In the novel I am currently writing, the protagonist is attacked and falls into a slumber for two centuries. Keep in mind, she is a vampire, so she is able to withstand much of what a human cannot. Her body is manipulated by someone akin to a mad scientist, and the biology of her being is forced to accept the integration of machinery. This change to her body not only alters her physically, but also alters her mind.

Cyberpunk’s motto is “high-tech low-life”, and while the setting of it is based in a post-capitalist dystopia, transhumanism is a vital part of the foundation for the genre. I’ve already written a bit on the economic and political side of cyberpunk, read here (it was originally a paper for my senior year of high school, so forgive me for any mistakes in essay formatting). Cybernetic enhancements are the result of people being able to modify their biology to change their disposition. I find it hypocritical that the cis people (usually men) who criticize trans health care are often the ones also playing science-fiction video games and reading novels where the characters are able to customize their body in one way or another, especially to further align their physical appearance or attributes with a goal or motive. The characters of these cyberpunk media often pursue ripper docs or find connections in order to change the entire biological make-up. These enhancements are past cosmetic, and quite literally alter your entire being.

Not only are cybernetic enhancements a link between transness and the cyberpunk genre, but the entire genre is dependent on the people in the society relying on the government and corporations to maintain a livelihood. I’m not criticizing corporations who offer trans health care to their employees through their health insurance, I actually think it’s an incredible perk, but I think it’s interesting that I’ve heard of many trans people who were able to further their medical transition through the benefits they received from their company. In a political landscape where transness is heavily politicized, it makes sense that it mirrors the politics of transhumanism in the cyberpunk genre.

I remember watching Altered Carbon and how the wealthy were able to switch between physical bodies, also known as “sleeves”, as long as their “stack” was intact. They were, in a way, able to immortalize themselves through being able to compact their consciousness in a piece of technology. But this makes me think, if that is such a normal part of the genre, that they’re able to present themselves as any race, gender, sex (assigned at birth), and choose their physical appearance, then why is it not politicized the same way transness is? It proves to me that we are truly only consciousness and soul in a flesh bag that is forced to perform gender and the scale of femininity and masculinity in order to not disrupt the status quo. It makes you question everything you’ve known. As someone who has passed as both genders and was stealth for years in specific spaces, it has opened my eyes to how delicate the performance of identity is. These labels and boxes that we’ve been pushed into are made up of things that are malleable and manipulable.

As an autistic person, I have a complicated and fluid relationship with my gender. Being autistic means it’s harder to understand the status quo and the social norms that have been created for people to follow. I identify with femme as my gender because no matter what gender I could have been assigned to at birth, femininity or what society deems as femininity is intrinsic to the way I move through the world. It makes sense that I’ve always felt drawn to the cyberpunk genre, as I feel like a robot in a way. Pre-diagnosis, I felt like a broken manufacturing of a robot. The exact example I used to explain my suspicion of autism to healthcare professionals was that life and existing felt like I had to manually walk up a broken escalator while everyone else’s worked perfectly fine. In high school, there was a brief moment where classmates I had mentioned that my voice was robotic, lacking of typical inflection and tone. I was labelled autistic before I even knew I was autistic. It was obvious to others that there was something different about me. Even as a child, I could never “girl” properly. It’s heartbreaking now, but I would watch femininity coaches as a young teen in order to know how to “be”. I didn’t know it back then, but I was substituting that sort of content to be a guide in how to be human.

These are just my thoughts on how transness and the cyberpunk genre are interlinked, but also a little vulnerability on how I connect to the experience of gender and the cyberpunk genre through my autism. In times where the trans and autistic community is heavily attacked and targeted for simply existing, I find it crucial to voice my experience and platform the voices of other trans, nonbinary, gender non-conforming, and autistic individuals as well.