The Reason People Keep Thinking “The Power” Might Be Transphobic
Remember what I said about the Power going to men?
The Subversive And Misunderstood Premise Behind “The Power”
People who believe the surface-level suggestion that there is a gender binary divide in The Power are drastically misreading the book (or most likely just haven’t read it).
And you know how that goes. If you didn’t even read the book, you definitely can’t judge what to expect from the show.
Fortunately, I’ve obsessed over the book ever since Obama named it as one of his favorite books of 2016.
TRANSlating Everything is a newsletter by me, Stephenie Magister ✨ (and occasional guests), covering the “invisible” trans representation in all forms of media throughout history.
The Power recap series covers each upcoming episode of the series from my perspective as a transgender 40 Under 40 Nominee, a media critic pushing the limits of gender representation, and an editor for best-selling and award-winning authors.
The show premieres on March 31 (or the night before at 8pm, if you’re feeling frisky). In the meantime, let’s do some prep work on one of the biggest criticisms the book and show will ever face.
Is The Power transphobic?
The invisible distribution of The Power along the entire gender spectrum
I’m sure you’ve heard people insist that some strengths only go to men, other strengths only go to women.
Bullshit. But hey, you’ll hear the same thing declared just as confidently and just as wrongly by lots of characters in The Power. They either refuse to recognize what is directly before them, or they acknowledge it yet feel compelled to eliminate anything they perceive as gender non-conforming.
So if you’re reading The Power and think all of the bigoted characters in the story are endorsements from the author…
Representation is not endorsement
The same thing happened with The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short.
Well, with the movies anyway.
If the credits roll and you feel like the movie inspired you to be just like Jordan Belfort, your first stop should be why the movie makes you endlessly debate whether that guy had a bunch of good ideas, he just went about it the wrong way.
A similar criticism was offered for Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy, such as in one of his earliest Q&A specials when one of my fellow lesbians asked him why the **** he put that homophobic Banksy character in a movie if Kevin Smith is supposed to be an A-L-L-Y.
After helping the questioner reaffirm to the public that she was a proud lesbian, Kevin gave what I think is the best defense we have as storytellers. You just try to tell a good story, put as much of your point in there as you can without making it into a BAD story, and then accept that the audience will make of it all sorts of things beyond anyone’s control.
We’ve got people using scriptures from the Bible to oppose socialism and condemn trans people. If even the Lord herself can’t force people to simply read the text…
Besides, as Kevin Smith pointed out about Chasing Amy — wasn’t it, like, clear from every POV in the movie that the homophobic character was WRONG?
That’s why people keep misunderstanding whether The Power is transphobic.
The shape of power is always the same
It is the shape of a tree. Root to tip, central trunk branching and re-branching, spreading wider in ever-thinner, searching fingers. — quote from The Power
Lots of characters in the book itself insist that the Power manifests according to a binary gender divide, but actually reading the book reveals that is not at all what’s happening. The biological manifestation of the Power is just as diverse as any other seemingly gender-specific attribute.
Have I seen the show? No. Not yet. Just the trailer.
But I am an expert on the book. And given that the author Naomi Alderman literally told me she took deliberate steps to receive and integrate feedback from the trans and gender non-conforming community, I feel positively electric (heh… heh…) thinking of what we will see from the Amazon Studios series adaptation premiering March 31.
Here’s what we can expect.
Remember what I said about the Power going to men?
The binary gender divide is quickly revealed as just another lie that men spread in order to eliminate the Power. There are all sorts of gender diverse people throughout the book and the show who have a skein and wield the Power.
Note: Go here for a proper introduction to the trans and gender non-conforming characters in The Power
Gender non-conforming people, such as men who exhibit the Power, either suppress their ability or have it surgically removed until it has eventually been suppressed on an epigenetic level.
In the book, one chapter notes that men and non-binary people manifest a skein and the Power far more often than anyone knows, but that due to cultural conditioning and the outright fear that comes from being gender non-conforming, these men and non-binary people repress their ability on an individual and eventually on an epigenetic level.
It’s live or die, man. I lived in hiding for a long time, too.
Bigotry suppresses what gender non-conforming emergence of the Power remains among the global population, such as in real-world circumstances where trans people have ALWAYS existed, but we may not have always been empowered to be so visible.
The Price Of Liberation Is The Salvation Of All That Is Transgender
Then there are the men and women alike in the book who, like many of us, are no less a man or woman just because their bodies need the equivalent of gender-affirming medical treatment in order for them to stabilize (or first manifest) their skein and their Power.
Some of those people need a shock from an already-awakened woman. Others need hormone treatments or literal surgery — just like trans and intersex people often need — in order to make themselves whole.
Just like any of us can use stimulants, steroids, and other therapies to enhance our innate abilities, anyone with the Power can take a drug called Glitter. Like any drug, there is a price, but with just one dose, you can feel as unstoppable as the Omega-level mutant Storm claiming her full power.
See also:
TRANSlating The Power: An Exclusive Recap Show For The Amazon Original Series
The Power: Explaining The Show’s Connection To The Handmaid’s Tale
The end (of the article)
Hi! I’m Stephenie Magister ✨.
My work in research, publishing, and activism recently earned me the nomination as the second-only transgender nominee for 40 Under 40 from University of Georgia. With that attention comes it’s own kind of Power — and with great power comes great yadda yadda yadda…
So for the foreseeable future, I’ll be using my unique insight into the book and Amazon Studios show The Power to offer a recap series like no other.
If you like my work and want to support it, buy me a cup of coffee! For more of my content, subscribe to my newsletter: Translating Everything