Ranma 1/2 and the Anything-Goes School of Accidental Trans Narrative
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.
Perspectives Category
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Beautiful, Broken, and Queer: The complicated interplay of sexuality and trauma in Banana Fish
Ash is a problematic depiction of a queer assault survivor, but also one that claws open some of my most private, difficult wounds.
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Indecent Exposure of the Soul: Trauma and recovery in Gintama
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.
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After the Injury: Rediscovering my athletic identity through After the Rain’s Akira
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.
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Playing My Song: Queer autistic representation in Given
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.
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Cruelty or Kindness: Understanding The Promised Neverland’s Isabella
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.
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Our Dreams at Dusk and the process of healing through found families
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.
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How Dragon Ball Z helped me fight back against toxic masculinity
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.
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The “Heart” of This Queer Body: An intimate look at The Heart of Thomas
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.
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The Inclusive World: Positive representation of disability in Natsume’s Book of Friends and Masamune-kun’s Revenge
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.
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Flying with Your Spirit: Independence, self-definition, and Kiki’s Delivery Service
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.
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From Rivals to Romances: Unlocking queer identities in Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts is mostly known for two key reasons: the increasingly convoluted mess of a timeline, and the LGBTQ-skewing elements of the characters and their relationships. Kingdom Hearts is really gay, and the fans definitely seem to know it.
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How Otoge Helped Awaken My Oto-Gay
Accepting that you’re not what’s considered “normal” by society is never easy. For me, it was accepting myself as a man romantically attracted to other men. Surrounded by a culture hostile to anybody that didn’t fit the cishet norm, I discovered myself through something very unlikely: otoge, or otome games.
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BanG Dream! and the reality of being a young caregiver
When I was six years old, my mother had a heart attack, thrusting me onto a new path in my life that I didn’t understand the importance of until I was older. In fact, it never really bothered me to care for my mother. It was just a thing that was understood. I didn’t know any different.
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How a game about a Ladykiller helped me out of a bind
Ladykiller in a Bind struck me on a very personal level. I’m a trans woman who is butch enough and scared enough that, while I am out in every other part of my life, I am not out at my workplace. Even coming out to my friends took incredible effort.
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A Dress Isn’t Just A Dress: Finding yourself in Love Live’s “Love Wing Bell”
While I may reject the concept of wedding dresses both as a feminist and an individual, as a transgender woman I feel differently. Within the form of that gown I see the ideal womanhood of my sister, my mother, and my grandmother that I’ve been denied since my birth. It’s a womanhood I desperately wish to be a part of.
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The Trauma of Velvet Crowe: Finding myself in Tales of Berseria
It was me, my mom, and my sister growing up. Like Velvet in Tales of Berseria, I was the middle point of the trio. Unlike Velvet’s family, it wasn’t the youngest I was worried about. It was the oldest—my mom.
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Finding Inner Magic: Depression in The Ancient Magus’ Bride
Underneath Chise’s still demeanor and all her magic capabilities is a 15-year-old girl with barely enough energy to keep her head above the water. The Ancient Magus’ Bride dresses its narrative with sparkly romance, but Chise’s journey is far more personal. I know it, because it’s my journey too.
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Hiding Then, Hesitating Now: Closeted sexuality and Confessions of a Mask
Due to the cultural dangers around me, along with my own family’s reservations (my wonderful mother excluded), Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask was a novel that, to me, reflected the violence and anxiety that society perpetrates against LGBTQ people.
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My trans experience with My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness
It is so rare to find fiction that speaks to your Otherness and to truly connect with it. As a trans woman, I more often than not feel disappointed after opening my soul up to allow for validation and comfort. So perhaps you can imagine the tenderness with which I turned the pages as I read Nagata Kabi’s My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness.
