Halima is actually good trans rep and I will die on that hill, regardless of the fact that Robert Jordan didn’t know what a trans person was when he wrote her. Yes, she is reincarnated in a woman’s body as a ‘punishment’ for failure, but she ends up liking it quite a bit, is able to explore parts of her sexuality she wasn’t able to before, and most importantly, she is an example of a woman channelling saidin. When her cover is blown in the war camp, they don’t accuse her of being a man, they just recognize that she is a woman channelling saidin, and respond accordingly, like this is something they have seen before. The rest of the forsaken treat her as if she legit just transitioned and aren’t really weird about it at all. It’s actually super crazy how well it’s handled. I’ve never heard another trans person complain about how Halima is bad trans rep, only well meaning cis people who don’t have the first hand experience to know that she actually kinda rocks. That, or maybe I’m just so starved for good representation that she is good in comparison to everything else. Probably some combination of both.
Wait, is there a trans character I’m forgetting or do you mean
spoiler
the male Forsaken (I forget which) who gets reincarnated in a woman’s body explicitly as punishment for failure?
Halima is actually good trans rep and I will die on that hill, regardless of the fact that Robert Jordan didn’t know what a trans person was when he wrote her. Yes, she is reincarnated in a woman’s body as a ‘punishment’ for failure, but she ends up liking it quite a bit, is able to explore parts of her sexuality she wasn’t able to before, and most importantly, she is an example of a woman channelling saidin. When her cover is blown in the war camp, they don’t accuse her of being a man, they just recognize that she is a woman channelling saidin, and respond accordingly, like this is something they have seen before. The rest of the forsaken treat her as if she legit just transitioned and aren’t really weird about it at all. It’s actually super crazy how well it’s handled. I’ve never heard another trans person complain about how Halima is bad trans rep, only well meaning cis people who don’t have the first hand experience to know that she actually kinda rocks. That, or maybe I’m just so starved for good representation that she is good in comparison to everything else. Probably some combination of both.