Reading some of the comments before the story like "Oh okay this is a story about a gender nonconforming boy with some ambiguity"
Which like, yes. technically...
There is also direct transphobia directed at the lead, and she is defended with feminine pronouns and the end of the story swaps to gender ambiguous pronouns "I just can't see this person as a friend". This seems pretty clear cut. I do love gender nonconformity, but please be for real. That character is transgender.
I mean, that's definitely my interpretation, but the story doesn't actually get into it and I've been disappointed in the past by how the author later developed things. They've left some ambiguity here. That could be used to explore how for trans people the gender identity process, expression, and support for it involves a lot of ambiguity. It could also be used to move the story down a cis crossdresser path. He may "just like cute things," "like crossdressing, but still wants to be a cis guy," "just cried tears of joy from being amazed by getting to crossdress," "just have been embarrassed about crossdressing, not feeling dysphoria." I would be surprised if the author was intending that route, but there's also publisher interference to consider.
Personally, I don't think the third person pronoun usage is evidence of anything from the text bc they're based on the translator's best interpretation of what it would be like in English, not a feature of the story in Japanese. Also, "crossdressers" famously may use she/her pronouns when crossdressing. Additionally, I've definitely seen a manga before where a crossdresser faced some transphobia but the mangaka decided to make it into "noo, actually this is the noble art of crossdressing, please don't make such defamatory accusations." Can't remember what it was precisely.
last edited at Sep 8, 2026 9:35PM