I'm really happy that people have responded positively to the news that Camille is transgender.

I've had a very small number of people ask me how it is that Camille can be trans when Damien isn't. This seems to be more of a question of curiosity, rather than malice, so I figured I'd answer it earnestly. To me the answer is pretty simple, and yet I found myself writing a lot about it. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to continue with these characters, but somehow, there is a lot more to be said, so I figured I'd write another journal entry.

Firstly, this question has two parts. There's the question of how conjoined twins in general can identify separately, then there's the question of how these two in particular identify. After all, Damien and Camille are just two people, their experiences are not the same as all other conjoined twins out there.

Really, the reason they can have two different gender identities is because they are two different people. In the case of Damien and Camille, Camille's gender doesn't match the one assigned to her at birth while Damien's for the most part does. That's all there is to it. Things like hormones and surgery are treatments for dysphoria, but they're not requirements to be trans. Regardless of what sort of treatments they do or don't seek, it doesn't change whether they are trans or not.


As for why these two in particular identify this way, well it's basically just how things ended up. When I write these characters, I try to listen to my heart and let them speak for themselves. I did not write them this way to create any sort of conflict between them. I'm not interested in stories about conjoined twins fighting each other. It's one of my least favorite aspects of the concept, honestly. There are times where they can't both get exactly what they want. It's just an unfortunate effect of their situation. But they're mature enough to figure things out without squabbling. They empathize with each other, and don't want to hold each other back. I'm much more interested in the way they work together and move forward.


Camille is trans for personal reasons. It comes from self-reflection as an individual. From the beginning, their feminine traits mostly came from Camille. She was sort of an outlet for my own gender expression. As I started to understand why I was drawn to feminine things, so did she. There came a point where I could not deny it any longer. If I'm not cisgender, there's no way that she is.

Then it came time to decide what to do about Damien. I toyed with the idea of making him trans as well, just to make things simpler. But that felt disingenuous. I can't just make him trans out of convenience. He needs a better reason than that. Camille can't decide his gender for him, nor does she want to. The only person who can tell you if you are trans is yourself.

So the question I was asking is "would Damien be trans if he wasn't conjoined to Camille?" It was a difficult question to answer. In my head the scenario played out like a conversation between the two. Camille asked Damien to search his feelings. She described to him how she felt. She asked him if he felt the same way that she does. Each one of these hypothetical conversations played out in a similar way. He just can't say yes at this time, it would feel forced.

The truth is, this is Camille's moment. She is the one taking these steps towards womanhood. She is the one expressing herself here, not Damien.


Damien is a different person from Camille. They have a lot in common, but they don't always have to feel the same about everything. One of Damien's main traits is that he is more confident than Camille. He's less worried about what people think of him. He's more comfortable with who he is, regardless of whether he's wearing a dress, a suit, or even nothing at all. Camille spends more time looking inward, while Damien lives more in the moment. Asking him to reflect on his own gender is a little more difficult for him. He's more than willing to wear what Camille wants to wear, but wearing a dress doesn't automatically make you trans. He honestly doesn't know what kind of person he would be without Camille, and he doesn't particularly enjoy thinking about hypotheticals like that. For now...he's just happy the way things are. He wants his sister to have her moment, and she doesn't want to force him to change if he doesn't want to.

I don't know where they're going to go from here, and by extension, neither do they. They're figuring things out just like I am.