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Is Lift Trans

SPOILERS for the books, including WaT, only related to the topic. I'll still use she/her pronouns because I literally don't know what Lift's gender would be, if my trans theorising turns out true. Here I use "trans" to mean both binary and non-binary trans experiences.

For a long time Lift's feelings about her growing body have reminded me of gender dysphoria. Obviously, she's been very uncomfortable with the idea of growing up because she wouldn't be the little girl her mother remembers. But it felt like there was more to it.

There are many trans people who have had a strong sense of being trans from their earliest years, but there are many children who only come to this understanding of themselves with puberty. The changes to one's body, together with the transition from girlhood/boyhood to womanhood/manhood are what makes many trans people have their first experiences of dysphoria. So, yes, this is why I read Lift as dysphoric.

And in WoT we see that Lift has started binding her chest. While there are some girls who bind their chest without being trans, and it's still consistent with her explanation of wanting to look like she used to, Sanderson had Wyndle explicitly state the aspect of growing up that Lift takes the worst is her "secondary sex characteristics manifesting". He also emphasises that her sexual attraction to men (including Drehy and his husband who are probably the only openly queer people she knows) doesn't disturb her in this way. In the past she's also been malnourished - turning all her food to Investiture, which could interpreted as a conscious or unconscious attempt to prevent this very same physical development.

But of course, if she's trans, her body would have already turned into the body she wants, right? Well, that's not how the healing works. The healing matches your body to the cognitive (and also spiritual, I think?) version of it. For exmaple, if a person has a disability, it only heals if they do not percieve that disability as a part of themselves. That doesn't mean they like their body as it is, or don't deal with internalised ableism - it only means their disability has become a part of their Identity. So, if Lift experiences gender dysphoria but doesn't identify as trans, it's possible her body won't change until she does.

Another possibility is that not all trans people would be "healed" from their secondary sexual characteristics in the first place. Trans experiences and experiences of gender dysphoria can be so varied, and I imagine the way a Investiture does or doesn't affects a trans person's body might be different depending on their specific trans identity, and type of dysphoria (social v physical, bottom v top, etc).

So, do I think Lift is trans? I like the idea of it - it fits with her experiences and the magic system gives room for it to be possible. It's a nice though and so many other trans people have found her relatable in this way. But I don't know if Sanderson would have felt ready to write such a nuanced experience of transness, given how cautious he's been in including queerness so far. Saying a tertiary character got a magic sex change is one thing, or a writing tower spren which uses they/them pronouns is one thing, but Lift's potential transness would be quite another. And that's why I think the answer is "well, yes and no."

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Art that was meant to be Kaleshwi but just turned into him getting hurt. As always the whump possessed me.

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Ace and allo people can have shitty sex without anyone being the "bad guy", a Stormlight Archive hot take

References spoilers for RoW and WaT

So, Hoid and Jasnah are were an item. And their relationship is kind of sucky. And Jasnah is ace. She doesn't experience sexual attraction, but she also doesn't seem all that excited about any sexual activity. So, naturally, a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that Hoid is extremely selfish and an absolute asshole for having sex with her.

However that's not the vibe I'm getting from them, as an ace reader. Jasnah seems to find sex uninteresting in a way that reads as sex neutral rather than sex-repulsed, or even averse. It doesn't excite her, but she'd do it for her partner's pleasure, which a perfectly acceptable thing for an ace person to do, if they chose so. However, she doesn't have the words to communicate these ideas - she doesn't know asexuality is a thing, she doesn't even have any relationship models that aren't allonormative.

Meanwhile, Hoid is seeing this - her not being excited by the sex they're having - and wants to make it good for her. He also doesn't have those models and understandings of sexuality, so he thinks her disinterest in sex is because he's doing something wrong. So, naturally, he's getting a bit insecure about it because how does he have millenia of experience and can't make her feel good in the way she's making him feel good?? The worst thing you can say about him

They have incomatible desires when it comes to sex that they struggle to communicate because of amatonormative ideas of how relationships need to look like. And I don't see that as bad asexual representation. Especially since Sanderson emphasises that what failed the relationship wasn't the sex but Hoid's dishonesty.

In conclusion, incompatible desires don't make anyone the bad guy. Especially when those desires are situated in a allonormative society and not fully understood by both characters.