What I can tell you as a transgender woman is that occasionally I will read trans woman characters written by cisgender authors. And I can pretty much always tell when the author is cis, even if the character is portrayed respectfully, because they get some details wrong or something. But I certainly donât think that they shouldnât be allowed to take a stab at it, and I actually appreciate any representation that isnât egregiously harmful. And I certainly donât think that only transgender women should be allowed to write transgender women because then it falls on me, and thatâs rather tokenizing, isnât it?
Also it seems like demanding that only #OwnVoices authors should be allowed to write certain characters is an excellent way to enforce a situation where most books are about cishet white people.
And no: you probably wonât get all of the specific details of someone elseâs lived experience correct, in much the same way that most authors donât get all of the specific details about how, say, nuclear reactors or space work. But so long as your character passes as realistically human and not a one-dimensional caricature of what you think that other types of people are like, then I think that thatâs reasonable.
