- cross-posted to:
- traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns@hexbear.net
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1422074
The manga: a college guy meets his childhood friend, who was formerly a boy but is now a woman, and has run away from home after an unspecified disagreement with her family which has left her with a significant amount of trauma; it’s implied she was bullied heavily in the time since they’ve last seen each other.
But don’t worry, she’s not trans! She just got an illness which turned her into a woman!
The manga: a high school boy with an interest in make-up uses his gloomy, depressed (male) childhood friend as a model to improve his skills. This causes said friend to have an “awakening” and start dressing as a woman, and to overall be a much happier, brighter, outgoing person.
But don’t worry, the friend is not trans! He’s just a boy who crossdresses because his childhood friend likes him better that way!
The manga: a high school boy joins a club where the members can turn into magical girls, which in his case involves physically transforming into a girl. When in girlmode, he’s much happier and enjoys his life much more, and overall prefers staying in girl mode; when the ability to transform is temporarily taken away from him, he sinks into a deep depressive episode.
But don’t worry, he’s not trans! He’s just a boy who enjoys being a girl!
The manga: a college student loses a bet and has to crossdress for a night out on the town, and meets and hooks up with a butch girl; they fall in love and start dating. The boy always crossdressed when they meet, and starts enjoying being “treated like a girl” in the relationship and starts crossdressing even when he doesn’t have to meet his girlfriend and enjoys activities such as clothes shopping and make-up and putting on nail polish.
But don’t worry, he’s not trans! He’s just a boy who crossdresses to please his butch girlfriend!
The manga: a guy is magically turned into a girl as a result of saving his best friend, the crown prince, from an assassination attempt. The prince decides that he has to take responsibility, and asks the new girl to marry him; despite being smitten she refuses, wanting to date first. She is later offered a way to go back to being a man, but when she does turn back she’s disgusted by her own appearance and depressed all the time, ultimately deciding to stay a girl.
But don’t worry, she’s not trans! She’s just a boy who’s been magically turned into a woman! And decides not to turn back when she can! Because she’s not trans! Somehow!
“But we can’t write trans women in manga! It’s just not something that you do!”
I don’t know if this is always the case but those seem like the sort of stories you’d write if you were trans but didn’t have the language to describe what you feel and had no other people to talk to about it so it just comes out in your stories as a desire to be closer to your desired gender.
definitely. a few of the mangaka have literally said they work out their desires to become a girl through their art. but unless there are a LOT of eggs in the industry it’s not all of them. i read a lot of stuff like this as an egg, but i really don’t think everyone who was posting “everyone is gay for bridget” memes in 2003 was just closeted. i think there are a lot of cis dudes who like the transgression of it but don’t like to acknowledge that trans people can exist and be happy, and the amount of anger that people recieve for suggesting these characters may possibly be anything other than cis makes me think that might be the majority of the audience
a series that’s useful for thinking about this is love me for who i am which is by a cis author who wanted to write an otokonoko story until he realized trans people exist and shifted it so it’s about a gay crossdresser, 2 trans women, and a femme enby. it’s not perfect, but the author is trying to actually interface with the real world in a meaningful way, unlike a lot of these