cw for discussion of sexual assault and examples of transphobia/transmedicalism
This has been on my mind for a while, but I just found out that a lot of people on the wiki have been congratulating this scene THIS YEAR, and I find that shocking. Were they watching the same scene that I was? Because this is genuinely my least favourite scene in the show. Maybe this was mildly progressive in the 90s, with the idea that Yusuke would sometimes respect trans people, and I appreciate that Togashi made an effort, (from what I know of him I do think he wanted to support trans people with this scene) but people need to stop pretending this is still progressive or at all positive. Come on guys, we can do better than this.
In this scene, specifically in the sub, Yusuke, the “““good guy”””, treats Miyuki like she‘s not a real woman just because she’s trans. This isn’t good representation, the only thing she does is be introduced as an antagonist, not even be competent at it, get groped on purpose twice by Yusuke, get outed as trans by Yusuke, and then get beat up and thrown around by Yusuke while he yells at her about how “you aren’t actually trans unless you gets surgery“ (“you can’t go half way”) This is so ignorant on so many levels, and there’s no opposing argument presented. Also! He calls her an “it” through the whole scene. Nice! As for the dub, I’m pretty sure she isn’t explicitly trans, she’s just a cross dresser. This isn’t to say you can’t like Miyuki, because she deserves to be supported, but I wholeheartedly disagree that she is at all well presented within the source material.
At first it seemed like, when Kuwabara said you aren’t supposed to hit girls, the argument was that girls should be treated equally to guys. I was behind this, I’m against violence of course, but if you’re punching guys in a show all about violence, you should be alright with punching girls too. Miyuki was directly standing in the way of saving Yukina, so it’s plain stupid that Kuwabara would care about her gender in that situation. However, then the argument started to focus on the fact that Miyuki is trans, and it quickly felt less like “everyone deserves equal treatment in the name of justice” and felt more like “well she has male genitals, so it doesn’t count, now let’s bully her about it- also it’s ok to grope people if it’s for the sake of finding out whether they’re trans or not, or in general actually if you’ve watched the rest of Yusuke’s gross actions towards women.” People are portraying this like Yusuke is just “being supportive and encouraging her to get surgery done uwu” but groping her, outing her, and beating her up while invalidating her is NOT the way to do it. I get that Yusuke isn’t supposed to be a perfect role model, but seriously? This isn’t cute and fun, it’s just gross, and he’s supposed to be the correct one here, he’s specifically telling her how to be a respectable person.
(oh, and I forgot about this because it’s so upsetting to me, but after Miyuki falls unconscious, Kuwabara comments that it’s ”easy to take advantage like this” and I’m so, so angry. He's my favourite character, and I absolutely hated him in that scene, and it feels so ridiculously out of character that I can’t even accept it. Come on, Kuwabara is better than that! Just two seconds ago he was against hitting women, oh but taking advantage of women while they’re unconscious? A-okay nothing wrong with that! He seems to only be curious because he can’t believe she’s got male parts, but that doesn’t make it at all acceptable. My blood is boiling)
Sorry this post is more serious than what I usually make, but this part of the show is a lot more harmful than people say it is, and I want more people to talk about it.
