Girl vs monsters characters series#

IвЂ™m still not completely out, and I tend to hide my gender in situations where IвЂ™ve been made to feel like itвЂ™s an inconvenienceвЂЉ-вЂЉwith professors who make no space in their classrooms for considerations like pronouns, with family members for whom explaining the concept would fall on ultimately uncomprehending ears, with my housemates in the all-female campus housing in which IВ live. It was a hard identity to put a name to, to come to understand.

Girl vs monsters characters series#

I came out as non-binary in a series of stages, over the course of a number of years. They are not so often, as I am, humanВ beings. Where non-binary characters appear in literature and culture, they are more often than not robots, or aliens, or monsters. The flip side, though, is also embodied in the joke: Janet isnвЂ™t a girl because sheвЂ™s not a person.

SheвЂ™s a non-binary character on a major network sitcom whose gender identity, or lack thereof, does not define herвЂЉ-вЂЉa feat which should be in and of itself a kind of revolution. She is a sophisticated form of artificial intelligence, and while she presents in a feminine manner she doesnвЂ™t identify as femaleвЂЉ-вЂЉor even have a sense of binary gender identity. But bound up in this idea is a more complicated one: that Janet, not being a human at all, is also specifically not a girl. The point is that Janet is a manufactured database and not a person. Every time one of the other characters calls her a вЂњgirlвЂќ or a вЂњwoman,вЂќ she cheerfully corrects them, вЂњIвЂ™m not aВ girl.вЂќ ThereвЂ™s a running joke in NBCвЂ™s The Good Place about Janet, the neighborhoodвЂ™s anthropomorphized operational mainframe. Electric Lit is 12 years old! Help support the next dozen years by helping us raise $12,000 for 12 years, and get exclusive merch!