Disappointed to read author was pressurised to add a trans woman character to The Power

[BKingso]

The Power is a great feminist novel from a few years ago. I was looking forward to the tv series and I am enjoying it so far. Disappointed to see the author was apparently pressurised to add a trans woman to a story about teenage girls getting super powers.

www.cinemablend.com/interviews/the-power-author-talks-adding-a-transgender-character-to-her-story-and-introducing-more-diversity-into-the-series

If the power is linked to hormones then pregnant women would lose the power, surely, because testosterone levels get high. It’s such an illogical change.

Must remember not to watch a show where a convent - a community of women - is run by a cock in a frock played by a cock in a frock. Yuk. The author appears to negate her own writing by falling in with the transagenda (and I note she implies DSDs are related somehow to trans) and says that oestrogen is what woman makes so if you have oestrogen then you are a woman, a bit of pseudo-science if ever! Not uteri, not the ability to give birth (a real superpower), not the ability to nourish another human being. No, just get a shot of oestrogen and bingo! She should be ashamed.

Apparently Gillian Philip now earns more as a lorry driver, although that is not the point, of course.

It would have been far more interesting to have a transman who had to decided between living as a man or having the power

Yes!

Fancy, an author not knowing that no is a complete sentence.

I love Christina Dalcher for taking such a brave and unpopular stand. I read Femlandia and thought it was excellent. So you have just reminded me to buy Vox and Q.

Well this can just fuck off, they've destroyed the premise of the book. As others have said, if they wanted a trans character they could have had a transman battling with having the power of a transwoman without. There could be an interesting storyline on if it affects the number of non binary girls. And instead they do this.

I've just taken it off my watch list.

Exactly, and do all the women with pcos, lower estrogen and higher testosterone not get the power because we are less womanly than a TW?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/12/transgender-population-uk-inflated-ons-census/ 1 in 67 Uk muslims claimed to be trans on the census; highest of any group

There was a good discussion about this on here the other day.

It was suggested that the reason for that surprising statistic is people with less fluency in English were tripped up by the convoluted questions about "do you identify with the gender assigned to you at birth type things and were accidentally identifying as trans in the survey. I think this is a v plausible explanation.

Agree. Confusing. Many second language speakers could have read this as asking if you are homosexual because the question, 'is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?', could suggest this, 'identify' being taken to mean 'attracted to/interested in', directing most people to say 'no', not realising they are identifying as trans. Stupid. Just ask 'are you transgender?' What the resulting stats show is the danger of 'inclusive' or 'trans friendly' language for people who do not speak English well, leading to much worse than inflated census figures. If women do not realise they are 'menstruators', or teenage girls who have not started to menstruate think they might be 'non-menstuators' and do not tell anyone they do not menstruate then health issues may not be addressed until too late. Many women who do not speak English well may not understand words like 'cervix', 'uterus' etc. and so miss out on health screenings that might save their lives. Such language needs to be nipped in the bud.

There could be an interesting storyline on if it affects the number of non binary girls

That makes no sense unless you buy into non binary nonsense.
They are just girls so obviously should have the power.

Of course they are girls. But would they still identify as non binary if they felt less helpless? A lot of it seems to be girls trying to make themselves less of a target for men so if they are physically stronger would they still feel the need? If it was suddenly men who were the weaker sex would they then try to identify out of it?

This story could be really interesting in terms of identity politics and show how much of it is based on feeling vulnerable and not conforming to stereotypes. When the stereotypes change how does it affect people, particularly if the stereotypes is now closer to their own interests. Instead they just fucked about and ruined the premise, because of course women can't have something to themselves.

I've said this before and been told off for it, that whilst I think non binary and particularly those identifying as men are traumatized and vulnerable, it can't be denied for the rest there's a certain amount of 'Not like other girls' about it. Previously seen in the punks, goths, greebos and emos.
Of course the 'I am not like other girls' phenomenon is principally internalised misogyny, but there's an element of narcissism in there too, which could be quite interestingly placed on an identities venn diagram...

So to put the concept on its head,.in the world of The Power, these motivated to be seen as 'Not like the other girls' would adopt a less powerful and purposefully meek persona.
It's been a while since I read the book but I seem to recall there may have been exploration of this at the beginning.

Interesting. Yes, they could have gone that way but instead they did the obvious and created a plot hole. My respect for them has gone.

They did the same with the adaptation in Y:The Last Man, making it kind of ridiculous.

I'm sure there are great stories out there to be written about trans people. Why shoe horn them into stories and change the whole premise of them?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/22679725/y-the-last-man-hulu-fx-tv-comic-trans

Well this is the problem. Unless you're willing to be honest, there's only one story to be told about trans people, which is that they are horribly oppressed even if no one can tell that they're trans. If people aren't willing to be more honest then we are stuck.

Y the last man standing was awful.
I never finished the series. all I remember from it was like women,
transmen did survive but they were running out of testosterone. transwomen and men all died apart from one who was very annoying.

Christian Dalcher 😍

"Hope all you want, dearie. That book about women being able to speak only 100 words a day was about women being able to speak only 100 words a day.

Women.

Not men under the impression they are women.

Go write your own goddamned dystopian novel. You can call it COX."

https://twitter.com/CV_Dalcher/status/1649002844920459264?t=wxPV-XvZFgQKh743cuZyUA&s=19

Pahaha!

Yep. Made me super cross. Man nun got it and Margo mention how as well as rapes, dv and sexual assaults dropping, crimes againt "transwomen if colour" had also gobe down. Made me really cross. Undermines THE ENTIRE PREMISES

Enjoyed the series but felt the trans stuff really clunky and cringe. They should have had trans men getting the power; not trans women. That would have been really interesting.

If the power is as much about gender identity as biology, then couldn’t men all self-ID as women to get it? Or if it’s linked to high oestrogen levels (as it seemed to be for the intersex lad), couldn’t men just take hormones to get it?

Having a TW nun get the power just didn’t sit right in this story about women evolving to overcome their sex-based oppression and become stronger than men (and feared by men for once!). It just felt like a klaxon call to the viewer: Hey, TWAW by the way!

Brilliant.

Vox and Femlandia are free on kindle unlimited at the moment 👍