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has anyone written something on all these scifi trilogies about evil empires which commit all kinds of brutalities, but are also totally open and welcoming and not a big deal about trans people.
having just read the Ninefox Gambit series, featuring an empire that literally runs in ritual sacrifice & explicitly commits genocide, and has some characters be trans in a casual "ah, btw it's nice to be out of a binder after a long day" kind of way.
like, it's nice to read about a place where being trans is accepted & magical medical tech means you can swap bodies at will... but at a certain point, the fact that that's always paired with evil colonialism starts to send a message you assume the authors didn't intend.
thinking of "I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter", which is explicitly about gender being weaponised as a tool of empire... and the catastrophic reception it got. https://archive.is/oXDEt
we venerate Le Guin for writing anthropology-minded stories, where gender works differently and societies do too because of it. but it would be a risky business to be a modern Le Guin.
to answer my initial question, Josie did a thoughtful thread on it https://twitter.com/HarryJosieGiles/status/1305863121785978881?s=19
