For every Gwen

It has been noted that I seem to gravitate toward characters with ambiguous gender. I'm not sure exactly why this is, but I know that it's a very conscious choice. I envision future readers discovering these characters and thinking, "Wow—there are trannies and bisexuals and polyamorous relationships here, and it's like it's normal."

I was picturing Cillian/Ume, the main character, as looking something like Gwen Araujo, the young trans woman from Hayward who was brutally murdered three years ago for simply being who she was. In researching pictures of her on the Web, I discovered that her murderers' retrial is going on right now; the first ended in a mistrial, I believe, with a hung jury, following the obscene defense that her sexuality, her desirability, damaged her killers' masculinity when they learned that she had been born biologically male. This is an actual defense in the 21st century, that it's okay to beat someone to death in front of a crowd of tacitly approving people, to beat someone in the face with soupcans and frying pans, knocking them so hard across the room that their head leaves a large hole in the wall; it's perfectly understandable to do this and for society to condone it if you're afraid you might be turned into a fag by desiring that person, and then to throw that person away like trash.

So I guess what drives me is the hope that other Gwens some day might read one of my books and see strong, beautiful characters who are simply being themselves, and finding love and their way in the world with respect.

Gwen was "taught a lesson," a lesson for every trans person and genderqueer in America, that who they are is less than human, and to dare to express the beauty within them, the sacred and divine within them, to dare to live, is to invite the violent destruction of their very being.

I hope my books can teach another lesson, or at least send a message, that every Gwen deserves to live and to celebrate who they are, and that they are not alone.