#BC GOING ON HRT IS SUCH A COMMITMENT AND. HES NOT EVEN OUT YET

[milimeters-morales]

miles voice training in secret and then finally getting confident/comfortable enough to talk like that around his mom and a few other spider-people (lies face down on the ground and begins to wail so so loudy)

[gayregis]

which characters are trans this is a scientific inquiry

all of them except vilgefortz and leo bonhart

ok ok jokes, ill go more in depth... some of this is taken from things ive written before but not posted. also for anyone reading this im non bee nary so know that im not trying to describe the experiences of different identities in first-person, i’m basing this off of both my own and my friends’ experiences... none of this is “OMG YES CHARACTER ANGST >:))” but rather depicting personal struggles in fictional characters, so just know that  the more difficult subjects that may be covered are not there just to see the character in pain, but rather to think about their eventual resilience against it and development afterwards

for geralt and yennefer i have more specific reasons why i think being transgender actually fits with their canonical characters & related story arcs, and then for the rest i have headcanons and maybe some reasoning but not a lot.

geralt: geralt already represents how a struggle with toxic masculinity and expectations of masculinity can influence one who wants to be seen as masculine to deny and bury their emotions. him being trans develops upon the aspect of his struggle with emotions, ive seen my friends who are transmasculine / myself when i used to ID as transmasculine struggle with showing emotions bc of feeling like you’re going to be misgendered if you shed a single tear. in canon, we already learn that kaer morhen has a bit of a macho culture (just fyi eskel and lambert and coen are trans too now, don’t go getting any idea that those guys are cis) and i believe that the “witchers have no emotions” thing is like 5% actual biology and 95% being raised to fight and not to feel. vesemir is a good father but he just wasn’t very emotionally nurturing, it’s the caste’s way of raising kids that geralt breaks out of.

i think geralt’s self-image also speaks a lot to the feelings of harsh internal transphobia. he constantly others himself from others and feels like people view him as different, which is metaphorical for any marginalized group under the sun, but also is very common for lgbt ppl. again this is smth ive really struggled with within the past few years so im just projecting/know what it feels like and feel that how geralt sees himself in canon is similar to a view suffering from internalized transphobia.

geralt's character already redefines manhood because he has to learn what it means to be a good father. and i think him being trans would be representative of his constant learning and growth as a person, yet also somewhat involved with his self loathing and feeling like just Him Existing is an affront ... but of course he unlearns this with time and love from others and all of his character development

yennefer: yennefer’s whole backstory revolves around defining who she is and defying the people who mistreated her and told her she was nothing. canonically yennefer of vengerberg is the story of the successful self-made woman... her life as janka she would rather forget, no one calls her by that name, and no one ever would because its not who she is nor who i think she ever was. 

shes incredibly strong-willed and knows what she wanted from life but some things are terrifying to reach out for, like love and acceptance. yennefer has a conflict with love and being loved because that was never a safe topic for her ... (also sapkowski handled this specifically poorly imo, but:) yennefer canonically struggles with being loved for who she is. i think she deals so much with her previous abuse and again, expectations from parents, and coming to terms with the fact that she survived it all. also this isnt even touching upon her arc regarding motherhood. wanting to give a child your everything and everything that you never had... the love and kindness that no one gave you...

ciri: ciri hesitated to ever identify with “girl” or “boy,” she’s also i think the representation of childhood in general, she’s naturally curious about gender presentation as she ages and just never really cares to commit to gender. i think she’d say she was a girl but only reluctantly bc she just doesn’t care much.

dandelion: [from his TV Tropes page:]

he’s an artist and a musician, he’s not gonna be cishet...

ok in a more serious context i think he’s a nonbinary guy, i think him being trans might explain why he has way more friendships than relationships with family members. dandelion, like yennefer, is also someone that had to define who he was for himself, i mean for one his stage persona of dandelion is entirely an artist’s creation/hyperbole of himself, i think he also had to think abt his inner identity too

his gender is also just “your friend that comes to your house and eats all ur chips and drinks all ur beer and passes out on top of you on the couch”

milva: ok unfortunately i currently think milva is the token non-trans friend (she’s nonbinary just doesnt think of herself as trans) but it’s only because her major arc in baptism of fire revolves around her pregnancy and miscarriage and just bc she is not trans doesn’t mean she doesn’t go through her own difficult struggling process surrounding her womanhood. she struggles enormously throughout the series and in her backstory with defining herself between two rigid identities: the feminine maria and the cutthroat milva. in her talk with geralt, she reveals how she feels trapped between these two identities and feels like they cannot coexist. i feel like she’s a nonbinary/gender non-conforming butch* lesbian whose struggles with sexuality intersect her struggles with gender and what it means to her to be a gnc woman. also you have to consider that milva was raised in a small village in lower sodden so she understood gender in the very strict roles ascribed to men and women, so she felt like she couldn’t be a woman unless she was this very traditional idea of what a woman is “supposed to be like,” which she’s both been trying to shape herself to be and also running away from simultaneously. she learns to accept herself within the hansa bc they love and support her for who she is, and she doesn’t need to be strictly feminine or masculine to be understood by them

* i know the terms nonbinary and gnc and butch didn’t exist in the 1260s tyvm, i’m just saying this as how i interpret her in a modern context

regis: gender is a human sociological construct so basically don’t ask him unless you’re prepared to listen for 20 minutes. vampires can exist noncorporeally so they can exist without gender, also i hc the telepathic vampiric language is nongendered as it’s a transmission of pure thought, will, and force, so it doesn’t even use any grammar. i also hc that vampires just appear the way they feel in terms of appearance and age (e.g., regis at around 300 when he died still looked 25 bc he was as stupid as a 25 year old, now he’s calmer and understands more, so he looks middle-aged). when chilling out with humans regis will be referred to as a man bc that’s just how he appears but it’s an identity he had to learn about and adopt, not something he was assigned. most vampires look androgynous anyways bc they just feel androgynous, how are you gonna feel a gender when you don’t know what a gender is... if you HAD to understand him with human labels / put it in a modern context (like if i was making an modern real life AU) i’d say he’s a nonbinary trans man. 

cahir: much like geralt i think cahir’s story is one of living up to expectations, but cahir’s actually takes it a step further because his major motivation in his backstory is trying to prove to his mother that he can be a good son that will make her proud and gain honor for the family... he seeks validation from external sources but faces ruin when he learns that war is not the way to prove one’s prowess and skill

angouleme: shes trans and i simply say so bc shes very cool and funny and i dont think a cis person could be this cool and funny. also i think the story of a runaway teen who was abandoned by her biological family and found solace in a new family is both very good and featured in a lot of trans ppl’s narratives. she kind of exudes this “im finally at a point in my life where i’m safe and cared for, i can start HRT now, let’s gooOOoooOOooo” energy. 

[henrysun]

Some real trans thoughts from a real train boy

I love being in this body, going through this puberty, experiencing life a new man, becoming a new man every time I wake up. I love being nonconforming and fucking with your expectations. I love my little dick, even though he's not what I need him to be. I love being a man who loves men and a nonconforming boi who loves nb and nonconforming ppl. I love being this beautiful brown boy with eyes so dark they appear black and hair on my nose that I used to get insecure about.

Some days, I wake up from a dysphoria dream and I try to pull my breast tissue off like silly putty. Some days, I reach down to adjust my dick and discover I do not have the one I thought I did. And some days, that's more of a confusion than it is a striking pain. Some days, dysphoria comes in other shapes than dissociation.

Being gay is no longer a primary identity. It can no longer be when the world is subjecting me to so much for being brown and trans: what they can more obviously see on my skin, in my voice, in the way that I walk. I miss being gay. I feel as if I am not GAY anymore, as if yes I love men and yes I love nb and nonconforming ppl, but that that does not make me truly GAY because I am more truly TRANS bc that is where I am oppressed the most.

I walk into most interactions, especially with authority figures, with fear and yet nonchalance. I KNOW they will discriminate against me. I EXPECT not to get that job, to be disrespected, to be told trans rights do not belong Here.

Being brown and trans in this nation is difficult. But it could never had prepared me for being brown, trans, and on hrt. Before I was on hrt, before I was given this beautiful body that I love so much with all of these wonderful changes, before I had to shakingly stab myself in the thigh once a week to (what I now understand) save my life, you could categorise me in your head as a lesbian and move on. Because LESBIAN is less offensive to the cis brain than TRANS BOI and especially less than BROWN TRANS BOI. Because cis people can't even fathom that you can be nonconforming and on hrt, because cis people have no conception of the infinite flavours of manhood. I watch my other trans friends move through life without the kind of exhaustion I have, I watch them try to be allies to brown gay and brown trans ppl (gay as an umbrella term here). But they cannot know the unique experience of the brown trans person, because they're white, so many of them are white. There are trans support groups and racial trauma support groups, but where is my trans and racial trauma support group? There simply aren't enough of us to justify one.

My friends and I joke that I am an 80 year old man. But sometimes that jokes feels more like reality. Sometimes I get told by authority in my college that I am too trans to live with women and female dorming anymore. That it was okay for this year, but next year they are creating a new policy where all trans masc ppl are categorised the same way cis men are and they now have to accomodate religions that don't want to live with trans ppl. And they throw me around like a ragdoll and try to put me in inferior housing or housing that violates my ada accomodations. And I get exhausted and I say "do what you must to me, I will pick and choose my battles." I feel 80 then. I feel so tired, I feel as though I have so much weight on my shoulders, that I have to be 80.

It's not normal for a college student to have seen what I have in this life. It's not normal for a boy my age to know what I must know.

And as the testosterone continues to run its course, as I continue to masculinise and love myself, the discrimination gets worse. But one day I will wake up and I will just be a man to them, maybe--one day I will receive male privilege just like my cis male counterparts, maybe. And when that day comes, how will I grapple with all of this struggle? How will I reason it through? How will I live one life, inevitably, stealth and one life out and juggle in my mind the differences of my existence? I am scared. I am so scared.

I am scared to be a brown man in this country, too. Because while being read as a man means gaining so much privilege, being a brown man means I no longer fear cops raping me but I now fear cops shooting me dead. Being a brown woman meant, to me, sexual assault and being a brown man means, to me, death. And being a brown trans man means, to me, both.

But I am not a rapist, I am not a gang member, I am not any longer a drug dealer. I do not beat my girlfriends (or partners for that matter, but a gay brown man? They don't exist) and I do not commit crimes. I am not what you have built a brown man up to be, I am not what you think a Mexican man must be.

I've been abandoned and abused by my family, assaulted for this body, disrespected for the labels I have taken that do not begin to define me. I have been rejected from this country like a bad organ transplant.

But I love love love being Chicanx. I love love love being trans. I love love love being gay. I take all these things and I never wish I were white or cis or straight. Because what a sad existence I would live not knowing what I know. (No shame to any of my cis, straight, white pals out there. You would think your existence would be sad, also, if I took your key identifiers or experiences away from you. What if you were never abused as a child? What if you had never been broken up with in high school? I think you'll find your life is only your life because you have seen what you have seen.)

I don't have many friends because I cannot be friends with anyone who misgenders me or anyone who makes racist comments or anyone who calls me a fag (I recently lost a friend bc after months of friendship, he decided to finally let out his homophobia and transphobia--oh but only when I started to persue a man because that's when I became a real gay man, before I was just theoretically gay). And you begin to realise what a world we live in, when your options become so limited. Am I okay with this world? No. Am I okay with myself? I'm certainly fighting to be.

These are just my thoughts. Obviously, there are infinite unique experiences of trans folk. This is mine. I hope someone can relate. If you don't relate, that's okay, too. If you want to leave a negative comment, go away I don't need you in my life. I think you'll find your negative comments are going to be racist and transphobic, if you look close enough into your heart.