NB Character Creation 101
I’m not listing this as a Gender Adventure comic because it’s not about me but this is following on from an article that a pal wrote recently which mentions the severe lack of canon non-binary (or even trans in general) characters in all forms of fictional media. There seems to be a lot of reluctance to do so from (predominantly cis) content creators because they’re scared of ‘doing it wrong’ so I wrote this handy guide.
My one single rule (other than no nasty stereotypes) is that you have to be explicit. Make it canon. Don’t write/draw an androgynous-looking character with ambiguous gender, or use neutral pronouns, but then only refer to them in super-vague non-committal terms and never actually outright state their identity. Also don’t just put it in a tweet or a tiny sentence in with the concept art. It needs to be in the media itself, and it only takes a sentence or two. It’s so frustrating to have your hopes built up only to have them quashed or never confirmed by the creators.
Other than that, treat them exactly the same way as literally any other character you’d write. It’s that simple. As much as stories about self-discovery and transition and gender-related stuff are super important, we are not solely defined by those aspects of our lives and are just as capable of having adventures of our own.
For those interested, the character featured above is Lock Wanderfoot, the nonbinary protagonist of this short comic (and hopefully more in the future)!
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