Pronouns

[triskellian]

I'm writing about a man who is physically made into a woman, a woman who thinks she's a man, and a man who lives as a woman, and having great problems with pronouns. And names, as two of the above possess both a male and a female name. If I try hard enough, I can make up my entire word count with 'his/her' and similar constructions.

Comments

Re: The gates of perception

[triskellian]

It's entirely a gradual process for one (man made into woman), which is where most of the problems are occuring, although even there, pre-op, he's definitely a he, because the op is forced.

With woman who thinks she's a man, through most of the book there's only one person who knows she's a man, and once the secret is out, she herself adapts pretty immediately, but it's still problematic before then. As far as he, and most of the other characters are concerned, he's a bloke, but physically he's not, and the fact that he 'switches' so quickly suggests that the proper reading is 'he's really a girl, he was just wrong', so should I have been saying 'she' all along?

The third one (man living as woman - successfully, I should've added earlier) is tricky simply because we know next-to-nothing about the character's past, self-perception etc. Is he really TV or TS? We have little idea...

Re: The gates of perception

[triskellian]

D'oh. There's a missing 'not' in there somewhere.