time in the straight white male-dominated editing history of science fiction – whatever the diversity of the writer the story has been selected because it’s unthreatening and fits well with mainstream sensibilities. What you have is the kind of story negative reinforcement (continual rejection and diversity destroying editorial comment) has told diverse writers to produce if they want to see their story published. When you see a lot of stories like this in a publication it’s an indication that the editors are trying to present the appearance of diversity without actually taking the risk of including diverse perspectives.
Think this story needs to be defended for it’s uniquely diverse perspective? – have you seen Grimm? Or Vampire Diaries? Or Dark Angel? Or…. This is not a diverse perspective, it’s a mainstream perspective on the *topic* of diversity.
On reflection however, you’re right that I didn’t relate to it – partly perhaps because I’m not a monster, I don’t have magical horns or wings, and I didn’t just decide suddenly to be okay with who I am – but mostly because it’s neither well thought-out, well written, or originally plotted enough to draw me in.
Diverse perspective stories, BTW, are not necessarily *about* being diverse, they can simply have world-building/characters/plots that don’t entirely fit or follow with mainstream expectations. People from diverse backgrounds tend to produce these because they sometimes see a different side of, or have different ambitions for, life, humanity, etc and SFF editors should be giving more room to these stories because they might provide a spark of difference in a genre smothered by the continual reiterations of mainstream expectation. Let’s face it, even reversing the tropes (damsel in distress saves hero) has been done so much now that it is itself a trope, however much desperate ‘gosh that’s new’ spin gets spun.
That you don’t recognise how tired “Monster Girls Don’t Cry” is, or that it has problematic features (the clumsy use of monsters for the ‘other’), is probably because you’re really comfortable in the cultural monoculture SFF has become. That you dismiss someone trying to identify the problems with this story as you did… well I’ll leave you to reflect on what it means when a person arguing for new and different is a voice you’d prefer not to speak up but would have move on in silence.
Jim C. Hines
January 8, 2017 @ 1:43 pm
Kathryn,
“have you noticed how cis is always a label applied to people negatively?”
Like pretty much any label or descriptor, it can be applied negatively. It can also be applied descriptively with people reacting negatively. But it’s simply, factually wrong to say that it’s always applied negatively.
If you have problems with Allison’s assumption that you’re cis, that’s one thing. But let’s stay away from the false absolutes, please.
Kathryn Allen
January 8, 2017 @ 4:49 pm
Ooops, writing is hard when you know people are judging you and not the content of your character.
Yes, I have problems with Allison’s labelling me; and with a label that was not chosen by the group it represents; and a label which one is not allowed to object to without attracting censure (if you object to the label cis you’re just being cis about it). Allison uses ‘cis’ as way of dismissing out-of-hand the opinions and right to equal consideration of a group she has decided to be less deserving of both – and puts me into that group… because she can do so without fear of being corrected by anyone she respects.
I *can* say that I have personally never seen cis deployed in a comments section except when it was intended to apply negative stereotypical behaviours to those being labelled, but I’m happy to have people mentally change the ‘always’ to ‘most often’ or even ‘often’ if the false absolute is jarring.
There are, by the way, so many instances in which your defence of cis could be used to defend other pejoratives. SJW springs to mind as a not too contentious example.
You know, I could kind of wish that people were more jarred by a story that reads as anti-transition getting so much ‘diverse writer’ support… but I guess from some bubbles that is diverse. Maybe the greatest support is from people who haven’t read it?
Meredith
January 8, 2017 @ 5:23 pm
I have seen people object to the use of the word queer before, but usually they’re the same people who think that the QUILTBAG community would be so much nicer without all those pesky letters and identities and messy people to deal with, and cutting people off from the umbrella word “queer” is just one more way to try and shave it down to just the most respectable ones (“L” and “G”, and they’re not too keen on all of them, either). I have no reason to believe Greg has anything in common with those people, and I assume there are other people who also simply find the word hurtful. But, selfishly, I’m too concerned about those of us who find comfort and a community in the word and what it stands for and means to us, and so I won’t be walking back from using it. There aren’t any good alternatives.
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As far as I can tell, “cis” is usually used to mean “not trans”, which in turn can (but doesn’t always) mean “not familiar with what it means to be trans”. I suppose if you really think that’s an insult, you can continue doing so, but I can’t say I see where the insult is. Plenty of people happily use it to refer to themselves, so I’m not sure there’s a strong argument that it has been applied only from without.
If you want cis and trans (and neutrois/genderqueer/etc) to explain the whole of every individual’s own approach to their gender identity, then I think you’re probably asking too much of the words. They’re broad categories, they’re not meant to be detailed specifics.
Allison
January 8, 2017 @ 7:08 pm
I’m involved with several trans communities, have attended trans conferences, and have participated and lurked in many discussions, and I have never heard “cis” used as a pejorative. It is simply a word that exactly means “not trans.” That some trans people may express anger with how many cis people treat them doesn’t make the word itself a pejorative. And, yes, some people object to having non-cis people label them “cis,” but from what I’ve seen, that seems to be about feeling that as part of the privileged group, it is their prerogative to label the less privileged people, not for those others to label them.
But if you don’t like the word “cis”, simply substitute “not trans” in my previous post.
I was simply voicing my hypothesis that part of the reason Mr. Murphy and Ms. Allen don’t relate to the story is that they don’t have the experiences that many of us trans people have. For me, “monster” isn’t some kind of analogy or allegory, it’s how I have spent most of my life feeling on the inside, and I’ve personally experienced the people with power over me trying to change my essential nature to fit their preconceptions of “healthy” and “normal.”
I don’t mind that they don’t understand my experience — I mean, I don’t really understand what it feels like to be — ah — “not trans,” either. What I mind is their need to dictate to us how we are allowed to express our own experience, or what stories we are allowed to identify with.
BTW, with reference to SJW — most of the people I know of who get called SJW don’t feel insulted by the term, even though it’s mostly used by people trying to insult them. I would be proud to be labeled an SJW, if I could believe I were worthy of it. (Too much of a wimp and a coward.)
Kathryn Allen
January 8, 2017 @ 9:04 pm
Given your experience, I’d ask if it doesn’t give you pause that the antagonist is a doctor who wants to permanently remove the parts of the MC she spends her life hiding – but that instead the MC rejects physical change, and masquerade, but reconciles herself to living as she was born?
For me this story perfectly illustrates the problem with using monsters – who’re established as being visibly different and damaged by surgery – to represent trans people – who’re… (sorry finding entirely unexceptionable words is hard) wanting to make a visible change to their birth identity not suddenly realise that they’re happy with how they were born.
Isn’t it time that stories should include trans people who’re not either suicidally unhappy or represented as monsters? Just people, trying to find happiness or save the world, or get published, or whatever? Doing what SFF characters normally do. I don’t mean to dictate what you write or enjoy – how could I do that? – but I don’t see how my wanting the representation of trans people to be more than as corpses and monsters, of wanting stories featuring trans characters to be better written, is an attempt to do that.
Yes, maybe this level of story is all there’s ever been – I’m not saying they should be erased from the genre, just that it’s time to stop acting like these kinds of stories are precious gems and the limit of what people should expect and see them as stepping stones we should already have moved on from. Moved to, well, maybe actually having stories about trans people, not their friends, or monsters.
HelenS
January 8, 2017 @ 11:35 pm
Re the supposedly pejorative nature of “cis” (honestly, is cisalpine Gaul somehow supposed to be inferior to transalpine Gaul? a cis isomer to a trans isomer?): exactly the same objections were once made to the word “heterosexual,” which nonetheless soon became widely accepted as a neutral term.
Now, it is true that cis/trans and hetero-/homosexual can be considered overly binary and simplistic terms, but that’s a problem with the whole formation, not with cis alone or heterosexual alone.
KatG
January 9, 2017 @ 1:48 am
When I grew up, you did not ever, if you believed in equal rights and respect for gay people, use the word queer to describe them or to them. They might use it between themselves as reclaimed slang but you didn’t use queer, or dyke, etc. They were insults — words thrust upon them by straight folk and used to make gay people feel ostracized, threatened and abnormal.
But go forward three decades and young people want you to use the word to describe them or their friends in the LGBTQ community. Most of them use it. It is an identifier, and it has become the official, organizational word that covers a multitude of identities, describing a culture, communities, and a group of varied people with varied circumstances that have nonetheless often tried to work together for their rights despite often being under siege. They didn’t just reclaim the word, they transformed it. So I totally understand someone from an earlier era being troubled by the word and its use, because the cultural context was very different and much more violent. And there are still active bigots who use the word that way today. I was quite uncomfortable using it, but I was asked to use it by people who see it, proudly, as part of their identity, who have given it a different definition which they own. And so while I don’t use that word versus other applicable ones as often, I do use it with them sometimes because I’m not in charge of their identities. So if someone is upset about the word, I think they can ask people to be sensitive to their particular, understandable issue with it and try not to use it around them. But culturally, it’s going to be widely used with its totally different meaning, and maybe in time more people can be comfortable with that, despite painful memories.
As for cis, it’s never been a pejorative. It simply means someone whose gender assigned at birth matches their inner chosen gender, as opposed to someone who is trans or non-binary in gender and had to deal with those things not matching. I am white, I am straight, I am cis, my chosen and assigned gender is woman, etc. None of that is an insult anymore than me saying I have brown hair.
But as a cis person, I am given power in the society, I am the majority and the default idea of a person, and that majority collectively — and legislatively — gets to set the terms by which non-cis people get to live in the society, including how they get to talk about themselves and how much non-cis people are allowed to tell cis people that their understanding of non-cis people is faulty or unwelcome at the moment. And unfortunately the terms by which a cis dominated society makes non-cis people live are discriminatory and repressive, and not really willing to listen to and understand, to the extent that they can, the issues that non-cis people are dealing with. And as usual, people in the group that is privileged in the society, when those societal systems and the harm they enact are discussed and the inequalities challenged, tend to decide that rather than accept that this is a societal issue about changing systems and cultural thought patterns, it’s a judgement about them personally that must be refuted. And they also get upset about the idea that their input on the subject, coming from the dominant group, might not be as or even more welcomed as that from those in the non-dominant group. People used to being dominant don’t like being “dismissed” — i.e. by those on the down axis pointing out that their being on the up axis produces biases and assumptions that makes their understanding limited or not particularly useful, by the non-dominant person being more able in the society, thanks to change, to risk saying that to someone in the dominant group, a step towards equality.
I don’t know what the deal is with this particular story as I have not read it. But I do know that getting up on a high horse about what people in one of the most repressed groups in society can call you and insisting that they listen to you about their own lives and representation is not productive. It’s just more dominance and a refusal to understand that the terms of the conversation aren’t equal — they are weighted in the world to the dominant side. It is literally an insistence that people in the repressed group not defy you or challenge you or talk in certain ways because they are in the repressed group — that they must continue to let the dominant group set the terms and lecture to them as they like without complaint.
White people do this to non-white people, straight people to gay people, cis people to non-cis people, men to women, the abled to the disabled, etc. The dominant group insists on setting the terms because they are used to setting the terms, are used to being the ones talking. And if the down axis folk won’t toe the line, they get yelled at and told they are being too negative — and should watch what they say because the dominant folk get to decide what is negative and what is not. Non-cis people had better be nice and respectful to cis people — while cis people lecture them and worse.
So yes, non-cis people may talk about cis people negatively in the sense of those people negatively trying to control non-cis lives and speech. Non-cis people will find cis people’s views not particularly insightful about their lives and circumstances and try to point out unequal attitudes. It’s got nothing to do with the word. It has to do with the social power structure we’re forcing them to live under. Dismantling that structure means not insisting that it stay in place, that the non-cis be respectful to their dominators about oppression, and that they always listen and accept our views.
Me, I can live with non-cis people talking negatively about me because they have every reason to do so when they are trying to stay alive. And while I might think something is more problematic for them than they do, if we’re supporting real equality, then I am not in charge of how they, individually and collectively, react to it and chose to act. They do not need my input about their lives. But I might learn a lot, including improving my own behavior, if I listen to theirs about the unequal society they are stuck in.
Kathryn Allen
January 9, 2017 @ 2:00 am
LOL faggots are a food, or a bundle of twigs, and faggoting is an embroidery stitch – I’m glad that if I call a gay person a faggot they shouldn’t be upset because, hey, tasty bits of offal aren’t offended.
Cisalpine Gaul, incidentally, was the name given to a region of what is now Italy by the Romans – not by either the Gauls or the other people living there – the Romans, being Romans, conquered it, settled it, and eventually it became part of Italia. So yes, I suspect the Romans who used the name did think the area they were referring to was inferior. The Romans were not, in any case, given to considering other cultures their equals.
And um, aren’t cis isomers often less stable than trans isomers?
So, anyway, if instead of discussing issues round the stories and Uncanny’s editorial choices, people prefer to create justifications for why someone should get to guess that people whose opinions they disapprove of are cis and why people thus labelled shouldn’t be offended because it’s also a term in chemistry… Well I guess SFF does need a lot more stories about basic tolerance
Jim C. Hines
January 9, 2017 @ 9:59 am
Kathryn,
I’m sure you believe you’re just making a point and responding to Helen’s argument. I’m sure you see nothing wrong in pretending those words are in any way equivalent. I imagine you’d claim you weren’t *deliberately* trying to dismiss and belittle the decades of hatred and violence associated with the word you chose to try to make your point.
It doesn’t matter. You’ve crossed a line here. I’m not particularly interested in your reasons, rationalizations, or excuses. You’ve been added to the moderation queue, and further comments will be fed to the goblins.
Not because you’re cis. But because I have no interest in the kind of ugliness you’re bringing to the conversation.
Kathryn Allen
January 9, 2017 @ 2:30 pm
[The goblins have snacked on this comment. They were disappointed that it was the typical flavorless fare of complaints about “hypocritical bullies” and explaining why that prior comment was totally fine and I’m just a big meanie. But they’re goblins, so their palates aren’t all that refined anyway. -Jim]
HelenS
January 9, 2017 @ 11:23 pm
Transalpine Gaul was also a Roman province, for pete’s sake. The only difference the names denote is “this side of the Alps” and “that side of the Alps.” Pretty much like “Near East” and “Far East,” which of course are Eurocentric terms, but which don’t have any insult built into the words “near” or “far.” (That is, obviously they’re not names the people in those locations would themselves use, but there is no way to tell from the names whether Europeans thought Near East people or Far East people were ickier.)
Meredith
January 10, 2017 @ 9:05 am
You know, not all trans people think that their bodies are a problem, some of them think the assumptions people make based on their bodies are a problem. Wouldn’t that be a really close match to the story? To reject changing the body just because people assume things or judge you because of it? To want acceptance on your terms?
PS. I’m sort of confused about where the argument about chemicals came from. I don’t see how it follows from what came before it, but it’s clearly written as a response.
Jim C. Hines
January 10, 2017 @ 1:47 pm
Meredith – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cis%E2%80%93trans_isomerism for the chemistry piece.