Yamato
There’s a lot of discussion on Yamato’s gender. And the one take I see particularly often when it’s brought up, is about how Kaido 'forced' Yamato to be a man.
So, I wanted to explore this train of thought. And explain why this just isn't true.
First, let's explore every time Yamato has been referred to by feminine pronouns/gender.
Within the canon of the text, these are the only times Yamato has been called female, daughter, or princess.
(Chapter 984, pg. 17)
The first time is right after Yamato is properly introduced to the audience, and is following a panel where Luffy questions his gender.
(Chapter 984, pg. 17)
Here, Yamato explicitly says that he chose to be a man, like Oden was.
So it appears that the introduction Oda box was more to indicate Yamato’s birth sex, to confirm to the audience that yes, he was born a woman. But Yamato himself is confirming that while he was born female, he is choosing to identify himself as a man, due to how Oden inspired him.
After this moment, Luffy affirms Yamato’s gender by calling him by the nickname “Yama-o”, which is what he calls Law and Kid by as well.
(the rest under the cut. this is an EXTREMELY long post)
(Ch. 988, pg. 11)
(Ch. 1027, pg. 4)
(Ch. 1027, pg. 6)
(Ch. 1052, pg. 13)
[link to original post by @/kaizokuou-ni-naru] (Ch.986, pg. 13)
The next few times, he’s called “Ogre Princess” as a child, by Kaido’s men. This confirms that at this point in time, Yamato was still known as a girl by Kaido and his underlings.
(Ch. 1024, pg. 8)
(Ch. 1025, pg. 6-7)
From this, we can assume that Kaido acknowledged that at this point, he had a daughter. No one was forcing Yamato to be male.
(Ch. 999, pg. 4)
The final moment he’s referred to by “daughter” is by Ace’s crewmate, who doesn’t know who Yamato is just yet. They’re enemies, and are in the middle of battle.
Here, Yamato looks mad at being called “daughter.” He’s growling by the suffix, and he doesn’t respond verbally to being called “Kaido’s daughter,” all he does is give an angry glare and an ellipses.
Second, lets explore the first time in Yamato’s timeline he’s referred to as a male.
(Ch. 1024, pg. 11)
As far as the timeline goes, this is the first time Yamato is referred to by male pronouns by anyone in the story. And it’s by himself, in his own head, after Kaido has punished him.
“I am Oden, but also... the Son of Kaido.”
This is the first clue we have that Yamato views “Oden” and “Son of Kaido” as two separate identities. Oden is not the Son of Kaido. Yamato is.
(Ch. 1025, pg. 6)
It’s hard to tell the timeline here, but it appears that this is after Yamato escapes the cave, due to how dirty and scraped he is, and how he’s being snuck food by people.
So this would indicate that Yamato has already decided that he’s male, a son to Kaido. But this person helping is calling Yamato “Ogre Princess,” so it appears that this is not common knowledge yet.
But from what we can gather here, no one forced Yamato to be male. He saw Oden’s last stand, admired him, and decided that he would be a man just like Oden, as well as emulate him.
Yamato is still male regardless of his admiration of Oden, and by the time we enter the story currently, everyone acknowledges Yamato as Kaido’s son.
(Ch. 979, pg. 14)
(Ch. 983, pg. 17)
(Ch. 985, pg. 19)
(Ch. 1025, pg. 5)
(Ch. 1051, pg. 5)
(Ch. 1054, pg. 7)
(Ch. 1054, pg. 7)
No one acknowledges Yamato as “Oden” except for the samurai in the cave, and Kaido, when he’s mocking Yamato.
(Ch. 124, pg. 13)
(Ch. 124, pg. 9)
(Ch. 1024, pg. 10)
(Ch. 1014, pg. 4)
(Ch. 124, pg. 7)
Yamato is only referred to by feminine pronouns in the past.
In the story, Kaido, his men, Luffy, and every other character calls Yamato by he/him. Not because they’re feeding his desire to be Oden, or believe him to be Oden- but because that’s what Yamato wants to be called by- male pronouns.
Kaido hates Yamato for wanting to be like Oden. He despises it, to the point that he’s going to kill his own child over this. He never truly acknowledges Yamato as Oden.
And while Yamato’s desire to be a man was inspired by Oden’s manliness, Kaido still acknowledges Yamato as male, and specifically, his son. Both Yamato and Kaido acknowledge this, and no one once corrects them on it.
(Ch. 979, pg. 15)
(Ch. 980, pg. 10)
(Ch. 982, pg. 12)
(Ch. 983, pg. 16)
(Ch. 983, pg. 16)
In the present, he’s never called by “Ogre Princess.” He’s called “Young Master” (specifically a male gendered term in Japanese) and “he/him” by everyone around him, and Yamato never corrects them.
Which leads me to my third point.
Third, Yamato longs for freedom to express who he is. He has never done anything Kaido has tried to make him do.
(Ch. 985, pg. 9)
(Ch. 1016, pg. 15)
(Ch. 985, pg. 6)
(Ch. 1019, pg. 18)
(Ch. 1024, pg. 16)
(Ch. 1025, pg. 5)
(Ch. 1025, pg. 7)
Yamato’s greatest desire is to live free.
Over and over, he has refused to follow Kaido’s orders. He refuses to live his life by Kaido’s word, and grew up in hiding, scraping by, starving and cold and running for his life constantly, watching anyone who helped him die for that crime.
Yamato has spent his entire life in chains thanks to Kaido, and wants nothing to do with his father’s influence.
Kaido has tried to force his decisions onto Yamato (literally with those shackles), but Yamato refused and refused and refused. He won’t do anything Kaido wants him to do, because he’s going to live the way HE wants to live.
(Chapter 984, pg. 17)
Yamato is a man because he chose to be a man. No one forced him to be one, and no one could force him to be something he doesn’t want to be.
The whole point of Yamato’s character is that he wants to live freely, and wants people to respect his decisions and choices.
He chose to be a man.
It’s probably the only decision in his life that Kaido has ever honored and respected.
Foruth, Kaido grew up knowing Big Mom.
He saw how powerful Big Mom was at a young age. She’s insanely strong, and he absolutely respects that. It’s because of her that he has his devil fruit, and it’s implied she was something of a big sister figure or mentor to him on Rock’s ship. And we know there were other powerful women on Rock’s ship as well.
When Big Mom shows up at Wano, Kaido never treats her as anything less than his equal.
His crew has women in high positions of power on it, from Black Maria, Ulti, to the SMILE users and others.
Kaido doesn’t view women as inherently weaker. His crew is a mix of genders, because he doesn’t care about gender. He only cares about strength and power.
Yamato is not a man because Kaido thought having a son would be better or something along those lines. Kaido has never shown an interest in anything regarding gender separation or distinguishing them. Because that’s not what’s important to him.
He only cares about power.
His daughter decided to become his son? Fine, alright. It doesn’t matter to him. Yamato is still worthless to him either way.
Finally, the bath scene.
(Ch. 1052, pg. 13)
(Ch. 1052, pg. 13)
(Ch. 1052, pg. 14)
We have Okiku in the women’s bath.
And Yamato in the men’s.
Okiku is explicitly a trans woman. She was born a man, and chose to become a woman instead- a female samurai. She seemed anxious asking to join the other women in the baths. And when she’s in there, she shows nothing but happiness and joy, finally in the bathroom that fits her gender identity. And the other women have no problem with her being in there, because they accept her as a woman.
Because she is a woman.
She doesn’t have to bathe with the men anymore, and she’s just so happy about that.
And Hiyori knows she’s a trans woman, having grown up with Okiku. And Hiyori shows nothing but acceptance and happiness to have her friend back and with her again.There is no disgust, no disagreements on what Okiku’s gender is here.
Everyone accepts Okiku as the woman she is and that is that.
And in contrast, we have Yamato in the men’s baths.
Yamato says earlier that there is no mixed bathing in the castle. He is enforcing that himself, refusing to bathe with Nami when she asks, and he chooses to bathe with the men. This is not something Kaido is forcing Yamato to do. He’s completely free to choose things for himself now. And he chooses to bathe witht he men, because that is Yamato’s preferred gender.
The only characters who react to this are Momonosuke, Sanji, and Brook, all characters who react to big bouncing tiddies, which Yamato undeniably has.
No one else reacts. Cat Viper, Jinbei, Chopper, Zoro, and Luffy all treat him like any other man.
These two panels are intentionally parallels of each other. Okiku, a trans woman that the story acknowledges as a trans woman, in the women’s baths. And Yamato, a trans man who’s gender identity was accepted by everyone in the cast, from Luffy to Kaido, in the men’s baths.
Concept Art
We have concept sketches by Oda, showing his thought process in creating Yamato.
Now, I want to be clear that none of these concept sketches are canon, but I want to explore a few of them, because some of their ideas bleed into canon Yamato in interesting ways.
It’s clear that Oda wanted to play with gender regarding Yamato’s character, which, as we can see, made it into the final character concept (re: this entire post).
Some of these sketches show Yamato resenting the idea of being considered a man when she’s a woman, some seem to imply that she’s ashamed or disappointed to be a woman (”But I’m a girl, not a guy like him...” “Doesn’t want anyone to know she’s a girl”), and others show Yamato disregarding their birth gender (“Who cares if I’m a girl?!”).
What I find most interesting is that, regardless of which view concept Yamato has on their gender, they’re very specific about which gender they HAVE.
Almost all of the concept Yamato’s identify or view themselves as women, even the ones that seem to lament their gender. One of them corrects a guard who calls her Young Master, an explicitly male gendered term as discussed above.
Canon Yamato is called Young Master by all of Kaido’s crew, and does not correct them on his gender.
This is the biggest difference between the concept and final version of Yamato. Concept Yamato all view themselves as female, while the final version views himself as male. This view on his own identity was a very specific choice Oda made for the character.
What I’m saying is, the takeaway I get from these sketches is that, if Canon Yamato viewed himself as a woman, given his force of character and stern opinion on his identity, he would IMMEDIATELY correct those around him who call him by male pronouns or identifying terms.
But he doesn’t. He calls himself the Son of Kaido, and the one time someone questions his gender identity (Luffy, “You said son, right?!”), Yamato reaffirms that yes, he’s a man.
In conclusion:
Yamato is a trans man.
No one ever forced him to do anything. He ran, hid, and scraped by, longing for the chance to be free and express himself in the way he chooses. And he chose to be a man. Of every decision Yamato has ever made, this was the only one that Kaido respected, since Yamato’s gender has nothing to do with his usefulness (or lack thereof) to Kaido, and it doesn’t directly oppose the things Kaido has tried to force onto Yamato.
And his gender identity as a man is separate from being Oden. While Yamato calls himself Kozuki Oden, several times he says he doesn’t feel like he’s truly earned the title/role of Kozuki Oden.
But he calls himself a man. And so does Luffy, Kaido, Kaido’s men, and everyone else. Yamato doesn’t correct them, and only reaffirms his chosen gender. He is Kaido’s son by choice. A choice inspired by Oden’s manliness, but a choice separate from that identity.
