#rough out here for queer gerudo fans....

[inspiteofganon]

@aspen-of-the-gentry replied to your post “Another reason, that I prefer "gerudo kick every...”:

i do like to think theyre trans inclusive, but i also have an au where a transfem link joins the gerudo army post botw so. i am biased im not actually sure what their stance would be on non-binary people. i think it depends how much you lean masc. i think they only let gorons in because they dont really... have gender. and are a grey area to them. but yeah it does kinda give "women and non men" which. kinda really gross yeah. and i dont know how to fix that I think for genderfluidity it would be the same of how much they lean masc on any given day. I hc that they lock up their gates to all outsiders when they have a king present though, At Least until he's of age, then he chooses whether or not to reopen them

​Yeah....... one has to admit that pretty much any time they're going to play with the gerudo and gender-- and how transphobic they are or are not-- you're sidestepping WIDE into headcanon and other such biased theorycraft territory to get around and attempt to work with/without the transphobia and orientalism inherent to canon. They're really truly a Fandom Fixer Upper... for better and worse. Groan.

Even "masc lean" is iffy because again!! you could just stay dressed feminine and like... not tell anyone. What about feminine men and pre-physical/social-transition girls? What if you're mixed-presentation or fluctuate ID several times over the course of a day? It's giving "masculine cis girl gets chucked out of womens' bathroom"!! And What About Butches?! (besides the fact that I'd love to see some gerudo ones...)

[this kind of thing is why practically all gender role shit and presentation no matter how commonplace is inherently fetishistic malarkey, but I digress]

More inconsistent nasty-implications stuff that's all the more reason I ignore BotW/TotK's "no men allowed among gerudo" for "they just don't trust much anyone really"-- even if that's really just trading transphobia for xenophobia. There's really no clean way to keep it without somehow making them able to perfectly flawlessly know the gender IDs of everyone they meet very quickly, or making them at least somewhat transphobic. Which you certainly can... But I know that's not something a lot of people would want to try and intentionally approach, even to deconstruct and portray as wrong. You can't "fix it" is the exact thing because Nintendo made an inherently discriminatory design choice, so one either must work with it or resign to deliberately rebuilding and ignoring canon elements. Maybe a bit of both.

"Locking the gate to outsiders when a king is present" is a fair idea. Also there's room for the joke "Why won't you let men in when you let Ganondorf inside?" / "The sign says no MEN, we're allowed to have ONE" there, which is good enough reason for me.

[kirishism]

Gender Representations in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Disclaimer: In case anyone actually ever reads this, I’m doing this as part of an assignment for my Queer Pop Culture class. Our assignment is to write a queer-centric analysis of a piece of pop culture, so I’ve decided to analyze the treatment of queerness and trans topics in Breath of the Wild. Mind you, Breath of the Wild is one of my favorite games of all time, and I write this mostly because as successful and deserving of praise as it is, BOTW continues Nintendo’s tradition of totally ignoring potential for affirming queer characters or storylines in their games. 

 So without further ado, let’s go~ 

There are various different topics I can explore when it comes to BOTW’s treatment of sexuality and gender, but I am going to focus on representations of gender within the different races – notably, the Goron, and the Gerudo. I also want to note that these two fantasy races are heavily coded as people of color.

 The Goron are a race of rock people who, in the various iterations of Zelda games, have traditionally lived around Death Mountain and mined for precious gems and metals. These Gorons are no different, gathering together in the region of Eldin in Goron City. A rough race used to incredibly intense heat, physical labor, and feats of strength, the Goron are shown to be entirely male. Many fantasy works are guilty of this trope (TVTropes) in which an incredibly “masculine” race of people are shown to be entirely comprised of men. 

The Gorons have exaggerated, muscular bodies with huge arms, barrel chests, and short legs. Their voices are incredibly deep and gravelly. All of these factors hint at the entire race of Gorons being men, and in fact, NPCs the Gorons themselves never identify a female Goron. Every Goron I’ve met has used he/him pronouns, and refers to others (including Link) as “Brother.” While that is not a true indication of their gender, since they could have any number of genders that are imperceptible to Link, it’s safe to say that since they are a fictional race, they are recognized in the game as men. Nintendo had an opportunity here, to represent female or nonbinary Gorons. I think it would have been fascinating to see a Goron, that doesn’t look at all different from the muscular, dark-skinned, aggressively friendly, shirtless male Gorons, refer to herself as a woman or a person that was more feminine. Nintendo could have presented womanhood in a way that challenged normalized conceptions of gender and femininity with a female Goron, but tbh I’m kind of glad they decided not to add female Gorons, as it probably would have gone the route of so many video games with fantasy races: 

Now, I want to move on to the topic that’s been talked about the most in the BOTW fandom: the Gerudo, and Vilia. 

 So as we know, the Gerudo were originally shown in Ocarina of Time as a dark-skinned desert people that primarily gave birth to women, with the very rare male Gerudo being born (this Gerudo being Ganondorf, the main villain of the franchise). In BOTW’s world, the Gerudo don’t currently have any male members, and their culture is explored in greater detail than in other games.

Most of the Gerudo Link meets live in Gerudo Town, which is a trade outpost in the vast desert region of Hyrule. Like in other games, they are a fantasy race more humanoid in appearance than Gorons, and are entirely female. They have their own words for male and female, voe (meaning male) and vai (meaning female). Unlike the Gorons, their body type, voices, and dress are shown to be quite diverse. 

 In many ways, I feel that the representation of this exclusively female race is a lot less restrictive and aggressively gendernormative than the Gorons. Gerudo women have all kinds of jobs, from leader of their tribe to guards to bartenders. There are fat Gerudos, muscular Gerudos, skinny Gerudos, old Gerudos, and young Gerudos. 

 However, since their culture is represented as suspicious of outsiders, Gerudo Town is inaccessible to Link at first. Gerudo Town forbids voe, and since making it into the town is important to the main quest, Link must dress as a vai and enter Gerudo Town. He hears rumors of a “man who snuck into Gerudo Town” and eventually finds Vilia. 

 Vilia is very clearly a trans woman. The game dialogue uses she/her pronouns, and she prefers to interact with Link when he affirms her identity. If Link decides to refer to her trans status – You’re a man? – she becomes annoyed and refuses to interact further. If he recognizes her femininity – You’re very beautiful! – she is flattered and agrees to make him a vai outfit to wear into the town. 

 There is an extremely cool and historic moment in which Link puts on the outfit and Vilia compliments his beauty and ability to pass as a woman. This singular moment, in which Link blushes but doesn’t seem to be extraordinarily ashamed or disgusted in wearing women’s clothing, opened up such queer and trans potential that when the screenshots leaked of this outfit, the fan community went into a frenzy of fanart and celebration. LGBTQ+ fans hailed Nintendo’s bravery at putting Link in women’s clothing and opening up the possibility for him to be trans or gender-nonconforming. Then they ruined it. 

 After Link receives the outfit, Vilia is getting ready to say goodbye to him before the wind blows and exposes a beard underneath her face veil. Even with very little dialogue, their body language is clear. 

Vilia is immediately embarrassed and fixes her wardrobe mishap, while Link palms his forehead in consternation. This singular moment, in which a trans woman is coercively outed by the game and the protagonist clearly demonstrates his disapproval, totally changes the tone of Nintendo’s “representation.” Even though Vilia’s gift is integral to Link’s entry to the town, her outing as “the man who snuck into town” causes Link to retract his gratitude to her. Once again Nintendo plays on the stereotype that trans women are inherently deceptive, and revelation of her “deception” completely negates any goodwill the player is supposed to have toward her. Link’s cautious gender exploration, and Vilia’s affirmation of that exploration, is replaced instead by a cis man taking advantage of a trans woman’s resources and labor to deceive others. Furthermore, Vilia actually asks Link on a date: 

 But after her outing that possibility is clearly out of her reach. 

 While Vilia’s appearance and Link’s Gerudo outfit is historic for the franchise in terms of gender-nonconforming representation, Nintendo has a long way to go before they will properly represent trans and gender-affirming storylines. From races that are inherently gendered to trans characters that are stereotyped mis-representations of themselves, the Zelda franchise is far away from properly opening queer spaces for LGBTQ+ players. For now, queerness and gender nonconformity has been relegated to merely an interesting sidequest...