on improving superlove tagging
gender & trans identity
for real… it’s a huge topic on which many people will have things to say but the #1 thing that jumps out to ME wrt how ao3 handles things rn is there’s this baked-in assumption that the only kinds of trans-related tags people would use on fic are
- “issuefic” (i.e. angsty—“gender dysphoria” “gender issues” “gender confusion” etc)
- specific identity labels like “trans male/female character” “nonbinary character” “genderqueer”
- things related to canonicity such as “canon trans character”
especially because i write a lot of gendery fic in historical or SFF settings, i often don’t want to use modern identity terminology and am more interested in tagging things descriptively, so more expansive terms (e.g. “gender exploration”) would be appreciated. also greater representation of tags that feel more positive. i hate the assumption that someone writing trans fic is necessarily writing Angst Fic About How Hard It Is To Be Trans. ao3’s canonical tags definitely have that vibe