#it's not the same changing the pronouns and transing the gender of character who are in the main text for all intended purposes cis men

[maximumqueer]

Yamato, Transness, and "Passing"

Now that we're nearly a full arc removed from Wano and Yamato's introduction, I want to talk about the reaction that a subset of the one piece fandom had to his reveal as a trans man/transmasc person, the transphobia behind that reaction, and how the concept of passing plays into that reaction. I'm not going to be arguing that Yamato is a trans man, as I think it is very obvious that he is given how he is referred to in the canon text. This is instead going to be more of a fandom dissection of why (in my personal opinion) so many people refuse to acknowledge Yamato as a man.

When we are first introduced to Yamato, he is dressed in a way that gives him the appearance of a flat chest, and is wearing a mask to hide his face. He looks like a man in a cis-heteronormative way

When Yamato was depicted like this, he was (from what I can tell) mostly referred to with he/him pronouns by the fanbase. This is based on comments underneath his chapter debut and episode debut. There are comments under his episode debut that do use she/her pronouns and refer to him as a woman, but because these episodes have been out for a while, it would make sense that these kinds of comments would be left on his debut after his second design was revealed.

Then, when he removes his mask and outer layer of his outfit, he is depicted like this

After this reveal, more people began to refer to Yamato with she/her pronouns, and refer to him as Kaido's daughter, despite him referring to himself as Kaido's son, as well as the people around him using he/him pronouns exclusively for him. What changed? Well, Yamato went from having a design that looked traditionally masculine to having a more traditionally feminine one. As such people who associate only women with having breasts and more "feminine" features began to insist that Yamato was a tomboy, or a delusional woman, anything but accept that fact that he is a man.

There is a phenomena with trans "acceptance", where a character is accepted as trans only if they look like their gender according to the cis-heteronormative ideal, and questioned and denied if they don't. Kiku, a trans woman who "passes" as a woman did not receive nearly the same level of speculation and denial of her trans identity. (This is not to say that Kiku received no hate or transphobic comments, but that because she looks like a woman to the average cis-het viewer, she was treated as a "real" trans person, whereas Yamato was not).

Yamato has been repeatedly referred to as mentally ill for being a "non-passing" trans man. He has been called bad representation (despite large numbers trans men/transmasc people, myself included, saying that his IS good representation). People have made claims with no canon backing in an attempt to hand wave away his transness because he "looks like a woman", a popular one being that Kaido some how forced Yamato into being a man, despite his backstory telling us the exact opposite.

And the reasoning for all of this speculation is that trans people are held to such high standards in terms of appearance and presentation, even in fictional media. A trans man must have a flat chest, deep voice, facial hair etc. or he isn't actually trans. A trans woman must have breasts, a high voice, a lack of facial hair, etc. or she isn't actually trans. Non-binary people are dismissed entirely. This denies the many different and diverse ways that a person can be trans. Sure, some trans people wish to medically transition, get the "surgery" and go through life as if they were cis. But not all trans people want that. Gender is messy and complicated, its not nearly as black and white a we have been taught to believe. There are many trans people (both binary and non-binary) who will never medically transition. That does not make them less trans, it does not make them delusional. Yet because we have this black and white thinking ingrained in us from childhood, any deviation from the strict boxes of "man" and "woman" are immediately questioned, and that includes gender non-conforming people - both trans and cis.

This type of transphobia is not talked about enough, as the people doing it will so often hide behind the idea that they are protecting "real" trans people, and just want to make sure that they are respected and taken seriously. But, respect for a persons gender identity CANNOT be conditional. It does not matter if they "don't pass". It doesn't matter if they are a good person, a bad person. The second you start dictating who gets to have their gender respected is the second you stop being an ally. And that includes fictional characters like Yamato.

[pointless-discourse]

homestuck characters as related to trans stuff

head canon

JOHN EGBERT

closeted repping tgirl who will likely not realize she's trans until after 16

avoids mirrors, unhappy with appearance but tries to avoid looking at it

gets dressed in the dark

once she comes out she's gonna dress like the most hideous anime girl for the first few months

like goes HAM

her fav nerd shirts paired with a weird fucking skirt but eventually it looks really good just because of how much time she spends on it now that she likes how she looks

DAVE STRIDER

cool cis guy that will respect the pronouns

will treat people the same regardless of transness

goes down the transfem nonbinary any pronouns route in mid 20s

unfathomably chill

JADE HARLEY

divisive subject. either cool nerdy tgirl or closeted trans guy

tgirl jade puts a lot of effort into dressing for the sake of mirrors

doesn't necessarily look GOOD (ultranerd furry island social recluse) but she looks intresting

however tgirl jade doesn't voicetrain and not only is her voice kinda clocky but also very hoarse from lack of use

closeted transguy/transmasc nonbinary jade is very online and performative feminine stuff until he realizes in his late teens he's trans

does not learn what trans is until late teens, very in sheltered parts of the internet despite being very online

was out online years before he came out irl

third option: chill cis girl who, during

ROSE LALONDE

terf

no hate to rose she is one of my top three characters in all of homestuck but she is very terf vibes

she spends a lot of time "debating" with trans people online (harassment) and frequents a lot of terf forums

i think that after a few years of earth c and maybe meteorstuck she grows past it and eventually to her it's not a fight she's proud to be the lead general of but a phase she's really embarassed of, much like her other silly 13 year old traits

i also really like tgirl rose, not for character basis but i think its cool and i (obviously) love trans headcanons

KARKAT VANTAS

i am very divided between ftm and cis guy.

cis guy karkat is cool, he's very much just some guy who's comfortable in his "girly" hobbies and, while isn't really tied into his physical appearance, isn't dysphoric and is just a little insecure

however: humanstuck karkat will always be trans in my mind, just for the persecution bit, although i would also buy ethnically-middle-eastern adopted into a white american family karkat

he'd be a truscum or just kinda shitty to nonpassing trans people i think, we've seen how many alternian empire boots he licks so conforming to the status quo as a pick-me minority is not above him

again i think he would grow out of it in his later teen years/early 20s (like in the comic) but i don't ever see humanstuck karkat escaping the eternal shame that kind comes with being trans

ARADIA MEDIG0

ily weird unnerving tgirl aradia she is like so that to me. she reminds me of the boymoder NEET memes i see chronically online trans girls on reddit posting

but also i do equally enjoy weird girlboss cis girl aradia

either way she is far too etheral to be bothered with gender stuff

like you could come out to her with sixteen hard to pronounce xenos, pass so badly you unearth masculinity/feminity so prominent it burns to the touch, and she would not give a single fuck. and she would never mess up with pronouns and shit

tAVROS nITRAM

i see her as a hardcore deep deep in the closet repper tgirl as like a core part of my interpretations and yet i can never imagine her coming out

like i just see her boymoding forever

not really? like i think it would happen eventually i just can't visualize it

hypothetically i could see her being one of those cool goth girls named lilith but it seems very removed from the original starting point

2OLLUX CAPTOR

repping tgirl or amab nonbinary or just plain cis

either way still horrifically greasy and that will never change

there is no self reflection that will even vaguely incentivize sollux to maintain his hygeine

:33< NEPETA LEJION

cis girl

maybe comes out as ftm in 20s? if trans, i could also see nepeta repping till death

like just a weird cis girl who is like "oh, you're trans? just like in my warrior cats rp discord server!"

again, gives more of a fuck about gender than aradia but it is close

she just cares if you will listen to her talk about her ships and art

nepeta is the type of person where it might take her a while get the new name and stuff right

"HER PRONOUNS ARE THEY/THEM!"

but she would be your staunch defender

KANAYA MARYAM

eh? nothing strong here, i don't really have a hc for her

but there is a lot of mtf symbolism in the comic and i do enjoy that

like a socially awkward youngshit who's not out to many people because she can't really bring herself to correct people in public but still has a really passing voice even after first coming out

bad facial dysphoria

do like her as intersex. feels right

TEREZI PYROPE

nonbinary

no genders, all the genders, new genders, old primal genders, everything

both simultaneously afab and amab but not intersex?

the living embodiment of androgyny

probably has a very long list of neos/xenos but is any pronouns

you cannot misgender her. hes too cool.

VRISKAAAAAAAA SERK8!!!!!!!!

transgirl transgirl transgril

literally not even a headcanon at this point vriska is a trans girl and that is that!!!!!!!!

if you disagree im kickng your ass so hard it comes out of your mouth. your days are numbered and that number is 0. (not 8 :( )

EQUIUS

option one: cis gymbro chaser.

he sleeps with trans men to steal their t shots

in the streets he'll occasionally say the weird shit but i know he'd be crankin his hog to futa/cuntboy shit by night

option two: trans girl

never comes out because of insecurity but indulges in long hair and the occasional skirt in private and then feels really bad about it

option three: insane roided trans man

t gave him big muscles and big sex drive

option three poiont 5.

racist sexist homophobic nonbinary

like drops the most despicable shit in conversation and finsihes it off with "my pronouns are actually they/them), like one of those nazi femboys

GAMZEE MAKARA

does not gaf

cis (? idk) guy who is fine with any pronouns and crossdresses for fun

i guess not technically cis? but still identifies as a man when it comes down to it. like barely guy

FEFERI PEIXIES

cis girl who is a little infantilizing

if you're transfem she will give you makeup tips

but still a little hugboxy

"oh no you totally pass even though you're 8'100 and have a full beard! women come in all shapes and sizes!" (not shitting on the made up trans girl here, passing is fucking hard and it has no bearing on personal worth)

JANE CROCKER

jane is a repping/closeted trans man and you can pry this from my cold dead hands

the mustache? the projection onto only male figures?

also i think its fun with jane's ties to the girls-only fuchsiablood club that he ends up a dude

also st4t janeroxy my beloved

DIRK STRIDER

gonna be honest here no strong leanings

i am a firm believer that estrogen would save her but i dont really think of dirk as anywhere on the gender spectrum

maybe just cis dirk? i could buy cis dirk

JAKE ENGLISH

one one hand i would like the transmasc rep being not restricted to hairless twinks and i would enjoy ftm jake that way

transmasc nonbinary jake is an insane concept to me but i do find myself intrested

a little iffy on the trans headcanons (especially transmasc) because a big part of the concept of jake english is that he's a big strong man who takes on the literary role of an objectified girl character and having him be

ROXY LALONDE

ex twinkhon femboy now BDD gigapassoid

literally one of the most gorgeous trans women you will ever meet

creating e substitutes in her laboratory since age 12

again not even those most immersed in trans culture and the ways of clocking would be able to tell thats how good she is

her speaking patterns hail solely from those cutesy minecraft/unboxing youtubers she religiously watched as a small child

however she is fully convinced that she doesn't pass for shit so she believes that every genuine complement and people treating her like a woman is just them being nice

she'll attempt to boymode and go "stealth" in scenarios where she doesn't want to be visibly trans but it fucking backfires because everyone assumes she's ftm

DIRK STRIDER

trans man with literally no basis because my dirk-themed friend is also a trans man

4channer transman robotics nerd dirk my beloved

DAMARA MEGIDO

transfem ig? or cis woman

very girl adjacent

idk i dont think about the dancestors much

RUFIOH NITRAM

cis man

MAYBE trans man

i am also cool with that

MITUNA CAPTOR

cis man

MAYBE transfem nonbinary

KANKRI VANTAS

trans man because very few cis men were tumblr "SJW"s

and he reminds me of of some chronically online trans guys i used to hang around

also hes very fuckign petite and girls and feminend and twinky dinky and im just projecting my dysphoria onto him sorrie kankri fans

MEULIN LEJION

cis fujo girl

when she discovered trans men she was like 'YAAAAAS MPREG'

will respect your pronouns and shit but is VERY HORNY

lowkey chaser that will also date cis people

PORRIM MARYAM

two choices: cool goth transbian or lesbian terf

cool goth transbian is the nice one. first off, she looks a lot like some transfem transition goals ive seen online.

second, cool feminist could also be trans rights and trans people are kinda forced into being political

third, being flat as a board could also be interpreted as her just not having tits (tho she does seem like the type to DIY HRT)

TERF porrim (correct): first, a lot of "feminists" turn out to be bitchy to trans people

second, her activism for groups she's a part of and groups she likes is good, but she really infantilizes kankri, and considering that's the beforan equivalent of hemoracism, if trans people didn't fit her motto she would not hesitate to shit on them

LATULA PYROPE

cis girl. maybe she/they

ARANEA SERKET:

trans girl serkets trans girl serkets

would also buy cis girl that makes you wonder if she's actually a repressed ftm because some of her actions are a littttttttle suspicious

HORRUS ZAHHAK

cis man who ends up hanging out with a lot of trans women anyway due to shared intrests in hyperpop and furry stuff

again very respectful, very small chance that he's chaser-y

KURLOZ MAKARA

i honestly do not know and this isnt because i dont really care about his character, it just evades me

transcends gender

could be cis woman, fuck if i know. i'd buy that

all and neither a gender above our human comprehension

CRONUS AMPORA

trans man that proves tboys are real men because they can be just as creepy and awful as cis men

thinks him being trans means he's immune to all types of discrimination

uses it a pity point/to get out of stuff

MEENAH PEIXIES

maybe tgirl? idk

may just be cis

possibly transmasc nonbinary

tho i lean mostly towards cis woman whos gnc and actually cool with trans peopel (be aware she will still groom them tho)

equal opportunity grooming

CALLIOPE

technically transfem anyway because her body isn't sexed so shes kinda intersex

but even if she wasnt a cherub she would still be transfem anyway

chronically online transgirl who spends most of her time in internet spaces with cis girls of her same age

warrior cats fan

humanstuck calliope hung around the warrior cats girls since elementary and never left

CALIBORN

evil trans man

transmasc for same reasons as calliope

humanstuck caliborn avoided all female socialization because he didn't socialize and instead spent his formative years on 4chan

the nature of the /lgbt/ board probably gave him some shame about being ftm

DAD EGBERT and crocker as well, very similar people

cis man who is a staunch ally

MOM LALONDE

cis ally

she's trying? can't say anything more

will occasionally and unintentionally say some out of pocket shit about trans people she knows when drunk

will mess up the pronouns a lot because very scatterbrained

GRANPA HARLEY:

cis man who lowkey fetishizes trans people

straight but fucks non-passing transmen because he doesn't see them as men

trans women are some exotic fetish

if jade came out he would repair his ways tho

NANNA EGBERT

transphobic

not even a terf because she has beef with feminists

but again if john or jane came out she would badger them at first but her love would win out and she would change her views

BRO STRIDER

personally i see him as a cis man but i think trans man bro strider is cool and also an icon

DIRK'S BRO:

cis bisexual man who is cool with trans people

ROXY'S MOM:

cis woman who is in a fucked up evil messy situationship with a transgirl

will trans rights

GRANDMA ENGLISH:

either a. elder trans woman

or b. cis woman (a little nonbinary) who is accepting

does not know the terminology

"oh so you want to live as a woman now? alright, i suppose. i had a friend like that back in college"

HIC:

evil elder trans woman who has an illegal diy hrt empire

will sell out the trans community if it benefits her

grifter

LIL CAL

i dont know it s scary

[blimbo-buddy]

another bug world no mercy question, perhaps a little silly one. how do the different bugs view gender? is there trans / nonbinary bugs....like are certain societies more accepting of them than others? i noticed some of the terms you used in the naming post were gendered things (king/queen, mother, sir/madame) so im wondering how those would go if somebug transed their gender

So it somewhat depends on the bug kingdom itself and their culture. Something that also alters the views of gender in the bug kingdoms is the species itself as well

Gastropods and Annelids (Worms) have looser views on gender because in real life, snails, slugs, and worms are all intersex

So in the canon of Bug World No Mercy, all of the characters who fall under either gastropod or annelid are canonically intersex

Slug/Worm society uses their gendered terms very loosely and it's not uncommon to see a slug/worm refer to themselves with he/him, she/her, they/them, or even another set of pronouns

With the Slugs specifically, though they have the title of King/Queen, it doesn't automatically mean that the Slug ruler is a male or female slug based on their title.

Both the Slugs and Worms typically have a "Leaning" term for their citizen's identities

Let me give an example: While Queen Mulch's sister, Ditch, takes up she/her pronouns, Ditch leans more towards masculinity

Generally, Slug and Worm society don't have real "Ideal male/female slugs/snails" ideals going on

However, not all worms have these loose views on gender. Enter: The Hammerhead Slugs. This part might have themes of transphobia with their society, be warned:

While Hammerhead Slugs are both male and female in real life as well, the Hammerheads that came to America began to craft together a strict guide pertaining to them

They must adhere to these guidelines set in place by law

I don't have a solid list of their strict guides yet, that'll definitely be covered in their kingdom guide though (Whenever that comes out)

While a Hammerhead Slug can very much transition to the opposite gender, they are almost immediately expected to begin their process of adhering to the strict rules put onto that gender they're transitioning to. If they try fighting back against those guides? Shame, sneering, shunning. Maybe even prison time, because by law, they are to obey these guidelines

Ants/Bees/Wasps:

Drones (Which in the story, is just a term for males of the species) who decide to become workers doesn't always mean that they transition from MTF. But it's also not uncommon for that to be the case

Drones who transition from MTF have their pheromones change

The smell of the bugs depends on who we're talking about.

Ants:

Female Ants: Damp soil and freshly cut grass

Drone(Male) Ants: Soot

Bees:

Female Bees: Pollen, generally floral

Drone(Male) Bees: Sour fruit

Wasps:

Female Wasps: Tree sap

Drone(Male) Wasps: Wet stone

Once again though, not every Drone who becomes a worker will be MTF, nor will their pheromones change. That is only if the Drone chooses to transition.

These three kingdoms are pretty relaxed when it comes to the topic of transitioning, although not as loose with gender as the Slug/Worm kingdoms are

In all three kingdoms, an ant/bee/wasp can very much be nonbinary as well as FTM

Nonbinary and FTM ants/bees/wasps are typically with the Head/Lead ants

FTM Head or Lead ants/bees/wasps go through the same pheromone change process as their MTF bugs, although they stay as their previous rank

The reason I specifically named these bug kingdoms above is just because they're the ones I have a solid idea of. They're bound to change in some form later down the line.

Also before anyone can say this: I would rather everyone not say something like "Well the Hammerhead Slugs may be evil but at least they're a little cool with transitioning" just because there's so much other horrible shit to them and how they are in the story (Plus their motives)

[kariachi]

Having a very queer time still, had to write more queer stuffs. Kev, Gwen, Morningstar, and brief things on gender that I'll probably write better some other time.

~~

There’s a niggling in his chest, when he’s about nine, that he’s not a boy, but it’s overwhelmed by the knowledge that he is damn sure not a girl. What had been a mild annoyance over the years building with exposure, like an allergy, into a burning in his throat that drives him to chop off his hair and throw out his dresses and skirts. To pull back his lips in a snarl the first time someone comments about him ‘looking like a boy’.

 Years of being called ‘ugly’ for the angles of his face, his grandma’s big hands, but as soon as he embraced those ‘boyish’ traits-

He learns about transness a year later, taking shelter in a library in the big city. About girls who were boys and boys who were girls and it’s not right but it’s close enough. He hides out there one night, ignoring the hunger in his bones as he holes up in a bathroom reading an old census book aloud- even ‘Eddie’ chaffing against his skin anymore.

‘Kevin’ tastes like all his favorites, is the only thing anyone calls him from then on, and it’s enough to keep him going until the galaxy can teach him how to be comfortable.

~~~

She loses control over her hair in the seventh grade, after a week of hating it ends in Ben helping her shave the lot of it off, and loathes how long it is for the next four years. Feels nauseous as time passes and more and more sports at school seem to split into boys and girls, can only breathe when her karate lessons stay unisex. Hates her face as often as she loves it.

It’s not until she starts poking at her powers as an Anodite, finds herself looking in the mirror at a body that feels so so right, as if it was there the whole time just waiting for her to look, that she begins to figure out why.

Only sometimes (half the time), only at school (mom would flip), but… Her name is Gwendolyn, stronger, more stable, than just ‘Gwen’ who was girl girl girl. Red hair gets shorter and shorter every time the scissors are picked up. One day is curves and skirts, the next straight lines and pants. For the first time, it doesn’t feel like Gwendolyn is faking.

The first morning Kevin asks if he has a girlfriend or boyfriend that day, he can’t help but kiss him.

~~~

As soon as he’s old enough to know ‘handsome’ is for boys he hates it. There’s no explanation, not then, but it’s true. The same way he hates telling the lady at the store that yes, that makeup is for his mom, hates that his hair has to be short, that whenever they get split up in school something he doesn’t understand twists in his gut.

He’s in middle school when he learns what ‘transexual’ is. Something pings there, thinking about the untouched skirt in the closet he’d said was for Elena, about hating being handsome, all the suffocating truths of being a boy.

The skirt feels like ants on his skin when he tries to try it on. His tongue can’t decide whether it wants to curl and die under ‘ms’ or ‘mr’. Making a girl character in one of his games doesn’t feel any better or worse than the boy ones. Every girl name he tries tastes like blood and ash.

So, he must actually be a boy.

It’s almost a decade later, with a skirt swishing at his calves, Levin calling him ‘the prettiest guy in Cali’, Gwendolyn groaning over if he’s changed his pronouns again that day, that things finally feel right.

[damnation-if]

Hi! ok so i was thinking about fanart and stuff and it made me think a bunch of thangs: Seeing as this is a game where gender, pronouns, and genitals are chosen separately i wondered on whether any of the ROs, excluding nonbinary options, were trans. I've seen other games make a characetr trans regardless of gender choice (in Moonless, Silas is either a trans man or a trans woman) or have the same sex characteristics regardless of gender (like maybe being cis as a woman but trans as a man). I was curious so i thought i'd ask! Maybe it doesn't really matter much seeing as they're demons and their bits might be just too weird to really mean anything and gender is more for aesthetics? Also, how explicit will the sex scenes be? I have no problem with smut but i guess that just because the story is about sex doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be super explicit. Will the scenes for the nonbinary ro's be written neutrally without mentioning sex characteristics or do they have a set bodytypes? Thank you for your attention!(also i am curious about your angel game idea, would you tell us more about that some time? :0)

hi, thank you for your ask! there's a bunch of good questions in this one, so i'm going to answer them under a cut just because it might get long while i Discuss my answers :)

Seeing as this is a game where gender, pronouns, and genitals are chosen separately i wondered on whether any of the ROs, excluding nonbinary options, were trans.

the answer to this one is Yes And Also Sort Of Yes, albeit with some technicalities tacked on... to start with, Arianis falls into the category of having the same sex characteristics regardless of gender: f!Arianis is a trans woman, though m!Arianis is a cis man. some aspects of f!Arianis's transition have been magical in nature, while others have been more mundane, like taking hormones - this is to clarify that despite this being a setting with transformation magic, she didn't simply magically transform perfectly into her preferred body. some people might prefer that kind of transition, but it wasn't a priority in particular for f!Arianis.

next, you're right of course that though that when it comes to the demons that it does make the concept of cis/transness a bit weird to navigate, particularly for the older ones. Heluur and Twilit were both alive before physical forms were a thing at all, so it's kind of a metaphysical conundrum establishing what kind of agab that gives them lmfao. however, they did both personally have Some level of control over how their physical forms turned out once they were moving into physical space (and then later being forced to stay there), so if you want to consider their agab the ones that they took when they first settled on a physical form, then that's at least a place to start from.

but to be honest, i don't personally think that Twilit in particular would consider that to be their agab, since they still both had concepts of gender and identity back when they were noncorporeal. i guess it's up to you as a reader whether you agree or not and how you'd feel about it if it was your own situation, but i feel it's important to at least explain where each character sits on the spectrum of that decision haha

Heluur would consider himself cis despite the. wibbly-wobblyness of Choosing a physical form, but Twilit, in each of the selectable gender options, would be more inclined to choose trans. not just because as far as they're concerned their agab is "chaos" but also because they regularly change their physical form (including their sex) using magic and reinvent themself when they feel like it. however, i've never quite made a big announcement talking about this mostly because i'm aware that some trans people understandably feel uncomfortable with the casting of characters who are shapeshifters and etc. as good trans representation when it's essentially bypassing a lot of the struggles that real trans people face (though i'm also of course aware that there are other trans people who are fine with it and even like it a lot, as no marginalised group is some kind of monolith lmao).

basically i've been choosing to treat it as a fact about Twilit as a character, without necessarily assigning a label applicable to regular irl humans to them, since the regular irl humans to whom the label applies may have different and conflicting opinions about whether it also applies to Twilit. whether people consider them to be trans or not, the facts about their actions and thoughts aren't going to change. they would personally lean towards calling themself trans whatever gender is selected for them, but more because they absolutely wouldn't consider themself cis than because of personally believing that their experiences with sex and gender are congruent with those of trans humans.

hopefully that's a helpful answer lmfao... sorry it's a bit long but i do feel like it's a topic worth giving the respect of a thorough explanation. the other binary-gendered ROs all consider themselves cis.

Also, how explicit will the sex scenes be? I have no problem with smut but i guess that just because the story is about sex doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be super explicit.

the sex scenes will be explicit lmfao. i understand if some readers are uncomfortable with/don't want that, which is why i've always tried to put "put yourself first! don't play something you're uncomfortable with!!!" all over my posts and so on, but that is how it is. i have no problem with people choosing not to read - in fact i'd rather they do that than force themselves - so i do try to be as upfront as possible with this sort of information.

Will the scenes for the nonbinary ro's be written neutrally without mentioning sex characteristics or do they have a set bodytypes?

this may be somewhat contentious (as again, no marginalised groups are a monolith), but to me personally, as a nonbinary person, i often feel uncomfortable with explicit sex scenes that make a point to gloss over sex characteristics for nonbinary characters... it makes me feel. de-sexed, for lack of a better term. purposefully excluded to a certain extent. like, despite being nonbinary, i do Have genitalia, as do basically all other people, nonbinary or not. however, i do understand the reasons for people feeling the opposite, and i don't think they're invalid or that people Shouldn't feel that way.

again, i understand if people choose not to read the game based on how they feel about this decision, but due to my own personal perspective as a nonbinary person, i will be writing the nonbinary versions of Arianis, Malkorath and Twilit with set sex characteristics... n!Arianis has male sex characteristics (as you can probably guess from the earlier explanation regarding them), and n!Malkorath has female sex characteristics. in Twilit's case, it's going to be decided using a random selection variable lmfao.

i wouldn't ordinarily make such a blatant Announcement of these kinds of facts (in general i'd probably prefer to let it just come up in the game) but due to the nature of this game, it's going to come up sooner rather than later anyway lmao.

also i am curious about your angel game idea, would you tell us more about that some time? :0

i've already talked A Lot in this post, but to give a brief kind of outline, it's a game that is very much about being an older sibling on a number of levels.

a god whose favourite child is humanity and who expects the elder sibling of angels to shoulder a bunch of the responsibility for caring for and protecting humanity essentially casts a bunch of angels out of heaven to come down to earth and kill an evil god who is trying to destroy all humans, and the group of angels that the mc is a part of has to deal with the trauma and travails of trying to get through the horrors of the war on top of dealing with how they're treated by their god. mc also has a younger sibling angel with them that they're trying to protect; i had the idea to use choices to subtly relate the way that the mc feels about humanity and the younger sibling to reflect each other lmao.

it's in a fantasy medieval-adjacent setting where the evil god has brought about eternal winter and roughly half of the ROs are humans that the angels end up having to work with (though the other half are from among the mc's angel comrades). it lives rent free in my head still i'm afraid XD i hope this is okay as a short brief on it!

[lttleghost]

you're so right in that reblog for real ,i cannot stand how people are so open to trans headcanons until it's a transfem one :/ i'm not transfem myself, but i did have a really rough time coming to terms with my own womanhood! so taking characters i've liked my whole life and interpreting them as transfem is really nice! plus it helped me learn a lot about trans people besides my own specific type and experiences. but people can be so rude and dismissive about it just because... i dunno, harder to relate or something? it's so annoying!

IT'S INSANE TO ME!!! like it's crazy enough that people will hate a female character that shares the same traits as their male fav but for some reason I was just…. not expecting it to happen when… transing the gender of the SAME EXACT CHARACTER

another thing is you'll even see people call their favs "babygirl" and feminine terms or even sometimes "woman-coded" but nooooo they can't be transfem I guess? they're only "babygirl" as long as you can still say they're men!

I'm not transfem either and I've only got a bit of a connection to womanhood but I also really like connecting to trans people who have different experiences from me (also in direct opposition to the ideas that some idiots have about trans women "enforcing gender stereotypes" or whatever, more of the transfem community was (and still is) welcoming of my being no-med no-op, resembling my agab, and using weird pronouns than other transmascs were at the time when I first was discovering myself)

but also while there's some things I really don't care about textually supported headcanons, there's well written media where transfem headcanons just… make more sense thematically and even just in not interfering with the existing text like- I dunno how ppl expect me to interpret Hunter as transmasc when her whole thing is finding an identity outside of the MAN that she is a clone of, and then with my icon and wife Jesse Pinkman because I cannot stop myself from ranting abt her, I understand that there's a lot of things that can be interpreted as her being stealth transmasc… if you can suspend your disbelief enough that this person that has buried the person she really is from people, including herself, under this harmful façade that he's had to adopt to survive has still somehow figured out enough about himself to have already transitioned to the point of passing as cis in an environment where there's multiple individuals that would be incredibly transphobic and have known him long enough that they would know he's trans, like in a show that has a ton of themes about change and revealing true self….. why are you bending over backwards to say this character has already transitioned or has even realized she's trans? and that's not the end of transmasc Jesse being a weaker reading of her character either

like….. I don't understand the need for people to have their favs be EXACTLY exactly like them, like I understand projection and all of that and I think that's good but I think it'd be good for people to learn how to find common ground in identities that aren't the same as theirs, or even think about the differences someone might experience in an identity that is "mirror" to theirs like a very fem transmasc person like myself isn't gonna have the same experience as a very masc transfem person, and it's important to realize that or you're gonna make a lot of bullshit assumptions, but like if you can't relate to the fact that you're still both outside of what is expected of your gender and being trans then like.... that's pretty messed up

this is a pretty disjointed rant and not at all comprehensive but like..... yeah

[deeplovelydark]

these tags by @thenugking got me thinking that when we talk about time lords and transness the first thing that comes to mind is the physical change brought on by regeneration, which out-of-universe means that the role of a character previously portrayed by a cis actor is taken over by a cis actress or vice versa. the audience perception of the character switches from one binary gender to another. from the doylist perspective the implicit transness of this situation is kind of incidental. I'm not saying that the writers have never flirted with the idea of time lords as an inherently transgender species in the text, but it was only that–a mere flirtation.

so, are time lords trans? well, at best they are a trans allegory. not that trans allegories are bad–up to a certain point the closer a character was to being 'actually' trans, the more likely they were to be cast in the same mold as the silence of the lambs, dressed to kill and psycho's trans (?) characters. while characters who could be seen as trans through metaphor and allegory could be sympathetic and complex. but my point is that time lord regeneration cannot be truly trans. because in actuality they go from being cis to being cis. they're not breaking any gender norms or rejecting their agab (agar? assignment gender at regeneration?) or anything like that. in fact, changing their pronouns and presentation upon regeneration IS gender conformity relative to the gallifreyan gender/sex binary. so, what would being actually trans entail for a time lord? well, as thenugking suggests, not changing one's pronouns and gender presentation upon regeneration. or being non-binary and refusing to label onerself as either one of the binary genders, no matter what body they're in. or experiencing disphoria. or receiving gender-affirming care. the same things that make us, humans, trans.

and sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally at times diagetically and at times exegetically the doctor IS trans & non-binary by time lord standards (which are the same as human standards once we look past the sci-fi alien element of regeneration). except when they're not and they're written as a cis man and behave like a cis man from planet earth. but, just like everything in doctor who, it can be both true and false at the same time.

time lords' schrödinger's misogyny. it doesn't make sense and yet it makes perfect sense. it doesn't exist when it's more interesting that way and it does exist when it's more interesting the other way. just like everything in doctor who

[valkyrietookmoved]

but will i get shot if i say arashi they/them

Personally I would say it's rude and generally it is seen as rude changing her pronouns specifically, since she is the only canonically, cannot deny, written in the text, transwoman in the entire franchise.

It's hard for trans people to get representation (even if that's slowly getting better) so changing the pronouns of someone canonically trans when people even have to fight to get her correct pronouns on the official enstars English translation and after the absolute mess over pronouns that happened on her wiki page a few years back is well... Tone deaf at the very least, in my opinion.

[scriptlgbt]

i'm currently in the writing process of writing my first book. the main love interest is an androgynous non-binary heir. Considering it's a fantasy world, I chose to make it societally normalized. My biggest issue so far has been gender coded appearance descriptors and gendered titles (ie. prince/princess). I want this character to remain as impossible to misgender as possible. close friend's of mine who are non-binary said that oxymorons (ie. softly angular) are my best bet - (1)

(2) - as a cis writer, i thought i'd ask you on how to describe someone androgynous in writing without using gendered words/descriptors. I'm sorry if this may seem like an overbearing question, and please correct me if I had said anything misinformed or offensive. Thank you for your time.

Don’t worry about this being an “overbearing” question - it’s not at all. This blog specifically exists to answer questions like this. There are undoubtedly other people who wonder the same things but who either are afraid to ask (so don’t) or are rude about it. So asking a question respectfully, especially in a setting where you are specifically invited to ask questions, is the best option of those. At least when it comes to something where you need to know the answer for some reason, like in writing good representation.

To get to the actual advice though: I can’t actually tell what you mean by gender-coded appearance descriptors, so I’m going to try to cover what I can. If you’re worried about something like, “soft ringlets and bold eyeliner” skewing feminine (for example), I wouldn’t worry that much about it. Something that describes body parts that happen to be gender-coded by society (breasts or an Adam’s apple for example) will land a lot differently, however. They will likely read with a fetishy tone in most writing. (I’m sure describing these characteristics on a trans character *can* be done in an alright way, but I don’t advise it because of how difficult that would be to pull off.) But as for general descriptors, I wouldn’t worry too much about making sure the descriptions are perfectly even.

Androgyny tends to be perceived differently based on the birth assignment as well. This isn’t fair, but it’s something society does a lot. Ideas of masculinity bringing a DFAB person closer to androgynous, and vice versa, as though our birth assignments are inherently going to skew us one way or another and we need to take efforts in our presentation to counteract that. I found when I started presenting in a way where I was confident and assuming what I would want to wear after top surgery and being on testosterone for a long time, people started assuming I had a different birth assignment more often. I think some of this may be just that people tend to assume groups of people are the same and that I am most often with trans women. But I only think that’s some of it. I’ve sometimes gotten this assumption when I am on my own as well. (Someone once asked me how I’d deal with it as a nonbinary person after being on testosterone long enough to “start passing as a man” and I had to explain that I never really passed as a cis man. Maybe I’ve passed as DMAB, but not as a man. These are not at all the same things.)

Another thing: I get what you’re going for when you mean “as impossible to misgender as possible” but I think it’s also important just to keep in mind that people will find ways to misgender us no matter what. Being seen as myself doesn’t change that some people are going to want to undermine that by making up details in the absence of information. There’s no shortage of people on the internet who tried to hurl transmisogyny at me when I was pointing out transphobia, because their sole perception of transness was the kind that transphobes fearmonger about. So if you can’t get an audience who genders the character correctly, it’s not your fault. Pronouns are easy to get (w/ some variation) when you fundamentally believe that a person is who they are and that their pronouns are part of that. And/or when people practice enough. Don’t take this as a measure against your writing.

Some neutral-coded description ideas:

(Note: some of these may not be neutral-coded depending on setting, but I read them as such personally.)

describing mood/facial expression

mannerisms/the way they carry themself

tone of voice

the way they dress (do their shoes look comfortable? jeans look well-worn? shirt ironed? aesthetic choices?)

confidence, hesitancy, timidness, how this may change around different characters or in different settings

voice speed/volume/pacing

their body language in relation to others present

hair, complexion, other physical features (highly rec this masterpost by Writing With Color on describing various features)

interacting with some object or hobby that helps paint a picture of them (smacking gum, holding a skateboard, paint stains on an apron, boxing gloves hanging off their bike)

piercings (& jewelry), tattoos

the way the weather is interacting with them (wind making their hair blow into their face constantly, rain weighing down their velvet pantsuit, clumsy on the frozen sidewalk, twirling a parasol)

- mod nat

[rivetgoth]

I think for me transsexuality is just like. very physical and not very mental, if that makes sense which it probably doesnt. One of the biggest primary things that kept me from being able to actually come out as trans confidently was the terminology that the community was switching over to at the time ie. replacing terms like transsexual with transgender or replacing sex reassignment surgery with gender affirming surgery, replacing ftm with trans man, the prevalence of terms like transmasculine to refer broadly to any afab person who identified with anything broadly considered “masculine,” this would have been back in like 2013 or early 2014 when i first recognized that i was vaguely “not female” but didnt have a full grasp on myself and what i actually wanted yet.

i think so much of the trans community discusses identity and “gender” as this like. mental thing, or even societal thing, this idea or this concept thats intangible and like. thats all fine but i feel like i never necessarily had a relationship to this idea of gender or one’s gender being changed or affirmed by various means. my desire to transition came from a physical discomfort with my body and any desire for differing treatment socially came from the awareness that i was being treated in accordance to my physical body and how people perceived it, when it wasnt the body I wanted at all to begin with. Like. uh. I remember my early questioning as a young teen and preteen usually was stuff like, “if I could just step into a machine and immediately change my sex to male I would but its not worth the trouble of transitioning and having to undergo these big surgeries and hormones” and frequently trying to like, mentally bargain with the universe basically being like “i would HAPPILY be a woman if i could just have a male body.” etc.

in a world where gender didnt exist i would still be trans because i would not be able to live a comfortable fulfilling happy life in the body i was born with, regardless of how we conceptualized gender or identity or pronouns. if i lived in a society where every human being used she/her pronouns and was called girl i wouldnt care abt that but i would still have been literally unable to have healthy relationships with other people until i had my top surgery. i still wouldnt have been able to even jerk off without feeling suicidal until I was on T.

stuff like being misgendered or treated “like a girl” is purely like, the social reminder of my physical self and as ive transitioned further and further towards a body i’m happy with the blow has been lessened to being practically nonexistent, altho i still dont like. want to be called a girl lol i still would like to be perceived as a man in society. i dont feel any attachment to womanhood or being female and i never ever have. i never identified with being a lesbian or a bi woman, i never really had female friends, i always related to male characters and had primarily male friends and looked up to men, i never even really felt like the misogyny i experience/d was the same as the misogyny experienced by peers who identified with womanhood. but i also dont feel like womanhood or manhood or whatever is some complex deep intrinsic thing tied to sex or whatever idk.

i guess like, it harkens back 2 the fact that i feel like being nonbinary or genderqueer or whatever is almost inseparable from transness, even if you are by definition “binary.” I dont actually think nonbinary/binary is a binary lol. i think my identity is so tied to like, my physical body, and my desire to craft my body into something i actually feel comfortable with, to create an exterior that matches what i feel on the inside, my dysphoria manifesting as something similar to phantom limbs or severe dissociation and disconnect, and by EXISTING in society as someone who is transitioning and transsexual thats not going to exist in a binary.... especially as like, a bisexual man, and as someone who has fully decided by choice to keep my vagina and enjoys being penetrated by men and women alike, like that alongside an identity that is contingent on the physical being makes me feel kind of innately “not binary,” even if i dont identify as “nonbinary.”

i dont think sex is binary. i think its something that is very much mutable and changeable and its also not really a real construct, like there are objective realities found in nature of basic expectations of different sexes but theres literally no reason that these things need to be permanent and unchangeable, i feel like i DO relate to the concept of both defying my natal sex as well as changing it, hence the terms like transsexual, ftm, or sex reassignment like, resonating much more than anything 2 do with “gender” which i dont really even feel a connection to. when have trans people ever been fully given the privilege of being perceived as a certain gender? i dont even feel like cis lgb people fully have that privilege. being kinky and gay and trans its like abundantly clear how much of these identities are hinging on cishetero reproduction and the nuclear family and if i dont have access to or the desire to partake in any of that then what does being a man or being a woman even mean?

idk. this is very rambly and i dont necessarily expect it to make sense or for everyone to read it, but its just a lot of thoughts i have about gender and sex and shit. i feel like my identifying as stuff like “a trans man” and sometimes even a man at all feels like... out of.... practicality? because its the best easiest way to convey an innate desire to change and shape my physical self and how i want to be perceived by society. i feel as much “male” as like, the way society perceives male animals lol, like contingent on the preconceived notions of a physical reality that i am actively choosing to manipulate and change. gender isnt something i feel like i have much relationship to, i dont even really relate to like, masculinity or femininity really, as concepts, i dont relate to the term transmasculine for that reason, i wouldnt even call my presentation inherently masculine or feminine, and i think in part that has to do with being goth too, as ive said before goth presentation is genuinely, unironically very different than non-goth gender nonconformity and its literally perceived differently both within the community and at large lol. like i feel like as masculine as someone like nivek ogre or al jourgensen but it feels kinda jarring to realize that they themselves fit the definition of “gnc” by most people’s standards. hm. idk!

i wish i could just look like this

[nastyatticman]

slashers supporting a trans/non binary S/O

kinda broad, not representative of ALL trans/enby experiences ofc.

I have headcanons written for 10+ characters at the moment, feel free to request any you like c:

here’s headcanons for Billy Lenz, Brahms Heelshire,Lester Sinclair (w/ help from @slasherfucker42069​ ), Billy Loomis & Stu Macher (Polyam!Ghostface), Angela Baker (SC2&3)

Billy Lenz

Might ask you a bunch of invasive questions when he finds out you’re trans / non binary. Probably related to sex because his mind is in the gutter. But he won’t be mad if you don’t answer all of them

“He a little confused but he got the spirit” - supports you 100% even if he’s definitely learning still

Like sometimes he’ll ask you about your opinion on a passage from Stone Butch Blues, sometimes he’ll sneak into your room from the attic to show you a niche trans meme and ask you to explain the joke to him because it looks hilarious, he just doesn’t know what it all means

Probably asks you in depth about what words you’re comfortable with him using for you, so he can update his dirty talk lmaooo. But also so that he can give you pet names you like <3

Brahms Heelshire

ALSO may ask you invasive or inappropriate questions. His knowledge about transgender / nonbinary things is very spotty since he’s coming from a very uptight Christian background. And porn. May get pouty if you don’t answer everything, but later he’d feel bad and apologize by making you tea

Ends up researching, sometimes with basic videos & sometimes reading academic essays about gender and trans history. The dude lives on TE/R/F island, sadly, so you may have to help steer him in the right direction. But he’s smart enough to find good sources once he finds a good writer or two.

He may end up taking things too seriously, and if you make jokes about gender it may confuse him at first lol. Like… What’s a malewife? Is that a specific non binary identity or…? 

After reading about all the shit that’s going on, especially in the UK, he just wants to spoil you with gender affirming gifts. May get stereotypical with it - all trans girls like knee socks / all trans guys like old spice / all non binary people wear circle lenses, right Y/N? But if you tell him what you want he’ll get it 100%. Prepare to get 10 of every kind of affirming undergarment (binders, gaffs, etc)  if you ask for one lol.

Lester Sinclair (with help from Athen!)

Doesn’t know much about trans stuff, and acknowledges that. He wants to hear what it means to you - whether you have a deep connection to your transness, or you don’t think much of it, he recognizes that every trans / non binary person is different. Lester just wants to know what works best for you so he can support you

His support mostly comes from him having a good ear for listening - and for doing everything in his power to make you happy. If you want to sit back and have some beers (or drinks of your choice) and vent about your experiences or even just telling your favorite trans jokes. And if you choose to make any big changes - hormones, surgery, getting a new wardrobe - he’s right there by your side.

It doesn’t change much about his relationship with you, unless you ask. Generally he would treat partners who are male or female or both or neither about the same. Like, his go to pet names are gender neutral - sunshine, sweetpea, lovebug, etc. 

 Similarly, he’s flexible and doesn’t really attach gender to things in your relationship, like who cooks or cleans. He’ll show off his taxidermy and dance to the radio late at night with any kind of partner. He just wants to show his love

Billy Loomis & Stu Macher / Polyam!Ghostface

Billy plays it cool like he knows everything (he doesn’t). Probably looks for pamphlets and stuff online like “what to do if my partner comes out as trans” even if he won’t admit it

Stu is like “yeah! trans rights!” the second you mention you’re trans. His knowledge around trans stuff is not the best since it’s probably informed by memes & in jokes he doesn’t fully get, but it’s good that he’s learning from other trans people

Either way they’re both supportive and learning in their own ways

Stu would also be the one to practice getting your pronouns right or to help you try out a new name. Like ordering you Starbucks / drinks / food with your new name. Also he and Billy would practice by coming up with some wild stories about you as the sole survivor of the dreaded Ghostface killer

Angela Baker

She’s also trans so she understands if you may want to keep things lowkey, but she’s also ready to help if you need support with coming out or correcting people who misgender you

(very much the “Do you want me to kill that guy for you?” friend/partner)

I can see her not necessarily hiding that she’s trans but not telling people very often, so she’s kind of stealth in some areas. Either way she respects how much information you want to disclose to people, and checks in with you to make sure she’s acting appropriately. Whether you’d rather keep childhood anecdotes about Girl/Boy Scouts to a minimum, or you want to go with her to Pride, she’ll support you either way! 

Since she’s transitioned (medically & legally) she will 100% help you if you choose to transition. Helps with any paperwork and to talk to doctors and insurance companies etc, because those can be tough

Overall doesn’t make it a big deal but she loves having a trans partner who understands her. Trans 4 Trans love is pure.

[hollyhomburg]

hey could u put ur input on omega verse/abo being transphobic i was recently told by a friend it was and i just wanted someone else’s opinion since me and my friend are both cis

i think the whole thing with this discourse is that a. cis people shouldn't decide what's transphobic. and b. different trans people are gonna have different ideas on what does or doesn't make something transphobic.

in my opinion as someone who does not use pronouns and is trans, i think it's actually a fantastic genre to explore transness and in some ways- it actually can take the whole trans-medicalism theory out of being trans which i really like about it.

trans-medicalism is also coincidentally one of the things that cis people don't like to say they're for but secretly are. things like "if you don't medically transition then you're not trans," or "if you're not on hormones i don't believe you're trans" that kind of bias- that you have to put yourself through dangerous, costly, and uncomfortable medical procedures to be considered trans enough to be worthy of their respect.

That's the big takeaway which I personally- do not fuck with at all.

like to reference my fic bily which has a trans alpha in it, the whole idea of being trans in the universe of bily is tied to presentation and not changing her physical anatomy for the sake of some benchmark of what it means to be female in that universe. though she will eventually go on estrogen to get some voice changes, that's a choice that she makes- not one that's forced upon her like it would be in this society.

additionally, her transition is all about how she's perceived by others in an entirely non-sexual sense. if anything- that seems less fetishizing and damaging than a lot of depictions of trans people we see in modern media

forgive me i just watched the first episode of euphoria so im thinking about how the first episode like- entirely focused on Jules having sex like- it's kinda fuckey??? why is that the only plot they could imagine for a 15-year-old trans girl??? did they even talk to any trans girls to write that???? I knew a fifteen-year-old trans girl once you know what she spent 90% of her time on? playing poker with my ex-boyfriend and going shopping for new kilts cuz she was hella irish and her dad loved wearing them with her. Kinda like- the exact same thing that every other girl our age was doing- trying to find cute clothes and getting embarrassed by their parents.

i think that trans people are fetishized a lot for sex but in a/b/o- you can take the fact that you're trans out of it? like- sometimes i don't want to read a story where Hobi gets fucked after taking off his binder, or jk has to wear a shirt because he's uncomfortable with his tits (both of which are fic's I have read fyi they just take so much energy).

it's not to say those fics aren't great, but sometimes as a trans person i want to free myself from this discomfort I feel from my gender in order to enjoy sex like- it's so much easier to write about jk having a slick hole than to write an afab trans character. it takes all of my trauma out of writing sex scenes that I resonate with. And that's why I think a lot of trans creators gravitate towards omegaverse because it gives us the ability to enjoy sex that looks like sex we have without talking about our trauma.

As opposed to modern media about trans people like euphoria which seem to correlate trans sex with trauma. as far as trans content irl goes, I much prefer pose and the most recent season of sex education which had such great nb characters that I re-watched it immediately after finishing the season.

but I'm getting away from myself, but in short- no, a/b/o is not transphobic.

A lot of people try to 'protect trans people' from fetishization in a/b/o but i think it's kinder to trans people to write about bodies that have all sorts of capabilities you know? in this universe, I can be a boy that produces slick, and in that universe, I can be a boy that produces slick too!

[autisticandroids]

androids!!! what do you think would happen if dean met hotgirl castiel? like, if we're talking canon-compliant?

first of all! this post is really primarily about dean like, holding some transphobic beliefs that i think it would be in character for him to hold, and how those would bump up against a more inescapably genderweird cas! so you know. careful with that.

anyway, so fun fact! i have already answered this question in a couple big long posts!

however i always love to hear the sound of my own voice so i'm going to answer a question slightly to the left of the one you asked, which is: how would dean feel if he found out about hot girl castiel. so here’s the thing: what’s interesting to me about this is that it’s a big reveal about cas that cas doesn’t realize is a big reveal. cas is an angel. he’s not gendered. he understands, i think, masculinity and femininity, male roles and female roles. but i don’t think he understands the concept of gender as something one is, rather than something one does. so for example, lily sunder. mirabel lives for a little longer. refers to cas as “she.” cas doesn’t blink, cas is used to being referred to as she. the pronoun used in the third person in enochian for angels isn’t gendered, and it’s closer to “it” than “they,” or perhaps an appropriate translation would be “soldier” or “servant-of-god.” actually while i was typing this i realized that i literally wrote a fic about that when i was fifteen, it was the first spn fic i ever posted and it was on my ffn. i just crossposted it to ao3 just now. anyway, cas doesn’t really realize that swapping vessel genders is something that would make dean re-evaluate anything. hell, cas possessed claire in front of dean and it didn’t make dean rethink anything at all, so why would this?

except the thing is that, as i said in one of the posts i linked earlier, in s4, cas was an angel to dean. he was inhuman, something intensely other. he didn’t have access to the kind of gendering that dean thinks of humans as having, because he wasn’t even really a person to dean yet. but in s12? cas is just a guy, to dean. he’s a person. and people, to dean, have definite genders. so while i’m sure that intellectually dean knows that cas has probably taken a female vessel at some point in the past, being confronted with that knowledge is a bit brain-breaking. like, i would love to sit dean down and make him read some judith butler, but no one has done that. dean doesn’t have any trans friends (if he did he would be a better, healthier person, and might use different pronouns). the idea of someone being another gender than they appear at first glance, or not having a gender, or changing genders over time - all that is foreign to him. the idea that cas could have in some way been a woman, at some point, would shake him.

and like, i’ve already said this in the posts i linked, but the difference there is that dean has time traveled away from his cas. he has some time to process, and another cas who is not his cas to occupy his mind.  but when he's with his cas, he wouldn't have the distance. i think he might start actively reevaluating cas' behavior in real time. trying to see if he could see him as a woman. he might reclassify some of cas' actions, in his mind, which had once simply been classified as "weird," as "feminine." i'm not sure how this would change his opinion of cas but i do think it would. i don't know if this would push dean into a personal gender crisis in the same way as meeting hot girl castiel, because again that requires some distance and if he is with his cas he doesn't have distance.

i actually do think this would be more likely to get dean to re-evaluate their relationship than if late season dean time traveled to meet hot girl castiel, because like. in dean's head, this makes his cas.... Kind Of A Woman A Little Bit. he's never seen cas As A Woman so instead he projects womanhood onto his cas. and if cas is Kind Of A Woman, then it's uh. more obvious that cas has been doing Wife Shit for dean for years. and dean has been responding in kind. i think that if dean were to have this realization in lily sunder, and then stuck in the middle with you happened? i think dean would realize cas was in love with him. i don't know if he would realize he was in love with cas yet. i also think he might like...... confront cas about her gender? and they would have an intensely unproductive conversation where they talked past each other because cas REALLY doesn't understand how gender works because he has special autism that makes you genderweird, like, there are definitely angels who have genders and certainly who understand gender but cas Does Not because he is full of angel autism, and dean is like. there are only two genders. g.i. joe and barbie. but i do think this conversation would impress upon dean that cas really is something other than a man (and that that thing is not "secretly a woman") and THAT realization might like. cause him to rethink his concept of gender a little. have little a crisis. as a treat.

i also think that he has a very awkward conversation with sam where he's like. "so is cas kind of..... a chick?" and sam is like dean what the fuck does that mean but externally he's like "why do you say that, dean?" and dean tries to process his feelings about this with sam and sam tries to be supportive. sam has met a trans person at least once in his life but i dunno if he would make the connection between transness and cas immediately because cas is still more of an angel to sam than he is to dean, and also sam finds it less jarring that and angel who is just a guy might still be gendered differently than a human. but he tries to help dean process his feelings about this because he recognizes that it's important to dean. a week later he DOES make the connection and like. prints out a copy of the fucking genderbread person and tries to give dean the Very Enlightened Cis Person Trans 101. because sam has had trans friends before but not close enough friends to open his gender third eye. i am rooting for him because honestly he could use some new pronouns too i think they would be good for him.

edit: i want to be clear that both dean and sam misunderstand cas' gender, it's just that sam's misunderstanding (he's like this because he is an angel) is wrong in a less obvious way and also a misunderstanding cas shares. cas is not like this because she's an angel he's like this because he has autism that makes you not have gender.

[pluto-the-demigod]

This is gonna be so long, Imma put a break in.

As a trans guy myself, step number 1 is don't make transness the butt of any jokes. This goes for all physical attributes that a person can have, but it bears reminding.

Write them as you would any cis character. Make them as 2D or 3D as anyone else.

Look up medical explanations of where someone might be after 5 years of taking testosterone. Look at some physical accounts too, since some changes aren't always gonna happen along the same timeline (you may have a change sooner or later than what medical stuff says)

decide how much he wants to transition. Some trans guys never have surgery, sometimes it's the first thing they do. Sometimes they have one surgery but not the other.

At 5 years, doctors appointments for T start to dwindle, so maybe one a year? (When you start out they have you in for labs every 3 months)

If he uses a packer, it will not be solid in day-to-day walking around. Casual packers are squishy, anything solid results is what looks like a permanent boner. HOWEVER, some trans men have Stand-To-Pee packers, which they use in the bathroom.

now, non-medical things. I still have clothes that are more feminine. I still wear a sports bra, as I have not had top surgery. (I don't know your gender so idk how much you know about what women wear.) This character may still have baggy clothes from when he would hide his chest. Curves do not go away with T, so maybe he can still fit women's clothes.

I am not out to some of my family, while others I talk about my transness openly. Being "out" is a spectrum. My friends know which name and pronouns they can use with which people, as this is a thing we have gone over many times. Determine if the protag introduces their brother with masculine pronouns or not (THIS CHOICE IS UP TO THE BROTHER, NOT THE PROTAG. TRANS PEOPLE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN DECIDE WHO THEY ARE OUT TO)

If this character can "pass" as a cis man, then maybe when (if) they come out to people now, they may have to be like "hey, I don't actually have a penis." or "Imma wear a t-shirt because people will look at my chest weird if i swim topless". I also don't know the intended audience, so maybe that will never come up.

DO NOT SAY YOUR CHARACTER SLEEPS IN A BINDER, THOSE ARE FOR BEING AWAKE AND WEARING ONLY 8 HOURS AT MOST

Since this character is the protag's brother, and it's been 5 years, deadnaming (using the name he had before transition) is gonna be pretty uncommon. Do not use the deadname even in the character's head. Don't write anything along the lines of "Yeah so [trans character] used to be my sister and it's kinda weird having a brother now" unless you really want us to hate your protag

I personally get excited at things with the trans flag or lgbt flag on them. Storefronts, houses, pins, shirts, hats, you name it. Feeling included and seeing others that support me is nice.

I tend to make jokes about non-canon gay or trans characters like. If I see a buff woman being nice to a cute girly woman, me and my husband will be like "lol lesbibobs. That's her wife." for the love of god don't do this to actual people.

I point out the weirdest things as being gender. Like if I see nice architecture, or a specific color, or a well-dressed person, I point at them and say "that's so gender."

idk if any of this helps but that's just. what I think. Obviously you don't have to include any of this but I hope it gives an ok idea of how being trans kinda works?

Hey there followers!

Question for anyone here who is trans (particularly trans men, but all inputs welcome!) and might be willing to give me some pointers—

I am currently working on writing a book where one of the major characters (the protagonist’s brother) is a trans guy. It’s not really a major part of the plot, he came out and started his transition a full five years before the start of the story, but I guess I was wondering: are there lesser known pitfalls for me to be careful of while writing this particular character? Are there things you encounter in depictions of trans characters in fiction that rub you the wrong way, bother you, are pet peeves, etc etc? Are there details you see included in fiction with trans characters that make you particularly happy/feel seen/etc? Anything along those lines would be extremely appreciated.

(I do want to be clear—I am very much cis, and this is not a story about being trans, but rather a story that is including trans characters, if that makes sense. I know where my lane is! I would just like him to ring as true as possible to future hypothetical trans readers.)

Anyway! Feel free to reply or reblog or shoot me an ask if you have any insight, or just ignore this completely! All responses are welcome.

[tenderqueso]

oh i could totally post on here about how mettaton's experience as a stealth trans person is represented hehe

(excuse my inability to cite sources. source for everything is dude trust me. i know this game quite well except i don't remember when all the stuff got said. but if something seems wrong please correct me)

like, first of all, i'm a big fan of characters who are allegorically trans but also just literally trans. mettaton's pronouns change from they/them to he/him when he starts living as a robot. and it's not that they/them pronouns are just "placeholders" for the ghosts who haven't found their vessel yet; napstablook uses they/them and shows no desire to become corporeal, seems content (aside from their typical gloominess) with their life as a ghost, and could even be considered "cis" in ghost terms. being a genderless ghost who uses they/them pronouns is a valid identity in its own right. so mettaton (along with fellow trans icon mew mew) has canonically transitioned from one gendered identity to another.

but while i think mettaton's literal transness is great, the way his backstory is explored in the game focuses more on the allegorical side, so i will focus on that too.

so the official story is that mettaton is a robot with a soul, with alphys having created mettaton's soul herself. this is what impresses asgore so much that he gives alphys the royal scientist job and tasks her with the most important soul-related job there there is, eventually entrusting her with the souls of fallen-down monsters.

so one of alphys's big lies is that she created mettaton's soul, when she really "only" made a robot body for a soul that already existed. what she did was still pretty impressive, but because she allowed everyone to believe that she had so much expertise with souls, she was put in a job she was unqualified for and ended up harming a lot of people.

now, mettaton obviously cares about alphys. otherwise, why would he play along with her plans to "guide" frisk for so long, even when it bores him and starts causing him to lose viewers? however, he isn't exactly known for being selfless, and he justifiably feels used by her. after all, she's been avoiding finishing his body to keep him dependent on her, and then she recruits him to play the villain against frisk to make herself look good. so why does it seemingly never occur to him to expose her original lie instead of letting her continue to take credit for his entire existence?

it's because it benefits him! it was probably even his idea. mettaton has chosen to be totally stealth, leading everyone to believe he was literally "born" as a robot, the same way stealth trans people lead others to believe they were assigned their preferred gender at birth. if this weren't something mettaton had chosen himself, he absolutely would have exposed alphys for it at some point. furthermore, this is one lie alphys never confesses to when confronting her guilt in a true pacifist ending, suggesting she feels justified in continuing it.

one detail of mettaton's cover story i think is interesting is that when you first meet alphys, she says mettaton was originally an entertainment robot, and that he had anti-human combat features built in later to make him more "useful," so he was only dangerous to frisk because she did an oopsie. this makes sense based on the fact that mettaton was only interested in entertainment all along. but he does have his neo form, and just before he transforms into it before a no mercy fight, he says that any true fan knows that his original purpose was to eradicate humans. so alphys would have actually been telling the truth as part of her own charade to make herself look better to frisk, but otherwise, she and mettaton have apparently told everyone the opposite story. and this aligns with alphys's desire to impress asgore, since he would have been more interested in an unstoppable killing machine with a thirst for human blood than a TV personality. this just serves to hide mettaton's background even more.

we can see the extent of how seriously both of them take protecting mettaton's identity when fighting him. if you fight and kill mettaton, even as he's dying, he says that it's okay because alphys can just repair him. when alphys rushes in and finds him destroyed, she becomes emotional, but then she seems to catch herself and says that it's okay because she can just build another robot, leaving out the possibility of repairing him altogether. of course, alphys knows she can't just replace him since she didn't create his soul, and she's ultimately unable to cope with this (see: every neutral ending where mettaton is killed). but when she first discovers his death, her immediate reaction is to suppress her emotions in order to protect his secret.

many trans people, in the present day and throughout history, have been concerned about the possibility of being outed or misgendered after they die, despite having lived as stealth up until then. some stealth trans people express their wishes about this specific scenario to their loved ones. it's likely mettaton would have explicitly told alphys not to reveal his previous identity even after he was gone. and so alphys, number one trans ally that she is, understands and respects mettaton's desire not to be outed at any time.

another element of mettaton being stealth is his relationship with napstablook. the two of them used to be very close, and mettaton regretted leaving them behind. it's not clarified whether mettaton ever told blooky about his plans before he left. it's possible he didn't because he wanted to make a clean break with his old life, something that's not unheard of among trans people. the other option (and the one i'm more inclined to believe) is that he did tell them, and they've been guarding his secret as well, just allowing everyone else to believe their cousin mysteriously disappeared one day. it's not outright stated that blooky knows who mettaton is, but his show is the only one they watch, and they give him quite a sentimental phone call when he says he's leaving the underground, despite them not seeming like the type of person who loves phone calls. mettaton apparently feels that associating himself with napstablook gives away too much about his past, and he struggles to pretend he doesn't know them on the phone, only stopping himself after he's started to say their nickname. and of course, they reunite in the true pacifist ending, without either of them revealing how they know each other. this conflict over whether to sacrifice a close relationship in order to remain stealth is another one trans people often experience.

on another note, i do also appreciate that neither undyne nor papyrus can recall mettaton's "deadname." (haha get it because he was a ghost...) the fact that his previous name was something he wanted to leave behind is also treated seriously by the narrative and i like that. it definitely lends validity to his story as a trans allegory.

basically i just really appreciate how even the allegorical piece of mettaton's transness is an authentic representation of a specific trans experience, rather than just being a basic "he wanted to have a different body... just as if he were trans gender... whoa..". one of the cool things about undertale (and deltarune) is the detail that goes into making these fantasy scenarios reflect their real-world analogues. another one i suspect we'll see more of in future deltarune chapters is kris's family situation as both an allegory for and a literal in-world example of transracial adoption, though that's not something i can speak on in detail myself.

in conclusion, trans rights for mettaton and everybody else, may we all find an alphys to build us a sweet robotic form we can transform into at will

[kyidyl]

Hey trans followers I have a question...if you could help me out I'd appreciate it.

I have an important trans character in an OU of mine. Would it be hurtful to possible trans readers if she chooses to undergo a sort of magical transition? The context of this is that she lives in a world that is a dystopia for her species specifically and there are very few of them left. She has never even met someone who is the same species as her until they show up looking for her. She transitioned a few years before they found her, and when talking to them later on the other character tells her that a long time ago when there were lots of them they used to just eschew gendering at all for children until the child reached an age where they could choose for themselves (she's a teenager; iirc she's 15 or 16.), at which point everyone underwent the ritual and chose for themselves. This is very much NOT having the magic find their "true" gender. I didn't want to remove the self determination. And it is absolutely presented as a choice for her comfort, not a choice that changes the way other characters see her. The question I have is this sort of magical gender confirmation "surgery" hurtful to trans readers or would it be a good thing? I waffle bc I'm not trans so I have no idea. I just want what's best for her and what would make her and trans readers most comfortable. I can ditch the entire idea and just leave her as someone who transitioned in the typical way (hair, clothes, name, pronouns, etc.). I also don't want her to lose her trans-ness. I like her the way she is. She's a trans woman. I don't want her to be like "ok well magic ceremony and now I'm cis". That seems like erasure to me...but if it was a choice would trans people take it? I just have no idea what's best here.

Now, you can stop reading here and just answer the question if you'd like, but as some further background...I've been writing this world since 2005. I literally didn't even know trans people existed when I started the story. And as I've learned over time I've changed a lot of the world and changed things that were offensive bc I didn't know any better. So the species she's part of is biologically magical. It's literally what keeps them alive. And their society is structured around 4 main roles: the time keeper, the leader, and the enforcer, and the adversary. Time keeper is one person who can time travel. The leader is, well, what it sounds like. The enforcer is the person who is the most powerful magic user. The adversary is as powerful as the enforcer, but acts in ways that are contrary to what is best for their society. The last two keep each other in check usually. With the exception of the enforcer, these 4 roles are always filled by women. Even the enforcer is a woman 95% of the time. The character in question is that generation's leader - the Queen. Her fulfilling that role is NOT dependant on whether she chooses to undergo the ceremony. She is Queen. Period, full stop. She is a woman. Period, full stop. I just wanted a transwoman in my story who was important. I wanted it to be obvious that although these roles are assigned to women, it doesn't matter if they're cis or trans. Women are women. There's no tragic death in store for her, and the plan is to have her grow into her role and become a good leader of her people in a time of difficulty. Her transness is not where the conflict in her story comes from, it's just an aspect of her character. She's a character that happens to be trans, not a Trans Character (TM). I almost didn't want to mention it bc the people around her don't treat her differently, but like...representation isn't representation if you don't know it's there.

Anyway, feedback from transpeople would be much appreciated. Thanks!