Silver Demon: On Creating a Queer Superhero

To look at the mainstream media's depictions of LGBTQ characters is an exercise in watching a never ending stream of victims, villains, with a few sidekicks here and there and the occasional nod to the fact that some of us are "normal" folks with day jobs, families, etc.

As far as I can tell, there are almost no queer superheroes in existence. Well actually technically there are a few. Recently, the X-Men recently got to have a big gay wedding and one of the Green Lantern incarnations got to come out. I also came across a YA novel Hero by Perry Moore

To be frank, it can be exhausting evaluating queer orientated media. In the past two decades there has been an uptick in depictions of LGBTQ individuals. Some of these have been quite good, while others have a slew of problematic elements associated with them. But the queer superhero is, for all intents and purposes, practically an endangered species. Which is why I wanted to create one.

Initially I waffled on whether or not to include homophobia in my story and/or having the character deal with their sexuality. One of the earliest versions of the main character had them repressing their attraction to other men and this in turn causing them to lose their super powers. The character would then have only regained their powers when they had come out and acknowledged their true identity. This idea eventually went off and died where all bad ideas should go to die.

Then I had the character existing in a world where homophobia did not exist (or at least was not referenced and had little impact on the story itself). This idea was eventually abandoned after I decided that my two main characters should meet at a bar called The Stonewall Tavern, a reference to the real life Stonewall Inn.

I forget exactly why, but this eventually led to a whole lot of other changes, namely the decision to incorporate homophobia and transphobia directly into the story itself. This in turn resulted in setting the main part of the story in 1969. Given that the main characters still get to meet at a place the Stonewall Inn, most people can probably accurately guess one of the major elements of the climax.

Since Batman got Gotham and Superman got Metropolis, I thought it only fair that my characters got their own city to run around in. Thus the City of Noche was born. At this point things might have gotten a bit out of control. By creating a fictional city, I was able to create a world that would allow me to metaphorically build the concept of the Isophyls directly into the story itself. This also meant I could have the Stonewall Inn overshadow the Compton Cafe, while sitting across the street from an institution I called the White Knight Tavern. Rioting in my story? Never! Ignore my shifty eyes least they deceive you! *cough*

This was probably the one part of the story I went overboard with. As I talked about earlier, I used historical figures as the basis for several characters. But I didn't stop there. Streets, business, various locations, pretty much everywhere I could reasonably do so became a reference to some element of LGBTQ history. Whether it be in reference to a significant protest, a tragedy, or our communities contributions to society, be it scientific advancement, governmental, economic, the military, technology, the arts, religion, or civil rights, if I could find a place in the story to acknowledge LGBTQ history, I did. My partners copy of Queers in History by Keith Stern became so dog eared and worn that he ended up bequeathing it to me.

Of course there is the question of what kind of personality or job would be most appropriate for my characters. I had something of a debate with myself about how masculine or feminine to make my characters. I did not wish to perpetuate the stereotype that all gay men are feminine sissies, but the problem is that in rejecting this stereotype, means enforcing the unfortunate notion of the "feminine = bad". I got around this issue by making the main cast of characters as diverse as possible.

Some people might ask the question of whether or not the world is ready for a LGBTQ superhero story, particularly one of such a nature as one I have created. Personally, I think this is the wrong question to even be asking. The never ending tide of queer victims and villains I mentioned at the beginning, requires a counterpoint in order to be turned. Ready or not, the world needs queer heroes.

Silver Demon - Market Research Question

Alright, I've been having this debate in my head for some time, but I can't decide on a subtitle for my Silver Demon. There are two possibilities that I keep going back and forth with: The Knights of Isophyl or Gods of the Abyss.

Personally, I'm leaning towards The Knights of Isophyl but I'm a little nervous that since no one (unless they happen to be really familiar with obscure bits of queer history or George Heard) will recognize it, which might turn off some publishers that I submit a manuscript to. Therefore, Gods of the Abyss might be a little bit more useful when trying to sell it.

What are peoples thoughts? Would people be willing to buy a book called The Knights of Isophyl?

Silver Demon: Speaking for the Voiceless

In The Republic, Plato takes pains to express his contempt of most art. Plato's view of art of course was shaped by his conception of his beloved Forms. For those who do not know, Plato conceived of the forms as a metaphysically "real" world that everything in our world is based upon. A chair is only a chair, according to Plato, because within the realm of the Platonic Forms, the true form/idea of a chair exists.

Everything that is a copy of something else is inferior to the original (Plato claims) therefore, our world is inferior to the world of the forms. By default then art, which attempts to "copy" things in our world, is therefore a copy of a copy, and therefore further degraded from the Platonic Forms.

One hates to think what might happen to Plato, if he were still alive today, of the apocalyptic rage he might experience when he saw Hollywoods' fetish for sequels, remakes, adaptations, as well as the remakes of sequels of previous adaptations which then go on to have novelizations and video games based upon them.

In any case, this brings me to what I want to talk about: Speaking on behalf of those who have been marginalized.

In the process, of writing my LGBTQ Superhero novel Silver Demon, it did not feel right to me to not honor real life LGBTQ heros, as well as using the opportunity to highlight both bits of LGBTQ history and LGBTQ individuals that have either been overlooked or forgotten.

To that end, I created secondary characters based upon real life LGBTQ individuals. This is in addition to naming individuals after LGBTQ historical figures, even when It was only afterwards that I started wondering, was what I'm doing really all that ethical? After all, I am taking individuals, some of whom were quite controversial in their time, and putting words in their mouths that they themselves might not have agreed with. I have of course made every attempt to stay true to the essence of what the established record says about these individuals, but error on my part is always a real possibility.

In the same vein, I have felt a certain responsibility to raise awareness of issues facing the queer community, such as the high rate of homelessness among LGBTQ youth. I also felt it important that I not just include white, able bodied, cis-male character, in addition to characters of various religious and cultural backgrounds.

However, I personally am cis, male, able bodied, white, raised christian (specifically Methodist), identify as agnostic, currently part of Oneonta's Unitarian Universalist Society. I have also never personally experienced what it is like to be homeless. By creating characters who are not part of my tribe or within my own experience, am I, to a degree, committing a form of cultural imperialism? I do not know what it is like to live in our society as a person of color. I am not blind or deaf, nor am I required to rely on a wheelchair for basic mobility. I am not a member of either Islam or Buddhism. Is it therefore possible then for me to somehow appear not only to be speaking for other groups (which I'm not trying to do) but because I have included such characters, end up misrepresenting the experiences of these groups?

There is a phenomenon in many narratives, in which a member of a non-oppressed group (typically a white, cis, straight man) manages to save a member or members of an oppressed group. Examples of this are abundant, Dances with Wolves, Dances With Wolves in Space... er Avatar.

While I think Hollywood (or whoever is telling a particular story) does this for very specific reasons - they get to have a character (the white, cis, straight man) who appeals to the widest audience possible - while still getting to address the Important Issues of the Day. However, these narratives has the unfortunate effect of making the minorities in question look weak and unable to solve their problems. This problem is the one issue that I think I was fortunately able to avoid easily enough in my own work.

However, there are even thornier issues yet. When I was doing research, I discovered the stories of brothels that were maintained by the NAZI's in concentration camps such as Buchenwald, which is where a significant part of where the back-story in Silver Demon is set. This also happens to be the one topic I feel would be the easiest for me to get wrong. I do not wish to exploit a tragedy or human suffering but if I ignore the issue altogether in the story, would I be contributing to the oppressive silence surrounding rape and sexual assault?

I don't think there are any easy answers to these questions. Anything I create can only be considered a copy of something of our real, non-Platonic Form world. Therefore, I can only ask, am I creating something inferior and exploitative or enlightened and informative? And then work towards the latter and while trying to avoid the former.

Silver Demon: Denial

So while trying to do serious research on The Holocaust, I keep coming across Holocaust Denial crap and getting distracted by it. Or rather sucked in. It's pretty much all the same to me as the 9/11 Truther Movement.

I have to confess, I just don't get it. Where does this kind of shit come from? What causes people to want to deny an established record in favor of a wild hypothesis with no established reason or evidence behind it?

Whenever I come across such sites my mind gets even more twisted around then it probably would by reading about what actuallyhappened in the concentration camps. I feel, I imagine, much like one of those super sentient computers that Captain Kirk keeps coming across on Star Trek, where Kirk just destroys the darn thing by presenting it with a logical paradox. Wait but your evidence that Auschwitz was full puppies and kittens, not gas chambers, is logically flawed. How can you believe it! But you obviously do! THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE *ARGH* *smoke starts pouring from ears*

Part of me, in spite of the obvious time suck this would become, would like to go through and spend some time debunking the crap that comes up on these sites.

For example, one time I was doing research on Father Mychal Judge, for one of those posts I abandoned halfway through, I came across a photo of Judge being removed from the World Trade Center, where the background had been washed out thanks to photo manipulation.

The photo, from a 9/11 Truth discussion board, had a caption that read "photos from 9/11 frequently show washed out backgrounds when mild contrast adjustments are applied. Clear evidence that 9/11 was staged."

In any case, my first reaction was: um, er, no, it's just a sign that the contrast filter on your photo manipulation software is working just fine. Because that's typically what happens when you adjust the contrast, some part of it gets "washed out". If your background happens to feature large amounts of smoke and dust, it will be particulary prone to this happening.

Anybody who has spent time playing around with photo manipulation software and particularly spent some time experimenting with the contrast control could tell you this.

In any case, I really hate to think about what might happen if such a person ever started watching the video of JFK getting assassinated on their computer. Oh my god! The video plays through twice as fast after I hit the 2x button! Time must be warping so therefore OBVIOUSLY OSWALD MUST BE AN ALIEN!

That is all I have to say on the matter.

Paragraph 175 (2000)

Okay, while doing research for my novel Silver Demon, somehow overlooked (until now) this powerful documentary on the NAZI's persecution of gay men during the Holocaust.

Fortunately, it's available for free online, so no point in me giving a review.

I will say that for those who can stomach the material, I highly recommend it.

Paragraph 175

Silver Demon: The No Handed Bandit

This is the latest post regarding my LGBTQ superhero novel, Silver Demon, where I talk about stuff that either inspired me or interesting tidbits that I have come across while doing research.

In any case, during the course of the novel, one of the characters ends up losing both of their hands. While doing research on what that would be like, I came across the youtube videos of the the No Handed Bandit and they were interesting enough that I thought I might share them.

User Page for the No Handed Bandit

The No-Handed Bandit shows how he puts his arms on:

Silver Demon: The Homocaust and the Liberation That Was For Others

This is the third article on the novel, Silver Demon, that I am currently working on, where I talk about my influences in writing the book.

When we think of the Holocaust (or Shoah) the first thing that jumps to mind is that of the NAZI persecution of the Jewish population. It is true that the NAZI's exterminated millions of Jews in the most horrific example of ethnic cleansing of the 20th Century.

However, the Jewish people were not the only targets of the NAZI's. In addition, Jehovah Witnesses, Romanians, the physically and mentally disabled, communists and other political and religious dissidents, as well as gay and transgender men.

Around 10,000-15,000 men were convicted and imprisoned under Paragraph 175, which stated:

An unnatural sex act committed between persons of male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may also be imposed.

While imprisoned, these men were marked with Pink Triangles, much like the Jews were marked with the Star of David. The pink triangle would later be adopted as a badge of honor by LGBTQ activists who wanted to reclaim the symbol.

The pink triangle prisoners were treated more brutally by the concentration camp guards, due to the stigmatization surrounding homosexuality the death rate has been estimated to be around 60%.

However, the worst part was the aftermath. At the end of World War II, the concentration camps were liberated by allied troops and the rest of the world came to know of what had occurred. However, the liberation for the gay men who had been convicted under Paragraph 175 did not occur. Still viewed as convicted criminals, many gay men were re-imprisoned and/or re-convicted in courts under evidence that had been obtained by the NAZI's.

Reparations by the German government that were made to the Jewish population that had been imprisoned by the NAZI's, did not come as easily to those prosecuted under Paragraph 175. Several survivors, such as Karl Gorath, Heinz Dörmer, and Pierre Seel, would fight for decades for acknowledgment and reparations to little avail.

Furthermore, much like the scientists who acquired medical knowledge while experimenting on concentration camp prisoners, no NAZI was ever prosecuted for war crimes committed against a homosexual prisoner. It was not until 2002 that the German government even apologized to the gay community for what had been done to us under NAZI rule.

Silver Demon: In the Name of Science

This past week, the curiosity mars rover landed on the surface of the red planet. A proud moment in science to be sure. Given that this was also at the height of the Chick-Fil-A madness, a meme quickly followed that went like this:

Dear Religion,
While you were busy debating which chicken sandwiches were okay to eat, I landed a rover on mars.
Sincerely,
Your pal science.

This got a chuckle from me. However, perhaps this also is a good time as any to point out that science is not always a pure light into the darkness.

Hubertus Strughold is considered to by the father of space medicine and went to work for NASA following WWII. Dr. Strughold also once held a post at the NAZI Concentration Camp of Dachue. The experiments that Dr. Strughold were connected to involved placing concentration camp inmates in low pressure chambers, forced consumption of seawater, exposure to extremely low temperatures and submersion in freezing waters. These experiments are believed to have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of prisoners.

Dear Religion,
I shot for the moon by murdering the weak. Your Spanish Inquisition was nothing. Envious yet?
Sincerely,
Your Pal Science.

Following World War II, Operation Paperclip went into effect. In a desperate bid to stay ahead of the Soviets during the Cold War, the United States aided numerous German and Japanese scientists in obtaining clemency and U.S. citizenship in exchange for the knowledge they had obtained from experiments that could easily be classified as war crimes. Or as it might also be said, crimes against humanity.

Dear Religion,
While you were busy persecuting those of different faiths, I exploited that bigotry for cannon fodder.
Thank you,
Your Pal Science.

A full accounting of the horrors of the medical experimentation that was conducted during The Shoah would be impossible. The NAZI's did tests to discover the effects of frostbite, hypothermia, malaria, mustard gas, dehydration, the transplantation of tissues, and more.

Under the NAZI regime, gay men and women were also persecuted and imprisoned in concentration camps. Experiments on gay men imprisoned at Buchenwald, undertaken by Dr. Carl Peter Vaernet, were attempted in order to find out if it was possible to use hormones to make gay men straight. If he were alive today, one wonders how readily Dr. Vaernet would fit in with the ex-gay movement.

While castration was only rumored to have been done to the pink triangle prisoners, the British actually went ahead and chemically castrated Alan Turing, who was instrumental in the defeat of the NAZI's, for the grand old crime of being gay. As a result of this hormone treatment, Alan Turing committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple.

Alan Turing, in addition to helping defeat the NAZI's during WWII, is considered the father of modern computer science and the person whom you should be thanking for the computer you are reading this article on.

Dear Religion,
While you were busy persucuting the homos, I've been busy developing the tools that let you do so.
You're welcome,
Your Pal Science.

The history of medical experimentation in the United States has been as equally horrific as that which occured in NAZI Germany. Children, the disabled, the poor, the homeless, prisoners, and military personnel have been among the most commonly used subjects. Prior to the Civil War, expirementation on slaves was a widely accepted practice.

History is easily forgotten and when it comes to queer history, our community has been faced with a particularly virulent purge of anything that could possibly be construed as rainbow tinted.

This has been one of the main reasons I have been motivated to do the work that I have done on my novel Silver Demon. The subject of medical experimentation, particularly the tests that were conducted during The Holocaust, is one that will feature heavily.

Nobody wants to remember the dirty and grimy parts of history, only the roles we played as heroes. I cannot count myself as an exception to this. Frequently, I find myself wanting to bury my head in the sand, only to discover that there is no sand, only the ashes of the innocent.

Silver Demon: Riddle Me This.

So, in any case, I've been working on a novel for, well, some time now. The title that I have (for right now) is Silver Demon and I would classify it as falling within the queer superhero genre.

Now, while doing research for Silver Demon, I happen to keep coming across little tidbits and things that I want to either share publicly or comment on, but up until now, have not bothered to do so. Which is why I'm making this post.

There is a scene in the story where one of the characters ends up being tested and has to answer several riddles in order to proceed. Naturally, I did some research to look for inspiration for riddles to use in this scene.

One riddle that I kept coming across goes as follows:
A man and his son are out driving when they are in a terrible car accident and both the father* and son are horribly injured. Both end up being rushed to different hospitals. When the Doctor at the E.R. sees the son, she turns and says, "I cannot treat this son, he is my son."
*Some versions have the father being killed instead of injured.

Naturally the answer that is always given is that the Doctor in question happens to the patients' mom. Ha, ha, didn't think of that you sexist misogynistic pigs!

The thing is, generally speaking, that riddles are supposed to have "tricks" to them. That is, the answers are not supposed to be obvious, otherwise they would not be riddles. The trick to this riddle is that people (apparently) do not generally consider the possibility that women can be doctors.

That issue aside however, there are a couple of points I want to raise about this riddle. We know the current gender of one parent. We know nothing about the gender of the other parent. This of course leaves open several possibilities. The son is being raised by a gay couple and therefore has two fathers or the doctor is transgender, intersex, or gender queer, or more generally falls outside the gender binary.

In any case. the point remains the same, the riddle is set up so as to mock sexism but merely ends up also reinforcing heternormativity.

A better joke in the same vein - for which the punchline is now ruined (sorry!) - is as follows:

There is a terrible car accident in which it is obvious that one of the occupants is badly injured. A man and a woman rush up to the car and arrive almost at the same time. The man roughly shoves the woman aside, saying, "Excuse me lady, I know first aid."

The woman steps back for a few moments, then walks up to the man and says to him, "when you get to the part about calling a doctor, I'm right here."