Writing transgendered characters

So I've got this comic in my head, right. And I'm laying it out and trying to do storyboards, only I have this one character that I don't know what cliches to avoid and so on.

Basically, I want to know what to simply not do when writing a 20-something transman living in 1960. I want to know if it's OK to write him as a scientist who's living as a man, but not have the operation, if it would be logical to have him marry his girlfreind at the end(Hey, Billy Tipton pulled it off.). He's not the manliest guy around, but he's capable of kicking your ass if you'd try to pick him upin a bar.

So, yeah. I hope I can get these questions answered, and that I'm not coming off as rude.. I just don't wanna mess his character up with anachronisms.

More information would certainly help, but the skeleton of the idea is not impossible or inaccurate. The only thing you'll need to avoid is trying to paint the picture as a grand scheme of deception.

Nihilist wrote:

I'd like to know more about the character before making assumptions, perhaps you should tell me more about him.

Well, he's a scientist working for the goverment around 1960-1965(I don't know how to go about that, because I have no idea what kind of policy they had, if they had some sort of dress code, ETC.. I am taking creative liberties with rather large parts of the whole "goverment" bit, IE making crazy shit up, but I'd like to keep that to a very minimum.) I've got vauge ideas about his backround, but I don't know if they'll be in the story, since I'm trying to write a chacracter and not an after-school special. The things I've decided on are that he's a pretty level-headed guy who works with science and occasionally tinkers with computer science, and he's grown up supported by his uncle, so he's got a pretty strong personality. His part of the story revolves mostly around supporting and ultimately falling in love with his childhood freind, a rather cold-hearted lady.

And, thank you for the information. It has been read, printed out, and added to the research pile, [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

verandering wrote:

More information would certainly help, but the skeleton of the idea is not impossible or inaccurate. The only thing you'll need to avoid is trying to paint the picture as a grand scheme of deception.

Well, I'm not sure what I should do with his job, as mentioned above. And I'm pretty sure I'll be able to steer clear of making it look like cross-dressing, this isn't a "girl-samurai" story, after all. Good point, though.

I found [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] particularly interesting, since he transitioned in 1918. It may be of interest to you, if you haven't seen it already.

Hmm, I'm not familiar with much of the official aspects of the time period. If you have LiveJournal, you might want to try joining and browsing or asking the community Little Details, they've never been unable to answer a question I've had.

Vespers wrote:

I found [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] particularly interesting, since he transitioned in 1918. It may be of interest to you, if you haven't seen it already.

Ah, thank you. It was interesting to read, [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Verandering wrote:

Hmm, I'm not familiar with much of the official aspects of the time period. If you have LiveJournal, you might want to try joining and browsing or asking the community Little Details, they've never been unable to answer a question I've had.

Thank you! I'll try it, it seems useful.