#is robin a trans man or a trans woman IDK BUT CAN WE STOP TALKING ABOUT ROBINS GENDER LIKE THIS

[franzizka]

this whole thing is very transphobic and i have no idea in which direction

[itsclydebitches]

Was planning on making this my own post, but I thought you would be more suited to discussing this sort of topic. Something I've noticed when it comes to the more prominent/important/strong female characters (Nora, Pyrrha, Penny, Robyn, Emerald, Sienna) is that RT often has the tendency of giving them masculine allusions (Thor, Achilles, Pinocchio, Robin Hood, Aladdin, Shere Khan) as if they are unable to stand on their own as characters unless they have that connection to a male character. 1/3

It is worth discussing! Yeah, I hesitate to call it a pattern just because, as you say, Team RWBY themselves are an exception to the rule  — and as the title characters of the story, they’re a pretty big exception. We also have good women allusions turned into good women characters (Glynda with The Good Witch, May with Maid Marian) and bad women allusions turned into good women characters (Winter with The Snow Queen — I don’t think she was ever meant to enter full antagonist territory, but that’s another post). So it’s not just a matter of saying, “RWBY models their strong women after male inspirations and turns all female inspirations into male characters.” It’s not that simple. But the fact that it’s not simple doesn’t mean there’s nothing there to unpack because I definitely understand the feeling you’re pointing to, anon. Team RWBY feels like it has the most thought put into it in terms of changing up these allusions, specifically when it comes to subversion: the little girl in a red hood who previously needed a hunter’s protection has become the hunter herself, Belle overcomes both her Gaston and the now evil Beast, Snow White extracts herself from her own abusive situation (with a little help from the Dwarves still), and Goldilocks is no longer lost and in need of basic necessities, but can rather punch her way out of any establishment  — like, say, a club. The execution of these themes aside (how Adam was handled, turning Jacques’ arrest into a joke, etc.), there’s a commonality here that works. Or at least, it works for me. Yet when we expand the allusions past our title team, things get... very messy. That’s when we start to hit on these concerns. 

I’d say the problem stems primarily from that lack of thought, not the act itself of turning women characters into men or vice versa. Meaning, as I’ve said in the past, RWBY’s use of allusions is terribly unreliable nowadays, and that’s not just in terms of plot expectations like, “Why did Penny have to become a flesh girl because Pinocchio, but Ironwood didn’t stay good because Tin Man?” It also includes these questions of why these changes were made and what sort of messages they send. As you lay out, why are so many of our heavy hitters  — the most talented huntress, the lightning-immune smasher, the Maiden android, etc.  — based on men? Why are many of the effeminate and “weaker” men  — Jaune the untrained, Ren the emotional councilor, Oscar the kid who wants to talk it all out  — based on women? Again, I don’t intend to sling any hard accusations, but rather to point out what’s likely a subtle, unconscious bias. To provide another example, I’ve seen talk recently about how RT (again, unconsciously) depicts the faunus, where all the good characters have culturally established “good” animal features and all the bad character have culturally established “bad” features. It’s cat ears, rabbit ears, sheep ears, monkey tails, dog tails, and beautifully changing skin color vs. scorpion tails, spiderwebs, bull horns, tiger ears, bat wings, and crocodile scales. Is it a perfect 1:1 divide? No, Ghira has panther claws and Fennec has fox ears, but there’s enough there for us to go, “RT tends to give the good guys cute features and/or features we associate with safe animals, whereas the bad guys tend to get ugly features and/or features we associate with dangerous animals.” I feel the same way here, that there’s a bit of a trend at play, with the caveat that there are more complications simply by virtue of these allusions being, well, complicated. But there’s enough there to make us stop and think, “What were RT’s intentions with this? If they just chose something based on the rule of cool, what might those inclinations tell us about gender norms in America?” Meaning, when someone goes, “Idk, we just thought it would be cool to change this up” there’s a lifetime of media consumption driving that choice. It’s not actually random, but based on whatever has been normalized  — unless you actively counteract that by thinking through what you want the change to do. 

Unconscious biases are always at work. When we analyze something like this it’s often not a matter of saying, “The author is [insert accusatory term here]” but rather just, “The author is falling into expectations, patterns, and normalized decisions based on the culture they’ve grown up in.” Which includes things like thinking, “Well, if this character is based on a male god, she must be crazy strong. If this character is based on a woman fighter, he’s probably more emotional.” Such biases may be driving a lot of decisions because, as said in the past, I really don’t think RT is putting much thought into these allusions, if any at this point. For me, Penny was proof of that  — the inability to see how following her allusion utterly destroyed her character growth  — but even if we don’t agree about Penny, what about Salem? Far from just using her name, this volume gave us a blatant reference to the events of Salem Trails in the 1690s. Namely, the burning of the witch. 

Except references like this can’t just look cool. This isn’t a video game Easter egg with no real connection to the story, it’s a cinematography/plot choice that carries meaning. So what is that meaning? Well, the thing about the women on trail at Salem is that they were innocent. This is what that reference says: “Hey, remember that real life event where women who weren’t witches were horrifically killed because others thought they were evil? None were actually burned, but culturally we tend to think they were. So that’s the image in our collective mind: innocent women on fire.” Except... Salem is actually a witch. Salem is evil. Salem is guilty. Or at least, the questions surrounding the extent of her guilt  — How much responsibility does she hold in comparison to the Gods? How much agency does she still have after the grimm pool?  — has not been acknowledged by the text. Yang just yelled at Salem for killing her mom and Oscar is about to blow her up. This is not a “Question Salem’s humanity” scene, it’s a “Kill the witch” scene... yet it uses an allusion that is contrary to what the moment is trying to achieve. So what are we supposed to take away from this? Do we adhere to the subtext and believe that Salem is innocent somehow, ignoring what the actual text says, or do we uphold the text and in doing so undermine the reliability of every other allusion in the show? If we can’t trust Salem’s, why would we trust, say, Penny’s? 

RWBY’s allusions are all over the place and yes, I think that lack of consideration extends to who they randomly decided to genderbend. There’s no acknowledgment of  — let alone engagement with  — how many of these characters and historical figures were trying to pass themselves off as another gender, nor does RWBY acknowledge how the need to do so feeds into our current and historic assumptions about gender as a whole. Why does the man dress as a woman? To keep himself safe and seen as a non-threat. Why does the woman dress as a man? To gain access to places previously barred from her and to gain the respect she otherwise wouldn’t be afforded. And, of course, in 2021 there’s the expectation that media will include trans characters, GNC characters, non-binary characters, cis characters uninterested in practicing traditional femininity/masculinity, etc. None of which RWBY tackles outside of May, a woman who references a systematic transphobia we otherwise never see in the show. May, as a minor character, is great and I am in all honesty thrilled that she exists in the RWBY canon. However, the rest of the show is built on an anime conception of gender  — combat skirts and bare midriffs in the snow  — while nevertheless engaging with the very complicated question of how you re-imagine canonically/historically gendered people. As a “girl power” show, RWBY has opened itself up to questions like, “Okay, it’s great that you made these four fairy tale girls kickass, but can we talk about making Joan of Arc into a bumbling guy whose presence as a blonde, blue-eyed, sword-wielding man taking up lots of important screen time has generated accusations about this being a male-centered show?” It’s not a “RWBY is horrible for doing this!” issue, but a “RWBY is deliberately playing with gender and marketing itself as a progressive show, so... let’s figure out what these individual choices are actually implying and whether or not we consider that progressive.” 

[thefudge]

Just out of curiosity, did you read JK's essay? I don't support everything in it but many parts resonated with me. Not to mention the horrific online abuse hurled at her, especially the countless, countless "choke on my dick" phrases thrown at her which are so violently misogynistic, it left me with a deep seated feeling of not only discomfort but fear as well. Idk I guess I just felt safe sending this because your blog seems more open to discussion from the other side instead of instant cancel.

i’m glad you think so about this blog and i hope that remains the case.

i didn’t have a chance to read JK’s essay until today (my previous ask about her was written before that) but here are some very, very imperfect thoughts on it:

the essay confirmed my previous take that she has inoculated herself against certain outside arguments but it’s also made me wonder about JK’s understanding of gender and sex. She is very attached to “natal women” and calling all people who menstruate “women” because of “common experiences”, despite the fact that her beloved de Beauvoir, whom she quotes in the essay extensively, acknowledged that “woman” is a social construct. JK herself at one point complains about having to comply with the rules of femininity while growing up and how it made her want to stop being female, so what is the truth? She argues that young girls shouldn’t be thinking about transitioning just because they are made to hate their femaleness but that’s!!! exactly what!!! pushing the term “woman” as sacrosanct does to girls!!! most of what JK felt in her childhood was the kind of misogyny which connects women strictly to their uterus. it made being male a better alternative precisely because of the gate-keeping of penis/vagina. a young girl who acted like a tomboy, for instance, would be criticized for trying to deny her sex, because deep down her biology still made her a “woman”. both sex and gender cannot be divorced from socio-cultural realities, because we act with our bodies and embody what we act. so, if we expand what it means to be a “man” and a “woman”, we liberate, not confine. JK wants young people to feel free to be whoever they want to be, but they must be called “women” when discussing menstruation or else (i won’t even go into the obvious addition that many cis and trans women exist who cannot or no longer menstruate).

Now, she does bring up some fair points about cancel culture and freedom of expression that I will level with, but the problem is that the nuancing she is trying to achieve also serves as weirdly specific dog-whistling. So let me address that:

(warning: spoilers for the Cormoran Strike series)

Right off the bat, we have this explanation added in her intro: 

“On one level, my interest in this issue has been professional, because I’m writing a crime series, set in the present day, and my fictional female detective is of an age to be interested in, and affected by, these issues herself (...)”  

and already, i’m asking questions. how is Robin Ellacott, one of the protagonists of the Strike series, “affected" by these issues, personally? she’s “of an age” to...what? be gender critical? there’s not a lot of that in the novels (unless you count Robin being tall and knowing how to drive well being framed as anti-girly...).  How does crime relate to it? How is she connected to this really? 

the real connection JK wants us to see because she’ll reveal it later in the essay is that Robin was r*ped in college. she’s a sexual assault survivor, which must make her critically engaged with the fate of trans women because....because underneath JK’s empty statement about her female detective....is the correlation that men “disguised” as trans women can perpetrate the same sort of horrific abuse.  she keeps making this correlation throughout the essay.

Here she talks about various people who’ve reached out to her:

They’re worried about the dangers to young people, gay people and about the erosion of women’s and girl’s rights. Above all, they’re worried about a climate of fear that serves nobody – least of all trans youth – well.

And again here:

“So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside. That is the simple truth.”

This one is my favorite because it’s so twisted (here she’s listing her charity work):

“The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.”

“safeguarding”

hmmmm

What JK wants to spell out with these “common sense” arguments is that she fears that trans women are predatory, and the most convincing argument she can bring, ultimately, is that she herself has been the victim of sexual abuse and therefore, that potential fear never goes away. That’s a very dangerous leap to make. The climate of “fear” she mentions is also connected to cancel culture, of course. She fears women won’t be able to express their opinions online without receiving various amounts of vitriol. But you see how she has merged all three issues together? So that if you agree with one, you must agree with the others. Because yes, cancel culture often goes too far, and yes it is a real issue, but to say that the trans community shutting her down foments the same atmosphere of “fear” as boogie trans women hurting children in bathrooms and her being abused by her cis husband… that’s a veeery slippery slope. Instead of sticking to “freedom of speech” and whatnot, she keeps correlating these issues that should not be correlated (some of them being false issues, as well).  

Is there too much opprobrium around discussions of trans identity? Yes. Are there worthy discussions to be had about young women, homophobia and gender dysphoria? Absolutely. Can being trans become a fashionable trend/identity among kids, like the bygone goth and emo labels? Sure, but these discussions shouldn’t be had at the expense of trans people who have to constantly prove that they “mean” it. Because by stringing up all these issues together, JK is saying “the kids don’t know any better, and the adults are faking it”. Yes, cancel culture is impeding dialogue, yes, we shouldn’t shy away from discussing young teens’ identity problems, but if you pile up all of these things in a giant “trans women are the problem and they might be predatory too” milkshake, you won’t get anywhere.

I want to come back to this quote:

The second reason is that I’m an ex-teacher and the founder of a children’s charity, which gives me an interest in both education and safeguarding. Like many others, I have deep concerns about the effect the trans rights movement is having on both.

Beyond the (in my opinion) not very tasteful enumeration of things she’s done to help, JK’s mention of “education” there is veeery interesting. On the one hand, she probably feels that schools will try to censor “free speech”, but on the other hand, I bet she’s also concerned schools will not do enough censoring, so that impressionable kids become pressured into adopting a trans identity. You see how it flips on a dime? What does she ultimately want children to learn about this? Does she want them to be kept in the dark completely? Does she want them to be allowed to critique or invalidate trans identities without being censored? On this second point, things get complicated. Schools and institutions will naturally censor free speech.  Kids are there to learn how to express that free speech; they will be told “hey, don’t say that to your colleague, it’s not very kind” or “you need to structure your argument appropriately instead of just saying “I don’t like it””. Is there room for criticism in how schools operate that benevolent censorship? Obviously. Hell, Foucault & co. have been talking about this for decades. So what does this argument about education ultimately mean? What are we protecting the kids from? Imo, it goes back to that covert argument about sexual violence.    

Since I’m a teacher too, I’ll talk about my own experience: I brought some texts to my undergrad class about the trans experience with the goal of 1) building empathy, because literature is the grand unifier of experience and 2) showing different literary perspectives which i also included within literary theory. ultimately, the trans experience is about being human. we were learning about being human, nothing more, nothing less. if younger kids end up treating it as a fad it means that a) they need more, not less education,  b) parents and schools should work together to make them understand that being trans is not the same as being “emo”, for instance. this partially resembles the trend of white kids adopting black culture just because it’s cool, but not actually engaging with the black experience. who do you sanction for this? black people? because in this analogy, the trans community should be responsible for children not benefiting from education and parental support.

oh, I know what JK is saying. the trans community is responsible for shutting down conversations about this. it’s part of the general climate of tiptoeing around trans issues. yes, here I can agree with her that Twitter discourse either helps build sympathy or loathing for the “cancelled” person instead of seriously grappling with what that person has done. it’s the nature of Twitter and I hate it, but to go from that to saying women and young girls are in danger from other “fake” women really undermines her own argument. There are normal pitfalls as we try to incrementally do some good in this world. Cancel culture and the deplatforming and ruining of lives of certain individuals will not promote the cause and is certainly to be frowned upon, but JK will be absolutely fine. there are hashtags right now like “istandwithJK” and there’s a slew of people who support her. the misogyny she faces is deplorable, but we shouldn’t conflate valid criticism with trollish vulgarities. I don’t want to minimize the dangers of online culture; I know people have lost jobs and livelihood, but that is a discussion to be had under different parameters, admitting the responsibility of both parties (for example, maya forstater realizing that maybe saying some hurtful things about public figures and proudly talking about the “delusion” of transwomen will come back to bite her in the ass) and the fact that under capitalism, your job is always at the whim of appearances and simulacrums. essentially, you are the job. this is a state of things that deserves a larger discussion not on the back of the trans community. should we live in a world where you are allowed to say anything, free of consequences? some of us do, because we can say whatever we want in our head, in our room, in our house (other ppl aren’t so lucky), but the trouble starts in the public sphere. even if we wanted to build a public sphere where everything goes, we’d be at each other’s throats in five seconds anyway because we’re human. the most we can do is educate and correct where we can.  “facts don’t care about your feelings” discourse is often not informed by facts at all and forgets the vital importance of feelings.

anyway, that’s my incomplete take. still lots to think about and debate. ultimately, i think any fair points JK brought up were tainted by other bad-faith arguments and i wish she’d use this time to self-reflect because this isn’t a topic that should be breezed past in 3k words. nor should young trans ppl be called “adorable” (facepalm). i myself have many questions and constantly grapple with all of this, but since she’s a writer (and for better or worse, i still like her books), she is in a perfect position to investigate the matter with kindness and stop giving ultimatums. and i hope this post fosters discussion and doesn’t shut anyone down.

( forgot to mention that other nifty subplot in the Strike series about these really unlikable kids who are transabled and experience BID ( Body integrity dysphoria)  and want to have a disability. Strike is super-offended by them since he’s genuinely disabled and we as readers are meant to think they’re real pieces of shit, and while transableism is suuuuper complicated and my thoughts on it vary wildly, i do think those BID kids also stand in for other folks in her mind..again, food for thought.)