So with all the discourse over #TransVincentValentine, let me tell you a story.
CW: CSA, cults, sui attempt, parentified oldest sibling, mentally ill dr#g add!¢t mother, gender dysphoria, rat ba$tard father, puberty not going to plan, look If I can survive you can handle reading about it OK?
I was 12 or 13 the year my hair went from pin straight and blond to wavy curly and muted red. Something else started happening that year too. I was assigned female at birth (and as I have later come to understand was probably *surgically* assigned female at birth and that might be the root cause for my CFS/ME and hormonal problems now) but over that summer I began having erections the size of my thumb.
I was horrified.
My family was christian fascist and part of an abusive cult and I was homeschooled and had not actually helpful or protective sex education (for the sake of the family purse, I needed to be easy to SA, and it's easiest to do that to someone under 2 situations 1. When they are drugged unconscious and 2. If they are not aware the act they are being involved in is SA. I found myself in both situations hundreds of times between the ages of 2 and 16 (when I aged out). I am still actively hiding from my family and the cult in another state but that's a whole other kettle of fish.
The day I first saw Vincent Valentine was the day I had decided to die. I had a plan, I had backup plans, I had the bathroom prepped. Come Hell or high water I was going out of the world before the sun did that day. I was the defacto parentified oldest sibling in the family since mom's schizophrenia went untreated and her substance use "didn't exist". I loved my sister and brother dearly and I wanted one more moment with them before I left. I made myself either tea or coffee (I honestly don't remember which) and I scrolled through YouTube to find what would be the last movie I would watch with them. I came across the movie Advent Children. I had recently watched a playthrough of Crisis Core and loved it and recognized Cloud. I told my siblings this would be a huge treat while holding back the tears and clicked on the movie.
Now as to my reason for wanting to die, I am not a Christian anymore, but when I was I took it seriously, as a matter of life and death. I actually read the Bible and memorized parts of it. I did everything my elders told me (which made me easy to abuse). When I had what I now at 30 years of age know was an intersex puberty that left me with ambiguous traits, I thought God was punishing me. I didn't believe in predetermination but this new bodily horror made me wonder about it. Like I had been cast out of heaven before I had even had the chance to die. Like God had rejected me before even seeing my whole life unfold. I didn't know what I was. I knew, somehow, I couldn't be a woman even if I wanted to be (I very much didn't). And I would have rather died than become like my father (who I learned was also an abuser of mine several years later when the trauma bond with him broke and I started having CPTSD flashbacks that would give a war veteran a run for their money). I had never heard of an intersex person before. I had never had manhood modeled for me in a way that didn't make my body feel like a torture device.
Then halfway through the movie, enter Vincent Valentine.
My initial reaction was fear and a bit of repulsion. This isn't what a man should be!..... Right? Then I apologized to my siblings and played the scene back again. Something settled in my bones. This was a form of manhood I could achieve. I could keep my long hair and quiet voice. I could hide behind dark clothing. I could still be adored by children. And I could learn my way around a hand cannon and live my life on demon time (once I get my chronic fatigue figured out it's over for you bitches xp ).
I finished the movie. I went into the bathroom and put the bleach away. I put everything back as it was. I hung the clothes I had planned on dying in (the darkest, most androgynous pieces I owned at the time) back up in my closet. I let curiosity win. I would see if I could maybe, just *maybe*, grow up to be a man like Vincent Valentine.
THAT'S why queer people are claiming him. We see ourselves in him. We see him taking up space despite the fact that he technically shouldn't exist by virtue of being an ex TURK (which shouldn't happen) and being an optional character in the original game who became a core member of the story by popular demand. I get it, kids can be insipid. Frankly, I don't care. 12 year old me was insufferable but that piece of art saved my life and anyone saying I was wrong to hope because what I saw at my literal darkest hour somehow harms a *fictional characters* masculinity can go finish deepthroating their terf's boot somewhere else. Trans men are not lesser men. Intersex men are not lesser men. If Vincent Valentine was either that would not make him less masculine. I quite like reading about him as all 3, cis, trans, and intersex, in fan fiction. There are a lot of things about him that work in any of those directions. And for the love of every Pagan Goddess and God, shape shifters have been transgender coded since Loki entered Norse mythology, so die mad about it. Right now my existence is being attacked from every direction. I cannot get a passport. Soon I may not be able to renew my ID. I am damn well aware I may end up in a Goddamn concentration camp under Trump. Of course people are getting upset when you talk in dog whistles about how their comfort character who possibly saved their life is not for them. Read the room. Now is not the time. Fandoms are about friendships and these are not the actions of a very good friend. We're tired of having to fight to exist everywhere. As it goes, don't like, don't read. So if you don't have something nice to say, please just leave me and my people alone.
