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It's dawned on me that I've never thrown my hat into the ring and weighed in on one of the touchiest subjects of modern gaming. One I actually do have a very strong opinion on and thanks to everyone getting PS Vitas and buying Persona 4 Golden, now's a perfect time to bring it up because fuck if it doesn't annoy me too.
Yes, this is going to be a Naoto post. Yes, we're going to talk about gender. No, it will probably be different than you expect. Please read through the whole thing before you judge.
I'd like to think I could shed some light on where the "Naoto is trans/genderqueer" theory comes from and why it's so popular, and not in a "tumblr just wants a token minority to fawn over and overprotect without actually getting it" sort of way.
In order to get to the point, I need to talk about me a while. It'll make sense in a minute, I swear.
I'm Atma. When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a knight. The second I could start reading I picked fantasy books and those are who I identified with were the men. Before I even started schooling in kindergarten, I was dead certain I would grow up and get a sex change so I could become a knight. Otherwise I had to be a princess. Or so I thought because that is how I was taught through gender roles.
Thanks to this, I grew up massively confused about my gender and my body. Enough that I started to suffer from actual physical dysphoria. Puberty sorted this out a bit but in the past few years, it's made an incredible resurgence and it took me a while to accept it as part of who I am, part of my identity, and that it'll be something I'll be stuck with my whole life.
It comes and goes. Most days I'm fine being referred to by female pronouns, but somedays I need a mix or to be referred to solely by masculine ones to cope. I almost exclusively use male titles and, in foreign languages that have gender influx in them such as Japanese, I use the masculine nouns and verbs. The worst days are only once every few months, thankfully, so I don't think transitioning would make me feel better and I doubt it could give me what I want physically at a satisfactory level. It's not a constant dysphoria like most people who do transition feel, but it doesn't make it any less legitimate. If you've ever seen me go completely quiet online on every site before for a day or two, chances are it's because my dysphoria has manifested so badly I have to go to radio silence to deal with the physical and mental anguish.
It feels like burning. It feels like I need to snip my skin off and run away from myself. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
So life hurts when people tell me a girl can't do such and such because fuck, I sure as hell don't feel like a girl. I'm only a lady physically and even then I've been questioning that with how high my natural testosterone levels are. I'm somewhere between genders. I'm as manly as I want to be while still in my natural born lady body. I'm genderqueer and it took me my whole life to get here to a point where I can cope with it and enjoy it.
Now we get to Naoto.
When I played P4, it had just come out for the PS2. There was no weird fandom yet. There was nobody on tumblr crying about trans erasure or wars about Kanji's sexuality or who you should ship with the Hero and why you're a heretic if you don't. As Teddie would put it, it's become quite un-bear-able.
So I'm playing it and here's Naoto. She wants to be a detective like I want to be a knight and disguises herself and uses male pronouns and passes off as a dude well and fuck, I can relate. I can relate in every way. Her Shadow crying out about being a "real boy" sure didn't help. The Shadow being a genderless machine sure also doesn't help. There's talk of sex changes, which, yeah, I'd reject from a Shadow too. That's some unsanitary conditions they were in and does the Shadow even have a degree in surgery and whatnot?
So she accepts her Shadow and continues to pass off as male and try to accept she is a lady and can work it both ways. This is me, I am Naoto. The only difference was we never saw if she had actual dysphoria or not and she wanted to be a detective and not a knight.
The reason that the whole Naoto could be trans thing started is because those of us with actual gender issues saw our own stories reflected in her all too well. I know several other people on the genderqueer and trans spectrums who felt the same way about it.
However, this is where I and the tumblr/shit fandom crowd differ.
I don't think Atlus intended to make her a trans character. As I said, we don't see the dysphoria, just the social aspects and sexism that harm her. Both Naoto and I have issues stemming from society pushing gender roles on us and it manifested loathing of our genders in us pretty hard. We both come to the conclusion that fuck that shit let's do what we want anyways, and all is good. But I don't think she is or was trans nor do I think it was their intention. Yeah, she started off in the design process as male, but it's more likely leftovers from that than Atlus being progressive.
All that happened was coincidence. They accidentally wrote enough similarities in that I and others could relate to it. However, I don't see Naoto as a negative influence nor an attack on my gender nor do I see it as Atlus trying to force me to be a girl only. All of that is SJW bullshit and needs to be tossed out yesterday.
This doesn't make my experience playing P4 or relating to her nor my own dysphoria null, either. Ignore the fandom crying about erasure. They're wrong since it just never existed to begin with. Can't take away a plot point that was never there. But at the same time, backlash against that part of the fandom winds up throwing shrapnel at me and others. When you confront someone about this part of the fandom, ask if they're being an idiot about it or if you know the person is actually someone suffering from gender issues, then cut them some slack.
We cling to Naoto because she's all we have. Trans and genderqueer characters are so rare and few and far between that we have to settle for close enough. Naoto is coincidence, she is our close enough. Her story is about the harm of gender roles and sexism, but to me, just for an instant, it was also about how it was okay for anyone to be a boy or girl or both or neither too. I'll never claim it was canon or meant to be, but it's still comforting in an odd way.
I think that's how the Inaba crew would have wanted it, too. For me to accept this and use it to help myself and others.
Because it's okay for me to be a boy too.
Yes, this is going to be a Naoto post. Yes, we're going to talk about gender. No, it will probably be different than you expect. Please read through the whole thing before you judge.
I'd like to think I could shed some light on where the "Naoto is trans/genderqueer" theory comes from and why it's so popular, and not in a "tumblr just wants a token minority to fawn over and overprotect without actually getting it" sort of way.
In order to get to the point, I need to talk about me a while. It'll make sense in a minute, I swear.
I'm Atma. When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a knight. The second I could start reading I picked fantasy books and those are who I identified with were the men. Before I even started schooling in kindergarten, I was dead certain I would grow up and get a sex change so I could become a knight. Otherwise I had to be a princess. Or so I thought because that is how I was taught through gender roles.
Thanks to this, I grew up massively confused about my gender and my body. Enough that I started to suffer from actual physical dysphoria. Puberty sorted this out a bit but in the past few years, it's made an incredible resurgence and it took me a while to accept it as part of who I am, part of my identity, and that it'll be something I'll be stuck with my whole life.
It comes and goes. Most days I'm fine being referred to by female pronouns, but somedays I need a mix or to be referred to solely by masculine ones to cope. I almost exclusively use male titles and, in foreign languages that have gender influx in them such as Japanese, I use the masculine nouns and verbs. The worst days are only once every few months, thankfully, so I don't think transitioning would make me feel better and I doubt it could give me what I want physically at a satisfactory level. It's not a constant dysphoria like most people who do transition feel, but it doesn't make it any less legitimate. If you've ever seen me go completely quiet online on every site before for a day or two, chances are it's because my dysphoria has manifested so badly I have to go to radio silence to deal with the physical and mental anguish.
It feels like burning. It feels like I need to snip my skin off and run away from myself. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
So life hurts when people tell me a girl can't do such and such because fuck, I sure as hell don't feel like a girl. I'm only a lady physically and even then I've been questioning that with how high my natural testosterone levels are. I'm somewhere between genders. I'm as manly as I want to be while still in my natural born lady body. I'm genderqueer and it took me my whole life to get here to a point where I can cope with it and enjoy it.
Now we get to Naoto.
When I played P4, it had just come out for the PS2. There was no weird fandom yet. There was nobody on tumblr crying about trans erasure or wars about Kanji's sexuality or who you should ship with the Hero and why you're a heretic if you don't. As Teddie would put it, it's become quite un-bear-able.
So I'm playing it and here's Naoto. She wants to be a detective like I want to be a knight and disguises herself and uses male pronouns and passes off as a dude well and fuck, I can relate. I can relate in every way. Her Shadow crying out about being a "real boy" sure didn't help. The Shadow being a genderless machine sure also doesn't help. There's talk of sex changes, which, yeah, I'd reject from a Shadow too. That's some unsanitary conditions they were in and does the Shadow even have a degree in surgery and whatnot?
So she accepts her Shadow and continues to pass off as male and try to accept she is a lady and can work it both ways. This is me, I am Naoto. The only difference was we never saw if she had actual dysphoria or not and she wanted to be a detective and not a knight.
The reason that the whole Naoto could be trans thing started is because those of us with actual gender issues saw our own stories reflected in her all too well. I know several other people on the genderqueer and trans spectrums who felt the same way about it.
However, this is where I and the tumblr/shit fandom crowd differ.
I don't think Atlus intended to make her a trans character. As I said, we don't see the dysphoria, just the social aspects and sexism that harm her. Both Naoto and I have issues stemming from society pushing gender roles on us and it manifested loathing of our genders in us pretty hard. We both come to the conclusion that fuck that shit let's do what we want anyways, and all is good. But I don't think she is or was trans nor do I think it was their intention. Yeah, she started off in the design process as male, but it's more likely leftovers from that than Atlus being progressive.
All that happened was coincidence. They accidentally wrote enough similarities in that I and others could relate to it. However, I don't see Naoto as a negative influence nor an attack on my gender nor do I see it as Atlus trying to force me to be a girl only. All of that is SJW bullshit and needs to be tossed out yesterday.
This doesn't make my experience playing P4 or relating to her nor my own dysphoria null, either. Ignore the fandom crying about erasure. They're wrong since it just never existed to begin with. Can't take away a plot point that was never there. But at the same time, backlash against that part of the fandom winds up throwing shrapnel at me and others. When you confront someone about this part of the fandom, ask if they're being an idiot about it or if you know the person is actually someone suffering from gender issues, then cut them some slack.
We cling to Naoto because she's all we have. Trans and genderqueer characters are so rare and few and far between that we have to settle for close enough. Naoto is coincidence, she is our close enough. Her story is about the harm of gender roles and sexism, but to me, just for an instant, it was also about how it was okay for anyone to be a boy or girl or both or neither too. I'll never claim it was canon or meant to be, but it's still comforting in an odd way.
I think that's how the Inaba crew would have wanted it, too. For me to accept this and use it to help myself and others.
Because it's okay for me to be a boy too.
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Date: 2013-01-14 05:40 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2013-01-24 11:07 pm (UTC)From: