Question about Lily Hoshikawa's Profile

[EightAte8]

Who wrote this profile, exactly?

There're parts where her pronouns are put into quotations marks, that bit in brackets after her gender's all but saying "he's a man that thinks he's a woman", and she's listed under both "Male Characters" and "Female Characters" in her categories.

I don't wanna trust my gut instinct that there's some malicious intent behind this, that this's some grand intent of the website or something, but regardless of intention, whether this was just absentmindedly copy-pasted from the Zombie Land Saga Wiki or something, this is really not a good look.

 

[Jasonsith]

Who wrote this profile, exactly?

There're parts where her pronouns are put into quotations marks, that bit in brackets after her gender's all but saying "he's a man that thinks he's a woman", and she's listed under both "Male Characters" and "Female Characters" in her categories.

I don't wanna trust my gut instinct that there's some malicious intent behind this, that this's some grand intent of the website or something, but regardless of intention, whether this was just absentmindedly copy-pasted from the Zombie Land Saga Wiki or something, this is really not a good look.

Lily is technically "transgender female" (Assigned male at birth with male genitalia, but possesses female behaviours and expressions). So what's your proposed gender assignment format for these characters?

We have had characters like Ranma Saotome and Vivec and Oryx, the Taken King with genders requiring more descriptions than normal male / female / genderless / inapplicable characters.

We also have male characters who cross dresses for whatever reasons (like Shidou and Kamito).

The real question is how this Lily, given such a gender, should be classified.

 

[Dragopentling]

Holy crap we have Zombieland Saga on VS battles now?

That's pretty neat xD

 

[EightAte8]

She's obviously trans, yes, and I've absolutely no issue with that being on her profile. Quite the opposite, in fact. It's just that "Assigned male at birth with male genitalia, but possesses female behaviours and expressions" is a really poor way of phrasing it*. I'd recommend simplifying it to "Transgender Female (Assigned male at birth, but identifies as female)", or simply just "Transgender Female".


I'm not familiar with those three characters, admittedly, though I do have a passing knowledge of Ranma, and from my understanding, he isn't changing genders, but rather changing sexes; he passes as a woman when his sex is changed, but he never really considers himself a woman.
(That's kind of an issue with this website in general; gender is used as a synonym for sex when it isn't. But that's a discussion for another day.)


I'm not really familiar with those characters, either, but I'm assuming when you say cross-dressing you mean like a drag performance. That's very different from being trans. Though this isn't necessarily an example of cross-dressing, this is a comparable scenario; Masako Nozawa isn't a man just because she performs as characters that are men.


Also, on the topic of classifying trans characters, there's another trans female character who has a profile here, but that isn't mentioned anywhere, at least on this website.

• This is just to clarify what my issues with the phrasing are, alongside the reasoning for my proposed revision. Firstly, "with male genitalia". That's an unnecessary detail. "Assigned male at birth" already has that implication, for one thing, but I also don't think it's a good idea to have ruminations on the genitalia of an underage character. Secondly, "female behaviours and expressions". Being transgender, much like having a different sexual orientation for that matter, is more a matter of internal identity, not external expression. Someone can act feminine without being a woman. While Lily does express herself in a conventionally feminine manner, that's not what makes her a woman.

 

[Jasonsith]

@EightAte8

Read through the essay.


So, let us settle down on what we have observed from Lily as a character first.

• A child was born as Masao. Masao was an assigned male at birth.
• Masao used to live with Masao's dad and mum. (And Masao looked much like the mother.) The mother died early.
• A brief moment is shown that Masao was wearing a skirt with panty hoses before Masao was later known as Lily.
• The father loved watching television. To cheer the father up, Masao proposed joining the entertainment industry as a "child actor". Then Masao took up the stage name as Lily.
• Lily was good at acting and Lily's shows were big successes.
• Lily just entered puberty and was disturbed to see hairs growing on the legs of Lily. Lily refused to grow up. Lily received a heart attack and died as Lily noticed a hair of moustache on the face.
• Then Lily was resurrected as a zombie. Lily is super happy as zombies stay as they look like forever.

If Lily's male genitals are not removed despite Lily constantly expresses in a conventionally feminine manner, then, according to your description, I can still see Lily is a transgender female because Lily thinks of herself as a young girl all along, not because she dresses as a girl.

But still I see no need to change her description of gender as the brief description provides the most precise information for people not good at gender studies to know what gender this Lily really is. (I believe you have noticed how many distinct genders have sparked out recently such that normal people - even the so-called people with questionable genders - have difficulties and discrepancies on unifying the terminologies.)

(Arcee was shown as "a robot with a female outlook". She did change her spark on changing sides from being a Decepticon to being an Autobot but it is more a political alignment than gender alignment. So that is a very different case and is far from this topic.)

 

[EightAte8]

Being trans doesn't have anything to do with genitalia, inherently ― it just means identifying as a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth. There're obviously some trans people whose dysphoria has to do with their genitalia, yes, but it's not a universal experience. There're plenty of trans people who're perfectly happy with whatever genitalia they were born with. As a matter of fact, as you yourself have outlined, Lily's genitalia never came up as a part of her dysphoria, but rather it was her oncoming facial/body hair.


I'm not saying that we shouldn't say she's trans. I'm just saying that we should either simplify the bit in brackets after that or just remove the bit in brackets at all. Just what being transgender is really not that hard to understand, as a concept. Plus, we don't put little bracketed explanations for every single unconventional term on this website. If people can look through the Bleach Wiki to understand all the various terms in that franchise, then I'm sure that they can take the actual seconds it took for me to find a definition of "Transgender" on Google.


Also, it's not really a matter of gender studies, here. I didn't do a college course on this stuff or anything. And as for people of distinct or unconventional genders…so what? They're just people trying to find a sense of self. Who cares if they end up with unconventional answers? We're both spending our time on a website debating what fictional characters would beat what other fictional characters in a fight. Is that what you'd consider "normal"?


(What're you talking about with Arcee? I'm referring to how she began life in a more masculine body and was referred to as a man, only to later have her body reformatted into a more female form. Whether you go for the stupid Simon Furman version of that story or the much better retconned version, that's what the IDW Arcee's backstory is.)

 

[Jasonsith]

@Dragopentling

Ya. Feel free to raise matches.

@EightAte8

Thank you. Glad to see we agree on the exact gender of Lily. And I believe my description is simple enough for everyone to understand.

And gender studies issue aside, it is nothing wrong to add a few words of more descriptions if the said descriptions can clarify things. Not all people are idle enough to pause their studies and work and housework just to look for some terminologies. (There are lots of vs debate threads with different reasonings flying around and people get lost and needs someone to do a little summary in between. If a few words can ease the hassle, I see no reason to leave them.)

(And if you are still worried, I believe you may need to raise a new thread on identifying some potential genders and the method to present them as profile information in this forum. For me, the case here is closed.)