Wandering Son and the Trans Experience
Finally, actual queer rep in this class! A race I can actually have a horse in! Please don't mind my excessively genderqueer ramblings about this decidedly genderqueer anime. It will not be very structurally sound and organized, that's for sure.
The lecture for this module covers TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists), basically people who call themselves feminists while also devaluing women simply as those who were "born to make babies." It's fully antithetical to the feminist perspective of women just being people who are as diverse as any population; there is no one way to be a woman, there is no one "woman" body or "feminine" presentation.
This segues into the point that society has conflated gender, sex, and sexuality as fully connected, when in reality humans are extremely varied in physical sex characteristics, gender presentation, and sexuality and sexual practices.
This leads me to the anime in question. The first episode is about the main character Nitori - it's unclear what gender she is exactly, but she is certainly transfem - who is experimenting with feminine presentation. She goes outside dressed as a girl for the first time and we see her walking around, watching a cat, looking at her reflection in shop doors, as a young girl would - she's experiencing everyday life as a girl for the first time.
She looks up to Takatsuki, who dresses like a boy unashamedly and is praised by her peers for doing so, despite awkward questions from adults. Nitori wants to live life like that, able to present however she wants without needing to worry about what others think of her. When she gets advice, it's summed up as "do what you want, but people will think you're a pervert for wearing a skirt." It's a sad reality that a middle schooler has to worry about looking like a pervert just for wearing a skirt. Historically it's seen more "acceptable" for a woman (or those perceived as women) to dress masculine, while a man (those perceived as men) have a much harder time finding support dressed feminine.
However, on the flip side, someone AMAB dressing femininely is more typically labeled or "clocked" as transgender, while someone AFAB dressing masculinely is generally regarded as a tomboy or lesbian. It happens regardless of whether the person is or is not trans, is or is not gay. This was my experience growing up pre-transition, as no matter how hard you try to break gender expectations, you will still be put into boxes and categories by those around you. You can wear pride patterns and pronoun pins, but the only people who will listen are those who already know. Whether through an air of transphobia or allyship, it will happen in some way, sometimes by those you least expect.
This is what the prof was talking about in the lecture about how gender is a social construct, yet being artificially constructed does not make it any less prevalent in society. It's also where the term TERF comes in - someone can try all as they might to appear masculine, but until they "pass" they are seen as a lost lesbian. They can try all as they might to appear feminine, but until they "pass" they are seen as a pervert invading women's spaces. It comes down to what TERFs and other transphobes "decide" that your sex assigned at birth must have been (and trust me, no matter what they say... they can't always tell. Remember when they tried to claim that Michelle Obama and Beyoncé were trans women?) The sex-gender linkage is a connected part of our society, where as humans we want to categorize everything into neat little boxes. If you're androgynous, intersex, or don't fall neatly in line with said boxes, you have to get put somewhere. You are a man, a woman, or in some circles you're nonbinary. Are you transmasc or transfem? You have to be "man" nonbinary or "woman" nonbinary. It all circles back to the gender binary anyways. In the same vein, Nitori is forced to choose between whether she is a boy or a girl at school. Her girlfriend Anna isn't interested in girls and breaks up with her when she realizes that Nitori dressing like a girl isn't just for show. This anime has a theme about gender presentation being a show, where Nitori's friends and girlfriend are supportive of her dressing femininely in private or while hanging out with them, but as soon as she shows up at school dressed like a girl they won't talk to her and act shocked, not wanting to be seen as freaks for being friends with her.
This was probably the most intense scene in this anime - where Doi comes in to see Nitori dressed as a girl, and we get two uncomfortably long silent shots of the closed door and Doi touching Nitori's hair. We skipped quite a few episodes, so I'm assuming we missed Doi's introduction. As a trans person these 15 seconds or so were the most uncomfortable I felt during the anime, even during scenes where Nitori is being berated and insulted. At least with transphobes, you can expect the insults, you know what's going to happen when they see you denying their precious sex-gender linkage. But sometimes the worst violence and humiliation comes from those you show trust to, especially alone behind closed doors. I was genuinely expecting to hear a slap sound or Doi shouting from behind the door.
Genuinely cathartic when she said she hated him. I'm not going to debate what Doi's sexuality could be - what matters most is how he treats Nitori like entertainment, wanting her to dress femininely so he can both mock her and feel attracted to her.
DOI THE OG CHASER !!!!!!!!
Anyway, that's all from me. I'm genuinely impressed if you read all the way through my incomprehensible trangener rambles. This is probably the only anime series in this class so far that I want to watch all the way through now.
