[ SECRET POST #2360 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2360 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 044 secrets from Secret Submission Post #336.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - take it to comments ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

14. http://i.imgur.com/mLQ0E3m.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I find the gender essentialism (if I'm understanding the term correctly) really confusing. I want to have a male body, but I do not care how I dress. I would totally rock out skirts and cute tops even if I had a male body, and I now rock out traditionally male outfits and presentation with a female body.

[(Anonymous)]

I want to care about these secrets because this is something I actually read and not just know about, but my eyes just glaze over the words every time.

[(Anonymous)]

Why's that?

[(Anonymous)]

I guess because it talks about things in terms I don't understand. I can guess from the context that "gender essentialism" means something like if you're a girl, you have to act like the stereotype of a girl, and if you're a boy, you have to act like the stereotype of a boy, but it took me 15+ read-throughs to get that. (I went to Google first, but that didn't help.)

Plus, now that I kind of understand what it's saying, it doesn't really feel like a secret? So I'm kind of confused? At first, it was like "Yay! A kindred spirit! Let's talk opinions." but now it's like...what? What is this esoteric secret?

da

[(Anonymous)]

i think that they just use proper academic-type terms because they're more concise for the size of the secret, and partly habit for people who talk about gender issues a lot

if it helps, i think the OP is basically saying that they hope the capped statement means takatsuki has realized that gender presentation (dressing up/'presenting' as a boy or girl) isn't what makes someone a "boy" or a girl", and that you can be a boy or a girl without having to adopt a stereotypical masculine/feminine image

because otherwise it's a pretty uncomfortable thought, and implies that takatsuki doesn't think they are a boy because they no longer think about dressing up like one, etc

it's probably a secret because the fandom doesn't react well to hearing that the manga can do wrong

sa

[(Anonymous)]

because otherwise it's a pretty uncomfortable thought, and implies that takatsuki doesn't think they are a boy because they no longer think about dressing up like one, etc

er woah i messed this up, please disregard it

[transcriptanon]

[Picture is the manga "Wandering Son". There is a thought bubble with the text, "I don't think about wanting to be a boy anymore..." coming from one of the characters.]

I hope this means that Takatsuki has realized that one can adopt a stereotypically "male" gender presentation, or a stereotypically "female" gender presentation, regardless of whether one is actually male or female.

Because I dislike the weird gender essentialism surrounding the notion of "male" or "female" gender presentation.

[(Anonymous)]

As much as I like this mangaka's stuff, a lot of it is still off-putting because it tends to resort to stereotypes like these. Of all manga I've read, I'd have expected this one to not fail at nuance as hard as it does, and I don't really trust the issue to be fleshed out with much depth.

Especially not after Aoi Hana *SPOILER AHEAD* pulled the usual thing where the girl's a lesbian because she had a deeply damaging experience with a male and now hates men.

The presentation just makes my respect tank each time I go back and catch up.

[(Anonymous)]

This, basically. Every time I think I've found a manga that actually handles sexuality or gender with real sensitivity, I invariably get shot down.

I'm so tired of lesbians only being "a phase", or, like you said, only that way because of a traumatic experience with men. I'm tired of gay relationships being portrayed as completely unhealthy or fetishistic. I'm tired of transgender/non-binary genders being treated as confused tomboys or guys that are just gay and didn't know how to handle it.

It all comes back to a ridiculously heteronormative/cisgendercentric storytelling that just disappoints me further and further the more it happens. I'm ready to give up on manga entirely at this point.

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

A big +1 to all of this, too. Well put! I feel this a lot, myself.

Although as an unsolicited rec, you might like Double House if you haven't read it. It's got some issues, but it's still one of the only manga out there that makes me think the mangaka must have actually talked to some queer/trans* people.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't even know if you'll see this, but... look up Plica. It's a cute slice-of-life comic about a young lesbian in Japan, and her group of friends - hinted to be based on its creator's own life at least in part. Seriously, it's like the antidote to all the terrible straight-dude-written stuff that's got you exhausted!

[(Anonymous)]

Ugh, I know what you mean. I love characters that don't conform to gender stereotypes, especially characters that crossdress or are trans*, but so often the source material treats those behaviors as something that needs fixing.

The only recent manga I've seen that treat crossdressing/trans characters are Kuragehime and Love*Com. The main characters in Kuragehime are a crossdressing boy and a group of 'unfeminine' girls (in that they're nerdy and unstylish). The 'problem' with these girls is not that they aren't interested in traditional femininity--it's that they suffer from incredible social anxiety and need practice interacting with other people. The issue of crossdressing is never presented as being problematic (except by more conservative minor characters). Love*Com is a decent high school rom-com, and one of the secondary characters is a transwoman named Seiko. There's the standard "that girl you kissed is really a guy!" punchline, but it's immediately followed by Seiko explaining that she's never thought of herself as a boy and that her genes just got mixed up. The other characters like and support her, and they encourage her to keep living as Seiko even when she thinks her voice is changing.

tl;dr there are a few manga out there that do a decent job with gender ambiguity/fluidity, so it's not all bad...?

[(Anonymous)]

Everything about this.

I spent so much of my time from about 11-14 crying my eyes out in secret because I wasn't a boy. As I grew older, I realized I didn't actually have this burning desire to be male, I just didn't want to be confined to how "society" says girls should dress/act.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

I was a huge tomboy as a child, had stereotypically male interests instead of female ones, etc. and as a result spent quite a while wishing I were a boy instead. Like you, it wasn't until I got older that I realized I'm just fine with being a girl, just not a stereotypical one.

[(Anonymous)]

OMG THIS THIS THIS. FINALLY SOMEONE ELSE HAS SAID IT.

This is what confuses me so much about a lot of gender talk nowadays. It's almost like if you are biologically female, but you like looking stereotypically 'masculine', suddenly you are actually a boy? To me, it just doesn't work like that. That's just conforming even more strictly to society's gender roles and expectations, because now you're actually letting society's stereotypes dictate whether you are male or female.

Why can't a person just be a female who likes to look/act masculine? Or a male who likes to appear very feminine? I honestly don't get it. I mean, just do what you want, you don't need to label yourself so heavily!

(Not saying that genuine transgender/transsexual people don't exist, I totally realise that is a legitimate thing.)

[(Anonymous)]

this is why the whole "genderqueer" concept makes me so angry, because it's based on gender essentialism and just reinforces it further rather than goes against it like people claim. you can be a woman who likes having short hair and dresses in a masculine fashion and has "male" hobbies and still identify as female. likewise, doing all of those things doesn't suddenly NOT make you female.

[(Anonymous)]

But that's the thing - identity. One of my closest friends is genderqueer, and zie does not identify solely as male or solely as female. Zie has dysphoria, as well. Gender identity and gender presentation are two very different things - for instance, my gender presentation is pretty masculine, but my identity is female and has never been anything but that. But for my friend, zir presentation is androgynous-to-masculine and zir identity is also somewhere in between - zie doesn't identify as female, zie doesn't identify as male.

It's not the presentation that says whether you're genderqueer or not. It's ENTIRELY down to identity.