Kate means so much to me. I wrote about it in DC PRIDE '23
"It's so cool that you created the first trans superhero," a very nice person told me recently. Writing feels like stuffing a message in a bottle and lobbing it out into the open sed, so to meet someone who had caught one of my bottles and read what was inside was extremely exciting. Unfortunately, I am a nerd first and lover of accolades second, so I had to correct them.
Galaxy, the character I created, is not the first out trans superhero in the DC Universe. Kate Godwin, created by Rachel Pollack 30 years ago, is. Kate is important, but more than that, she is important to me.
I was a teenager 30 years ago. That's also important.
There's a lot of talk of firsts in superhero comics, most of it meaningless. Dick Grayson absolutely deserves the "Sensational Character Find of 1940" label trumpeted on the cover of his first appearance, Detective Comics #38, but you don't need to read it, even as a die-hard Robin fan.
You can't say that about Doom Patrol #70, the first appearance of Kate Godwin. That issue changes everything. That issue changes lives. Because Kate, a kind and funny woman, with an amusing power set and questionable taste in superhero outfits, who is beautifully, unapologetically trans--Kate is the viewpoint character.
Imagine the power of that. Holding up a trans woman--a lesbian trans woman, at that!--and saying, "This, this is who you, the reader, should identify with." To have a trans woman be smart and pretty and likable, and not an object of scorn or pity, or a side character. She was the hero! I can tell you from experience, that is a tough sell now.
Reading that comic in the 1990s felt like a lightning bolt from heaven.
It was too powerful for my teenage self to handle. It was radioactive, and yet, I would read my copy ragged to bask in its glow. I can call up its panels from memory. When I finally began my transition, many years later, I wore a lot of black tank tops and jeans, unconsciously aping Kate's unofficial uniform.
I didn't put it together until recently, rereading those 30-year-old stories that I had imprinted upon like a baby bird. Early on, I wasn't sure of the kind of woman I was, but I clearly knew the kind of woman I wanted people to see.
Someone like Kate Godwin.
I never got a chance to meet Rachel Pollack and tell her how I had received her message in a bottle. How I had held it close to my heart until I finally found the strength to absorb its message. How she showed me I wasn't alone and I could be a hero, even if that just meant saving myself.
But I hear people say those words to me, having read about Galaxy. Which will have to do.
Thank you for being first, Rachel.
