Five WONDERFUL Trans Coded Characters in Sci Fi & Fantasy

Queer people have long been drawn to science fiction and fantasy for many reasons, one of them being the desire to see allegorical representations of their own struggles during times when actual representation has been short on the ground. While the number of trans characters in media has gone up, it’s still depressingly rare to see positive and prominent portrayals of transness in most shows, movies, and novels. So today, I’m going to give you a few characters who are not technically trans, but whose stories and struggles resonate strongly with me as a trans woman. This list is non-exhaustive and in no particular order; I just want to talk a little bit about some characters in science fiction and fantasy that I see myself in.

So, without further adieu:

5. Cheery Littlebottom- Discworld

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is a vast and sprawling tapestry of stories all taking place on a magical and flat planet riding on the back of some elephants that themselves are riding on the back of a giant turtle flying through space. Individual story cycles occur in the setting, with one them being The Watch books, following exploits of a police crew in the Victorian London stand-in that is Ankh-Morpork. And on that crew is the dwarven heroine Cheery Littlebottom. A bit of context: early on in the series, we establish that there are officially no female dwarves. They’re all heavily bearded and masculine coded, with even those with female reproductive organs being officially gendered as male. They’re also a reclusive, isolationist people that mostly live in the dark, under mountains… Until the time of the Watch books, when a large immigrant population of dwarves comes to Ankh-Morpork… Including young aspiring police officer Cheery. She begins her introductory novel by presenting masculine, but quickly becomes taken with the female gender presentation she sees human women (amongst other creatures) embracing. And she begins to… Experiment, with things like makeup and dresses and female pronouns, culminating in her proudly declaring herself a woman by the end of the book. In doing so, she becomes part of social revolution amongst dwarves as more and more dwarven women begin ‘coming out’ as female.

It’s the idea that Cheery, and other female dwarves, have always secretly been women but were forced by society to pretend to be men, that resonates so strongly with me. It very much feels like something at the core of the trans femme experience: society is telling you that you’re a man, but it doesn’t feel right, and there’s something about womanhood that draws you and makes you want to embrace it, until finally, you realize this is what was missing: you’re a woman, and nothing anyone says can change that.

4. Alita- Battle Angel Alita

While I’m not very well-versed in the classic manga series, Robert Rodriguez’s live action adaptation of Battle Angel Alita is a personal favorite of mine, and a big part of that is the title character’s journey of self-actualization. Alita is a mostly mechanical girl with an organic brain, found in a junkyard and put back together in a makeshift female body by the enigmatic but kindhearted Dr. Dyson Ido. She doesn’t have her memories and can only act on what feels right to her. And what feels right is being a girl. Her sheer jubilance at getting to experience femininity, especially in the second half of the film where her brain is placed into a new mechanical body that ‘calls to her’ and makes her feel more like herself, is one of the best parts of the film. It’s a powerful metaphor- the idea that your ideal form is out there, waiting for you achieve it, that it’s not just automatically what you’re born with, that provides a fascinating and resonant emotional throughline for this sci fi epic.

Now if only we could get that sequel.

3. Miss Martian- DC Comics

In the DC Universe, there are two species of Martians- the more humanoid green Martians and the more monstrous white Martians. Both species are psychic shapeshifters, meaning one could pass themself off as the other relatively easily in a non-psychic society. And that’s exactly what M’Gann M’orzz does. Born a white Martian, but considering her natural form ugly and monstrous, she finds happiness in adopting a green form, as well as straight-up humanoid form with the preferred name of Megan Morse. And when she’s in those preferred forms, she is OVERJOYED, just a bundle of sunshine and positivity and traditional femininity. Whenever she’s in her white Martian form, however, she’s miserable and wroth, and this extends to when people refer to her as a white Martian. A bit like getting deadnamed or misgendered, frankly.

The animated series Young Justice- which features probably the most iconic version of M’Gann- takes this a step further, showing that she formed her hyper-feminine human identity and took her name from an old sitcom- essentially, she found a female role model that spoke to her and transitioned towards becoming more like her. That she lives with the constant fear of not passing or of being outed to anyone (especially her boyfriend) is an experience all too common amongst trans women and was a big part of what drew to the character when I first encountered her in high school.

2. Jadzia Dax- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

DS9 is my favorite installment of the Star Trek franchise for many, MANY reasons, and one of them is the character of Jadzia Dax. Dax is a Trill, a humanoid alien species able to join with symbiotes that cause the host to absorb all the past memories and emotions of the symbiote’s previous hosts. Jadzia is introduced having just gotten Dax installed into her body, complete with the memories of her most recent- and very male- host, Curzon. She identifies as female and speaks of her male memories as being from the person she literally used to be, occasionally having to correct people when they use the wrong name or pronoun for her. She even has whole focus-episode about reconnecting with her former self’s ex-wife and trying to rekindle their relationship, only for it fall apart because of societal stigma. The metaphor may not have been intentional, but if definitely works if you’re looking for it.

It helps that she’s also an extremely positive and well-rounded representation- she’s incredibly feminine, but still retains a number of masculine hobbies and interests from her past lives- hobbies and interests that are emphatically shown to not make her any less of a woman. She’s also bisexual icon, who’s epic romance with Worf is a highlight of her tenure on the show. It’s all just a part of who she is, and by golly, she’s wonderful.

1. Delenn- Babylon 5

I’ve already talked about Delenn in another article- specifically this one: https://helenaheissner.substack.com/p/babylon-5-says-trans-rights

So, I won’t repeat myself too much. What I will say is that Delenn helped me admit that I was trans. After she emerges from a very egg-shaped chrysalis at the beginning of the second season with a stylin’ head of hair and a brand new set of reproductive organs, I was suddenly much more invested in the show and in my own latent gender nonconformity, wearing dresses and referring to myself with female pronouns whenever I watched it, becoming more and more confident as I saw someone like me on the TV screen: someone who struggled with insecurities about her womanhood, who wanted to be accepted for who she’d grown into but wasn’t entirely (by her own people or by humans), who wanted to reconcile her newfound humanity and womanhood with the traditional Minbari religious background she’d grown up with.

It helps that in earlier versions of the story the character was supposed to explicitly go into the chrysalis as a man and come out of it as a woman, but this was dropped early in production of the first season (the reasons for this have never been clarified); it also helps that the series creator has openly said a hypothetical reboot would cast a trans actress in the role. Delenn helped me accept myself, helped me realize that my interests and my beliefs would still be a part of me even if I decided to live as a woman full-time. She helped me to admit how much happier I would be if I did that.

And I am. And to an extent, I owe that J. Michael Straczynski and the late, great Mira Furlan. So, thank you, to both of you. Thank you to everyone who helped bring to life these characters that have meant so much to me and to people like me during our respective journeys in life.

Happy viewing and happy reading, everyone. And remember: trans rights are human rights.