We are finally posting trans girl Yuta, our very special girl with problems OKKOTSU YU (友). This one is less a canon-supported reading than a concept we rotate because it interacts interestingly with canon themes.
One version: She transitions at the end of JJK 0.
Yu denies that she's married to Rika. It's just a friendship ring and they were childhood best friends. Something about being called Rika's groom feels wrong. She tucks the ring away because it feels like people can tell too much about her when she wears it. (Canonically, that's a woman's ring btw: Rika stole her mom's ring.) Any sorcerer can see Rika at her side, no hiding her. She loved being best friends with Rika, and now all that's left is this monstrous thing that she can't look directly at because what if she's a monster too?
It's right after the moment where she admits to herself that she cursed Rika and lets her go that she can admit that she's a girl. She needs to believe she's allowed to live, and she wants to be a girl.
She picks the name Yu because it feels hard to come up with a name that's very different, but changes the kanji to 友, meaning "friendship." (Because frankly it's bananas that her parents named her using kanji that mean "great melancholy.") Maki gives her clothes, and for a litle while Yu mostly wears Maki's workout gear. (Panda and Inumaki pull her aside and go "It's good you're a girl now! We think Maki actually likes girls more!") Gojo imports hormones for her and also sends her a bunch of memes he found because he looked up being transgender on the internet. (Yu doesn't understand any of them.) Shoko teaches her to give herself injections.
She immediately becomes visible as a queer girl after transitioning because her schtick is that she was married to her girl childhood sweetheart. Her transition is terrifyingly visible in general--she was a Special Grade. She was known in jujutsu society before her transition, and she immediately starts being treated horribly. They tell her she's failing at being a boy and failing at being a girl, and really, they're being nice by giving her a job at all. She tries to be so sweet and nice and compliant. She takes to dressing like her memory of Rika, babydoll dresses and Mary Janes, makeup to make her eyelashes look long because that's what they want right, a little girl who'll do what they say. It doesn't work. The higher-ups call her suspicious. Creepy. At the worst insults, Gojo stands at her shoulder and icily warns them not to get on Yu's bad side. And she appreciates him, she really does, but she doesn't know how to explain to him that it's not helping for him to imply she'll kill anyone who misgenders her because she's not like him. And she doesn't know what would help.
(Maki wants to kill all of them, but she knows the difference between her and Gojo is that she can't right now. She wants Yu to be okay, but she also doesn't want either of them to feeling like she's "saving" her. She's not stupid. She knows Yu likes her, and that she likes Yu. But Maki feels bad because she would never have dated Yu when she thought Yu was a boy, because Maki can't stand being thought of as just an accessory to a man. Now when all the old men of jujutsu society are horrible to Yu, Maki feels like she could, and that feels bad. And on Yu's part, so much has been happening that it's overwhelming. She's never considered that she'd want to date someone before. She feels horribly guilty about being attracted to Maki. She feels like she needs to be stronger before she can date Maki, because it terrifies them both to imagine Maki being someone Yu needs to protect her.)
Yu remakes "Rika" then. Yanks out one of her teeth and uses it as a medium for a shikigami that she shapes into what Rika looked like. Because no one has ever loved and protected her like Rika did. And she was never as strong and useful as she was when Rika was by her side. And she needs to be strong and useful. She needs to believe she's allowed to live. She's going to love "Rika" the way she deserved to be loved this time.
And then a week later, Gojo tells her that he's arranged for her to study abroad for a while. Yu feels relief and then shame for not being able to handle it on her own and then guilt for leaving everyone behind. Gojo also tells her that he's designated her his heir, and that he thinks that the higher-ups will fuck with her less if she's also a Gojo. She's grateful, and she also feels a gnawing dread she can't explain at the thought of growing into his clan head position, a future of being among the men of the noble clans.
From here, we don't have a concrete plot. We know that we want Yu to be at Shibuya, but the specifics are still in flux. But the stakes around her story are: Can she release "Rika?" And can she refuse to become Gojo? Ultimately, can she believe that she has intrinsic value as a person without having to play those two roles for others? Canon Yuta has this all-encompassing guilt complex where he takes on things no one asked of him, but also refuses to acknowledge the specifics of his guilt. We want our Yu to actually be able to admit to and forgive herself for the things she's done wrong, and let go of the things she hasn't. And well, transitioning is a great way to avoid becoming your toxic paternal figure!
(And our answer is YES, she can forgive herself and tell Gojo that she can't be his heir, and also stop trying to perform a version of femininity she doesn't actually care for, and fake her death to get out of being a sorcerer, and have a wonderful life in her 20s of being a cute butch in beautiful yuri with Maki!!! But that's another post.)
