So, I feel like now is a great time to once again remind people that we ended up confirming that yes May Marigold is trans way way waaaay earlier than we wanted to, in part, because of a near unstoppable amount of speculation surrounding the characters at the time.
I made a big post about this before, and ultimately I take responsibility for her confirmation being done how it was, but I can again go into why I did it.
A big part of this, for me at least, was that May is trans, I had known from the beginning, it was all planned out, and it was just a matter of waiting for that moment.
Things, however, spiraled a bit out of control as they tend to do, and what often is simple head-canoning of characters (which I GREATLY encourage) as LGBTQIA+, became what some fans saw as “all-but-confirmed-trans” Robyn or Joanna.
Which, again, cannot stress this enough… head-canons are great, they’re fun, they’re healthy, and I encourage the heck out of them. Gods know that I spent (and continue to spend) a lot of time pointing at characters in my favorite things and adopting them as some form of trans, just because I want to and it helps me feel validated as a person. So never stop head-canoning things!
But, May was right there, and actually trans, no “maybe kind of sorta” type thing, actually trans. And I definitely didn’t want to have people believe one thing, only for this other character to be what they were actually hoping for the entire time.
Some folks had actually correctly assumed that May was trans, but it was overwhelmingly overshadowed by the idea that it had to be Robyn or Joanna, not May.
Which led to me announcing the confirmation of May being trans, because if you’re put into a position of announcing any character as whatever identity/sexuality/etc and you have an actor or actress that IS that in real life, having that actor or actress do it is something I believe is far more authentic. Not to mention, me doing this actually mirrored my REAL LIFE coming out as trans almost exactly. No one knew I was trans save for maybe 3 or 4 people, and then I made a tweet, and suddenly HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE KNEW.
But a big part of why I really wanted to make sure this was known was because a lot of folks just assumed other characters were trans based on “looks”, and I don’t think that’s very fair? Trans people, non-binary folks, there is no “look”, we’re as varied as anyone and everyone else, so the idea of a transwoman HAVING to look one way or another kind of hurt on a personal level.
The other part, as mentioned, was that I really REALLY did not want people to be felt mislead. And this is where I assure you that this is absolutely not a Rowling situation at all. Especially because the show is still going, and we aren’t dropping this information after-the-fact.
So, again, I’m sorry for jumping the gun a bit here and confirming her as trans the way I did, but please understand just how important this is to me (and so many others), and to have things like “well she doesn’t look trans, THAT character looks more trans” said about anyone, fictional or real, absolutely sucks. Because it assumes that LGBTQIA+ people have to look, act, or be a “certain way”, which isn’t the case at all, and can be pretty harmful stereotyping.
Anyway. May Trans. Me Trans. Have a lovely day~
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