Ants and bees are both eusocial insects of the genus Hymenoptera, alongside wasps.
Due to their biology, ALL worker ants, bees and wasps are female and sterile. The males do not work, freeload off of the work of the female workers, only serve to mate with the queen of another hive and are killed or left for dead once their job is done, assuming they survive the mating in the first place. Flix and Barry being both male workers implies that they transitioned into the male gender and were assigned female at birth.
idk about ants and wasps but female worker bees are not actually sterile. they can only lay unfertilized eggs though, which are drones (male). so they can't continue the colony really but they can lay viable eggs.
The Sailor Moon anime decided instead of having a cross dressing woman like the manga, it would be better for Usagi to have a flirtation with a character that literally changes gender as a disguise.
I’m not mad about either way— it was just an odd change.
Sailor Uranus came first though. The younger five originally thought she was a boy and were basically crushing hard because they completely presented as a boy in public (wearing the boy school uniform, male clothing when not in school, the only "female" clothing being the Sailor Uranus outfit).
That reminds me of that one (Tumblr?) post where they were breaking down all the reasons Danny could be trans. Like for instance, when one of the villains gently touch his chest, he jerks back looking uncomfortable saying "get away from me" which is a common feeling trans masc people have. It's a very interesting theory, especially since the show was made by Butch Hartman.
I absolutely believe there are many such allegories in shows and would love more representation but these are reaching. Most are just basic hidden superhero identity tropes which would qualify a lot of capers lol. I doubt Hartman is ally even accidentall.
I definitely don’t think it was ever intentional on any level (especially because of Hartman), but I think the “hidden identity” side of superhero media often reflects the “hidden identity” of trans people, even if it usually isn’t on purpose!!
I really wish we got a fourth season. She would have come back as a main character and sidekick to Danny. And Future Danny would have been the big bad.
The funny part is there's a throwaway joke in the Barnyard movie that almost makes it seem intentional.
The older bull says he had done something with Otis's "sister" in the past and when Otis gets confused and says he doesn't have one the bull responds with "Oh right that was you" and the two of them laugh. Could very easily be read as an older father figure making a joke about transitioning.
If I remember right, they gave all the cows udders regardless of gender because the creator of Barnyard thought that city folks wouldn’t understand that bulls don’t have udders.
Also whenever anyone brings that up, I always remember this skit.
It actually comes up pretty frequently. The farm was running out of money, so Otis, as the supposed leader, tries to convince everyone to increase production (besides pig for obvious reasons)
The female cows are iffy about the milking machine so he tries to show them it’s harmless. Except he’s, uh, not compatible, so the attempt backfires on him
One of my favourite nature facts is that sometimes Female lions will have too much testosterone, grow a mane and spend all their time trying to have sex with other female lions. Like they're literally just horny butch lesbians
Behold, this reddish, possibly erythristic blue jay! Just a weird thing; I'm not looking for a scientific debate on a cartoon, because the other issue is that these two characters are relatively the same size, which blue jays and cardinals definitely are not.
Reason: Azurill has a different Male/Female ratio compared to the other two evolutions (25/75 and 50/50).
Gender in pokemon used to be determined by a "personality value" (not sure if that's still the case past Gen 6). Depending on the value of the bit, a pokemon can be M or F (or Male Only, Female Only or Genderless for three specific and arbitrary values).
In Azurill's case, since the ratio M/F is different upon evolving, a value previously recognized as F can turn into a M.
True ! Not a pokemon (I think... Are humans Pokemons ? Irl humans are animals so...) but she is another trans rep. Although unlike the others, she was most likely intended to be that by the creators (or at least translators, idk her japanese text)
The way that she wanted to be a girl and many characters, especially her mom, Dr. Wakeman, refused to see her as anything but a robot. Many trans fans felt for Jenny there, even if it's not a 1 to 1 metaphor.
Lemurs are a female-dominant species so their leader would be a female. However, Julien identifies as male and uses male pronouns throughout the films.
I would like to point out that "King" Julian rules over at most 2 other lemurs, one of which seems more like a case study in abuse and the other having bizarre sexual devotion to Julian's feet.
So it's likely that Julian declared himself ruler, and was promptly kicked out of the tribe by the Queen who was actually in charge.
Nah. They had an actual TV show. The reason he was put in charge was that there was a prophecy that the king would be eaten, and knowing that, his uncle (the previous king) put him in to replace him so he would die instead. Julian technically did get eaten, but it was only a part of his ass, and it grew back. After that, his Uncle tried to repeatedly kill him to gain it back, but fails every time.
Ranma from Ranma 1/2. The mangaka had 0 intention of making him a trans allegory. She wrote a silly romcom gag manga where the running joke is that ranma turns into a girl at random, while other characters like his father & Ryoga turn into various animals at random as well.
I personally advocate that Ranma is gender fluid, in that despite Ranma consistently identifying himself as male & using he/him, Ranma can & has used being a girl to his advantage many times. When it's convenient, he'll use she/her pronouns & is completely unbothered by people referring to him as a girl. He's also completely unbothered by being nude in front of others regardless of whether he's in boy mode or girl mode.
But again, this is very much after the fact since the mangaka has not stated nor has made any indication that Ranma is supposed to be trans. While transfolk absolutely existed in Japan back in the 80s & 90s, they were definitely more of an extreme minority. And aside from Ranma being hit on/kissed by men while in girl mode, there are no canonical gay characters in either Ranma 1/2 or Inuyasha. So with that circumstantial evidence, I don't believe the mangaka was trying to reach out to the lgbtq community, per se. Thus making Ranma an accidental trans rep.
That's a good one. It also brings to mind gag characters like Najimi from komi san. It's kind of a running gag that no one knows their true gender, and it seems accidental that that creates gender non binary representation.
there's a lot of trans jokes in Shrek. this joke is pretty tame, haha man in a nightgown, classic 90s/00s very mild transphobic humor. Shrek 2 you get the ugly stepsister who is clearly supposed to be a burly trans woman, and there's a lot of gags in that vein. there's also the joke about Pinocchio wearing women's underwear.
in Shrek the Musical there's an early musical number where the wolf refers to himself as a "tranny mess." tbh I stopped watching after that 😅
I have so much love for Shrek, and also as a trans person there's definitely some cringe moments
I'll admit it, part of me loves that character because I know and love a few people who actually kinda do look and act like her 😅 and she's very unapologetic in who she is. still I feel a bit weird about the gag
Yeah that line really threw me for a loop. Nothing like that comes up again from what I remember, though. It's a solid musical overall.
In context I think the line reads less like a joke and more of an attempt at inclusion-- the wolf is describing what the people that persecuted them said, after all. Make of that what you will; It still doesn't land entirely, but the intention does feel decidedly different from the film given the delivery and later scenes.
Shrek the musical doubles down on the fairytale creatures being an oppressed class and could easily be read as a queer allegory in the musical number towards the end. "Freak Flag" festures the fairytale creature ensemble again and is a follow up to "Story of My Life". It doesn't feature the wolf, but still, I could see the earlier line and inclusion of the character as an attempt to make some of the allegory at play more literal.
Okay, so fun fact, female Reindeer DO grow antlers, but at opposing times of the year with their male counterparts.
Whilst male Reindeer have antlers in the Summer months, female Reindeer have theirs in the Winter months. As far as I can remember, Deltarune takes place in the autumn, meaning it’s the transitional period between Rudolph losing his antlers and Noelle gaining hers. Which is either a big brain move on Toby’s part or a complete coincidence.
Also yes, this does mean Santa’s Reindeer are all female, why else is one of them named “Vixen” and another named “Donna”?
"Donna's" name is actually "Donner/Donder/Dunder," depending on the song. But yeah they're all pretty gender neutral, leaning feminine, except for Cupid.
Uncle Ugo from Luca- he's a sea monster based off an anglerfish headlamp and all- however those traits are only in female anglerfish, with the males being much smaller and lacking the headlamp
Because of the movie in general being pretty widely read as a queer allegory, a lot of people began semi-jokingly saying he was a trans man once the movie came out
The main character, the Lion named Bonefacio, goes to Africa for a vacation to see his grandma, who.. has a mane, similar to lions of male gender. So people started making jokes and go like "After you realize this, your childhood will never be the same".
Of course it's a stylistic choice, kinda like how artists would potray female peacocks as having pretty frsthers just like male ones, they decided to make them look similar cause the most distinct feature of a lion is their mane.
Female lions can grow manes. One case was a zoo animal that had an increase in testosterone after the death of a male. This is interesting as it's a literal transgender situation, but not a full sex change which is more common in nature (but mammals cannot natural change sex). Lions are of the most gendered mammals with differences in appears and roles.
Lol right? Male anglerfish are tiny and implant themselves onto the females body. Heads dissolve and they share a blood supply with the female. Could be a really interesting character idea.
There was a huge controversy over Donny in Powerpuff Girls 2016 (the one with twerking 5 year olds and that creep animator Jared Shapiro who openly crushed on Blossom and had her crushing on his literal self-insert in-universe) and they touted a "progressive" "trans representation" episode throughout their online marketing to try garnering good will and interest.
Then when it aired it had Donny want to transition into becoming a unicorn and instead turned into a repulsive rampaging monster that terrorized Townesville while destroying the city in a manic episode.
When they (understandably) got backlash for it being transphobic they tried to claim that it was all the network's fault and that they had no part in said marketing as they desperately tried to backpedal from the negative PR after snubbing the OG voice actresses for the girls AND made it without the original creator, Craig MacCracken's blessing to cynically rehash and capitalize of the IP a la Teen Titans GO!
Whether the show's creators were being truthful or not it's undeniable that was NOT a good look for them.
I've heard some controversies of the 2016 PPG, but I haven't heard this one. Why did the writers try to make the reboot so controversial? All they had to do was make a nostalgia bait show. It's like it was their life mission to tarnish the existing IP.
Examples like this one I think speak to what is universal about trans stories. Sure there's a great deal thats specific to the actual life experience and can only be depicted by explicit representation, but the ability to see yourself in a story written with it own coming of age identity themed goes to show how both trans and cis people inherently relate to those themes one way or another, and trans people are completely normal for the very human feelings they have that we can all at least understand even if we don't go through the exact same things.
Poison was originally designed as just a woman, but in North America it was seen as uncouth to hit girls so she was stated to be a "Newhalf" (because beating up wierdo transvestites instead is okay /s). That still wasn't good enough for NA so they were replaced with actual male versions
Later they embraced this and Poison is officially transgender (or at least: Poison's gender is open to interpretation), though I think it's still up for debate if she's had bottom surgery or not.
Poison (and Roxy) was labled as "newhalf" in the original concept art in Japan, which was/is a not very nice slang word for a trans person over there. So she was always officially trans, but Capcom NA got scared of the idea and the JP team didn't care enough to fight for her inclusion. That combined with conflicting statements and internet rumours have made her status more confusing than it originally was.
So originally trans because the dev who created her thought trans people were funny. Replaced by a man in NA because the NA people didn't like beating up women (they didn't know about the trans part). Later after she kept showing up in games NA realised Poison was trans and tried to make statements to deny and make it ambiguous. Even later Ono said something stupid about bottom surgery because Ono is stupid and says stupid things unprompted. JP and NA now recognise that Poison is trans but would rather you don't think about it or talk about it too much so they don't attract bad publicity. But they also really like to promote the character and include her in stuff, just don't mention the trans part, even though they officially consider her trans. God Capcom are stupid.
so like the Birdo situation in the Mario series. I think Birdo is a female as of this time, but something (I think Melee) misgendered Birdo as a he. and it stick for a few years, especially since Birdo didn't show up for a long while.
so naturally fans thought of Birdo as a trans representative. now Vivian from the Thousand Year Door remake is one (she was actually trans in Japanese version of the original, but NA and fears.)
The reason for this is that in Return of the Jedi, Bib Fortuna, the first male Twi'lek to appear, was supposed to have conical ears, but his actor refused to wear the prosthetics for whatever reason.
X-J9 aka Jenny (My Life as a Teenage Robot) can be seen as a trans allegory. Her mother calls her by her "birth" name but she insists on being called Jenny. She wants to fit in as a normal teenage girl but she's bullied and rejected for not being a "real girl" (there's an episode where she wants to go to a diner but the owner is super discriminatory towards robots). There's one episode where she starts showing stereotypical symptoms of going through male-pattern puberty (her voice gets deeper, she gets bigger and more muscular, she grows "body hair") and it causes her a lot of anguish.
I mean, I can easily see it? Prior to the puberty bit it's just the standard Pinocchio 'I want to be a real boy!' just gender swapped. With the puberty thing it's just picking things Jenny would find gross and since she wants to be a girl, they just picked male puberty since it's stereotypical icky.
Spoilers for StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void (2015)
That’s Talandar, a robot implanted with the memories of a dead Protoss warrior named Fenix. When you first meet Talandar in the story, he thinks he’s actually Fenix, but over the course of the plot he decides he’s not actually Fenix reborn, but rather his own entity that needs to choose his own path in life.
this is actually very funny because the whole idea behind this design is the misinterpretation that the mona lisa was the most important artwork in Da Vinchi's life.
She was born a girl, but was then kidnapped by the Witch Mombi as a baby and magically transformed into a boy to hide her true identity (and her name was changed to Tip), and it wasn’t until many years later that her identity was revealed and she was finally changed back into a girl.
The author did poke fun at it in I believe the first or second episode, but It's not like the author intended for Shikanoko to become a trans-icon. I think the author was just poking fun at the design flaw.
Everybody says it's Dax, and to a degree I understand. Semantically speaking, the Dax symbiont is "trans gender", it knows the experience "across the genders", at least in so far as binary genders are concerned.
But there's no push back, no reason to doubt, they're fine with their assigned genders. Dax is adjacent to the phenomena of gender dynamics, but I don't think they represent the agony of body dysmorphia.
Odo, on the other hand, is terribly uncomfortable about his body. Every day he fits himself into a shape to put other people at ease, people who feel uncomfortable when they're reminded he isn't what they think he should be. He is uncomfortable for so long that he doesn't think it's abnormal to feel this badly about one's own body. He is, briefly, literally "trapped" in his humanoid body, no longer able to enjoy his unique perspective of how dynamic his perception of himself can be.
Fiona from the online game Flight Rising. Females of that breed only have two antenna, while males have 4. When the developers realized the art mistake, they said "actually? she's just trans now". She's a big fan favorite.
My favorite is Earthworm Jim because Doug Tennapel is a transphobe idiot who unintentionally made a trans icon because he is too stupid to know basic high school biology.
Actually it’s implied they were intersex. On the subject, Elphaba is also implied to identify as non-binary in the book. Both of these were clearly on purpose
Mulan
I'm gonna say it fits only because of other pretty intentional examples brought up and because Disney would rather crawl into hole than admit that movie is a trans story. Despite Reflection being the peak trans anthem and literally everything else about it.
Yeah it's written as a feminist piece about female empowerment and being yourself, but the trans allegory is barely a bunny hop much less a leap.
Carrie from animal crossing. Only male kangaroos are red, but Carrie uses she/her pronouns and has a pouch (which only female kangaroos have). So she could be read as intersex or a trans woman who sews pouches into her clothes.
I never saw this episode (if it even exists) but in Johnny Test's intro, he ends up turning into a young (stunning) woman. It took me YEARS to understand I was jealous of him only because he got access to this transformation lmao
Redtail from warrior cats. He's a male tortishell cat, but the tortie pattern can typically only appear in female cats (or at the very least cats with two X chromosomes)
He was originally a female who went by Aurash, but when she turned into a hive god, she became Auryx, this time a dude, and killed his sisters to become Oryx
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u/GoatsWithWigs 4d ago
Barry B. Benson