#yamato gender discourse

[caesarsprincess]

[namisweatheria]

I understand most people aren't very conscious of these things but gender is a huge, huge mode through which people connect to each other, especially in youth. (Think wanting to imitate gendered features, or participate in gendered activities together.) Yamato didn't have peers or a real parent to connect with, so it makes perfect sense he would connect with his hero through gender instead. To invalidate that is just insane to me.

What do people who do that think gender is.... no don't tell me, because if someone doesn't respect the language people choose for themselves, (and trust me, there have been and continue to be plenty of real people who describe their own trans experiences as "choosing to be x" whether you like it or not), I am not interested in anything they have to say on the subject. Yamato is a man!

[soliusss]

>only referred to as a guy by every other character in universe

>even his abusive piece of shit father calls him his son

>mfs cant handle a boobed character being a whole ass dude I guess

[sanjipussyindulgence]

i know i get pissed about the yamato gender discourse/general transphobia in the one piece fandom at least once a month... but how do you read this panel and miss the point. freedom is such an important concept in the series and, as we see from the newkamas, that includes the freedom to identify as whatever gender you want. you are actively ignoring and disrespecting one piece's values when you misgender yamato, kiku, or any other character. i hate people.

[initforthelolzz]

I know that this discussion has been made countless times at this point, but I might as well make it again.

Anyone who calls Yamato a woman doesn’t understand his character, there, I said it.

I recently stumbled across that side of the one piece fandom. As in, the side that gets violent over Yamato’s gender identity. I recently had the unfortunate privilege of stumbling across an entire YouTube comment section ranting and unanimously agreeing that Yamato is a woman and cussing out all the people who “head-cannon” him as a man.

Whelp. It’s rant time again.

For starters, I accept Yamato as a man. A trans man that doesn’t necessarily pass, but has a respected gender identity by all he associates with (as far as I’ve watched).

I have multiple trans friends and family members in my life, and as an LGBT individual myself any and all representation is a breath of fresh air. Especially in shonen anime, which is the sole form of media that I consume at this point.

I’ve already made my rant about the queer rep in Impel Down, and it’s about time I spun my spiel about the upsetting discourse over Yamato and his gender identity. Because that’s exactly what it is, upsetting.

When Yamato was first introduced he wore a mask and baggy clothing, he didn’t speak and was mysteriously called nothing other than “Kaido’s son.” He was hyped up for episodes on end before he finally joined the plot, and finally spoke. In the distinct voice of a woman.

Clearly, any and all gender norms have been obliterated at this point.

When Yamato finally took his mask off and declared himself Kozuki Oden, Luffy reacted how all of us did:

It’s exactly what all of us were thinking, right? How can that be Kaido’s son?

Then of course Yamato responds with this:

And we have our answer. Yamato is a trans man, and the entire Beast Pirates crew respects that. It’s incredible, isn’t it? I was blown away, you should have heard me squealing, it was ridiculous.

Luffy was a dick about it initially, but from the moment Yamato declared himself a man Luffy referred to him by his preferred pronouns for the rest of the arc.

“You can trust him.” “He’s going to help you.”

(Paraphrased. Didn’t dig up a screen shot cause I’m lazy. Took place when Luffy left Yamato with Momo and Shinobu on his way to the roof.)

Conversation over, right?! Wrong!!

Cause some people don’t like that. They see huge tits and refuse to accept this character as anything but a woman.

It doesn’t matter that Yamato is referred to using he/him pronouns by literally everyone, it doesn’t matter that Kaido consistently calls him his son, and it certainly doesn’t matter that Yamato personally declares himself a man.

They say that Yamato is biologically female; “it says it on the vivre card!” “A manga panel calls her Kaido’s daughter!” All things I found in that comment section, repeated again and again. Of course there’s the color spread covered in big boobs and bikinis, and that’s obviously proof that Yamato is a woman like all the rest. Because all of the color spreads happened in the cannon story and must be taken as hard fact.

I mean clearly.

Canon, 100%.

No question.

“Cause Oda literally said it himself…” right? Yeah. Sure. I’ll believe it when I see an SBS or a quote from the man himself.

I understand where they’re coming from, I really do. Yeah, Yamato looks like a woman. Yeah, boobs exist. Yeah, both voice actors are female.

But all of this evidence is strictly surface level, and these people ignore the personality of the character they claim to defend on top of the way they interact with other characters in the series.

They say that Yamato only looks up to Oden, that he’s not really a trans man, he’s just “larping.” Playing pretend.

They claim to be defending Yamato’s identity. They claim that those who call him a man are trying to “steal” the character and “gender her.” Yet… doesn’t their entire argument revolve around gendering that exact character?

By that logic, who gendered the character in the first place? I dunno, maybe the guy who’s wrote the dialogue? I mean maybe???

At the end of the day I can get ticked off all I want, but people will think what that think and all I can do is try not to let it affect me. However…I know transphobia when I see it. I see transphobic discourse within my own family. I know what that shit looks like. Refusal to respect pronouns. “Well you don’t look male.” “You were born female.” “It’s all just a phase, they’re confused.”

Sound familiar?

People can believe what that like, but it doesn’t mean that what they believe is right. It’s upsetting to see this argument so often. It’s all over the fandom, there’s no way to avoid it.

People claim to be defending the gender of this character, they act as if Yamato is being attacked by the evil gays who will stop at nothing to turn everyone trans. I’m not joking, that’s literally how they worded in that battlefield of a comment section.

Yamato’s gender expression is confusing, we know. That’s the point! Oda said fuck gender conformity all the way back in Alabasta, and he isn’t stopping now. What we see in Yamato is trans representation, but not a clean rep like Kiku, we have a man who doesn’t pass. Guess what? Not all trans people pass! That doesn’t make them any less trans, and your black and white perception of their gender doesn’t debunk their identity.

I genuinely don’t understand why there has to be so much discourse over this topic. Like you’re literally arguing with Luffy himself at this point. 😔🙄

[beanghostprincess]

i haven't met yamato yet but i can't believe the discourse about his gender is something real like... as far as i know, he says he's a boy in specific, right? then what's the fucking issue!!!!

[greatwyrmgold]

Long before reaching the Wano Country arc, I'd heard a fair amount of gender discourse around Yamato, son of Kaido. When Kaido's retainers started talking about him, I was readying myself to consider Yamato through that lens. I'd already had some half-formed thoughts, but they'd need to be tempered by how Yamato was actually presented when he first appeared on-page.

I always knew Luffy could smash the Straw Hats' plans, but I never thought he could do that to me!

Luckily, Yamato's bullheadedness wins out over Luffy's, so I can start having informed opinions about Yamato Discourse by the end of the chapter. And there's one page which both strongly informs those opinions and can't be easily broken into separate panels.

Okay, so let's start with the simplest thing. Those two panels in the right-middle. Luffy is confused because Yamato called himself Kaido's son, but Yamato's build is feminine under those big swishy robes. Yamato explains that he "chose to be a man," and the conversation moves on. So that suggests that Yamato's gender is significant enough to comment on, but not a central focus of his character.

On the other hand, Yamato's introduction feels almost identical to those scenes in cartoons where some new character shows up in a mask, and they act badass and stuff, and then at the end of the scene they dramatically remove their mask/hood/whatever and the main characters gasp and realize that she's a girl! Yamato literally takes off a mask, and half a splash page shows off his womanly character design, and Luffy is confused that he looks like a girl. The only difference is that Yamato says he isn't actually a girl.

The point I'm getting at is that this makes Yamato not being a cis man feel like a plot twist. The specific type of plot twist written by uncreative or misogynist writers who need to include a girl character but assume that kids won't accept a girl character unless she shows off her badassery before showing off her femininity. This makes Yamato's gender seem like a major part of his character.

On a different other hand, Yamato's name box calls him "Kaido's daughter" with narrator's-voice certainty. It doesn't call him that because Kaido insists on calling Yamato a girl; he explicitly calls him his son multiple times in prior chapters. So does everyone else; they call Yamato Kaido's son whether Kaido is listening or not, so they're probably not just saying that because Kaido would whup them if they didn't respect Yamato's identity.

Yet the narrator calls Yamato a daughter.

If there's not some translation nuance I'm missing, this...it feels bad. The narrative draws great attention to Yamato not being a cis man, then the narration calls him a girl against the judgement of every character who has talked about him.

And on top of that, Yamato's explanation of his gender feels weirdly...I'm torn between "incidental" and "instrumental". Yamato claims he chose to be a man because he wants to be more like Kozuki Oden; his gender is a mere instrument to a gender-irrelevant goal, and it's a pretty minor part of that goal.

When I listen to actual trans people tell their stories (or read transgender characters written by trans authors), there's not one specific thing that they're trying to do by becoming a man/woman. This isn't that. Yamato doesn't feel uncomfortable in a feminine role or euphoric when she presents masc. Yamato's gender isn't anything so generalized; it's a single, concrete, cause-and-effect explanation. Yamato wants to be like Oden, so he's a he.

Uncharitably, it feels like an author who doesn't understand trans identities trying to guess why a daughter might want to be a son. More charitably (but not very), it feels like an author who wants to include more queer characters for whatever reason, but also wants plausible deniability to avoid any controversy. Yamato can be trans if you want him to be, or a deluded girl if you want her to be. Keep it ambiguous enough and it's win-win!

Most charitably, Oda wanted to include a transgender character without telling a transgender story. (Probably a good call; I'd love to see a trans seinen* write a battle manga about a trans shonen*, but Oda's not the right seinen for the job.) So he wrote a trans man, stuck in two panels explaining why he looks like he does,† and tried not to draw too much attention to it.

*TL Note: "Seinen" means "man" and "shonen" means "boy". Well actually, both terms are more specific than that, but for the purpose of explaining that sentence, they're basically "man" and "boy".

†Snarky note: Weird how Oda felt that readers needed an explanation for Yamato's boobs but not his horns. Yeah, Kaido also has horns, but it's not like Oda explained them either!

But if Oda was trying not to draw to much attention to Yamato's gender, if he was trying to include queer characters without making a big deal out of it, he failed. Yamato's real character design getting a dramatic "Samus is a girl!"-type reveal scuttled that before it could leave port. And that's not getting to the baffling "Kaido's daughter" label.

With the power of hindsight, I can see a better way to handle Yamato with ease. Have Yamato introduce himself to Luffy without Luffy getting confused by his appearance. (A dude who looks like a lady is far from the weirdest kind of dude Luffy's seen on the Grand Line. Heck, he saw a dude actively turned into a lady by Emporio Ivankov.) Later, when Yamato meets the other Straw Hats, Sanji can do his usual schtick, then Yamato can correct him and explain the Oden thing. This makes Yamato's gender identity clear enough from the start—everyone treats him like a man—without making a big deal out of it.

Also, get rid of that "Kaido's Daughter" popup. Lies have no place in that kind of character introduction.

[wafflestheasianyenbear]

Small thing I noticed because I got to the Yamato episodes and #gender discourse or whatever, but both he and Kaido literally use the term 息子【むすこ】 which means son (and is distinct from 娘 【むすめ】 which means daughter) whenever they talk about family

Also, Yamato consistently uses 僕 【ぼく】 which is a male first person pronoun

I know Tumblr is probably not the place where people are gonna fight me on this, but he couldn't be more of a trans man if he tried

[zen17hdee]

I’m in the middle of Wano rn and although I haven’t seen Yamato in show, I’ve heard of the discourse around whether they’re trans or not (using gn pronouns for the sake of the poll)

[quinloki]

Whats a unpopular op opinion that you can get hate for? Yamatos gender don't matter because Yamato is still Yamato duh

I mean, with as long-running as One Piece is, and with as massive as the fandom is, and with as wide a range as the ages and locations of people in the fandom, I have to say you could probably get hate for pretty much any One Piece opinion.

Some people are just looking for a fight, after all, and some people thrive on stirring up drama over the strangest things.

I'll do a for instance, I'm not a huge fan of Trans Crocodile - I have nothing against it, I just hope/think the secret Ivan knows about should be something completely unrelated to what one expects with Ivankov involved. But even in not being a fan of the theory, I do *love* the theory and a lot of the stuff created because of it.

Honestly, as long as someone isn't trying to hammer their opinion in the form of Indisputable Gospel™, then I'm a pretty live and let live person and feel like others should be too. It's all fiction anyway, there's nothing worth getting that worked up about.

I will say, as a trans person, Yamato's gender does matter, not in like an end-all be-all way, but because it's not a head canon, it's not an item that's open or vague or debatable. It's a canon statement that Yamato is a guy - Even his own dad canonically refers to him as his son.

And because being a guy can be visually nebulous it makes his declaration all the more important. Same with Kiku. At no point in the story are either of their identities made out to be some huge deal - it's not an ordeal Kaido suffers to call Yamato his son, and there's no "oh I called Kiku my sister for so long" from Izou, king that he is. And Izou too! Who has a decidedly feminine appearance and is entirely a man.

One Piece isn't trying to be a discourse on gender, but in some ways it is - and after finding out that the Queers were basically vetted by a close queer friend of Oda's really puts that whole thing in a different light. It used to bother me, it felt like a mockery, but I see it very differently now. A kind of "laugh if you want, we don't give a fuck" sort of vibe.

One Piece is certainly a story about freedom, and having a right to exist as we are, and not within government mandated parameters. *Stares at the camera for a minute*.

So I love that there's a lot of against the grain characters in the show, and it's never their weirdness or differences that are ever contested. Sanji isn't supported for his reaction to the Okama, but he's not derided for his opinion either. He's free to bitch about them - but even with how he grumbles, they still showed up at Shabody to help the crew.

I'm digressing and getting into my own vibes, but I guess the important takeaway is that you can get hate for just about anything, even a popular opinion. At the end of the day the important thing is that you aren't sending death threats to people for having a different opinion.

[raamitsu]

can’t believe yamato’s gender has made the entire one piece twt community regenerated another heated discourse and i believe it all started because of yamato’s dub voice actor’s tweet referring yamato as a “he” .

[fatelovesme]

The Marvel fanboys fighting about if Gwen Stacy is trans or not would not be able to function in One Piece fandom. The Crocomom theory and all the Yamato gender discourse would vaporize them...

[amzyspinkarch]

Yamato gender discourse once again.

[larkreadsop]

voidkraken replied:

So I haven't actually read the most recent arcs. Are kiku and uhhh the other one who's name I've forgotten kaido's kid. Are they like  Actually trans? Just cause oda's previous writing of gender non-conformity was. Y'know. Fucking awful.

I haven’t actually gotten to Yamato yet outside of knowing the very basics but Kiku is definitely trans and it’s never written as a joke or played for laughs, it’s just who she is and everyone in the story so far has been very respectful of it. For Yamato I know there’s been a lot of fandom...discourse...but as far as I know he introduces himself as Kaido’s son and wishes to be seen as such (and again, from what I’ve seen, never in a comedic way) so I see no reason not to respect his wishes in that matter!

(There’s also a scene at the end of Wano where they’re in separate baths and Yamato’s with the guys while Kiku’s with the girls so that to me is a pretty good indication as well!)

And I’m hoping (?) at least that in the last ten years Oda’s mindset has changed since the writing seems to indicate that and in that case it’s a positive thing for the story as a whole!

[angelpendejo]

God damn I hate Yamato gender discourse what ever happened to respecting people 😭😭

[sevenhundred721]

Now, to keep this out of any word searches, I'm putting the real post in a reblog. This is about Yamato from One Piece, and guess what? He is dubious representation at best. Oda is not very good about how he writes queer people. He has a very transphobic track record (see kamabakka kingdom). But personally, I like Yamato and how his gender is explored, and I feel like no amount of fanservice content that undermines his character can make me turn my back on how surprisingly well his gender is handled in the actual story. I'm just so sick of discourse and I wish I could look at pictures of him without people yelling that I'm getting wrong for acknowledging he's trans or that I actually shouldn't like him because his boobs are too big and his face is to womanly. You're all annoying.

I hate when my fave is canonically transgender because I can't go into his tag without seeing stupid fucking discourse you all suck. "He's bad rep!" "She's not trans!" I just want to look at my silly guy can you stop flooding the fucking tag with your petty trivial bullshit.