*The following is very much about my personal appreciation of Science Fiction and my experience of writing it, and in no way is intended to advise or chastise. Nor do I speak with any authority on the matters I discuss. I do hope I don't offend anyone, as I know this is part of a larger social issue fraught with difficulties.
In the recently published Book 3 of Kiranis (Secrets of The Universe), I introduced a non-binary character. I had previously written homosexual characters - Cassandra Messina (pictured) loved Nell Raesa in Book 1 - although their sexuality was merely incidental and didn't determine their actions nor decisions made. My thinking was simply to normalise the relationship to such a degree that we were seeing two people in love: two people who argued and reconciled and argued some more and reconciled again...you know, two people in love.
Of course, I came at this from the perspective of a heterosexual man, but I was careful not to fetishize and I wrote their scenes through the eyes of someone who has experienced the emotional rollercoaster of more than one relationship. Still, my playing out of these interactions could never amount to the dynamics of 'queer fiction', which - if I understand correctly - positions sexuality and gender issues at the core of the unfolding plot. I simply don't have the life experience to write something like that with any credibility.
So, what, I hear you ask, was I thinking by even attempting to write characters outside of a binary gender system? Well, first of all, and given that Kiranis is set very far in the future, I figured that the 'exploration' of gender issues occurring right now will be in the rear-view mirror in the far future, and a diversity of life experiences will be so much the norm as to be practically irrelevant. In saying that, I still hint at discomfort and confusion among some characters when encountering someone 'not like them', as I feel it's important to remain grounded to the realia of everyday life and the perhaps inescapable truths of human nature. For me, that's the line Science Fiction has always walked - we can envisage great change, but to ignore the difficulties in achieving it would be foolish, not to mention lacking in credibility and undermining the struggles of people seeking equality.
The thing about Sci-Fi (for those who missed the memo) is that it has always been 'woke', and in the good way that word's supposed to be used. It has always been a 'safe space' for exploring social, political, and religious issues, and ideologies in general. Star Trek, for example, had from its early days explored the dynamics of bigotry and prejudice through its endless encounters between people and aliens with different cultural norms and beliefs, different colour skin, different body shapes and sizes, languages, courtship and mating rituals; and it most certainly tackled the complexity of gender.
Having recently re-watched the pilot for ST:DS-9, it struck me that I hadn't realised when I was younger what Jadzia Dax might have represented in terms of her navigation of gender, albeit from an exaggerated viewpoint - a beautiful young woman with the memories of an old man occupying her body by way of the symbiote. I know this isn't a straight-up allegory of transgenderism, but perhaps it was a nod in that direction. As for non-binary or 'genderless' representation, the TNG episode The Outcast was a significant one in this regard. It didn't shy away from themes of ostracization and even psychotherapy to rid the 'outcast' in question of their perverted thoughts. It seems to me that it calls out the desire to 'fix' people who have gender non-conforming issues, or even the homophobia behind religious institutions and their 'pray away the gay' camps.
Why is all this relevant in my writing, then? Well, I suppose there has been something of a 'clicking into place' going on in my head as I see and hear people arguing ('debating' would be too kind a word) about gender issues all over social media. It's exhausting, but with real people out there navigating these issues, I think it's an intellectual journey our species needs to make. What's happened is that I've come to appreciate the greater exploratory depths of the Science Fiction I grew up with, in how it called upon its audience to challenge their prejudices and fixed ideas of how the world should be. It's made me realise that my emotions and presuppositions have long been challenged by Sci-Fi, and Sci-Fi has encouraged me to challenge the status quo, to question and to wonder if things could be - or should be - different.
When it comes to my writing a non-binary character - to get back to my point - I know I'll need to sit down and speak with a non-binary person very soon if I'm to do justice to one very important character in Kiranis - the hybrid AI known as Absolution (pictured), who started their life as Hypatia (see Pieces of Kiranis 2: Hypatia). How can I possibly understand a non-binary character to the degree that I can articulate their motivations and resentments, their hopes and regrets? Now, note how my use of 'their' is both singular generic and non-binary?
There has been a lot of nonsense floating around social media about the use of the pronoun 'they', in particular from people arguing that it's a collective or plural pronoun and, as such, cannot be used to refer to a singular entity. Ironically, this doesn't stop people using 'they' or 'their' in the generic singular, to speak about people whose gender they either don't know or deem irrelevant. You saw that, right?
The first time I noticed this 'grammatical problem' in my writing was in the middle of a scene populated by a female central character, a group of characters identified using a collective noun, and a non-binary central character. I found that as I was positioning them all in the scene, and navigating their interaction, some confusion was arising between the singular and plural 'they/them/their' - to whom was that sentence referring? Would the reader know?
In fairness, there was no issue with dialogue - the group weren't speaking as one (although that could arise in the case of a chant or collective response, for example) and switching between speakers was either explicit in terms of names or, where a pronoun was used, the speaker was clearly determined by the context. In truth - and despite perhaps two seconds of frustration - I quickly realised that this situation was far from unnavigable, this monstrous grammatical problem completely surmountable.
Now, I'll be honest (why would I not?), I have found myself removing the 'they' where I've considered it confusing for the reader (did you know non-binary people have names?), but really all it takes is a little shuffling of position or context, a little playing around with the paragraph or dialogue sequence, or even just having a little more faith in a readers' ability to follow a narrative. And if they can't...?
Well, you just need to get better at writing.