hi! this is a sensitivity question as i'm not nonbinary. i'm writing a story where the protagonist is nonbinary, and a cyborg. (protag gets robotic legs and an arm towards the beginning of the story.) i know having nonhuman nonbinary characters can be offensive, so i've written other cyborgs/bots/etc characters that aren't nonbinary (there aren't many humans in the story), so i'm wondering if that's alright or if i should just change the protagonist's gender? thank you for your help!
Hey anon!
So I have thought a lot about this ask. But not in the way you think.
The character you’ve introduced to us is a cyborg. That means a person, a human, who had a part of their body amputated and replaced by a mechanical system, or just enhanced an organ with a mechanical system. A person with an mechatronic leg therefore is, by definition, a cyborg. A person with a cochlear implant is, by definition, a cyborg. They are still human. They still have their brain. They still have emotions, feelings and thoughts like any other human being.
Your character lost three of four extremities and got them replaced with a mechanical system. So even being more than 50% made out of robotics, your character is not a robot. They are human.
In conclusion, from a standpoint of nonbinary gender representation this is no issue. But your view on amputees might be. We are not the right reference for this. I would like to ask you to speak to people experienced with disability. (Maybe a local veterans centre?)
Best of luck.
- Mod Bunny
