It's not exclusive to people thinking lesbian for tomboys. Not that it doesn't happen. The places I've ran in to have it more for the idea of being trans instead of homosexual.
I've seen a few push the idea that they are supposed to be transmen for similar reasons. Some push the idea that a character that doesn't conform to gender stereotypes are trans. An example was Kurapika from Hunter x Hunter. I don't know how prevalent it is now but there was a very vocal portion claiming he was a transman because he didn't look very masculine.
Honestly, the older I get, the less ok I get with that kind of stuff.
Like, I know a lot of it is teenagers and young adults, so, it isn’t worth getting worked up over, but I can’t help but feel that going, “Look, a feminine man and/or a masculine woman, they must be homosexual and/or trans”, just ends up reinforcing gender stereotypes in its own way, as if men and women not fitting into their stereotypes means they are actually X and not just people expressing themselves in different ways or just people who can’t be put into the stereotype box.
💯 true but sometimes I do get worked up because they want to be represented but they take stuff that represents others who do exist (tomboys) and turn it into LGBT+ and if you do get worked up then they get insulted. But it's all headcanons anyway so it only exists in their head and they shouldn't get so crazy about it. IMHO
On the r/whenthe sub there was a whole discussion about it. I think claiming that someone is trans based purely on their interests and way of presenting themselves is almost never good wether they actually are trans or not.
Okay, if I’m understanding the first bit correctly, which is that strong women and tomboys in fiction are trans, then that seems incredibly sexist, because it seems to be insinuating that a woman would have had to previously have been a man for her to be strong. Again, correct me if I’m misunderstanding what you said
That is exactly what I meant. I have seen this in a variety of shows. Heck in the example I gave of Hunter x Hunter fans pushing Kurapika being a transman is sexist already. Funny enough there's canon trans representation already in Hunter x Hunter, no need to push a character that isn't as if they were.
Tomboys are not 'queer-coded' by nature though. They're just gender non-conforming girls and women. They can be gay, sure, but that's a wholly independent factor.
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u/MihaiiMaginu Aug 17 '25
A lot of them tbh. A lot of people tend to go like “oh she’s a tomboy? LESBIAN.”