I appreciate the passionate responses people here have shown about human rights. Stories reflect people and as our understand of what people can be evolves, that deepens stories rather than entrenches cliches. It's enriching to have more perspectives to examine things.
What if Mitsuki was a trans man? Let's assume for a moment that Aya got the gender right but not the assigned sex. After all Mitsuki's real self is cool and stylish, she's stealth at school, and she swears to stop wearing skirts when she's an adult. In that sort of situation there's even more reasons why Mitsuki's real persona would be a secret and both sides of that dual life would be separated. There's no reason the (low-testosterone) body matters at this point. The "boku" pronoun Mitsuki has used isn't out of line for women. If Mitsuki was a man there would be no reason so far to ever talk about sex assigned at birth. And your junk only needs to be mentioned immediately before a potential situation to use it comes up because coming out and spilling your medical information to someone carries large social and emotional risks, and a risk of physical violence. Awkwardness can be survived, and you should minimize putting yourself at a disadvantage to someone you don't trust.
If sexuality wasn't at issue here, would the deception-by-omission be different? Let's say a popular person (whatever gender) liked a cool record store employee (of a gender they know they're attracted to). If the employee was secretly also the lanky quiet person sitting next to the popular person in class, with no gender issue, they may be delaying the reveal because it's all kinds of awkward. So far the relationship hasn't passed any barriers beyond the platonic range. I think this would carry if the employee was a gender they know the popular person is attracted to though not the one the popular person thinks they are. There are a lot of grounds for mutual embarrassment even if sexuality was less of a potential conflict here.
The real situation has elements of those two examples, and not much else. Gender or birth sex let alone what's in someone's pants does not obligate them to break their privacy and trust others with their well-being. Delaying the awkwardness is otherwise reasonable at this point in the relationship. Avoiding potential awkwardness and embarrassment, for liking a person or employing a person, are not reasons for them to share information with you that would not necessarily have changed their actions, especially with them bearing all or most of the social, emotional, and physical risk.
Mitsuki is not responsible for Aya having a crush on her. The potential embarrassment of flirting with someone not of a gender you like, because their gender expression was your type, is not an embarrassment worth someone else bending over backwards for you. The situation may be a teen drama tragedy for Aya, especially as it seems to be her first love, but at this platonic point in the relationship it's tragic in the funny-in-retrospect way like misplacing your lunch -- not tragic like someone stealing from her. The conflict is much more interesting when we can see both sides of it, without getting weirdly entitled about someone owing someone else.
last edited at Aug 25, 2022 5:40PM
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