Gender identity, self expression, and ethnicity are so intertwined that it would be hard to discuss one without discussing the others. As a Japanese trans man, all of these things have come into play in relation to my self-expression and identity. One of the things I found solace and euphoria in, as a teenager, was clothing.
The Love Me for Who I Am manga is educational on how not to treat nonbinary people, but it’s not enough and needs to do better.
As somebody who has witnessed repeatedly the failure of would-be individual saviors to undo entire oppressive systems, I want to try to come to a deeper understanding than what is afforded on the surface by Rebellion’s final twist. What happens when hope is institutionalized? How do oppressive ideologies shape the worlds we can imagine? And the question that has haunted me most: if in the moment we destroyed an oppressive world we were given the full power to create a new one before we had any time to heal, would we like what we make?
Black women always have to be strong. Society thinks we have some superhuman ability to withstand trauma. We are depicted this way all over the media to devastating results. I want to talk about Casca, a character who stands as the antithesis to this extremely harmful stereotype.
Even now, with the vast increase of explicit queer womxn’s representation on television over the past decade, I still see myself in Sailor Moon and The iDOLM@STER more than I see myself in Orphan Black.
Satoko and Nada’s friendship is a great example of why friendships between women with disparate lives are necessary, as the two embrace their differences despite their vastly different backgrounds, protect each other, and offer one another a semblance of family when they’re far from home.
At first glance, Ashinano Hitoshi’s 1995 sci-fi world seems no more than a quiet and rural part of modern Japan, but the easygoing protagonists live amidst ruin in what would have been the metropolitan Tokyo Bay. Entire cities have sunk and an untold number of lives have likely been shattered, yet the comic takes solace, even joy, in depicting the beauty of the world as humanity sits back to accept its fate.
When I played Kingdom Hearts Union X Cross (then called Unchained X) for the first time in 2016, I felt pressured to play as my assigned gender (female), due to the lack of options for both Black female video game characters and non-binary characters. As someone who was still exploring their gender identity and expression, this was extremely stifling.
The horror genre has historically stigmatized mental health conditions, but Ciconia normalizes plurality and frames it as explicitly positive, making me feel comfortable in trying to express myself as plural.
While Ranma 1/2 is officially the story of a cis boy dealing with a body-morphing curse, the series also accidentally provides a resonant allegory for transmasculine identity.
Ash is a problematic depiction of a queer assault survivor, but also one that claws open some of my most private, difficult wounds.
When I found Gintama, I was going through the worst depressive/anxious episode of my life. The thought that plagued me the most was: “How am I going to live like this?” Of all the people in the world, I was not expecting Sakata Gintoki to give me an answer.
Series that focus on non-cis male athletes in a serious, competitive environment, let alone deal with the mental health issues that some athletes face, are rare and valuable. I was absorbed with how much I saw my own relationship with tennis in Akira’s relationship with track, and that it wasn’t cute. It hurt.
I related to given‘s Mafuyu in a way that was different from how I’d ever connected with a character before. He was queer. He was coping with loss. He was socially awkward. And, most importantly, he was autistic-coded to the max.
Outside of the daily standardized tests, Grace Field House looks an awful lot like a high-quality preschool. Maybe that’s why, in a strange way, I found myself relating to Isabella through my own career in early childhood education.
I knew Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare would be the series that got me back into manga as soon as I saw a cover image. The fourth volume features two women in wedding dresses, clearly getting married to each other. There were no pretenses; it wasn’t open to interpretation. This was a queer manga and I loved that the cover didn’t hide it.
While Dragon Ball Z is best known for its epic battles and power struggles, the series has meant much more to me than that. It helped me as a man address problematic aspects of my life and expectations placed upon me that I had up until that point either neglected or outright ignored.
Queerness opened up a new world, one in which male and female were no longer black-and-white concepts. Gender became this beautiful shade of gray that I didn’t want nor need to be boxed into. The gateway for this freedom was in the queer bodies of Thomas.
In an inclusive world, everyone would understand people with disabilities as a valuable source of social diversity. This world would be materially and socially accessible and barrier-free. This world does not yet exist, but there are ways to imagine what it would look like.
The very idea of being able to live on my own, make my own decisions, and grow based on my experiences outside of the stipulations placed upon me by my small town seemed like the ultimate dream. After seeing Kiki leave her parents and fly across the water at midnight with her little red radio, I thought that I could do the same.
