A literacy question regarding correct usage of pronouns...

McChubbin

Howdy, folks.
As per the charter rules regarding topics involving literature/blogs/ etc, I've PMed JoeyTheParrot for advice before starting this thread and have been told that it's fine to open up.
Anyhoo, I apologize if I'm going about things in the entirely wrong way here but I figured I'd get a much better, educated response in this forum than the Creative Writing forum which admittedly is a bit quiet.
Here's my question:
I'm currently in the process of writing a short novella.
One of the main protagonists is a transvestite/cross-dresser and is first introduced as being addressed by the name Olivia, dressed in women's clothing. (Birth name is Oliver) Anyways, I'm fretting over what pronouns to use- he or she, him or her?
At one point in the story, this character changes into masculine civilian clothing during an outing to avoid offending the close-minded locals and here is where the problem lies. I was refering to the character as her/she up until they changed their clothes and now I feel I've written myself into a corner.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm getting very confused about this and I don't want to offend anyone.
For context purposes, this character is part of a high end brothel that specialiszes in catering to certain kinks and fetishes across a broad spectrum, cross-dressing being one of them.
He is not gay- he just enjoys dressing in women's clothing and has ended up using it as a gainful means of employment.
All this aside, my female protagonist gets a shock when she sees him in ordinary 'manly' clothing for the first time as the contrast is so stark.
What should I do?
The story is very much in rough draft form and I'm still developing it but I am determined not to make this character out to be gimmicky or mawkish.
Can you help?

Thanks.

-McChubbin

Ash885

Does the character think of themselves as female when cross dressing? If not, it would be weird to refer to him as as a her. However if he adopts a character in the clothes, I'd say describe the character how he wants to be percieved. Maybe?

McChubbin

Ash885 wrote: »

Does the character think of themselves as female when cross dressing? If not, it would be weird to refer to him as as a her. However if he adopts a character in the clothes, I'd say describe the character how he wants to be percieved. Maybe?

That's what I was thinking.
When he's working, he's quite confident to the point of cockiness and adopts a whole other persona in the guise of "Olivia" but when he's out of character, he's actually quite a sweetheart.
Having re-examined my rough draft, I'm leaning more to addressing him as a he but it is still early days.

Ash885

It's an interesting concept. It would be a lot of fun to write the dual side of things, and show the contrast of maybe those two lives with the use of pronouns. Equally if he gets heavily invested in it, maybe then he starts to refer to himself differently?

I remember watching interviews where people do say address them in the guise they're portraying themselves in. If dressed as a woman, I'm a she, kind of thing. Ultimately though if you try writing both ways you'll see what one you're more comfortable with and that's usually the better one to go with.

McChubbin

That sounds good, Ash. I'm just concerned that I'll end up confusing the reader by jumping from she to he but I will continue to work on it. Thanks for the advice. It is much appreciated.

Ash885

Jesus I'm getting too invested in this now haha, better go write my own one now at this rate! Sounds like a smashing idea though best of luck with it. Other peeps have better ideas though so hopefully someone else can pitch in!

Chunners

OK watch "The Crying game", Dill in that is introduced as female but to keep her alive Fergus has to refer to her as male to hide her from the IRA, now Dill looks very female so to do that they had to have a scene where you seen Dill's penis and suddenly realise she is trans (trust me when the movie first came out I seen the premier and no one expected that) so what you do is at the start portray Olivia as 100% female then create a new scene where whether she is on her own or someone is with her (it could just as easily be if she is with a guy as if she is just with a female friend) and her penis that no one expected all of a sudden becomes part of the story but make that scene about her penis so that then it is obvious that she is moving from Olivia to Oliver so then when people in Oliver's life use male pronouns everyone knows they are talking to Olivia but those are the pronouns she has to accept while there.

If you are talking about her in the third person like "Olivia/Oliver picked up the hammer" say it like "and she weighed it in her hand" if you are talking about her from the perspective of another character say "I seen Oliver pick up the hammer and he weighed it in his hand", just remember you are writing a story and as such everyone won't be politically correct, if you make everyone politically correct no one will like it because it won't be believable.Remember no one in Olivers life knows about Olivia so you have to reflect that. If the object of that part of the story is to show that it is Oliver then you have to use nothing but male pronouns to show the difference in both parts of the person you are trying to portray

McChubbin

Okay, Chunners. I kind of see what you mean. I don't want to make a huge song and dance of having a big reveal in a "look, a penis! " kind of way but rather, just reveal it in a way that gets the point across without being too obvious.

Lyaiera

Are we really discussing, "Look a penis!" and confusing crossdressers with transsexual people in an LGBT forum?

Chunners

Lyaiera wrote: »

Are we really discussing, "Look a penis!" and confusing crossdressers with transsexual people in an LGBT forum?

Well look at it this way, if the main character in the story is a convincing Transvestite who is being referred to as "She", "Her" at the start of the story in a way that makes the reader assume that "she" is female then the only real way to tell them that is not the case is to have a "hey look a penis" (although maybe a little subtler than just outright saying it) moment in the story. No one is confusing Transsexuals and Crossdressers/Transvestites but the fact of the matter is there are a lot of convincing Transvestites out there so it is perfectly reasonable to assume that there could be one who could pass as female, adopt and live a female role to a point where the general public wouldn't know any better. It's just a story, personally I don't see what it is you have an issue with

Chunners

McChubbin wrote: »

Okay, Chunners. I kind of see what you mean. I don't want to make a huge song and dance of having a big reveal in a "look, a penis! " kind of way but rather, just reveal it in a way that gets the point across without being too obvious.

Then expand the scene where "she" is becoming/dressing as "He" and let her talk about how she hates it, instead of just changing the pronouns yourself let her do it where she is accepting that she has to now answer to male pronouns and being called he, give her a little "looking in the mirror and seeing Oliver and saying 'Now I have to remember I am he, he, he'" type moment. Trust me it's not something that every trans person hasn't had to go through at one point or another in their lives so if anything they would relate.

McChubbin

Thanks for the advice, Chunners. I think I've got a better grasp on the idea now.

Scruffy...The Janitor

I'm no expert on either how not to offend people or how to write an interesting story. But the way I see it:

I would always refer to a person as the gender they are presenting to the world. So to me, drag queens and crosssdressers, when dressed in womens clothes are 'She' and 'Her'. Out of costume it's 'He' and 'Him'. Obviously the same with transgender people but crossdressers and drag queens are slightly different because it changes.

Since you've been calling the character 'she' so far, I assume that when wearing womens clothes, he's playing the character or has the persona of a woman, rather than just being a man in a dress.

As soon as the 'costume' is off, 'she' is back to being 'he'. So if I was writing I'd maybe incude a scene where 'she' takes off the clothes, makeup, wig etc. and have it something like:

She slid her dress to the floor and stepped out of it, kicking it towards corner of the room. Moving in front of the mirror, she watched herself move her hands towards her head, grab a fistful of hair in each, and pull.
He paused for a few moments to look at himself, wig in hand, realising how jaded he was beginning to look these last few weeks.

Like I say I'm not writer. But that's along the lines of what i'd do anyway.

McChubbin

Scruffy...The Janitor wrote: »

I'm no expert on either how not to offend people or how to write an interesting story. But the way I see it:

I would always refer to a person as the gender they are presenting to the world. So to me, drag queens and crosssdressers, when dressed in womens clothes are 'She' and 'Her'. Out of costume it's 'He' and 'Him'. Obviously the same with transgender people but crossdressers and drag queens are slightly different because it changes.

Since you've been calling the character 'she' so far, I assume that when wearing womens clothes, he's playing the character or has the persona of a woman, rather than just being a man in a dress.

As soon as the 'costume' is off, 'she' is back to being 'he'. So if I was writing I'd maybe incude a scene where 'she' takes off the clothes, makeup, wig etc. and have it something like:

She slid her dress to the floor and stepped out of it, kicking it towards corner of the room. Moving in front of the mirror, she watched herself move her hands towards her head, grab a fistful of hair in each, and pull.
He paused for a few moments to look at himself, wig in hand, realising how jaded he was beginning to look these last few weeks.

Like I say I'm not writer. But that's along the lines of what i'd do anyway.

I like that! Simple, effective and not too confusing for the reader to follow.
Cheers for that!