Trans Audience Interpretation / Western Animation

Trans Audience Interpretation in Western Animation.

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• American Dad!: Due to this image, it is commonly interpreted that Francine, Hayley or both are closeted transgender men.
• In Amphibia, it's common among fans to depict one or all of the main trio as trans in one way or another, frequently as part of an ensemble; Anne as a trans girl (particularily after a scene in season 2 where she talks about finally being happy about "who [she] sees in the mirror" and another in season 3 where she talks about not really loving herself before her Character Development), Marcy as nonbinary, and Sasha as either a trans guy or transmasculine. This reading of Sasha frequently sees her as "overcompensating" her gender, first by being a cheerleader and having similarily girly hobbies on earth, then fully falling into Testosterone Poisoning after ending up in Amphibia.
• Animaniacs:
  • Due to a gag in the comic◊ where Wakko claims to be "other" so that the Warners collectively constitute "one of each gender" for a Noah's Ark parody, it's common to headcanon him as nonbinary.
  • Many people also tend to consider Dot to be a trans girl, mostly due to the fact that she often finishes her brother's greeting "We're the Warner Brothers" with "...and the Warner Sister" and that early in the show's development, the three Warner Siblings were initially all supposed to be male.
• Arcane's Jinx is a popular subject of this kind of headcanon. In the Time Skip between episodes 3 and 4, she reinvents herself entirely, going from a kid with largely neutral presentation, to more outlandish, punk-ish fashion that incorporates some more feminine elements (like her long braids and makeup). She also insists on going by Jinx, and is distressed when Vi insists on calling her Powder. Finally, the animation often stylizes her hallucinations with pink, blue and white.
• Smellerbee in Avatar: The Last Airbender is frequently headcannoned as a trans girl, in particular due to one scene in the episode "The Serpent's Pass". She is offended and storms off after Iroh assumes she's a boy (for which he apologizes, he is Iroh after all). Longshot follows her off and gives her a look that convinces her that "it doesn't matter what others think, as long as [she] knows [that she's a girl]." This overlaps with Does This Remind You of Anything?.
• Big Mouth: A common fan theory to explain why Nick got a female hormone monster to replace Maury at the end of Season 2 was that Nick would come out as transgender. Connie even calls attention to this possibility at one point, though it otherwise seems to be jossed. A canon trans character would appear in Season 4 and also joss the idea that a hormone monster matches one's gender, as her hormone monster is aggressively masculine, much to her displeasure.
• Bob's Burgers:
  • Many people view Gene as genderfluid or a trans woman. Not only is he very much In Touch with His Feminine Side, there are several moments during the show where he explicitly refers to himself as a woman (or others refer to him as such, like Louise calling Gene the Belchers' "good daughter"), he refers to his penis as a "nightmare" in one episode, and when Bob tells Gene that he's not a girl, Gene replies, "Tell that to my vagina!"
  • Though not nearly to the extent of Gene, some fans have interpreted Tina as trans due to her somewhat androgynous design and distinctly male-sounding^note Dan Mintz uses his natural voice to play Tina voice. The fact she was originally meant to be a male character in the pilot further supports this.
  • To round out the Belcher kids, Louise is sometimes interpreted as transmasculine. She's a Tomboy with a Girly Streak who has no issue playing male roles, joined a "boys' night" with Gene and her dad, and sometimes worries she's "being a girl wrong." This headcanon sometimes goes hand-in-hand with the trans girl Gene headcanon, keeping the gender ratio intact.
• Alucard in Castlevania (2017) gets interpreted as transgender by some fans, due to his extreme Long-Haired Pretty Boy looks (and the even more feminine character design he had in a brief flashback to when he was a child), due to having a large symbolic scar on his chest (though not in the place where it would be due to gender-affirmation surgery), due to readily bottoming during a sex scene with a younger-looking male partner whom he had been mentoring, and because a Groin Attack on him during a fight scene just results in a total No-Sell reaction. It also helps that his parents were advanced 'scientists' and medical professionals who believably could have provided him with some sort of alchemical hormone treatment during puberty, even in the show's medieval setting. And his father (Dracula) loved his son dearly and also treated an Ambiguously Gay male subordinate as a respected friend, which implies that he likely wouldn't have objected to helping his son transition, despite their later ethics-based differences.
• Ched from Centaurworld is a swole little birdtaur with a deep, gravely voice who often comes across as an abrasive egomaniac and jerk because he is so focused on being perceived as a manly man. His backstory song (about admiring the huge, burly Horsetaurs as a little boy and wanting to participate in their sport - which involves jousting lances) is easy to interpret as a trans metaphor. And at the very end of the series, Ched lays an egg as an unexplained throw-away gag. But his transgender identity was never confirmed by Word of God, so it's left up to the audience to read that into the character.
• Numbuh Four in Codename: Kids Next Door is the shortest member of the team and is vocal about his dislike for girly things. His parents send him to an all-female boarding school, his father takes him to Take Your Daughter to Work Day despite the job holding a similar event for sons the following week (though he insists it's because he DOESN'T have a daughter), and is mistaken for a girl in "Operation P.L.A.N.E.T.", leading to many fans interpreting him as a trans boy.
• Cybersix: Due to the titular character being a female superhero with a male Secret Identity, that the show never really explores or explains why she chose to present as a male civilian, it commonly interpreted by the fandom that she is somewhere under the nonbinary umbrella with genderfluid being the most popular due to the fact that she switches between a female and male gender identity as well as having a civilian name that is unisex but more commonly given to boys.
• Danny in Danny Phantom was already a subject of Rainbow Lens, what with him having a secret he needs to hide from his family because he fears what they will do if they find out. Many fans see him as trans, however, because of several small moments throughout the series.
  • He refuses to shower when other boys are in the locker room.
  • He is the only boy in the waterpark episode to wear a shirt in addition to swim trunks.
  • In one episode, Desiree the genie touches his chest, causing him to wince and withdraw.
  • In another, Danny accidentally walks into the women's toilet. Force of habit?
  • Then, of course, there is Dani, Danny's Opposite-Sex Clone, and the only clone to end up stable.
• Mandark from Dexter's Laboratory is a popular trans boy headcanon due to the events of "A Boy Named Sue," revealing that he was named Susan and raised in a very feminine manner by his hippie parents. While the context is that his parents were forcing him to accept gender nonconformity, his visceral negative reaction to appearing feminine and insistence that his parents refer to him as "Mandark" rather than "Susan" makes it easy to read the episode as a trans story.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • Many people began to headcanon Scrooge McDuck as a trans man after the reveal in the series finale that all three of his clones, including Webby, were female. The fact that he has a rather high-pitched voice for a man doesn't help.
  • Roxanne Featherly, while not given as much focus as the other character, is also given a bit of this due to having green feathers, whereas in Real Life only male ducks have those.
  • Likewise with Violet Sabrewing, as in real life only male violet sabrewing hummingbirds have her coloration.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: In an interview with storyboard artist Joel Dickie, he remarked that he saw Edd becoming a woman when he grows up; while unknown how serious he was being (in the same sentence he says Ed would become president), many trans people have nonetheless embraced Edd as one of them.
• The Fairly OddParents!
  • Timmy Turner is popularly headcanoned as a trans boy. In one episode depicting past events, Timmy's parents act with absolute certainty that their child will be a girl, Cosmo even noting that this explains all the pictures of Timmy in a dress. Another episode has Timmy wishing he never was born, and in the ensuing alternate timeline, Timmy's parents have a daughter who seems to be Timmy's exact age and of a similar appearance. Plus, there's the fact that he was angry when Wanda deliberately misinterpreted one of his statements into him wishing he were a girl in "The Boy Who Would Be Queen", spending most of the episode wanting to change back.
  • Due to the reveal in "The Boy Who Would Be Queen" of Trixie having a tomboy side that she tends to hide, with her tomboy appearance being masculine in nature, Trixie is sometimes interpreted by the fandom as being a closeted trans boy.
• The Get Along Gang: A few fans headcanon Montgomery Moose as a trans boy due to his roughly feminine appearance and "androgynous" voice.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Dipper is commonly seen as being a trans guy. Evidence for this includes him taking "Dipper" as a nickname due to disliking his birth name and being insecure about his perceived lack of masculinity to the point where there was an entire episode focusing on it. He also looks very similar to his twin sister Mabel, while identical twins are always the same sex. The Defictionalized version of Journal 3 would later reveal Dipper's birth name to be Mason, which some either took as the theory being Jossed or just further proving it.
  • Grenda is often interpreted as a trans girl because of her deep, gruff voice and buff appearance.
• Hazbin Hotel: Emily's "I go by whatever" comment in "Welcome to Heaven", though in context was her referring to potential nicknames, has led some to interpret her as nonbinary or genderfluid, as the phrase could also be applied to one's pronouns. The fact that she's an angel (which are frequently portrayed as being Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous) certainly helps.
• High Guardian Spice: Inverted with Snapdragon; due to how hamfisted her transitioning is and how her story comes off to most audiences as unintentionally transphobic and reinforcing gender stereotypes, most people just perceive her as a crossdressing cis man.
• Infinity Train has Lake, who has an "object name" and a very alternative fashion sense. She also has themes of not being accepted, and declaring herself as her own person, and not who she's "meant to be" (which in her case, is a reflection). This leads a pretty fair portion of fans to believe she's trans, or at least an allegory. Due to her she/her pronouns in canon, and her more androgynous buzz cut, most people in this theory's camp say she's non-binary. ^note  Creator Owen Dennis wanted to portray a non-binary character, but executives wouldn’t let him, so he found a way around that.
• While The Legend of Vox Machina has some characters who are nonbinary according to Word of God (i.e. the tavern keeper in the first episode and J'mon Sa Ord, a more important character who should show up in season 3), there's also the minor character Bryn^note  (the tall, lanky elf with short, teal-colored hair among the Whitestone rebels), who never gets refered to with any pronoun within the show and who didn't exist in the webshow, and so they are simply assumed to be afab nonbinary by the fandom based on their somewhat queer-coded appearance (though this character is also briefly shown walking like a family with a woman and a child in season 2, so they might just as well have been intended to come across as a butch lesbian) and because their voice-actor identifies as nonbinary.
• The Loud House: In "Hand-Me-Downer", Lynn gives her old jockstrap to her brother Lincoln. This, combined with her unisex name (she's Lynn Jr., with Lynn Sr. being her father), has caused some viewers to speculate that she is actually a trans girl.
• The Magic School Bus: One theory decides that not only is Ms. Frizzle a trans woman, but she's Arnold from the future, which is why they have similar hair and why Ms. Frizzle always encourages Arnold to take chances and open up more. Her love for pickles is cited as evidence for this theory because spironolactone, a hormone blocker many trans women take, has the side effects of thirst and craving salt, so many trans women who take it embrace pickles as a favorite food.
• Metalocalypse: Believing Pickles the Drummer to be a trans man is a very widespread headcanon in the fandom. He is shorter and more scrawny than his bandmates. Most famously, in the episode "Rehabklok", during a nude breakdown, we see that Pickles has no penis. This was during a season where genitalia was not censored on DVD releases, and other characters' penises were shown, which makes it seem more unlikely to be a censorship gag.^note On the TV broadcast of the scene, there was a Censor Bar over Pickles's crotch. In addition to this, Pickles gets uncomfortable when Nathan and Toki are attracted to his counterpart in a female Dethklok tribute band, and gets pissed off when he's told he looked like a woman during his Snakes 'n' Barrels days.
  • Oddly enough this headcanon does have the Approval of God (albeit it's debatable on if it's enough to qualify as Word of Gay) and even confirmation that his lack of a penis wasn't an accident.
• Jenny, the main character of My Life as a Teenage Robot, is often read as a trans character: she has to continually remind her mother not to use her "real" name of XJ-9, and is visibly delighted when her mom refers to her as "my daughter" in the movie. Supposedly, members of the crew have approved of this reading, unintentional though it may be.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: A scene in "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep" where Big Macintosh dreams about being a princess has inspired many fans to headcanon Big Mac as a closeted trans woman. "Brotherhooves Social" contributed to the headcanon as Big Mac spends most of the episode in drag and is a lot more talkative that way than usual, and his female name, "Orchard Blossom," is commonly used as Big Mac's post-transition name.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: Many fans headcanon Dendy as nonbinary due to her androgynous style of dress. In her early appearances, Dendy was never referred to in the third person or with any gendered language, so fans who hadn't seen her bio on the crew blog didn't know whether Dendy was a girl, a boy, or nonbinary.
• The Owl House:
  • Luz is occasionally interpreted as nonbinary, or at least gender non-conforming, owing to her androgynous design, grom outfit combining a suit and a tutu, and even calling herself "a bad boy" at one point. Dana Terrace has described Luz as gender non-conforming, but it was a comment on her appearance and how she had to fight the censors and executives, who wanted her to look more traditionally feminine, not a confirmation of her gender identity.
  • Luz' doppelganger Vee is frequently interpreted as a trans person. She is worried about what her "mother" might think if she revealed her true (non-human and comparatively androgynous) identity, and has a name she goes by that is different from her given name.
  • More comedically, Boscha is interpreted as trans because twitter user giggling_stars made an edit of one of Dana Terrace's sketches of Boscha, giving her a trans pride scarf and claiming Dana had drawn it on a recent stream. While the original claim was false, the idea that Boscha's Inferiority Superiority Complex might stem from dysphoria became popular and led to a lot of fanart.
  • The Golden Guard has been interpreted as trans every which way. Initially it was more common to headcanon him as a trans man, based on his appearance as a not stereotypically masculine but very tired looking boy being similar to how many trans men see themselves, and his name, Hunter, sounding more like something one would name themselves rather than be a given name. While this interpretation is still popular, after it was revealed that Hunter is a clone of Caleb Wittebane, and the name is a sick joke from the witch hunter Belos, the idea that he's a closeted trans woman started popping up. In this interpretation, he's usually depicted as exploring his gender identity while stuck on Earth in the timeskip between seasons 2 and 3.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • One of Heinz Doofenshmirtz' Freudian Excuses mentions that he was forced to wear dresses to school as a child (although he explains that his parents expected a daughter when his brother Roger was born). He also has other Freudian excuses consisting of him feeling emasculated (and intending to fix this by demasculating everyone else even more), such as being unable to grow a beard or having a high and squeaky voice. Thus, many fans see him as a trans man.
  • Perry the Platypus is clearly referred to as being male, yet no one in the family seems surprised that he would lay an egg. In another episode, he sweats milk, which only female platypi do. In another, a professional platypus hunter hired by Doofenshmirtz references male platypi having poisonous stingers, which confuses Doofenshmirtz since Perry has never used anything like that. Finally, the creators of the show simply said "Yes" when asked about Perry's gender.

• Santiago of the Seas: Some people headcanon Bonnie as non-binary because of her green asymmetrical '80s Hair.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Bow and Perfuma are often interpreted by fans as a trans man and a trans woman, respectively.
  • Bow is an "honorary member" of the leading council in the Princess Alliance, despite admitting himself that he's not a princess. Every other member of the council is a woman. He's also noticeably covering his chest, even when bathing. Finally, the episode where Glimmer and Adora meet his fathers reads heavily like a coming out story.
  • Perfuma was initially designed as a trans woman, but character designer Ray Geiger didn't think they'd get it past the censors, and thus didn't push the issue. They regret not pushing it, since the series later introduced a canonically trans character, Jewelstar, a trans man.
• South Park: Though the show's canon portrayals of trans people (namely the Ms. Garrison arc) are understandably unpopular with the trans community, it's common for fans to read other characters as potential trans representation (though most of this is seemingly jossed by the Post-COVID specials, which show the characters as adults):
  • Kenny is the most popular due to the female persona "Princess Kenny" Kenny dons in the "Black Friday" arc and South Park: The Stick of Truth. While Princess Kenny is depicted as a Wholesome Crossdresser, the lengths she goes to in the former arc to be seen as a real princess, the casual usage of "she" pronouns (including Karen, who isn't really involved in the game, calling Kenny her "sister"), and other episodes such as Kenny being the only boy in Home Ec in "Tweek vs Craig" and trying to trick or treat with the girls by claiming to be "gender neutral" in "The Scoots" appealed to trans fans, who often depict Kenny as coming out as a trans woman or genderfluid when she's older.
  • Butters is sometimes interpreted as a trans girl due to being the most feminine boy of the group. Of particular note are "Marjorine," where Butters adopts the eponymous female persona to infiltrate a slumber party and acts quite confident after warming up to the girls, and "The Cissy," an episode about trans acceptance, where Butters dances around in a tutu at the end. Almost all depictions of trans girl Butters base her name and design off of Marjorine.
  • Wendy is sometimes interpreted as genderfluid due to her male "Wendyl" persona in "The Cissy." While it's implied to be a ruse to get into Cartman to share his trans-only bathroom and Wendy goes back to her old self in the following episodes, her casual attitude toward crossdressing, especially compared to Cartman's false "Erica" persona, made many fans assume Wendy might really want to transition.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • There have been many different interpretations that speculate that SpongeBob is all over the spectrum of gender identity. Although he goes by "he/him" pronouns and his personality is fairly masculine, he is very In Touch with His Feminine Side, has feminine features such as his pronounced eyelashes, and has cross-dressed once or twice. One time, Mr. Krabs said that SpongeBob looks like a girl, to which he took as a compliment. Another time, SpongeBob asked Patrick if he’s a boy or a girl, to which Patrick was completely stumped by (even though it's implied that it’s because he’s an idiot). Since most real life sponges are Hermaphrodites (they reproduce asexually), it actually makes sense that someone like SpongeBob doesn’t fit into typical gender roles.
  • While there's nothing in the episode that outright says it, the minor character Donna from "Doing Time" is commonly interpreted by queer fans as a trans woman thanks to her 5 o'clock shadow and audibly masculine voice, the latter of which calls to mind trans women who started to transition socially.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
  • A very common theory is that Marco is a trans girl, largely due to the arc where the "Princess Marco" identity he originally used to sneak into St. Olga's School for Wayward Princesses becomes a figure of the princesses' revolution, and Marco becomes attached to the outfit, even keeping it on during family game night. Many other scenes seem to indicate gender dysphoria in Marco, including disdain seeing himself in a suit, saying that he'd "love to be queen," many scenes where Marco confidently wears feminine clothing or is referred to with feminine terms, and Glossaryck mistaking Marco for a girl in their first meeting and, in one comic, misnaming him as "Margo" (which has become a fanon-accepted name for post-transition Marco). Even when leaving the shower in a towel, he wears it with his chest covered rather than wrapped around just his waist. The theory of Marco being canonically trans in the show was eventually jossed, but some members of the Star vs. crew have reacted positively to the headcanon. Others came up with a new interpretation of Marco being genderfluid due to the fact that he likes flexing his abs as his adult self as much as he doesn’t mind wearing a dress.
  • Marco’s sister, Mariposa, could potentially be intersex. Before she was born, her parents did a gender reveal that said that she was going to be a boy, but when she was born, she turned out to be a girl. Although her dad claimed it was because the doctors didn’t do a good job, intersex children are often born as the opposite gender that their parents were expecting.
• Star Wars: The Bad Batch features Omega, the first female clone (voiced by New Zealander Michelle Ang) in the franchise. Since Jango Fett, the template, and every other clone are male, and Star Wars had never previously used the Opposite-Sex Clone trope, it quickly led to theories about her being a trans girl. The theories gained even more fuel after the episode "Bounty Lost", in which it was revealed that Omega is an "unaltered" clone with no growth acceleration, the only other one besides 'Alpha'—better known as Boba Fett. A later released novel established that there is precedent for trans woman clones.
• Steven Universe:
  • Lars is interpreted as a trans man by a significant chunk of the fanbase due to certain scenes across the show: he hesitates before taking off his shirt in "Lars and the Cool Kids", and in "Island Adventure", he is stranded on a deserted island for a significant period of time but does not grow any facial hair — a notable contrast from Sadie, who grows leg hair. "Horror Club" has a flashback in which he rips up a photo of himself claiming he doesn't want people to "see him like that" — while this is contextually about not wanting people to know he goes on geeky exhibitions with Ronaldo, his androgynous appearance in the flashback combined with the later assumption that Sadie says he feels "trapped" (she was talking about the gem possessing the clubhouse) inspired many theories that Lars was dysphoric. What most point to however is "The New Lars", where his mother calls him by his full name, Laramie, and immediately corrects herself the way a trans person's parent might after accidentally deadnaming their child.
  • Before the Gems were established to all be nonbinary women, it was a common headcanon that Amethyst was genderfluid due to how she enjoyed shapeshifting into men, such as her wrestler persona Purple Puma. The idea of her being genderfluid is still common in human AU fanworks, however.
• Strawberry Shortcake: Plum Pudding was originally created as a boy, but was changed to a girl later in the 80s after a period of her being missing. Thus, a lot of the fan base headcanons her to be a trans girl.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Interestingly, Leonardo has been interpreted both ways in two different adaptations.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)'s version of Leo has been interpreted as a closeted trans woman. These interpretations generally tend to frame Leo's feelings for Karai^note which for many plunge into Squick territory due to them being siblings as gender envy mistaken for a crush.
  • Meanwhile, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which makes all four brothers different species of turtle) changes up Leo's design a little to give him brightly colored Facial Markings befitting a red-eared slider. However, brightly colored markings are exclusive to female red-eared sliders^note More specifically, male red-eared sliders usually have their markings fade when they're five in turtle years, twelve in human years. At the beginning of Rise, Leo is fourteen. Due to this, quite a few fans interpret him as a trans man.
• Total Drama:
  • B is sometimes interpreted as a trans guy due to his Embarrassing First Name being "Beverly," which in this interpretation is treated as his deadname. He also never speaks (which in fanon is sometimes attributed to voice dysphoria) and is one of the few male characters to never be seen shirtless.
  • Noah and Cody are both often interpreted as trans boys due to their small stature and their existing popularity with the LGBT Fanbase.
  • Similarly, Sierra is sometimes interpreted as a trans girl because of how tall she is and her relative popularity with the LGBT Fanbase. Since one of her defining traits is being madly in love with Cody, a substantial number of fans interpret Cody and Sierra as a transgender couple.
  • Zee from the 2023 debuting cast attracts many nonbinary headcanons due to his gender-neutral nickname, long hair, and easygoing attitude that some translate into apathy towards any one gender identity.
• Pidge from Voltron: Legendary Defender is commonly interpreted by fans as a trans boy, even though the show's creators have repeatedly stated that she identifies as a girl and crossdressed as a boy only to be accepted into the military (while the Galaxy Garrison does accept female students, she had already been banned from there after trying to infiltrate it as a girl). A few fans went the other way and interpret Pidge as a trans girl who essentially went back into the closet as part of her disguise. Other fans interpret Pidge as nonbinary because her voice actress, Bex Taylor-Klaus, is nonbinary.
• Young Justice (2010)
  • Ms. Martian is, well, a martian, meaning she's a Shapeshifter. She modeled her physical appearance after the main character of her favorite TV Show (named Megan), and dislikes her actual appearance because she's afraid people - even her friends - might hate her or fear her for it. It's very difficult not to read it as an allegory for Gender Dysphoria. She says when she saw Megan in the show, "something just clicked", and adds that it was what allowed her to remain happy during her otherwise sad childhood. There's a few more layers, though, as Megan is not only pretending to be human but also pretending to be Green. She's actually a White Martian. Veers into Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person when Psimon enters her mind and we get to see what M'gann sees herself as.
    Psimon: Must you even lie to yourself within your own mind?
  • This is taken even further in Season 4 when M'gann visits her home planet and family. By this point, she has cycled through multiple appearances, sometimes with green skin, sometimes with white skin, sometimes more alien than human. In season 4, she has settled on more humanoid features but with pale white martian skin and eyes with black sclera. Goaded by her sister during an argument, M'gann briefly shifts back into the white martian form she was born with and her mother comments that the form she took at birth does not feel telepathically honest. Instead, the partially human and partially martian form is the one that feels most genuine. The form she takes, which agrees with her mental state, is seen as her most authentic self versus her biologically-dictated appearance at birth.