fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3360 ]

[ SECRET POST #3360 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3360 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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02.

[Niche]

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03.

[Rush Hour 1, 2, 3]

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04.

["The Bride Was A Boy" manga]

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05.

[J.K. Rowling]

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06.

[Pretty Little Liars]

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07.

[Twin Peaks]

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08.

[The Walking Dead/The Flash]

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09.

(GIRLS)

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10.

[The Grinder]

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11.

[Pokemon]

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12.

[Lord of the Rings]

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13.

[Babylon 5, Tolkien, Star Wars, Harry Potter]

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14.

[Star Wars: The Force Awakens]

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15.

[Pete Seeger]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 032 secrets from Secret Submission Post #480.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah, I can see where it might be better for people who don't know a lot, but the issue I have with it is that it's being treated in Western circles like it's This Huge Deal, when in reality it's like the most painful rote Trans 101 thing someone could crap out.

Combine that with the fact that she's basically sanitized to appeal to the widest cisgender audience possible (light skinned, could pass for white if you don't know the origin, straight, married, well-off enough, etc) and it just kind of grates on me. My partner hates it too so I'm not alone (and it helps knowing a trans woman is just as irritated by it as I am :P, yes, this is the same trans male anon from before with the trans female girlfriend).

Plus, as I hint a little bit in my secret at the end there, I will admit that I'm extremely salty about the literally almost invisible trans male representation in Japan versus trans female. It's kind of nauseating that literally every trans male representation I can think of (...a whopping 3 characters, with the one from "Wandering Son" of course being the one that suddenly detransitions for no reason, and I will fight people IRL if they don't think it's because of Japan's huge issues with misogyny proving why they treat trans women with more seriousness there, it's because they look at trans men as women through and through) has heir AFAB bodies exploited for sexual or gag reasons.

I'm just irritated in general that this story is being lauded as something it's not. It's very "by the numbers", which, if someone needs that? That's cool. But don't pretend it's groundbreaking like everyone seems to be doing.

I'm curious which other trans male representations you know of!

I think I've come across some manga with trans male characters that don't fall under the sex/gag exploitation umbrella, though they're also not main characters. Maybe the only one with a trans male MC is Claudine! by Ryoko Ikeda, but it's definitely dated from what I remember wrt... a lot of things, since it was done in the mid-80s (major angst, unfortunate wordings/implications, tragic ending, huge hair). But in the end it's unambiguous about Claudine's identity as a trans man (imo; I was surprised to find reviews of it as a yuri drama).

sa -- mid-80s -> actually 1978, sorry (refreshing myself with it on a site that had 1987 as publication)

AYRT

So far everything I've seen is this:

Family Compo- Probably the least problematic representation, although all the trans characters are still completely violated for sake of "comedy", but keep in mind that this manga is old, and for it being old it's actually...somewhat okay. The trans guy is a real cutie and it's really refreshing to see a trans man and a trans woman in a relationship that isn't portrayed as them both longing to be with "obviously superior cisgender" men/women.

Yuureitou- The main character is a trans man, and it's a horror/thriller manga set in the 50's so he's pre-hormone and pre-top surgery. His body is used multiple times for titillation, although it somewhat redeems itself at the end with a male character admitting he's attracted to Tetsuo as a man.

Wandering Son- While this is lauded as awesome trans representation, the author really doesn't give a shit about trans men (she mentioned at the end that she was inspired by reading abut "men who wear women's clothing" or something and it really, really shows), and the only prominent trans male character pulls a 180 at the end and really unconvincingly decides to detransition. The only reason I don't hate this manga with a burning passion is because it acknowledges that lesbian trans women exist, where so many straight trans women end up just being played for male chaser fantasies. So seeing the fact acknowledged that lesbian trans women are a thing? Awesome.

Tokyo Ghoul has Tooru Mutusuki but I'm not holding my breath, the manga recently pulled some BS that implies Tooru might be one of those "I'm a trans man because ~rape/trauma~" stereotypes and once that trauma is resolved he'll magically detransition.

Yukimura Kusunoki is another trans male character but he's handled really, really badly even if Yukimura himself is a cutie. Not to mention the fanbase is disgusting. Yukimura explicitly wants to be referred to as a man, but because of his pushover personality (which is thinly veiled Authoor Intent for ~sexy female fanservice kawaiiiii~) he's dressed in a maid outfit for 90% of the series he's in. He does eventually don a butler outfit, but....well, to give you an idea of the kind of representation, here's one of the two most popular figures made for him:

http://s1.tsuki-board.net/pics/figure/large/166995.jpg?r=1397249459

The other figures don't even bother with the pretense. A friend of mine introduced me to him, and explained that he's basically who my friend points to whenever he tries to explain how Japan is super obsessed with trans men's original sex in a weird form of misogyny that doesn't affect trans women in Japan the same way. Sure there are tons of "woman with penis" chasers, but they're invested in it being a woman with a penis. Trans men? Well trans men are just women. Period. All but one of the guys on this short list have been forced into women's clothing via Flimsy Plot Device at least once, more often multiple times.

There are other "coded" trans masculine characters too, not many, and I'm not going to list them and inevitably get into an internet slap fight (try and argue Naoto Shirogane is arguably coded as a trans guy and you'll get sooooo many angry fans), but there are a few.

but... naoto isn't coded as a trans guy at all. if you think she is, then you're completely missing the entire point of her character arc, which is a commentary on gender roles in japanese society.

DA

Don't forget Isabella from Paradise Kiss - the narrative chose not to focus on her gender identity, but in flashbacks to her childhood, she's portrayed as male.

I'm sure there are more but I have the worst headache ever and feel a bit like I'm dying, so I'm going to crawl back into my hole now. Oh! That one trans lady from Shangri-la?

ayrt

I read a bit of Family Compo and Wandering Son, but hadn't heard of the rest. Thanks, very interesting!

Actually, one of the things Claudine! did well was have him explicitly shoot down the childhood trauma stereotype near the end, though it seemed like it was going to go there for a bit.

Other ones:

Honey & Honey, which is similar to Bride as it's an autobiographical LGBT 101 mixed with slice-of-life, with an emphasis on the author's cis lesbian relationship with a bi woman. It's also light, but I find it less cutesy than Bride. There's a chapter on two of the author's trans male friends and transitioning, though they and another are introduced and are series regulars long before then.

Level E, a sci-fi manga, has a storyline where an alien princess and a trans male character fall in love, but wherever that alien race breeds, the planet dies soon after and the main characters have to prevent it. It's really been a while since I read it, and iirc there's some unfortunate implications/wordings/explanations as well, plus... well, there's the whole "trans male character gets full-body (advanced alien) surgery, the world will die" reading. He does end up fully transitioning via alien surgery while the princess gets fooled by a clone so the world doesn't end, but... At the least, the character doesn't end up being used as sex/comedy fodder iirc.

A brief glimpse and mention in a Chi-Ran short of a trans male character, though the other characters see it as "becoming a man (for the sake of a woman)" (the POVs are, admittedly, "terrible dad" and "naive sister"). Same as above, at least the character isn't used for fodder, and the sister admires his stance.

Trans male characters apparently also appear later on in the 4-koma series Poor Poor Lips and in the US-published anthology Yuri Monogatari (vol. 4), though not sure how they're handled.

(Re: lesbian trans women: There's a couple chapters in the anthology Mermaid Line ("Ayumi & Aika") with a lesbian trans woman coming out as both to her cis girlfriend. It's fluffy, but it acknowledges a bit more than expected.

There's also a lesbian trans woman in the mess that is Kyou Kara Yonshimai, but, oh boy, that one's a big, big mess.)

Certain old Riyoko Ikeda manga have trans characters, or at least I can think of one. I can't remember which, though. Pretty much all her manga include either crossdressing women, lesbians, or transmen. But she's also a product of her time, and the stories generally end in death or tragedy. Her stuff is from like the 70's.

I'm confused. What do her tone/race/perceived race, financial class, orientation, or marital status have to do with anything? It kinda sounds like you're asking for people who do meet these points to not have their stories told out of...tokenism or something.

Do...do you realize how ridiculous you sound?

"What does the fact that it's a a white, middleclass, straight heterosexual guy have to do with anything? It's like you want stories about other people for tokenism or something." Reframe exactly what you said and then think about it.

No. Asking the media to acknowledge the fact that trans women aren't all ultra-passing, hard femme, straight as an arrow, and destined to marry cisgender men isn't tokenism. I have so many lesbian trans friends who literally broke down crying when they saw the representation on Sense8. (And it's sad that it basically took a presumed lesbian/bisexual trans woman (Lily Wachowski) to get that representation on the air.) It's not "tokenism" to want to see yourself represented.

do you realize how ridiculous YOU sound? are you going to actually answer the question the other anon posed? should passing trans women just shut up and not tell their stories because it contributes to what you see as a singular narrative?

As someone who is never represented in media, darling, you're NOT entitled to representation.

Diversity is important. Nobody is saying otherwise. But it shouldn't be an excuse to denounce any single representation, because they all exist. We shouldn't be telling anybody that their story isn't worth telling on account of other people existing. That's why I call it tokenism, because it's saying that what we have isn't valid. Don't negate anybody just because others need to be seen too.

And you just repeated white despite the character being Japanese.

She's not white. Are you crazy? Light skin has been a beauty ideal for over a thousand years in Japan. She's not white, she's a Japanese woman doing her own story, and it isn't white washing.

Do you understand that Japan is a different place? That it's in Asia? The people in manga are Japanese, or 99% of them are. They may look whiter than they are in reality because they're drawn on white or beige paper, like every character in a black & white comic book. Do you have some kind of mental illness that makes you unable to grasp this?

Transwomen are treated more seriously for the same reason gay men are treated more seriously: the long history of homosexuality in Japan, shuudou, male kabuki actors playing women, yadda yadda. The cultural role of the okama has been around for a long fucking time. I guess it all comes down to misogyny ultimately, but like, I get the impression you're getting this all from anime as opposed to lived experience in Japan or studying the history. I am sooooo sick of weebs making all these judgments about Japan without actually living there.

In my experience, while lesbians and transmen are generally invisible in Japan, they receive a lot less outright hostility compared to in north america. People will privately think "well, you're weird" but they will be polite and not say anything and judge it to be your own private business. Japan is a much more tolerant country w/r/t sexual/gender minorities in the sense that the cultural policy is basically "don't ask, don't tell." It's not like the US where people actually get lynched and murdered and shit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #3360 ]

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