HayaH's argument is that the MC is becoming someone who has a male gender identity in a body typically considered female (i.e. uterus, ovaries, et cetera). It's a reasonable argument.

Conversely, one could consider MC a trans woman on the basis of being assigned male at birth if they turn out to identify as female, regardless of the curse.

Since this is a story about magic and stuff, at some point the regular definitions of cis and trans fail to apply. Language fails us here.

(must add where I live I can't change my name legally and it's really hostile area)

Oh, that's hell. I hope things get better. Please do take care and don't put yourself needlessly at risk.

I don't even know what to say I feel like screaming from 3 different and conflicting emotions

Mood

Movies, sure, but I'm thinking more in terms of short stories and interactive fiction (sorry for not being more clear about this) where there isn't much need for a large budget. It's much more feasible to be financially stable seeking an audience of mostly trans people. I agree that when we're talking about stuff that's working more mainstream you get the issues of stuff like misery/inspiration porn like that. (It's a certain kind of funny to consider that after The Danish Girl that Eddie Redmayne gets cast in the Harry Potter spinoff series and Rowling starts getting public about terfy opinions).

I think Eddie isn't too problematic in that sense? I remember hearing that he admitted, some time later, that he shouldn't have auditioned for the part in Danish Girl and that it should have gone to a trans person instead. He was also one of the people from the HP franchise who spoke out in support of trans folks when JKR started her public crusade against us.

I also remember hearing that the director for the Danish Girl auditioned a bunch of trans people but didn't feel that they had what he wanted, and that he only found it when Eddie auditioned. I suppose what he wanted was the stereotypes.

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(Actually, I would keep following this story just because of her, not because of male MC. Just sayin' to be known)

I too find her more interesting as a character than MC.

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like cis men getting treated for prostate problems with T blockers, and they report feeling discomfort with it and tend to be weepy

Idk, I've spent some of my university time in the oncology clinic, and I've never actually heard a cis guy with prostate cancer complain that ciproterone or goserelin made them weepy (or more emotional in any way). The chief complaint (and quite often the only complaint) is lack of an erection. (I'm not saying that hormones don't mess with your emotions, because many people who menstruate will argue that it does, and they'd be right. I just don't see it in this particular scenario).

.

This is also why those international sports decisions demanding certain women take hormones to change their body's natural hormonal environment is so unbelievably cruel, and many people realize that on an emotional level without even needing specific knowledge.

That's a complicated question, and it's for a different reason than what you said. Speaking as a healthcare professional, requiring anyone to use a specific drug in order to compete in an event should not be allowed. It's iatrogenic. Drugs can have benefits, but they also carry significant risks. If a trans woman uses ciproterone to lower her testosterone, then goes on to develop liver cancer, how much of that is the olympics comittee's fault?

In defense of the sports people, it's a complicated decision for them to make too. There's a reason we can't abolish the men's and women's divisions in sport, besides all the sexism: testosterone is anabolic, and it offers an advantage in terms of muscle mass. If we choose to allow anyone to compete in any category based on self-identification, regardless of testosterone levels, you'll have cis women arguing that trans women have an unfair advantage in their sport. Many cis women already do that, but right now they're wrong. If you remove the testosterone restriction, they won't be.

Ok, so how about we abolish those gender divisions? Have everyone compete in the same category. That's not a bad idea. Except... cis women are generally banned from using testosterone to compete in those sports, but you shouldn't forbid trans men from using it (actually, I think they do forbid it...? but they really shouldn't), so you're going to have to allow any athlete to use testosterone, and -- naturally, given how competitive those sports are -- a lot of them will. That translates into a public health problem in the sports division.

So they choose to allow self-identification (good), but require your testosterone to fall in a specific range to compete in the women's category (bad). That discriminates against intersex cis women who have testosterone levels above the usual range. It is iatrogenic with trans women who are required to use testosterone blockers. But can you really change that rule without causing a whole heap of other problems?

See the issue? It is not simple.

last edited at Jan 17, 2024 10:20PM

there is actually a pretty large niche industry for writing transgender transformation stories like these. The vast, vast majority of the audience for these (or at least the only people I've ever seen open about engaging with that sort of content) are closeted and early or pre-transition trans people.

In my experience, the vast majority of the audience for transition movies is gay and pro-lgbt cis people. I mean, trans people are 0,3% of the population, we're rarely the target audience for anything. (even the drug industry doesn't manufacture drugs for trans people specifically, because we're rare and generally poor, so they ignore us).

That's part of the reason why most movies and stuff about trans people are so stereotyped and out of whack, because they're made by cis people for cis people, and these people don't really know what trans people are like outside of stereotypes (hence we get terrible stereotypes like the trans women in Transamerica and Danish Girl, to name a few).

The point is not that if you're finding the story compelling, you're obviously trans and should seek transition.

Oh no no no no. Bad advice. Never tell someone they should seek transition. That's the one decision people need to make on their own, without interference. Not everyone who transitions is happy. Not everyone who transitions can deal with all the shit life throws at us. It's a very individual process. Support them through the process, offer information if asked, but let them make the choice by themselves.

I honestly feel that my life is more worth living now than it was pre-transition, but do I miss the privilege of not having to hide my queerness in order to get a job? Damn right I do.

That said, it may not surprise you to hear that I'm in this one for other reasons. I find the narrative compelling because I think the idea of a romance where the leads have chemistry and one person is risking a lot, potentially making large sacrifices for the person he cares about, is interesting. What if he falls out of love -- how would his life change in regard to these sacrifices? What if that happens and he finds that the sacrifices aren't sacrifices at all, and for that matter isn't a "he" either? Will he only pursue the romance if there's a way to end the curse?

I agree. And sure, all of those questions are interesting. In my case I just like odd magical premises in stories about otherwise regular people. There's no projecting involved (that I can tell), and either way I think psychoanalysis is mostly bull.

As the saying goes, to be loved is to be changed

That's a cute saying. I like it.

last edited at Jan 17, 2024 5:33PM

Agender and bisexual. My motto is "if forced to choose, I don't."

And I, as you, also figured out about myself later in life, simply not knowing for "possibility" until I saw first trans girl singing, changing voices from female to male, and it immediately clicked. All my pieces of puzzles fell into right places at once.

It's a funny feeling, right? Like "oh, dang". Gave me a week of anxiety and panic attacks (not fun), but it worked out in the end. I'm in a better place than I was before that.

(after mentioning "the frog" it gave me some idea. Do you (or anyone) find this story very similar to some modern version of Frog Prince, with a little different outcome of the kiss?)

Are you talking about a specific fairy tale or just the general concept of kissed frogs turning into princes?

While I can understand not being interested in a particular story for whatever reason, I don't understand continuing to read it and comment on it.

Oh god oh god okay... breathes. I'm not sure how long you've been on these forums, but this kind of is the rule more often than the exception. If it bothers you, then I beg you to never look at the forum threads for works by Momono Moto or the older ones by Kodama Naoko.

And I'm sorry that I don't know much about agender people, but I hope to learn more, and I will be interested in your future comments, especially about gender.

Hmmm... How can I explain this simply? Agender folks generally understand the concept of genders and say "no, thank you". I don't feel comfortable considering myself either gender. It doesn't suit me. So I can choose to dress however I want, and change my body to fit any image that makes me feel more comfortable (hormones and some surgeries are okay). I don't even tell people I'm agender most of the time (they can read me however they want, so long as they respect my preferred pronouns), but I'll never be comfortable saying "I'm a man" or "I'm a woman". I'm really neither.

When you talk about a trans girl in manga, I would think about the MC of "Hourou Musuko". She was very obviously a girl from the start and I have no problems with that. It's a really good portrayal of a trans girl.

Never read that one. It's about a kid, right? Is it any good?

I default to skipping stories where the entire focus is "a trans person's journey" because of all the stereotypes and violence. The very best portrayal of a trans kid I know is the movie "Tomboy", which wasn't even intended as a movie about a trans kid, but a lot of afab trans people relate to it. It's super cute. Is Hourou Musuko in that vibe, or does it veer too much into the stereotypes?

But here, it's not obvious at all. Take a "normal" person and change their gender by magic.Suddenly, they're supposed to have been wanting it all along?

It's ad hoc and silly, but it's not impossible. Not every trans person knows they're trans from the get go, some people only figure that out later in life. I was 22 when I figured out I was agender (actually, when I figured out agender was a thing at all), that's much later than our high school protagonist.

And when I read that line "getting to date you and becoming a girl, that's killing two birds with one stone" all I could think was "damn, that egg". But I'm not sure that's where this mangaka is going with this plot (probably not, right?)

Here, the MC is like "Oh, I become a girl when I kiss and it may become permanent. Okay. if I can be with my beloved I can accept that". Zero depth.

I wholeheartedly agree with you there. It's why I thought about dropping this series as well. Sticking around for now to see where this is going.

I was going to address the "gender politics" thing but I guess other people already made very good arguments in that regard. Simply put, it's an internet forum topic about a gender bender story, you should expect discussions of gender. If you don't like this part of the debate you can simply ignore it. Talk about the stuff you're interested in, instead.

Why majority of you are seeing male MC as trans woman?
This gender bender situation clearly shows that he is becoming trans man

I don't think any definitions are clear in this particular scenario. The way I understand it (I'm agender by the way), trans men are those who were assigned female at birth, but identify as male. So that wouldn't quite fit this particular character. At the same time, it would be strange to just call them a regular cis man during the body swap episodes, because their experiences aren't those of other cis men. You could call them a trans woman if it's revealed that they identify as female (meaning: assigned male, identify as female), but they wouldn't be a regular run off the mill trans woman either.

In essence, language falls short here, there are no words to describe this type of scenario.

Ah man your mom let you have TWO miracles?? Lucky

I was honestly expecting the bully to show up and help pull her up, and while that may have been hokey at lease it would have made sense

I headcanon that this is what really happened and Eunha remembers this right after she sees Suyeon in the hospital at that last scene.

Also we need an epilogue focusing on whether Eunha truly traveled back in time or just hallucinated everything while unconscious in the hospital.

Well, if there's one thing you gotta love about this manga is that apparently everyone is bi.

So we get "lying" about wanting to be a girl because depending on how this story goes that could really end up being lying but only Akizuki to himself, lmao.

I'm a little disappointed that right after this 100% trans girl scene we get a "I lied about wanting to become a girl." Feels like there's no chance they'll make the main character trans, it'll all be "I don't care about any curse as long as you love me"

reveal that there's at least one other family member walking around who also would just kiss someone while sleeping

That was okay, but honestly, what I'd really love to see is some boy who has the opposite type of curse. That would be super cute. Is there yaoi like that already? Please send it to me if there's any.

I was loving this story but that ending is underwhelming.

Yuri so fast it just speedran the entire plot of 'Girl Friends' in a single chapter.

My thoughts exactly

biphobia

You mean Rei telling Miki that Gotou is straight despite Gotou trying to have sex with her (while drunk)? Well, it is a little biphobic, but like, really mild in this context.

Not really sure what Tang Chao's "confession" is gonna achieve, though? Betas can have sex with omegas just as well as with fellow betas, it's not like omegas have different sex organs only compatible with alphas' (at least in the standard ABO setup).

I think the point she was trying to make was like "I can guarantee that she's a Beta bc i've had sex with her and have thus seen all the important bits (or lack thereof), so i should know"

Koveras's point is that a beta can't know if it's a female beta or a female-looking omega she's having sex with.

I think.

It seems they can, in this particular story.

Imagine Kaori and Shizuku in the same room together, on the same page about their mutual feelings, yet Kaori's death still hanging over them. Having to figure out what to do now. Is that not worth a few chapters to explore? Would Kaori's death be less sad if the relationship progressed beyond pining before she died?

That is certainly one way the author could have chosen to write it. Usually when I think "Hey, that story could have been better if X had happened instead" I sit down with some paper and write a fanfic.

Well this was fun

the opening lines sound like they were aiming for dickens.

Glad to know, I thought about asking for a long time too but I was afraid of the truth

I am absolutely terrified every time I decide to ask about someone whom I haven't seen since around 2020/21.

The british English was really thick on this chapter. I wish they'd use normal standard English.

It's funny that English came from the Brits yet theirs is not 'standard'.

Funnily enough, I was just having a conversation with someone this past week about how the internet is causing British and American English to blend. It was after their phone gave both "canceled" and "cancelled" as auto-complete options, and they couldn't remember which one was the American spelling. Seeing more and more people/places adopt "grey" for "gray" or "axe" for "ax" &c. It'll be interesting to see what happens to spelling over the next 20 years.

Y'all be making a wee linguistic mess, innit?

Just 1 more chapter to go. It's kinda shame they couldn't say each other their feelings tbh.

They did. The last words is Shizuku's novel were "I love you," which was her way of confessing. Kaori understands this and replies with "me too" via text.

I know that. What I meant was to say they love each other not in written way but spoken.

I kinda feel written makes more sense here, considering a lot of the plot revolves around Shizuku's stories. Reading "I love you" in Shizuku's book and replying via text is much more in line with the feel of the story than having that exchange through an oxygen mask.

Ty!

Been a while since I've last seen her here in the forums (and I don't use discord). Anyone knows if she's still active somewhere? Just general curiosity 'cause she was really nice.

Also, this part was traumatic.

Fun fact: I found this again today, after five years, was casually reading it, and had completely forgotten that I'd been the one who cleaned/typeset it until I saw this f***ing panel (and its ridiculous amount of sfx)