‘Why must I truncate myself in order to please you?’: Othering and Queering in Depictions of Non-Binary Gender in Pseudo-Medieval Fantasy Literature, 1990-2017

Impey, Hazel (2022) ‘Why must I truncate myself in order to please you?’: Othering and Queering in Depictions of Non-Binary Gender in Pseudo-Medieval Fantasy Literature, 1990-2017. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

In the twenty-first century, questions of representation in fiction have become mainstream alongside the rise in popularity of fantasy literature and its various adaptations. Non-binary gender is rarely and unrealistically represented in pseudo-medieval fantasy literature in the twentieth century, as characters are often deeply Othered and framed as the monstrous. My thesis examines how queer theory in the late twentieth century and the developing interest in queer representation in the twenty-first century has impacted the genre going forward.
I initially examine the pseudo-medieval fantasy genre as a whole, selecting representative example texts and analysing each non-binary character’s depiction in light of the Other, expressions of transphobia, the monstrous, and Judith Butler’s discussion of cultural intelligibility. I address these texts chronologically in order to explore how the genre’s depictions of non-binary gender have changed from 1990 to 2017. I then go on to examine Beloved, a character from Robin Hobb’s ‘Realm of the Elderlings’ series, as a case study. Beloved’s depiction marks a significant departure from other non-binary characters in the 1990s when the series began, and develops across the series’ 1995-2017 span. This section of the thesis discusses the queering of the cisgender gaze and the possibility of emerging from a transphobic and cisnormative framework as demonstrated by the text.
By analysing the shift in depictions of non-binary gender in pseudo-medieval fantasy literature from the purely monstrous and the Other to more varied depictions that equalise them with their cisgender equivalents, I demonstrate the impact of evolving understandings of queerness and the various movements for transgender and non-binary rights and awareness in the USA and the UK on a genre that is central to contemporary storytelling.

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