Character pronoun and identity discussion

We can retire the Yamato discussion again as what was brought forth was not significant enough to reconsider the current decision to stick to he/him pronouns.

As for the crowner, maybe? I'd like more opinions on that before making one.

Maybe we should note that out in the sticky because Yamato keeps being brought up.

I don't believe we ever reached consensus on Seth from Street Fighter

Start of the conversation for context. Leaning on he/him unless there's something new to add.

For the record, I wasn't suggesting Yamato be re-examined, just annoyance at Oda's... double standards... since he goes out of his way to emphasize Yamato is a man in the story but includes him with the female characters in sexy art.

Edited by Arawn999 on Jun 9th 2023 at 3:16:46 AM

Well, it still caused discussion regardless. This thread is for serious discussion on what pronouns to use for a character so you can't just say things out of annoyance.

I was also wondering if the fact that Oda both emphasizes that Yamato is a "man at heart" and features him in sexy art with the female characters raised any flags worth discussing, but the following pretty much sums it up:

So, I previously mentioned in this post in early January that I was considering updating the header to include discussion links for characters whose decisions were finalized, but whose listings in the OP didn't link to the discussion. I didn't forget about that; I just never got around to it until now, but I think I got everything now that I have gotten around to it. Let me know if I missed anything.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 10th 2023 at 10:29:10 AM

For Yena, I figured that the consensus was unanimous by this point.

For Hibari, I asked for a crowner since the last time Hibari came up it was also heavily in favor of she/her, which admittedly I should have mentioned in my last post.

Thus far, myself, Tremmor19, AlleyOop, and now sgamer82 have all voted in favor of she/her.

The only dissenting voices are bwburke94 and RallyBot2, with the former suggesting "anything goes" and the latter voting he/him. Though it should be noted that Rally Bot 2 has had a history of parroting transphobic talking points in this thread.

Edited by EpicBleye on Jun 10th 2023 at 1:02:00 PM

I think for Seth, he/they is acceptable, as they're referred to both in SFV.

I don't know where the discussion started for Yena but there's enough to add him to the sticky so I'll do that.

I never read Stop Hibari Kun but everything I read on this site and elsewhere says that Hibari has always seen herself as a girl so I'll vote for she/her.

I think we just need more people to vote on it if what we have is not enough. Although, if we reach a stalemate we can do a crowner.

With that in mind, I agree with she/her for Hibari.

i said this before but the discussion petered out so ill repeat— yea to using she/her for hibari

HOWEVER, the page should not state "Hibari is a trans girl" as an objective fact, nor use modern language that heavily pushes this perspective. It can say "Many modern readers interpret Hibari as a trans girl" or "Hibari is often considered an example of early transgender character" but not "Hibari is trans and identifies as female."

A reader who isnt familiar with the story should be able to read this page and get an accurate picture of the story as it was written, including the ambiguity around hibari's identity.

Edited by Tremmor19 on Jun 11th 2023 at 7:29:26 AM

i definitely agree with that

She/her for Hibari sounds right to me.

So, Anon V began declaring an edit war on my contributions to Vandread's YMMV page over the issue over whether a character was trans in the story, with it bleeding over into a discussion here.

For context, in Vandread humanity has spread out into various colonies across the galaxy, and two of these colonies: Tarak and Mejere are segregated along gender lines into male and female-only respectively and are at war with each other.

In the anime exists a character named Buzam A. "BC" Calessa who was born male on Tarak as Tenmei Uragasumi but underwent gender reassignment surgery into a woman to infiltrate the Mejere military, and is shown to legitimately identify as a woman, express gender euphoria after it's revealed. Her arc in the final few episodes even ends with her explicitly saying she wants nothing to do with her old life and reaffirms her allegiance to the crew of the Nirvana as BC.

Now this is a very clear trans character, to the point where calling it an "allegory" is grossly underselling it, but according to Anon V, this isn't enough to call her as such, saying she's "not traditionally trans" despite the fact she literally is. I'm basically just coming here to put this matter behind us.

Edited by Hawkatana on Jun 12th 2023 at 6:39:56 PM

Disclaimer that I'm cis, but yeah, I agree that she's pretty much trans.

Edited by Cutegirl920fire on Jun 12th 2023 at 5:51:16 AM

Science-fictiony premise, but it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to say she isn't trans.

No familiarity with that work but it sure sounds like what you're describing is a literal non-allegorical transgender character.

for some people a character can't be transgender unless they literally say so and anything else is unproven headcanon,so naturally they're going to be very stubborn about that first point.

so yeah they're transgender as the worked confirmed

Edited by Ultimatum on Jun 12th 2023 at 2:04:29 PM

I was just watching a VOD of a stream where a bunch of queer and black folk discussed how there's a difference between very marketable "-turns to camera- I'm trans!" rep where a character might as well be cishet for the rest of the work, and rep where a character is demonstrably queer in a way that's recognisable to a queer audience. It feels relevent.

Hence why there's so much angry foot stomping from cis folk about trans coded characters and headcanons (moments in this very thread where someone insisted they knew a character couldn't be trans because watching anime for a decade made them an expert come to mind).

This case is especially baffling because...the character has explicitly medically transitioned. And is happy with it. It's right there.

Edited by Bisected8 on Jun 12th 2023 at 2:16:12 PM

That's the thing, though. She basically does.

And it's STILL not enough for them.

If a character is clearly trans and someone is trying to deny that, it's something to report on Ask The Tropers rather than here.

Added Hibari to the sticky post.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 12th 2023 at 10:58:46 AM

Fair enough. That said, I think BC should be put in the Header for posterity's sake, considering this incident proves a precident that people are going to try & get away with.