In the process of writing my novel and for the longest time I struggled to decide the gender of my protagonist. As a gender queer person, I’ve studied and tried to understand what it means to be on and off the binary. I’m an AMAB person who is comfortable with people choosing to see me as simply a guy but I spent so many childhood years with gender envy of so many people. I have written male protagonists to be proud of and female ones as well, but this would be my first official character off the binary as well as leading the work I’ve been the most proud of.

At first I was leaning on having a female protagonist, as I rarely see beloved stories with a female lead that aren’t called Mary Sues. I wanted someone relatable but also admirable for something beyond skill and I was tired of only seeing male protagonists getting most of the glory. But eventually I began to fear that the character was too androgynous and that a female protag may receive too much hate and I would have a bunch of people claiming this is too woke for them. I temporarily changed them into a male. But the further I wrote, the more I realized that gender honestly doesn’t even fit this character. They’re already ace and practically aro, why should I gender them. They don’t care.

As funny as it is that I feared people would call a well written female lead woke, I’m actually so much more confident in this character being genderless. Especially given that I don’t even plan on someone referring to them with proper pronouns. I would never dehumanize my character (and frankly I haven’t even decided if they are human even though I don’t like the idea of queerness being limited to only the nonhuman characters). I genuinely plan on people openly referring to this character as nothing but their name. This character is supposed to be very unserious following a silly plot in a very serious world. Sexuality and romantic relationships would play no role to their growth as a person in my story unlike other characters. They serve as the childish individual who is also the most passionate and emotionally self aware. I couldn’t see myself ever gendering them. But I have written more than a few gags of them looking to masculine in femme clothes and too feminine in masculine clothing.

I just want to hear more from what other writers or editors may think. And hearing some tips from people who have written their own genderless or gender queer characters!