A few of my kids' friends are trans, and their parents give them a really hard time for it. And I can't understand why. As long as my kid isn't an asshole I don't honestly care how they look. I want a connection with them more than I want them to fit some standard I've set in my head.
I feel bad for their parents because their kids are awesome and they're missing out on it.
My brother has been supportive of me being trans from day one. Like explicitly and openly supportive. His kid is trans and my brother is just not supportive of them at all. I don't get it he actively fights them on it. I don't get why he thinks it's okay to support me but then tell his kid they're not actually trans. There's something that some parents have where they refuse to see their kids in a different light than they expected
I was never really anti trans, but I had a bit of trouble understanding the social aspects of transitioning when I was younger. "I feel like an alien in my own body; I would like to change it please" I got just fine, but who cared if society thought you were a man or a woman? Fuck society. As a cis male, I'd never particularly had to fight (or been particularly attached to) my gender identity. Til someone brought up a part of my identity that is dear to me, and asked me to imagine how it would feel if every time someone used a pronoun to refer to me, they were saying "You are not X".
That got through to me. It's a potent mix of rage and despair.
[Prof. Jonathan Weiler] told me that the study of authoritarianism is several decades long and, interestingly, that over time the way social scientists identified authoritarianism evolved to asking questions about parenting. He said, “What makes these questions interesting is that they are not really about parenting, they are more about people’s idealized understanding of social order or social hierarchy. Asking about parenting is more a way to get people to think about this.”
Remember this when you see flyers or such that say "the government is trying to take away your parental right to decide what your child reads or learns". It's wrapped in the language of Freedom(tm), but the end goal is to tightly control what their child is allowed to do.
Pride and projection, with a healthy cultural component. It usually takes a generation for values to catch up. Not much different than the asian dad stereotype, except with a primarily physical component.
I think it’s left intentionally ambiguous(or might vary depending on the series). They DO leave a lot of signs for Gwen being a supportive figure for transgender people. In Across the Spiderverse, she has a “Protect Trans Kids!” Poster in her room. Her dad has a trans flag patch on his uniform. Her superhero color palette is the trans flag. Pink, light blue, and white is always used when representing her.
Thats not even delving into how her story arc handles those themes/metaphors.
IMO, whether or not Gwen is canonically transgender is irrelevant, because thematically the two are equivalent. Being spider-woman is allegorical for being transgender.
She knew she was different before anyone else did
The way that she's different would affect how others see her once they find out, very possibly putting her in danger, depending on who finds out and how hateful/vengeful they are.
She could theoretically quash that part of herself and live the way everyone expects her to, but to do so would be to kill a piece of who she is
She had to "Come out" to her dad (and not by choice, really. She only did so because she was caught with her new clothes.)
She wasn't accepted for who she was in that coming out, but knew it would be easier to live without her closest family member's support than to live without being herself.
She found a community of others like her, who all have unique but similar experiences and who are eager to support one another.
The colors may be an indication that Gwen specifically is trans, or a hint to the audience that to be a Spider-person is an allegory for being trans. Her character was designed with the white, pink, and blue color scheme in 2014, so it's not all that unlikely that the color scheme was an allusion to the trans pride flag on purpose. Maybe a writer or character designer clarified somewhere exactly how intentional or coincidental this Spider-Gwen/Transgender connection is, would be cool to see if so.
At the end of the day, the story serves to make people more empathetic to others who have to weigh their identity against their safety, especially in cases where the facet of their identity in question could be intentionally kept hidden.
wow, I missed a lot in the movie! Is there a precedent for comic artists putting fan theories/comics into canon? Would be kinda cool to see this story fleshed out. Although I guess it might retread story beats that we've already seen
It's a very popular fan theory that Gwen is trans. I personally don't see enough evidence to agree, but it wouldn't be the most shocking revelation if they made her canonically trans.
To be clear, just because this can be a touchy subject, I don't care that people view her as trans. It doesn't upset me or anything like that.
How sad was it that my first thought was that this was a ploy by anti feminists to undermine the power of a female superhero by implying that they were secretly a man ☹️
Yes, I know there is a difference, between a man and a trans women, but people that do things like that generally don't.