Femgenficathon Changes...and a Question

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

In a few weeks--April 2, 2010, to be precise--it'll be time for Femgen yet again. (Femgenficathon VI. Six years. That's a long time on the Internet.)

A couple of things are changing this year.

1) I think that six months is just too long a deadline. People forget about what's due, forget that they signed up, lose inspiration and enthusiasm, etc. So I've cut the posting dates. The first date that you can post will be July 15; the last date will be July 31. That still gives people three months to write, and a month to two months if you have to worry about things like term papers and finals.

2) Second, I've thought a lot about this for a long time, and I've decided to alter one of the definitions in the ficathon. For the purposes of the ficathon, I've decided to define women as canonically female characters (cis or trans). (Bree from Transamerica, Wanda from Sandman, and so on.)

Disguises, canonical or otherwise, do not count. If the character is, for example, a cop or private detective dressing up as a woman as part of an undercover operation--no. If a boy who, in canon, has to dress up as a girl to attend a certain school because that's what his grandfather wanted--no.

Curses, spells, one-time bodyswap, alien intervention, etc., that involuntarily transform a male character IN CANON into a female form do not count for Femgen unless the character subsequently chooses to embrace this female identity for the duration of canon. If the character is still striving to break the curse and/or turn back into a male--like Ranma, for example--this character is ineligible for Femgen.

If the character alternates IN CANON between representing as a male and representing as a female, this character is not eligible.

Genderswapping male characters into female ones so that you can write about them in this ficathon is absolutely not allowed. Don't bother asking. The answer is NO.

If you have any questions about the character you're interested in that you don't don't feel were covered by the above, please e-mail me and we can talk about it.

Finally--and this is not a change, given that I've been posting quotations from women as prompts for the past five years--I'm hoping that some of you can suggest names of women of color whom I could quote. I'm particularly interested in finding quotable Hispanic or Latina women, quotable Native American women, quotable Asian and Pacific Islander women, and quotable Middle Eastern and African women. I'm looking for people from all times and all areas of the world. I tried to do this last year, but this year, if possible, I'd like to have a richer variety. So I'm asking for suggestions, because it's quite likely that some of you know names that I don't.

***

Crossposted to gehayi

Comments

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

has there been problems in the past with people picking characters who aren't women to write about?

There have been a LOT of problems with it. Over the years, I've gotten repeated pleas--all denied--to allow the following:

* a canonically male character who, by some means, has been turned into a woman against his will for the author's story
* a canonically male character acquiring forced empathy with the women in his circle/world/universe in the author's story
* an AU in which a canonically male character was born female in his universe
* a canonically male character who has never shown any canonical desire to be female and who has never represented as female wanting to be female in the author's story
* a canonically male character being a guy and mulling over the problems that women have being women
* a canonically male character remaining male and going from extreme chauvinism to enlightenment in his dealings with women

Last year was the first year that no one asked if they could write about a male character in various guises. And this being the first year that I'm allowing anything beyond canonical cis-women and cis-girls, I'm worried that someone is going to misread the purview and write about Samantha Winchester (who was always female) or Draceana Malfoy, drag queen and pre-op transsexual.

Hence the insane specificity about what's allowed and what isn't, and the stress on "in canon" in every sentence about this.

The repeated requests didn't create the change, though. It was just that last year I became aware of various ficathons that were doing the same sort of thing that Femgen does...only they were all allowing the participants to write about canonical transwomen and men representing as women in canon. I felt that Femgen needed to catch up.

I don't see a way of stating this that isn't problematic. However, there are two reasons why I'm not using politically correct language. First, I'm very concerned with making it ultra-clear what is and what isn't allowed. Because I founded this so that people would write about the female characters as something other than wives and mothers, love interests and sex interests. I don't want that to be lost.

Second--and I think this is a generation gap issue, since I'm in my late forties--I'm not familiar with the politically correct language about transgender people. I only learned what the word "cis-" meant last November, if that gives you an idea. I'm far more afraid of using the language incorrectly and in an unintentionally offensive way than I am of saying, "Look, this is not politically correct language, I get that, but I'm just trying to be specific and inclusive. And if you have any questions, you can ask."

Does that clarify matters? I hope?

[bantha-fodder.livejournal.com]

I totally understand your insistence on IN CANON. I did wonder what had happened, and that's - yeah. That's not cool, what with that still being about the menz.

I'm not trying to talk about politically correct language, I'm trying to talk about language that is potentially quite insulting and/or incorrect. I think I HAVE suggested a way of framing the criteria in a way that isn't transphobic - I think that as it stands, the language in the criteria IS unintentionally offensive. I know that, especially if the terms are new to you, they can be confusing, and I appreciate that you are worried about causing offense, and I think that now that I have talked to you I understand what you are going for and that you are just trying to be clear (and in no way are you trying to be insulting/offensive/transphobic) but I am saying that you need to make it clear in the criteria that you don't define trans women as 'men presenting as women.'

Actually, thinking about it, I have a simpler suggestion, that I think remains as clear as you want it to be, and removes what I see as the problematic component:

"canonically female characters (both trans and cis) OR as canonically male characters that, in their canons, overtly and consistently, by their own choice, represent themselves as women."

I think adding "(both trans and cis)" makes it clear that there is no implication that trans women = men who present as women (which is really the thing I think is potentially unintentionally offensive).

I would also suggest that allowing men who are crossdressers in to the criteria is not necessarily the correct way to go, as it only exacerbates the idea that trans women = crossdressing men, whereas the reality is that crossdressing men are still men (and therefore I believe inappropriate in a ficathon about women). But I understand that you are trying to keep up with other communities, so, you know. :o)

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Okay, "both cis and trans" has been added, and the crossdressers eliminated.

I hope that's better. I left in all the bits about what doesn't count, anyway, just to be on the safe side. *frets*

[bantha-fodder.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I think it reads really well, and I think all the bits that don't count are quite clear. Don't fret! It all looks good! And thanks for being cool.