Cybersix as a show is something that I've seen has resonated with possibly every type of queer identity, particularly gender identities in every possible direction (transfem, transmasc, genderfluid, etc.), and now I've decided I'm going to put in my two cents with how it connected to my hyper-specific identity through highlighting episode 12, "Daylight Devil."
Up until this point, the line between Cybersix and Adrian Seidelmen has been pretty clear, Adrian is Cybersix's "man" daytime social identity, and she returns to her isolated "woman" identity of Cybersix in the nighttime, but this episode shakes it up by forcing a villain onto Cybersix in the daytime as she is still presenting as Adrian.
We've had smaller moments in earlier episodes where this line has blurred, like in E10 "The Eye" where the Adrian persona slips while Cybersix jumps to save Lucas and is further animated with Cybersix's more feminine nails, and especially during any sequences where she's shifting identities, but nothing quite as far as this.
In this episode, Cybersix is caught off guard and doesn't have time to change her clothes or hair to present according to circumstance. The part that really clicked something in my head, though, was the fact that she dropped the fake low voice and performed just as she always would, and was still referred to as "Cybersix" (albeit by the enemy, but nobody else knows her true identity), and never once did the animation shift to feminize her in the hands, face, or body.
Now, things are going to get personal.
For me, I can’t ignore the importance of the political history of the gender roles attached to genitalia, so there's a feminist refusal in me to reject my inherent connection to the female identity, but I still have a fundamental belief that those gender roles are societally constructed, therefore extending to gender identity, so I'm on the agender spectrum and take immense pride in my androgyny.
I also, however, have dysphoria in my visual presentation. I get itchy if I don't think I'm accurately presenting a certain coincidentally masculine way to the social public, but I'm not a man, and that doesn't make me one. I simply enjoy specific aesthetics and wish to fit my vision of myself—though I'll admit that if it manages to break the social construct enough to fool people, that would also delight me.
An accurate label of my "mannish" gender expression as an androgyne with a feminine-leaning agender identity has been argued over by many friends of mine alike. Discussions on whether "masc" is too light of a word, whether the term "butch" is "allowed" to be applied to me if I hold a severe lack of attraction to other feminine genders, or what even defines "masculine" or "feminine" if I'm simply dressing and existing as I am leave things pretty nebulous.
Cybersix was just allowed to be Cybersix while presenting completely socially masculinely. She didn't need softer hands or a more shapely face or body to indicate what her identity was in the moment. The audience was encouraged and expected to recognize that this was Cybersix, regardless of her Adrian appearance.
I just saw myself in her this episode, is all. Cybersix is really versatile in that way.
