#forcibly shutting myself up now but augh. head in hands.

[corfisers]

it's so fascinating to me how little there is to work with if you want to go with the (most likely) intended reading of yashiro as a cis man. if you ignore what other characters are saying, all the instances of "bitch" being thrown at him, men comparing him to a woman as an insult, and just focus on his own feelings regarding his gender and masculinity, there's… nothing really? the few times when he explicitly says that he's not a woman go hand in hand with "therefore it's okay to hurt and abuse me, to be rough with me, to want to leave me, etc etc". the way he talks about men usually reads as "men and me" with a separating line drawn in between. all the "what type of women do you like? is this how it is with women? are you gentle with women? women women women?" there's no attachment to being a man, not that i can see at least, so reading saezuru through the lenses of sexuality and gender rather than just sexuality is this weird experience of "i know what you want me to think, but thank you for leaving so much room for the other interpretation"