I'm not shutting people down, I'm literally talking about NOT telling others what to think.

It's not necessarily just you or how your actions are interpreted as an individual, but more just that the general reaction for a character exhibiting relatable traits to trans people and getting called trans by some readers is pretty frequently resisted by other forum members. It's not just for this manga either, so it's been kind of a build up of frustration and I apologize if the way I was going about it singled you out as if you were the culprit of that resistance.

But as it does stand we (being a nebulous clump of trans users who do look at stuff like this and will say "wow, trans!" in the forums about it) are, honestly, clawing at any little bit we can get for representation because there's so damn little. That lack and the resistance to expressing that a character might be trans is bound to cause some abrasiveness between us.

I think it's interesting to consider that the author may not even know what this story is truly about yet, or what the identities of the characters truly are. These characters could be their way of processing some things. And if someone says, "wow, that sounds a lot like what I went through" when comparing themselves to a character, I believe them. This will be one to bookmark to remember and look in on the author in ten years.

I think you might be ascribing too much meaning to the word otokonoko, which while it is accurate to be translated as "femboy", is much more ambiguous. I don't wanna be like "ohh japan is so different, its impossible to translate" but the word otokonoko is absolutely used to refer to people that we would call transfem. (The english word femboy is as well. If you don't believe me go on any "femboy" subreddit and see how many of the images/gifs/videos are trans women).

For example, in the japanese wikipedia article on 男の娘, you can find this graph showcasing the various different definitions and factors for the kinds of people that get called "otokonoko" and there is a significant overlap between "sex is male + gender is female" (jp wikipedia words not mine), which we in the anglosphere would unequivocally call a transgender woman.

Words like femboy and otokonoko are labels which are primarily used to label others, were both born from fetish tags, and have highly contested meanings that more often than not are used by outsiders to categorize many or all types of trans women.

So all that to say, using the word or not is by no means a hard line between discrete identities, especially not in japanese. Hell, I've seen twitter accounts from japanese trans women who are on hrt and have gotten surgeries, and they still refer to themselves as otokonoko. Many anglo trans women will market themselves as femboys for streaming or onlyfans purposes too.

And we can't forget that in Japan to change your legal gender you have to have surgery. Trans women who didn't are considered "otokonoko" too. It's pretty dire.

I recently learned that they only in 2023 they changed the law so you don't have to be sterilized to apply for legal gender change.
"but lily they require srs to change it"
they require you to be in the process, but you wouldn't have to wait until it's done, presumably.

I spent a little time looking it up 'cause I was curious what terminology for trans people was like and wanted to dig a little deeper since the words I used to associate with transgender people in japan are practically slurs. So I wanted more up to date stuff.

Do not go off topic here.

That lack and the resistance to expressing that a character might be trans is bound to cause some abrasiveness between us.

that's probably the root of it and honestly somewhat understandable judging by just how things in general are going right now. a defensive overcorrection towards the world that on average has been so very hostile.

regardless, I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Kitano is the best and deserves the world regardless of what their/her/his/[...] identity is :P

Yeah it's always heartwarming to see characters like Kitano's happiness be defended. Girly is such a real one fr. From not minding the nickname Girly in the first place (I assume this is the TL localization, what is the JP nickname I wonder?), to embarrassing himself in front of his whole school to protect a girl he doesn't know, and indirectly his classmates too. It is a refreshing protagonist to see in the current climate, let's just say.

Yeah, Girly's pretty great. A little clumsy and awkward about it, but his heart's in the right place.

From not minding the nickname Girly in the first place (I assume this is the TL localization, what is the JP nickname I wonder?)

ガーリー (Girly, gaarii)
Edit: how do I embed a picture? https://i.imgur.com/8ahlT20.png

last edited at Jun 4, 2026 5:47PM

From not minding the nickname Girly in the first place (I assume this is the TL localization, what is the JP nickname I wonder?)

ガーリー (Girly, gaarii)
Edit: how do I embed a picture? https://i.imgur.com/8ahlT20.png

add an exclamation mark infront of the square brackets you'd normally use for links.

I.e. ![not important](https://imgur.com/8ahlT20)

You might also have to use those weird "i.imgur.com" links because that site is a mess.

last edited at Jun 4, 2026 6:17PM