#if some of your characters are disrespectful about clockable trans people this can also work

[thorne1435]

True, true. Essay time!

For the sake of writing, the offensive part is in how your characters act and react towards your clockable trans person. If they're respectful about it, then everything is fine. It's just realism, at that point, and that sort of positive portrayal might make it a little easier to encounter someone like that in real life.

The same can be said of a visual medium: draw women with adam's apples or slight beard-shadow or strong jawbones, because some of us have those traits, cis and trans alike. Then, someone who's never seen a trans woman before sees your artwork and if they finally do see a trans woman in the wild (or just a cis woman with masculine features), they'll be less taken aback by the fact that some women have adam's apples and/or etc. This is an important part of destigmatization.

Must I, once more, direct our attention to Ticker (Warframe)? She's very masculine, and y'know what? It's not a big deal. Nobody fucks with her. She's unabashedly a woman in spite of the clockability, and that fucks severely. Because it's real. It resonates with people who are like her. It gives them hope that there are people out there who are willing to accept them in spite of it, while simultaneously creating those accepting people in the first place.

As cliché as it is to say, representation matters. Especially when it's realistic and respectful. I remember when I was still cis and transphobic, I absolutely had my world view move slightly to the left when I had to accept that she was a woman and there was no issue with that. And that's pretty impressive given how little dialogue Ticker actually had when she was introduced. Imagine what can be accomplished with an obviously-trans character who's thrust directly into the spotlight as a side-character who is frequently interacted with and maybe even talks about they're experiences! But if we can't have that, just give the women an adam's apple and the men a soft face every now and again. Just for us.

to cis artists, yr allowed to draw trans characters to be clockable, in fact i encourage it. it's not politically incorrect or offensive to depict trans people as being obviously trans, especially if you're drawing cartoons. its not a stereotype a lot of us just look like that