There's actually kind of a backstory to people not going for the simple "paul is trans" answer, actually. Sort of. Maybe just me honestly. Sorry in advance for springboarding off of a short throwaway post like this, but I think this is an interesting event to talk about, so:
All the relevant tweets are deleted now, but around mid-November 2019, Petscop creator Tony "pressedyes" retweeted a comic from his friend's comic/collage account "longpig2" that was about being transgender. People then began making posts about how this potentially confirms the "paul is transgender" theory, such as this post. (Not to single out this user, they're just a good example since they include a screenshot of the longpig2 tweet for context and that account is also just gone now.)
This led Tony to make a follow up tweet clarifying explicitly that Petscop is not about being trans, and he was just retweeting art from his friend unrelated to Petscop, though he really appreciated that people could see themselves and their experiences in his work like that. Some fans did not take this very well, and I think eventually Tony realized this and deleted the tweet. I think his intention was to stop people from asserting that any particular theory was the only "real" explanation, and keep speculation and different interpretations alive, but ended up making people who interpreted Paul as trans upset in trying to do so. I don't think he needed to delete that tweet, but I understand why he did.
I also don't think this means nobody can interpret Petscop this way, and Tony literally said himself he liked the interpretation. Personally, I like to think Paul is transgender regardless if that explains the story, because I'm transgender and I like when characters are transgender. But the intended "canon" answer for why the events in Petscop happen as they do, if you're looking for it, is actually not "paul is transgender". And usually theories like these are trying to understand what the creator was trying to get across exactly, so I figure it's worth pointing out if you care about zeroing down Tony's intended answer.
I don't think many people have seen the tweet I'm talking about (definitely less than I thought had before I realized he deleted it) but it's part of why i personally think Petscop's 'reasoning' is closer to a 'convoluted' answer like alternative universes colliding or whatever than an easy, simple answer. Petscop is a complicated and personal work, and I really enjoy hearing peoples various and often similarly personal interpretations of the work, even if its hard to string even little details together without spiraling on and on forever.
Anyway. I don't really have a point beyond that I think complex theories are fun and not necessarily worse than a simple answer. I think fan interpretations of a work can be and usually are just as valid as the creator's intentions, and Tony himself feels even more strongly than me about that, judging by these tweets (which are still up and probably represent his feelings better). I think it's good to acknowledge and dig deeper into both perspectives.
[ Image description: Two tweets by Tony @ pressedyes, posted Jan 30, 2020. Tweets read: "I think viewers understand Petscop more than I do. Because when I see it, I think about my intentions, and all this implicit stuff. And other people see what's actually there. To me that perspective seems more valid. And I can never really see that myself, which is weird." "This goes through my mind when I read viewers' comments. It's like, I don't even really have access to the Petscop they're talking about. So I take that stuff to heart, including the negative stuff, because you all know more than I do about what I've *actually* put out there." end ID. ]
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