#as a heavily gender non comforming woman

[hidefdoritos]

not folding my laundry not refilling my pill sorter not cooking dinner. lying down and thinking about longhaired boys.

[antoine-roquentin]

was in a wal-mart in rural ontario recently, and i realized that, not only could you buy beer alongside hunting guns, in wal-mart, on a sunday, which all were not possible in this province the year i was born, but also the current ruling party was the main impediment to those things being illegal, and now it’s the main champion. the ontario conservatives were the very vanguard of rich people protestant morality in the public sphere. the statistical probabilty of protestants voted conservative and catholics voted liberal was such a truism that it was a shock when it dipped below 80% in 2006. in the 1950s, women couldn’t drink in bars without chaperones and religious groups went around harassing people who worked on sundays like saudi religious police. you could be jailed if you took a beer to the washroom until 2006. we were the last people in north america to get beer sales in sports stadiums, in 1982 (hilarious vids). indigenous people couldn’t buy booze until 1959, and the government reserved the right to inspect anybody’s home on a moment’s notice who bought booze and deny them that right until the 70s. even then, when government-run stores (which were the only place to buy booze until 2015) started introducing self-serve in the same years, it was common to hear denunciations of the evils of such practices on any given sunday. essentially, we were ruled by a protestant theocracy until the liberals were elected in 1985, the first non-conservative government in 42 years (and even then, it took until the social democratic ndp were in in 1992 to allow stores to open on sundays, even though a supreme court challenge on the basis of religious freedom had struck down the laws against that nationally 7 years before).

and then, despite those 42 years elected on the basis of the rich protestant vote, the tories abandoned that stance. first to neoliberalism, which gave mike harris 2 terms that absolutely shredded his coalition between the few remaining protestant moralists and the emerging pro-finance sphere, then to a series of failed runs at power. ernie eves and his effort to push a red tory welfarist agenda, john tory and his technocratic governance, tim hudak and his attempt to go full neoliberal, and patrick brown and his effort to unite religious conservatives across faiths. and then, doug ford went for the rural conservative vote, trying to align the religious conservatives who were ferociously terrified that their eight year olds would be taught about “gender identity” (indeed, the only difference between ford’s 2019 sex ed plan and the 2015 one is that such talk is delayed till grade 8), the rural austerians who hated the green energy push by the liberals which increased their electricity bills (which they paid for with federal agro subsidies anyways), and the anti-pc suburbanites who wanted someone who “says it like it is” (ie goes on racist rants), mostly while drunk at hockey games, which in turn requires booze to be readily available (in contrast to that horrible marijuana, which shouldn’t be in our community).  and where are the rich ass protestants? they voted heavily for a gay man for mayor of toronto in 2010 and for a lesbian woman as premiere in 2018, which shows how protestant moralism 40 years later has diffused itself into a class of urbanites who prefer limited welfare and ruralites whose notion of morality is wholly about preventing anybody gender non-comforming from living in public view, which is why i can buy 12 blues and some ammo on a sunday afternoon at a wal-mart in 2019 (wal-mart entered canada by buying woolco in 1994).

[msnova-scotia]

Episode 4, after Momoe meets Ai, AI is complimenting her figure and neck, and Neiru adds "and no Adam's apple." Obviously this is a super transphobic way of establishing Momoe's character is indeed a girl, and that's a problem with the writers of the show. Despite being transphobic, it at least makes it clear that the character arc Momoe is going through is one of being a misgendered afab person who just chooses not to present herself in a feminine way that would make it more obvious that she's a girl.

Personally, I love the headcanon that Momoe is trans, and I wish that's what the writers chose to do instead, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

First off, let's go back to Kaoru. As it's been established in the show, he definitely is trans. However, as also established by the show, all of the Wonder Eggs are made from teenage girls who have committed suicide. Another instance of transphobia in the show, as it heavily invalidates Kaoru's identity.

Clearly WEP isn't 100% trans inclusive, as unfortunate as that is. Because of this, it also makes me think that if Momoe was trans that she wouldn't be in the same group as Neiru, Rika, and Ai. With the logic of Kaoru still being an egg (that was established to only be made from girls who have committed suicide) I don't think Momoe would have been chosen as one of the people to save eggs in the dream land as being trans would most likely make her amab, and that's not something I could see the writers doing if they were transphobic.

Lastly, this feels like a somewhat repeated trend I've seen in a few pieces of Japanese media. That is, cis characters being gender non-comforming and being misgendered, so they kind of just give up on correcting people and let people assume they're whatever incorrect gender. I always see it being presented in a kind of transphobic way, usually something involving genitals or sex specific characteristics (see Adams apple) "confirming" the gender of a character, but that's a different issue altogether. What I'd like to believe is that the writers of these media pieces dealing with gender issues are trying to bring across the message of "presentation does not equal gender." Unfortunately, as I already stated, they can never seem to tackle the issue in a trans friendly manner.

All this being said, there's still nothing stopping anyone from headcanonning Momoe as trans. I'm a trans woman myself, and I find her story super relatable. However, just because someone relates and wants to headcanon her as trans does not mean you can force people to have the same headcanon. It also doesn't mean that you should get upset and call people transphobic just because they do stick to canon and recognize that Momoe is cis. If you're mad at anyone saying Momoe is cis, be mad at the creators. They made a story that all but writes Momoe as a trans girl, but they had to be transphobic and try to pass off a lack of an Adam's apple as proof that Momoe is a girl. That one line is completely useless, and nothing about her story would have changed other than where her intentions are coming from.

tl;dr Momoe is canonically cis, and her story arc is that her presentation gets her misgendered, but the writers wrote it in a (possibly unintentional) transphobic way. It is also completely acceptable to headcanon her as trans because when has a fandom ever kept 100% to canon

cis wonder egg fans watching episode 10 and failing to see how momoe is trans how dense can you be

well whatever as a trans girl myself who immediately suspected she was also one when she was introduced I will offer a few things that may not sound like much to you, but SCREAMED trans girl to me

first off, this bit. the way she hesitates to deadname herself. this is made even clearer in the voice acting as she specifically hesitates after saying “momo”, and then resigns herself to letting kaoru call her whatever. I’ve been in this position so many times I’ve lost count. being recently hatched (meaning just having accepted yourself as trans and yes, we do often call it that which is funny given this show’s title) and not being sure what name to introduce yourself as is a very common experience, and often the outcome is exactly this.

as for this part, I can’t even fathom how her literally SCREAMING that she’s a girl after being misgendered and ripping open her shirt to reveal the bra underneath isn’t a dead giveaway but here’s me, telling you that it is. I want you to look at the first pictures I posted and take note of how flat her chest is, despite the fact that she is wearing a bra. we do things like this all the time. hell, I literally just went to the store doing this. when we can’t pass in public, we often do small invisible things to make ourselves feel better, like wearing a bra under layers of loose clothing, or wearing thigh highs under our pants.

this scene is probably the most obvious indication, as she asks panic if he’s a boy or a girl and says that it must be nice not judging by appearance but that’s not the reason I’m posting this. how many cis girls do you know that wear a bra when they sleep? I’m willing to bet the majority do not, ESPECIALLY those with breasts this small. trans girls do this ALL the time, just to feel like there’s something there

that’s all I’m gonna say for now as there are WAY more obvious signs than this and if you still don’t get it then I’m going to assume you’re just transphobic. what these bits, and others, tell me is that someone high up on the wep staff is a trans woman and wanted our stories to be represented in this series, and it was handled extremely well in my opinion