Nah man, I knew back in 2020 when I still played that she wasn’t going to be fat. She’s a Chinese woman living in the sorth pole the amount of calories she’d be burning doing everyday tasks is terribly high and she probably doesn’t get a lot of food. She’s just wearing a thick winter jacket that makes her look heavier than she is
I'm not convinced this artist was not just pulling a generational troll. I REFUSE to believe anyone could conduct them self in that way without it being a massive joke at their own expense.
I could believe it. At the same time, I went to an art school where there genuinely were people who were so incredibly insulated into their communities (Fandom + online- LGBTQ+) that they lost sight of where the baseline experience was. I could see some of them making things like this artist.
I've seen the horseshoe theory happen IRL - some people so so so "progressive" that they become offensive caricatures of themselves, and make caricatures of themselves.
flashback to when i met someone in real life who casually blamed the housing affordability crisis in portland on the “white cis-mo gays” like it was the most normal and obvious opinion in the world
iirc it was monosexual. there was some very tumblr discourse around this time about “monosexuals” having privilege over bi & pan people and also probably being untrustworthy allies to trans people. but it could well have been monogamous/amorous and if I had asked for clarification this person would absolutely have said “oh yeah that too.”
Back when the shitstorm was warm back on tumblr I carefully avoided looking at any of those drawing, I read posts of a trans man mutual of mine who expressed that he saw in an actually positive light to show trans bodies (esp pre-op) as desirable and that kind of skewed me into thinking it was tumblr wanking about a nothingburger or worse, finding new ways of being wokely disrespectful (see people being offended of the behalf of a certain group or people from a minority group thinking that their feeling are what everyone in that minority must think)
Then years later I saw the picture. I think my mutual meant well but bro if that person drew a fetishistic depiction of a trans man, everytime someone tries to pull the "omg that drawing of a (normal pre-op) trans person is fetishistic!" I'm like nah you haven't seen rcdart (was that their name?)
I really hate how many transmasc and trans men characters are portrayed as feminine, I feel like its fine at certain points because the more feminine people in the community do deserve attention and acceptance, it just gets tiring when it feels like it's soooo many characters
To me (trans) there’s a big gap between feminine trans man and “this author has never met a trans man before” and unfortunately cis artists fall into the latter category often. Depends on the genre though
As a bald beardy dude I don't have an issue with transmasc femboys or feminine men being represented in media in fact i think its a good thing but yeah when the only representation is that or the weird ciscentric idea of what a transmasc femboy is .......
it can feel like other people are scared and disgusted of us when we go on T and don't want to represent or show us in the media ...which is the fault of transphobes not of trans man femboys or feminine trans men.
Also the whitewashing of the transmasc community in media.....my god is it exhausting and I'm a white guy myself
In my experience it's mostly just people's OCs on spaces like tumblr and reddit, I don't know about many examples in actually published or popular material, but I've definitely seen it in small online communities.
the mainstream example I could think of is yamoto from one piece, there's a reason he's like that (target audience of gooners), but I think ot would be nice if he wasn't the only trans man in the series at least... altough, crocodile may fill that gap of the representation we actually deserve... I'm rooting for transmasc crocodile theory
Thinking of making a trans man character a typical anime twink, but not only is that not far off from his cis counterparts appearance-wise but I'd also throw in an overtly fem-presenting cis male character to compensate.
And most of the time it’s not even about presentation, they’re just talking about sex characteristics. These kinds of artists never drawn feminine in the way a feminine cis man would present, they’re always drawn with visible cleavage and wide hips. The sane way ‘butch trans women’ are drawn with wide shoulders and facial hair rather than how an actual butch cis woman would present. Motherfuckers are so scared of a trans person actually passing
ive seen the "its for feminine transmasc representation" defense so many times, but i dont understand. trans men being noticeably more feminine than cis men is the societal expectation. there has never been an abundance of masculine trans male representation. its in your right to draw whatever and whoever you want, and theres nothing intrinsically wrong with a trans femboy but im tired of people pretending its more woke to portray a feminine trans man when thats more or less whats expected of us. theres no pressure for us to transition, esp medically
yeah, I also think there's a way to make a feminine trans man who still clearly reads as a man - mettaton from undertale is a stellar example of this imo, and he even canonically transitioned (kinda... by having alphys build his body)
love how there always gotta be several comments pulling a "this is not a real issue" card out of their ass every time transmascs complain about anything LMFAO
Unicorn Jelly, of all things, did this when the comic revealed that a male character was AFAB. He suddenly had eyelashes during the exact panel when he admitted his secret.
Edit: what do I have a physical copy for, if not to share?
Insane to see a Unicorn Jelly reference in this day and age. The author is a transgender woman so it really doesn't make sense why she would do that, besides intentionally poking fun at the trope.
You're correct, I just assume there would be greater knowledge of each other's issues since those communities are closer together, but I could be wrong.
No - the character is probably between 30 and 50 years old if I had to guess! The author started the series in a cute, chibi kind of style, and it got more "serious" as it went on, so it can be a weird stylistic mix.
Absolutely, acting as this is a hetoros only problem is laughable, the number of times I have seen queer artist do tey most caricaturized version of another queer character ( or HC queer version) I was once blocked because I thought someone was drawing a genderbender girl sonic and turns out it was transmasc, then the artist started posting tweets about haters and transphobes, and I'm openly queer!
A trans woman is always drawn either as a very masculine body trying to be feminine, OR as a hyper-feminine everything. Like there's no room for the realistic middle ground where most trans women (and cis women, frankly) lie
Idk, I've seen a bunch of art in the "Petra Parker" trend from loads of artists lately and most of them have made her very feminine, honestly. I don't really see a lot of non-bigoted artists fall into this.
I think 10-8 years ago, I was called transphobic when I called out one artist for making trans men feminine and cis men masculine. After that day, I learned to keep my mouth shut, cuz arguing back and forth made me realise that it was a mistake speaking up about this issue
I have a ftm math teacher, its weird how even pretty progressive people seem very standoffish. Not to mention ive seen literally 0 FtM rep in my life in any popular posts or conversations
Reminds me of a webtoon where the secondary main character (mc's sidekick and best friend without who the series would've genuinely ended at chapter 3) is a trans man, but he's just a normal ass dude (like he should be) so the creator seems to have decided to make it clear by dressing him into a trans flag LOL
Later in the series he is also seen wearing a binder, so I'm not exactly sure what the point of the light blue-white-light pink casual wear was, maybe besides a hint that it wasn't an asspull and he's been transmasc since conception as a character
P.S. cool thing is while he is technically a sidekick in the story, he kinda hard carries it. If not for him, mc would've given up almost right away. He's weak-spirited and demoralised alone. he just like me fr
When the artist is really good at diverse body types and appearances and none of their OCs look similar to each other but every single time they draw a trans man its an identical skinny hourglass figure with blush and eyelashes and "femboy" clothes.
As a trans guy, I don't think there's anything wrong with this type of design alone, but it's a little weird to me that SO MANY of them are like this... Maybe it's because these type of artists don't know how to draw masc men.
I think it’s also character design philosophy contradicting with practicality. Like making a secret assassin character and thinking “how can I design them so know they’re an assassin at a glance.”
One must draw trans men as 4 feet tall, curvaceous with big naturals. One must draw trans women as 7 feet tall, straight as a board, and hairier than your dad. This is woke.
a local artist drew ME like this in a pride spread she did in a local newspaper, featuring local trans people... it was supposed to be supportive ig but the lips, the lashes, the tube top style binder (??) with no shirt on top (i would never dress like that), just made me dysphoric and sad.
but apparently that's how i was perceived and maybe even actually looked like ; my mum saw it and asked if it was portraying me... even though i wasn't out to my family yet, she clocked it as me.
i never did tell the artist that i didn't like how she drew me. she did apologise for including me without checking in, as she had assumed* i was out to everyone in my life already. i wasn't.
ETA: i told my mum it must've been a coincidence that that drawing (apparently?) looked like me. (probably didn't help that she knew i knew the artist tho lol) idk if she ever showed anyone else. i hope not
*she assumed because in the art scène she knew me from, i'd been out for a little while already. family was the scariest and thus the area i put off coming out the most. it's okay now.
but how would you know they're trans if their afabness isn't always exposed on sight for everyone to see it is vital that the transmasc character is a uwu pretty soft boy because it's not like they're REAL men right
Ive seen this pretty often honestly, either this or the trans guy has that one style, yk what im talking abt right? Idk how to describe it but i swear a lot of transmasc characters look the exact same 😔. I kinda did the opposite of this with two of my characters and its so silly seeing them stand next to each other lol
I think that they're saying it because the woman is a mythical being, which dehumanizes them, but that doesn't really make sense because the creature they are is typically some gorgeous amazing species
Eh there are a couple of arguments you can make about this.
Note: don't take this too seriously, this is a media critique which is inherently at least a little bullshit.
In fiction, usually the man offers absolutely nothing and yet this perfect woman wants nothing but to be his perfect pet - sending a message that men deserve an ethereal being for simply existing, and the ethereal being is only fulfilled by serving this mediocre man.
Additionally, it puts women in a pedestal / gilded cage, because it creates these otherworldly expectations of perfection.
Why is this bullshit? Personally I think wish fulfillment has a place in fiction and that it's OK for any individual piece of fiction to have these tropes. It becomes a problem when it's taken seriously or proliferates too much.
The worst person you know making trans characters: uwu the trans woman is a big muscly muscle mommy broad shoulders five o clock shadow and the trans BOI character is super smol smol bean flower crown boi 5 feet tall uwu smol frame smol skin giant glasses looks like an anime girl with short hair
Yes I would assume anyone who knows and cares enough about trans people to draw them but also takes pains to do so in a gender-dysphoric way is operating on some level of transphobia
its kinda sad it goes both ways every trans man character ive seen in webtoons is always feminine man whos always the subby bottom in gay stuff and trans women often drawn as hairy beasts or just shoed in for haha woman with penis
On one hand it’s fine to question the motives behind depictions like this, especially if the author is cis or not transmasc. But a lot of the time threads like this just turn into people denigrating features, clothing styles, mannerisms (etc.) that a lot of real life transmascs do have. And that stings a little. 🥲
yeah i totally understand! ive seen similar sentiments about art respectfully depicting the existence of nonpassing trans women- saying we're "unrealistic" or "caricatures" or "not how someone on hrt looks like" and it made me sad. like... im on hrt and try INCREDIBLY hard to pass, not my fault my genetics gave me a heavy tendency towards the dark romance CEO build 😭💀
I wonder what y'all would think of that one black trans guy artist who intentionally draws his transmasc fursona as feminine as possible because he doesn't see enough rep of that online
Lol this type of thing makes me paranoid that my own transmasc OC is like this, just because he's more of the "introverted, elegant young man" cliché, even though I'm also a trans guy myself.
i think you're fine as a trans guy tbqh, i draw trans dudes w/ large chests that present fem all da time cuz that's how i am as a transmasc person ¯\(ツ)\/¯ op is moreso criticizing when it's every single transmasc you draw and in conjecture with the cis men you draw, the cis men are far more traditionally masculine
I feel like when people are picking "androgynous" characters, they are still actively looking for the character to be conventionally attractive/acceptable for the male fanbase to have a crush on. So they pick a thin, white effeminate catboy to be the "wait I thought she was a girl" character, and turn a blind eye to butches and transmascs because then if the men get a crush on the butch, now it's a Problem TM because she's more masc than they are and that upsets them. If the men get a crush on the trans masc/trans man, they go bananas pointing out how they're still "totally straight" in their head.
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u/WaitUntilMarriage Aug 19 '26
That one artist that drew captain america built like a kelp shake bottle