“The Genre of Gender” by Elsworth Rockefeller
I did appreciate this article and mostly agreed with Rockefeller's points about the texts he highlights, with a few quibbles on details (I don't think Infinite Darlene is such a negative portrayal as all that, which we discussed in class, for instance).
I'm going to come back to the question of intended audience on this one, because I think it's really important to how one evaluates literature about minority groups, especially when that literature carries a didactic message. A good book will be written in such a way as to make it available to a variety of audiences, but in the end the author makes certain narrative choices that make it easy to determine who the book is for. I usually look at the point of view character, the plot, and the way other characters think about the minority character in question, as well as which characters are portrayed with any amount of agency and which ones get active character development.
I usually contrast Luna and Parrotfish in terms of YA trans lit, and interestingly, Rockefeller and I seem to have somewhat differing opinions on these books. I don't think Luna is as wonderful a portrayal as it is often lauded to be, and the reason for this is that it reads very much as a Sympathize With The Victims book to me. The protagonist of the book is a straight teen girl, Regan, whose sibling, whose given name is Liam but who increasingly adopts the female identity of Luna, is MTF trans. The book focuses largely on Regan's coming to terms with her sibling's transition (and often fails to use appropriate pronouns as part of this confusion). The book very much focuses on how someone might adjust to having someone important in their life transition, and Luna's preternatural perfection in most things make her a somewhat abstract character, and the moments in which she develops are often more concerned with Regan's emotional response and development than Luna's, as Regan witnesses increasing strife with the family, helps Luna on a shopping trip for women's clothing, etc. In the end, Luna pays a heavy price for claiming her identity--she moves away, effectively estranged from her parents who do not accept her. This kind of literature can be instructive for readers who are trying to understand the trans people in their lives, but its message of hope to trans youth directly is... not very hopeful. In general I find Peters writes Victim Stories around LGBT topics, especially trans--the short story in grl2grl is somewhat brutal and forbidding for the trans guy protagonist.
I think Parrotfish is a much stronger book because it provides a fairly well-adjusted and convincingly, if not universally, accepted transgender protagonist/point of view character. I do take Rockefeller's point that it dwells too much on gender stuff to the detriment of the pacing and plot development. I think it's important to have books that portray trans characters that speak *to trans youth* and not primarily or, it sometimes feels, ONLY, to straight readers curious to learn more about trans life.