Oh shit it’s a personal opinion, look out.
Alright tumblr. It's time for an opinion and it's mostly just personal feelings. This isn't aimed at anyone in particular or any part of the fandom, I don't care enough to go that much out of my way to police people's fun and self indulgence like shit you should see the stuff I make. But hey look at me, writing a big thing on something, finally after so many years on the internet. But it was bound to happen, this particular subject hits a closer than I thought any fandom related thing ever would.
This is going to be about genderbending/cisswap, whichever term is preferred for it. A lot of this is just going to be my own personal feelings and experiences and is in no way me telling people what to do with their fun. I don't give a shit enough to try attack people over it but I purposefully go above and beyond trying to avoid it for this particular fandom. And that fandom, my friends, is Transformers. Though to be more specific, the IDW continuity.
Now, with the IDW continuity specifically, I only really got into it this year and it probably hasn't been that long, but it already feels like home. And maybe people have already written about this or spoken about it, but hear me out.
For decades Transformers has been marketed as a boys thing and the cast is basically a 'sausage' fest. Now that's very fair, we all know this shit was done to appeal to their demographic and to sell more toys and stuff. That kinda thing. So basically... it's a lot of dudes. So many robot dudes. And there's always calls for 'MORE GIRLS' which is always good too. The addition of the Camiens is a true blessing but i can't deal with the mech/femme part of fanon I'm sorry.
Why put a gender binary on a race that doesn't really need gender? They don't need gender, they chose it. Years ago it would make sense, obviously. Throw in a female character and maybe try to sell a few toys to girls because that's all they want right? However, with the current information available and the visibility of the lgbtq community, with modern transformers franchises, especially IDW, I don't view Cybertronians as cis male and female, they are genderless but will mostly present and identify with male pronouns. So to me... Cybertronians represent Transmasc people (and in the cases where they adopt she/her, transfeminine). Think of it like the Gems in Steven Universe, Genderless inorganic beings who do not reproduce sexually and who all present and identify as feminine. The gems are like the feminine and feminine aligned response to something like transformers.
So where do cisswaps come in? Well, here's where things get tricky but to me, changing what the bots identify as, which is male/masculine, feels like transmasc erasure to me. I know, they're just fictional, but that's what it feels like from a point of view like mine when the characters are supposedly genderless but chose to go by certain pronouns. And I feel like it's overlooked when they're male, because I never seen it done to the female bots. They're treated like cismales and because they identify as masculine their feelings and preferences don't matter. Would people do it the gems? Maybe, but not without people throwing a shit fit (which is not always a bad thing, protect girls and transfeminine identities please. And especially something as positive as SU). Would people react the same way for the bots? I don't know... I avoid the discourse to be honest. I'm not here for that. I'm here for gay robots in space.
Speaking of gays, swapping established couples to be hetero is stupid and shitty and I hate it. No point being polite about that one because it is just straight up erasure. Leave the gays alone we only get so much content.
As someone who was once mostly sure of who they were and now isn't quite sure what to do with their shambles of a self image, it kinda feels like it's smashing over all I had previously built up. This is just me projecting a little too much I think, and this is probably why it's kinda touchy for me. I see something of a character I'm personally connected to and it makes my heart jump into my throat and my chest feel tight and it sucks to feel like that so this is why i go out of my way to not see it. Can I be bothered shitting on other people's fan content on the internet? Naw man.. hell... even though I know I shouldn't.. even i have some exceptions. Still not gonna start fights tho, I just make my own little corner and stick to it because I don't need to get into some baby fight on the internet just for expressing my feelings and opinions.
However.... if I have to see one more cishet cygate thing im going to scream and fly into the sun.
