Character pronoun and identity discussion

the entry is nonsense. the story is exactly the same between regions, and it's clearly someone trying to worm in an excuse that Bridget isn't actually trans.

she's explicitly a woman in all regions. Imca said it best here:

It isn't complicated, Bridget is a woman.

Edited by EpicBleye on Aug 24th 2022 at 4:04:02 AM

Aren't we done with Bridget? Why are we bringing her up again when she's mentioned in the sticky as a resolved case?

Because someone one the character page doesn't read the memo, apparently.

So we can get consensus to prevent nonsense edits like this.

I'm not sure if this has been done already, but on any Guilty Gear character page featuring Bridget, perhaps leave a commented out note about Bridget being a Trans woman and going by she/her and a link to this thread, then?

Probably

Any debate about Bridget's gender should be dead at this point. The language used in her story mode is unambiguous, the translation and localization were done in-house by Arcsys themselves, and two of the voice actors have confirmed it's a trans coming out story. There's zero room for reinterpretation.

Only people with a personal transphobic agenda are trying to scrub out her identity, and many of their talking points are documented and debunked in Strive's Trivia page. I feel we should have some sort of message in the page to warn people not to spread misinformation.

I agree a comment in the page's markup might be an idea.

Hello! Id like to bring up a character that was discussed previously, prior to this threads creation, but did not get a crowner, or i think a complete resolution.

Hibari of Stop Hibari Kun was originally referred too as "he/him" (in keeping with most of the translations). Last year troper beedok changed this to "she/her" as well as changing the language on the page to explicitly identify hibari as trans.

This was brought up in Ask the Tropers, then moved to the discussion page, where the discussion contined for a long time, getting fewer and fewer participants as it went. By the end it seemed (?) to have agreed on he/him, but this was never implemented. Page is still using she/her currently.

I think it would be useful to get more PO Vs on this, and maybe a crowner.

Ill summerize to the best of my understanding the main points in the prior discussion

• There is no official english translation. Most of the translations use he/him, but if someone knows Japanese well enough to give a better idea of what language was actually being used that would be great
• i think most modern readers would view hibari as most likely a trans girl. She dresses as a girl full time, and is going to school "stealth" (as a girl). Shes upset when people find out shes "really a boy"
• the characters in the story (including Hibari himself) refer to him as "a boy" and "a crossdresser"
• the author seems to have been conflating trans, gay, and crossdressing as the same thing.
• apperently, the offici French translation uses she/her (??) (Can someone confirm this?)

(Paging here the main participants in the previous discussion— sorry if i missed anything, please correct me if I did! ~Beedok ~Pine 182 ~bwburke94)

Edited by Tremmor19 on Aug 26th 2022 at 10:36:37 AM

I was involved in the original discussion, and I still believe he/him is the best option per Word of God. With that being said, it's been a year since that discussion, and I'm unaware if anything came up recently that would change the situation. (In addition, because I was working off English translations of Japanese WoG, those translations could have been inaccurate.)

There is very little reason to believe a crowner would actually solve things, because it's hard to gain consensus on a work most of us only know for its gender debate, and the "losing" side would inevitably claim the "winners" were working on incomplete data.

I see no reason to change it now. I think she/her pronouns are for the best, considering that the entire story has Hibari very explicitly preferring to be referred to (and seen as) as a girl.

The only people that ever do otherwise are people that know that Hibari is AMAB, and even they're willing to use Hibari's preferred pronouns in situations where she's effectively stealth.

[retracted]

Edited by bwburke94 on Aug 25th 2022 at 8:26:32 AM

(I deleted my previous post because the point I'm making is completely different.)

Wait, this is a Japanese work and Hibari uses boku. What "preferred pronouns" are you speaking of?

i, personally, am in favor of she/her, but mostly i hope to see it be decided by consensus rather than a unilateral change

That said, regardless of the pronouns chosen, i feel that the page should not explicitly identify hibari as a trans girl unless that is said in the manga, and should acknowledge that there is some ambiguity and why (word of god, changes in language since the 1980s, etc). I think it's important that the page accurately reflect the language and framing used in the story even if we choose she/her pronouns

Edited by Tremmor19 on Aug 25th 2022 at 8:34:42 AM

Use she/her pronouns if the text does so, but also leave an entry under Ambiguous Gender Identity that explains the context and adjust any entries that declare her a confirmed trans girl to mention the ambiguous aspect, since it does sound like the author operated under the assumption that Trans Equals Gay.

Yeah, what said.

Edited by AlleyOop on Aug 25th 2022 at 8:39:57 AM

I mean moreso that other characters very clearly refer to Hibari as a girl when at school and such. Admittedly I can't read Japanese, but unless translators totally changed scenes in the manga, characters at school interact with Hibari as a girl and refer to her as such.

Hibari also makes it clear that this is how she prefers to be seen.

Whatever pronouns are used in the original written manga, the way this would be interpreted in English is to use she/her pronouns to describe her.

edit: i agree with what other tropers have mentioned. it's an older work that conflates being gay, being trans, and crossdressing without making a meaningful distinction. Entries that mention her being explicitly trans might need a disclaimer.

Edited by EpicBleye on Aug 25th 2022 at 8:42:24 AM

quick note, that there is no official english translation, and from what i understand, the Japanese can be a lot less clear (do not speak Japanese, if anyone who does wants to weigh in that would be great). So we don't really have "official pronouns"

Edited by Tremmor19 on Aug 25th 2022 at 8:43:35 AM

Boku can go either way, so we don't have much in terms of pronouns in the original Japanese. That's why this is a debate in the first place.

I'm half-convinced we should just declare "anything goes" for Hibari at this point.

If what other tropers said in the discussion, ATT, trope pages, etc. is true, the work presents Hibari as a male crossdresser (otokonoko) and the author has referred to him as a boy out-of-universe. I don't see a reason to not use he/him.

If this is an okay time to mention it, I feel as though Juniper from Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is worth bringing up. They're referred to as "they" in the game, and even in the Japanese version their gender is ambiguous. However some people keep saying that they're definitively female, with their only sources being the Spanish & French localisations of the game and a single Japanese video game magazine unaffiliated with Nintendo.

If they've already been discussed, I'm sorry to bring it up again. But I feel as though it's worth going over if it hasn't.

Edited by Hawkatana on Aug 26th 2022 at 10:56:14 PM

I understand that their gendering extends to being marked in the game's code as "3" (when male and female character are marked with a 1 and 2). That seems fairly unambiguous.

Huh, it's like Roc all over again.

For reference, in Xenoblade 2, Blades (the recruitable weapons/party members of the game) had 4 set genders: Male, Female, Beast and "4". Roc, a semi-important character, has his gender set to 4.

That said, it may be obvious, but I feel as though we should at least clarify the issue here & now so people don't feel as though they have an out thanks to ambiguity.

Yeah, between the usual rules here for "localization first" and the game's original script and internal files, they/them for Juniper seems pretty clear-cut.

The French/Spanish translations are still probably worth noting under either Ambiguous Gender or Ambiguous Gender Identity, albeit alongside the fact that the English translation sticks with they/them without any characters drawing attention to it.