- cross-posted to:
- anime@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- anime@hexbear.net
The manga: a college guy meets his childhood friend, who was formerly a boy but is now a woman, and has run away from home after an unspecified disagreement with her family which has left her with a significant amount of trauma; it’s implied she was bullied heavily in the time since they’ve last seen each other.
But don’t worry, she’s not trans! She just got an illness which turned her into a woman!
The manga: a high school boy with an interest in make-up uses his gloomy, depressed (male) childhood friend as a model to improve his skills. This causes said friend to have an “awakening” and start dressing as a woman, and to overall be a much happier, brighter, outgoing person.
But don’t worry, the friend is not trans! He’s just a boy who crossdresses because his childhood friend likes him better that way!
The manga: a high school boy joins a club where the members can turn into magical girls, which in his case involves physically transforming into a girl. When in girlmode, he’s much happier and enjoys his life much more, and overall prefers staying in girl mode; when the ability to transform is temporarily taken away from him, he sinks into a deep depressive episode.
But don’t worry, he’s not trans! He’s just a boy who enjoys being a girl!
The manga: a college student loses a bet and has to crossdress for a night out on the town, and meets and hooks up with a butch girl; they fall in love and start dating. The boy always crossdressed when they meet, and starts enjoying being “treated like a girl” in the relationship and starts crossdressing even when he doesn’t have to meet his girlfriend and enjoys activities such as clothes shopping and make-up and putting on nail polish.
But don’t worry, he’s not trans! He’s just a boy who crossdresses to please his butch girlfriend!
The manga: a guy is magically turned into a girl as a result of saving his best friend, the crown prince, from an assassination attempt. The prince decides that he has to take responsibility, and asks the new girl to marry him; despite being smitten she refuses, wanting to date first. She is later offered a way to go back to being a man, but when she does turn back she’s disgusted by her own appearance and depressed all the time, ultimately deciding to stay a girl.
But don’t worry, she’s not trans! She’s just a boy who’s been magically turned into a woman! And decides not to turn back when she can! Because she’s not trans! Somehow!
“But we can’t write trans women in manga! It’s just not something that you do!”
It’s really really annoying to me that attractiveness and gender is a barrier to these people breaking out and finding happiness in themselves. Like, we all know they would be massively happier once they get to be the real versions of themselves. We get that.
Being an unattractive man gets tied up in their brains as a more preferable thing to the possibility of being an unattractive woman.
It’s actually a really big signal of the internalised mysogyny these people are carrying from society because it tells us how this person thinks about every unattractive woman in the street.
And they would still be significantly happier than they are now, even if they only ever achieved being an unattractive woman.
The worst bit is that way more often than not, with a some work on their health and appearance, hormones would make them perfectly attractive in a traditional sense, as a woman. It’s all just cultural misogyny that unless a woman is a 10/10 smoke show she is a “failed” woman.
If we had a working class media we would normalise the full breadth of women in media. Arguably men would improve slightly because I get the impression that men who do not take care of themselves are over-represented in media.
Part of the problem is that the beauty standard is different for men and women. And these closeted trans women are making the decision that they can meet the beauty standard for men more easily than they can meet the beauty standard for women, and it is this specific difference that represents the barrier for their coming out. It is a “life will be harder for me” calculus built on a social normalisation of men not taking care of themselves being acceptable. I’m thinking out loud a little here but I think that the decision is “I don’t take care of myself” (a behaviour driven by their dysphoria) which then manifests into “I still wouldn’t take care of myself when I transition” which then manifests to “I shouldn’t transition because I would suck as a woman”. Part of the miscalculation here is that they don’t realise that being happier in their bodies would also drive them to greater care of themselves.
no need to call me out like this 😔
definitely. it’s also wrapped up in all kinds of dysphoria and cultural depictions of transfemininity as being horrifying and not wanting to be like that. when you think your options are repressing or being buffalo bill…