Astro Boy, Now Guaranteed Not To Hit Like A Girl

Awhile back, I was asked by Ariel of the wonderful if sporadically updated blog Prepare for Trouble if I would submit a guest column on the new Astro Boy movie – with her permission, I have republished it here.

Recently, I was linked to an article on the Hollywood animated movie adaption of Osamu Tezuka’s classic Tetsuwan Atom, known in America as Astro Boy: Astro Boy’s makeover.

When [the Tezuka estate] saw the initial designs for Astro Boy in the upcoming computer animated flick, the one thing that the Japanese owners did not fancy was the size of his rear end.

They found it too small.

At first, it seems impossible – a battle over rear ends? Really?

Really. And it’s but one in a line of gender-normative changes applied to the iconic Tezuka character, as I found out. Astro now has less “feminine” eyes, has been aged up to the appropriately rambunctious age of 12, and wears a light blue shirt.

Liking What You See?

Though this came out a personal journal entry, I thought the final question I asked myself was a question I haven’t seen asked enough, and I’m curious to hear other answers.

The idea of paper mirrors is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. I’m far from opposed to them—they’re a wonderful outlet for those who are just coming into their own identity, whatever it be. And I have always viewed telling a person’s story as key; it was my greatest goal whenever I’ve worked as a journalist.

However, what has always bothered me was how unable I was to find one that fit my own experiences. As a teenager then coming into the idea of identifying as a lesbian, I would seek out narratives with queer characters. Yet I never really found my experiences made authentic in them; the best I ever got was a sense of a culture, a place where I might belong. And eventually, part of me outgrew that need; I understood enough of the culture to at least partially ‘pass.’ And ironically, I did fit the lesbian narrative quite comfortably—I even have the unrequited best friend love in middle school. Yet I never really became attached to this mirror when it was held up to me, which makes sense: one of the compliments I have consistently received throughout my life was that I always seemed determined to be my own person and never be defined by others.

In coming into my transness, though, even that sense of culture leaves a great gap—ironically, the closest “paper mirror” is likely transientdesire, who also just happens to be one of my closest friends and helped inspire this blog. We were both looking for somewhere that fit us, the kind of femme, situated comfortably in the lesbian label for a good portion of your life, and without an easily identifiable trans narrative person.

Trans discussion and literature, then, becomes distancing instead of welcoming, a recent example of being the collection Nobody Passes. Out of the blue I received a copy of it from another genderqueer acquaintance whom I bonded with at a conference. I was thrilled to get it, and for good reason. By and large, it’s s good collection of differing perspectives on the act of passing from all over the spectrum.

But not one was an experience I felt rung true with me. In some cases, I was only a listener, learning about experiences through reading; in some, I could have been an active participant, but instead I felt stuck by the sidelines.

All of this really can be boiled down to the fact that paper mirrors make me uncomfortable mainly because I’ve never had one, and I wonder what that says about how the trans community constructs itself (or what it says about how much I project of myself on others, possibly). Paper mirrors become a Catch-22 sometimes: great if you can find it, but the act of finding one may be harder than you think.

For all the greatness espoused regarding the queer community’s multifaceted nature, the very nature of being trans restricts the paper mirrors that can ostensibly exist. Medicalization and gender roles place expectations and ideas. It becomes a problem of acceptability, where the non-normative is rejected for the acceptable.

So is it a responsible act to pass on mirrors that reject the norms which also ensure treatment? I would say so, for transformation can only begin by presuming acceptance of diversity from the start. But at the same time, what can be viewed as essential parts of the (American, at least) transsexual identity hangs on the whims of some doctors and a handful of guidelines. Would paper mirrors which sidestep this fact then be inadvertently leaving young trans consumers with the wrong impression? Again, my inclination is to say no, but I’m curious to hear what other people think.

Where You’d Least Expect Them

Trans people! In red states! Who’d have thunk it?

Well, I would, being one of them, though I am in a Deep South red state as opposed to a Midwest red state. I’ve long mulled over this, and how regions like mine get written off by other LGBT people. I originally had a much better post on this topic that got lost to a unexpected power outage. In the interest of starting a discussion, though, I’m going to instead repost a post I made elsewhere on the subject:

Though I grew up in it, the South and I do not get along very well; we are that couple who never seems to officially ‘get together,’ but have broken up more times than can be reasonably counted. Over time, I learned to hate the attitude while loving the scenery. I hate the fact 40% of my state voted to not remove language from the constitution barring interracial marriage. I hate the fact that it’s acceptable to waste public money on a “sackcloth and ashes prayer ceremony” to ‘pray away’ one of the worst murder rates in the nation. I hate the fact these attitudes fed my parents’ own bigotry. It’s easy to cultivate anger when you live among people who wish you’d fall off the planet.

But when I got a full ride to attend college down here, I took it. I knew I had to eventually move out of the South, one way to another, but if I could put student loans off for another 4 years I was willing to take the risk.

So when I see people say:

“It’s bigotry, what I feel about the south, absolutely. Fuck the south. I hope the red states get swept under a goddamn tidal wave and have to wonder just how much God truly loves the bible belt.”

I may just lose my temper a little bit. As a then-closeted (and unaware of my transness) student, what was I to do? Come out, risk being disowned, not take the money, and damn myself to struggle somewhere safe but poor? No, I took the money and am now locked in for at least another year and a half until I finish undergrad. I made my choice and face the consequences. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve the same respect every other student gets.

“They don’t know it is better in other places. Just move……..lots of places will embrace you!”

Fantastic! Will they pay to make up for the scholarship funds I’ve lost, the support network I’ve worked to build? No. Because it’s not really about my or any number of people’s daily realities; it’s about assuaging one’s personal guilt at the fact that some people still live mired in inequality and they’d rather not think about it. It’s an attitude that is just as old as Southern bigotry, if not older.

Yet if the South taught me to have anger at what cannot be changed, and it also taught me patience for what can. While I don’t expect miracles from the system, I will expect and demand respect regardless of where I’m living. And it can happen, slowly but surely. The strides may not be as drastic or photogenic, but every single one is crucially important. I will continue working for them as long as I live down here, and even after I don’t so one day that closeted kid can make their choice without having to consider the risk of living in fear.

Media attention. Good until it’s not.

Most recently, the article “A Boy’s Life,” in this month’s edition of The Atlantic, has been floating about the blogs. It’s a fairly traditional trans youth story, even in its inability to keep from overemphasizing and indulging in manufactured ‘trauma.’  

There’s one thing I’ve noticed which I have yet to see people comment on as I read this story and others: How the rise in stories focusing on trans children, especially young children, are the perfect reinforcement of the ”born in the wrong body” medical narrative and traditional gender roles, the true/false dichotomy. As the general culture becomes more willing to validate and accept the feelings of trans youth, in particular young trans youth, it enforces even more strictly the need to match obvious binary gender standards.

Trans children must express certain symptoms to receive treatment, because it is presumed children are so innocent they will not express their transness except in the two traditional gender categories. A young butch trans girl? Impossible. Butchness is something regailed to adults, a ‘purposefully transgressive’ identity. Instead, girls are “tomboys,” in a phase they will grow out of. And let us not wander over to the idea of a “sissy” trans boy, the medical trans gatekeepers silently declare.

Thus, those youth who don’t fit these classic narratives and molds are silenced because they are young, innocent, given to a shifting of ideas, easy to talk down to; it is always more easy to invalidate a person’s feelings when they are not felt in the right ways.

I admit, I am one of those kids who would have been talked out of their transness. I never “felt I was a boy,” but after watching a special on intersex children wondered for years after if I had been born intersex and my parents chose the wrong gender–I felt acutely that life would have been easier for me had I been able to present as a man. Not ‘be’ male, but present as such. My personality and mental space are ungendered, essnetially me. Only the exterior would change.

And what would have happened had I expressed these feelings but been convinced of their falseness, Zucker-ed into the ‘right’ gender slot? Would I have eventually transitioned anyway? I can’t say. However, Rosin’s article and medical professionals set up a kind of “trauma threshold:” ‘You must be this much of a dysfunctional basketcase post-therapy and express said trauma in certain acceptable ways to really be trans enough to eventually need treatment.’

This entire idea places in question the ‘rightness’ of huge swaths of people: late transitioners, genderqueer individuals, butch trans women, femme trans men, just to list a few. And this is why it is very important to be cautious of stories that focus on trans children. For all the good they do in making visible the idea of accepting transness as more ‘inherent’ and less ‘manufactured,’ they’re also extremely harmful in their emphasis on the incorruptable, essential innocence of children.

An innocence constantly connected with binary gender expression.