u/Good-Night-Reddit

Okay, so I have a side character for a fantsy story I'm creating, and the culture she's from is supposed to be lightly inspired by Inuit culture. I'm trying to figure out how to write her as transgender in a respectful way.

I don't know a lot about specific groups within the category of "Inuit," so bear with me here and please feel free to educate me if needed.

My character is transgender, she was born with a male body. Based on the research (google searches and articles mostly) I've done so far, I know that there is the idea of the soul name, where a child is named after a deceased relative and it is thought of as that the relative's soul? traits? personality? are passed on to the child through the name. I think it'd be cool to include in her backstory that she was named after a female relative, and the soul of that relative didn't want to be in a male body, so it made my character really sick and when the community's elders were trying to figure out why she was sick, she said something that indicated she didn't feel like a boy (also, I would probably have this take place when she was a pre-teen).

Then, once people started thinking of her as a girl, she would recover from her illness. She would keep the same name of course, and would now be considered a girl.

Is this a respectful way for me to write this character? Keep in mind, I don't think I will have her culture literally be an Inuit culture, but it will be lightly inspired (Inuit names, similar social customs, same physical features as many Inuit, etc.)

Also, I think Inuit people have multiple names along with their soul name? I will need to figure out some more names for her, and get a better understanding of how names work in Inuit cultures. I'm planning for her soul name to be Qimmiq (pretty sure it means dog) by the way.

Any advice, critiques, information, or resources would be much appreciated! I'm a white American so I don't have any experience with Inuit cultures, or very many other groups that are often marginalized or underrepresented. I totally recognize that I'm very uneducated on this topic, which is why I thought I should throw my questions out into the void of Reddit in case anyone with more expertise has some guidance.

Okay, so I have a side character for a fantsy story I'm creating, and the culture she's from is supposed to be lightly inspired by Inuit culture. I'm trying to figure out how to write her as transgender in a respectful way.

I don't know a lot about specific groups within the category of "Inuit," so bear with me here and please feel free to educate me if needed.

My character is transgender, she was born with a male body. Based on the research (google searches and articles mostly) I've done so far, I know that there is the idea of the soul name, where a child is named after a deceased relative and it is thought of as that the relative's soul? traits? personality? are passed on to the child through the name. I think it'd be cool to include in her backstory that she was named after a female relative, and the soul of that relative didn't want to be in a male body, so it made my character really sick and when the community's elders were trying to figure out why she was sick, she said something that indicated she didn't feel like a boy (also, I would probably have this take place when she was a pre-teen).

Then, once people started thinking of her as a girl, she would recover from her illness. She would keep the same name of course, and would now be considered a girl.

Is this a respectful way for me to write this character? Keep in mind, I don't think I will have her culture literally be an Inuit culture, but it will be lightly inspired (Inuit names, similar social customs, same physical features as many Inuit, etc.)

Also, I think Inuit people have multiple names along with their soul name? I will need to figure out some more names for her, and get a better understanding of how names work in Inuit cultures. I'm planning for her soul name to be Qimmiq (pretty sure it means dog) by the way.

Any advice, critiques, information, or resources would be much appreciated! I'm a white American so I don't have any experience with Inuit cultures, or very many other groups that are often marginalized or underrepresented. I totally recognize that I'm very uneducated on this topic, which is why I thought I should throw my questions out into the void of Reddit in case anyone with more expertise has some guidance.