🥴

happy birthday mel!!!!

you can kind of see that influence in depictions of trans women in stuff like MHA, where the trans woman characters are too poor to afford surgery, so they haven't transitioned medically at all, while a trans man is stated to have gotten surgery abroad and "passes" perfectly

count unless you go and do surgery, too. there's this common thread in a lot of japanese manga that reflects this idea that a GRS operation is what actually transitions you, with no conception of HRT or intermediate steps, and i think that's a strong influence here.

there are issues with this manga, of course. it reflects this cultural norm of homophobia to some extent (with this idea where if a man loves a man, he should transition), and it's got this particular bit of transphobia about the necessity of specifically surgical transition - where it doesn't

there's a very specific window into transmisogyny (and it is that, specifically) being shown here. like, these are things even the most "passing" women have to deal with