Another new poster here. Like a lot of other people, I've been reading QC for years, I popped over to the forums to see what the reaction was - and I have to admit to being disappointed. Not surprised, but disappointed. I don't have much to add to the discussion, but it's worth the minute-long registration process, I guess.
I really wish more peoples' reaction to this was the same as Marten's - "oh, okay. cool," followed by promptly moving on to things that are relevant. I mean, obviously, Claire's history is relevant to understanding who she is, and Marten should be flattered that she trusts him enough to share that with him, but it doesn't change who she is now any more than it would, say, make her less American now if she'd been born in France. If she identifies as female, her gender is female. It's that simple, and whether it's rude or not (it is, to a lot of people), it's pointless to worry about her genitalia or her sex (as distinct from gender) or anything of the sort until and unless it becomes relevant. I was really proud of Jeph for making Marten's reaction so awesome (especially since it jives so well with everything we've seen of Marten to date), and I hoped the readership would follow suit a little better. Comments like "this is just Jeph throwing in shit to appeal to his liberal readership" are bad enough, but the stuff about whether this will mean Marten isn't interested because "[he's] not into that"? Claire's a lady. It's clearly that simple to Marten, even though he just as clearly understands that it isn't that simple for Claire and that that can suck for her. That kind of simple, you-are-what-you-are acceptance, in my experience and opinion, is the best possible way to react - or, to paraphrase someone cleverer than I, "all declarations of identity should be responded to in identical fashion - 'that's great! cake?'"
Oh, and as a poly dude, it seems inexcusable to me to equate the kind of shit you take for being polyamorous with the kind of shit you take for being trans. Yeah, society's reaction to me isn't as awesome as I'd like, but as little as some people like it that I don't fit in the monogamy box, it pales behind the reaction you can see when people have the temerity to refuse to fit in their assigned gender box. I'd do some archaeology and find whatever forum threads were around when Tai came out to Marten as poly to see if they supported my theory, but, well, I'm lazy, and besides, the internet can turn anything into a big deal.
Jesus, that was longer than I thought. tl;dr - doesn't matter, have gender.
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