lesbiangender:

brudehaunter:

natsuki-the-great:

girlfriendluvr:

psa about zombieland saga: a lot of ppl are rly happy that one of the main characters (lily) was revealed to be a trans girl in episode 8 and thats great!!! but i just wanted to make this post as a warning that it is not handled well at all. her being trans is treated as a joke multiple times, and she is deadnamed and made fun of by some of the other main characters. i just don’t want any girls to check out this episode thinking they’ll be accurately/positively represented only to be disappointed. anyway we stan lily hoshikawa!!!!

Speaking as a transgirl myself, it really irritates me to see this have so many notes from people who likely haven’t even seen the show.

“being trans is treated as a joke multiple times“

How so? Because Sakura was shocked? That’s a pretty damn realistic reaction for an average teenage girl. Because she died from the facial hair thing? That’s no more comical than any of the other deaths, and besides from that, it’s made clear immediately afterwards that it was still a serious and tragic event. 

“she is deadnamed and made fun of by some of the other main characters”

Literally the only one who consistently deadnames her is her dad, who is shown to be, while well-meaning, not fully understanding of her, to the point where he accidently killed her. 

Saki laughs about it, sure, but Saki is a former delinquent and has always been a crass bitch. The others are visibly annoyed by how she acts. And, again, it’s a pretty damn realistic reaction for a lot of people. And she makes up for it later by saying that Lily’s “junk” doesn’t matter. 

Kotaro deadnames her, but he’s immediately corrected and, again, it goes along with his personality and is realistic considering the situation. Sometimes people say the wrong shit. And literally everyone else shows total respect and understanding, and keeps on calling her Lily. 

Considering the fact that most of the girls came from time periods that were even less understanding of trans people than today, I think they handled it pretty well. 

But no, because some of the characters didn’t handle it with complete grace, that means this representation wasn’t handled well at all. Okay. Sure. 

Just ignore how this show addressed how fucking stressful puberty can be for trans people, how the girls, despite their initial surprise, accept that “Lily is Lily”, and that Lily is shown to be happy and comfortable as herself. Just ignore all of that so you can tell over a hundred people on Tumblr to ignore one of the greatest representations of trans people I’ve ever seen. Okay.

there is no foolproof formula to handling a trans character well, but having the trans character look visibly unhappy as the resident Vulgar Person Who Makes Fun Of Her All The Time Already laughs about her and her parents’ names, and then have that trans character yell at her, is not exactly “the show uses her as the butt of a joke”.

Here, let me recap the scenes for anyone who hasn’t seen it:

– Child star Lily explains her cause of death to Sakura (the main character) to conclude her explanation of her relationship with her father. During the flashback, Lily is locked in her room refusing to go to a broadcast that’s been scheduled for her. Her father (calling her “Masao”, which is the first indication of Lily’s gender situation at all) pleads for her to come in to work, but she yells that he only cares about her when she’s on TV. He assures her that “a little bit of leg hair” isn’t a big deal and is just a sign she’s growing up. Lily retorts that she is never growing up, but her father tells her she “cannot look like that forever”. Lily still refuses to come out of her room, and while looking pensively in the mirror she discovers a strand of facial hair. In distress from this clear denial of her wishes, Lily dies from shock. 

(Note: All the girls are zombies and some other Cause of Death reveals have been comically framed or exaggerated because this is a comedy show)

– Sakura asks who this “Masao guy” that Lily started talking about is, and Lily plainly says “that was my old name.” Sakura begins to connect the dots with the name and the hair and the scene ends with a comically drawn look of surprise that is standard for the show’s humor. 

– Sakura explains to the rest of the group that “Lily-chan used to be Masao-kun”. At no other point in the episode do Lily’s fellow idols ever call her Masao or actually directly refer to her as a boy.

– Saki (the “super tough” 90s delinquent who is comically aggressive and already teases/mocks Lily about things like her age/height) is laughing about the comical nature of Lily’s death. Sakura scolds her. 
(It should be noted though that her and Lily’s relationship is not one of simple aggression. Earlier in the episode Saki protects Lily from someone she mistakes to be a dangerous fan, and Saki speaks aggressively to other girls as well with the common stock phrases of “Do you want to die!?” or “I’ll kill you!!”)

– Saki asks for Lily’s full deadname, and Lily says it, deadpan and unamused. Saki laughs that it’s “the most macho name I’ve ever heard” and asks about Lily’s father’s name. Camera pans back to Lily and Sakura, who are visibly unamused with Saki.

– I’m not sure what the connotation is about Lily’s father’s name (either it’s super appropriate or comically unfitting for stature?) but Saki continues to laugh and Lily yells out “I hate you, Saki-chan!” Saki tries to apologize through her gigglefit.

– Another member of the group asks “What now?” and Lily says “I am still Lily and that’s who I’m always going to be.” 

– They go to ask their certifiably insane dickbag manager Kotaro if he knew about this the whole time (because he literally never alluded to it or treated her differently, not even at The Hot Springs Episode), and his response is “hell yeah i knew”. Saki gets upset at him for acting in his usual relaxed and weirdo way, to which he yells back “What!? Is Masao Go not allowed in your girly idol group anymore!?”
(Which not to justify doing it, but I think Kotaro only dropped her deadname to make a point, like “What? Do you see her as the boy Masao Go and don’t think she belongs here with girls?” Kotaro is also an asshole and commonly insults the girls, though he has rare moments of being genuine or supportive???)

– Lily interjects: “I am not Masao anymore! My name is Lily!” To which Kotaro responds by screaming (a common habit of his) “THAT’S RIGHT, SHE’S LILY, NOT MASAO” and then he rambles on about their gig and kicks them out to go to sleep.

– The others talk while Lily is asleep. 
Junko, from the 80s: “She’s so cute” 
Ai, from the 2000s: “I can’t believe we never noticed in spite of how close we are”
Saki, from the 90s: “Ah, who cares! Doesn’t matter what kinda junk she’s got.”

And from there, it is more about the fact that zombies cannot age (so Lily will always maintain the youthful image she cared about and will never deal with a puberty that can challenge her feminine presentation) and the implications for the rest of the zombies.
(Also worth noting – while the other girls are surprised, they don’t use the whole “come from another time period” thing to shoehorn or excuse something like the Meiji-era Yugiri making an inappropriate or disparaging comment, even after they just resolved an arc establishing a Junko as having old-fashioned values from 30-50 years ago.)

After that, the episode becomes wholly about Lily’s relationship and reunion with her father, who became distant and overworked her as her manager. He remains the only person to refer to her as Masao. However, it should be noted that in Lily’s home life she always comfortably presented female and is never depicted presenting masculine. It’s not even something that they did for the sake of TV; Lily is shown walking around the house and interacting with her father and even drawing herself in full feminine presentation well before her stardom. It should also be noted that when they met her father, he referred to her as Lily Hoshikawa (since that was the stage name they would know her from).

And regarding his usage of her deadname: it is more likely that he uses “Masao” because “Lily” is a stage name to him, and again even before she became “Lily”, the child he knew as “Masao” was always feminine. He probably doesn’t realize that Lily now prefers the name Lily. And though they talk about her image in the flashback, he is not actually even shown to be explicitly disparaging her gender identity as much as warning her that puberty is going to change her body. Though they don’t go too deeply into it, so it’s a bit ambiguous if he would be unsupportive or if he just sees it as futile. 

But natuski-the-great is also right – the entire point of his arc with Lily is that he becomes so carried away with her TV image that he loses touch with her and who she really is. 

Either way, a character’s opinion about another character’s gender identity does not make the story mishandled, especially if we are supposed to see that character as being out of touch and failing their emotional obligations. If anything, that’s a point in the story’s favor for portraying him realistically with a disapproving commentary.

So ultimately, Lily voluntarily comes out to her groupmates after explaining the entire situation with her father because she used her deadname when telling the story of how she died. It is as much of a “shocking reveal” as any other backstory trait would be. They are confused and surprised, but accept her with open arms and never even question her femininity or treat her as masculine. And then they move on from it and assist Lily in her emotional arc. 

If you don’t have a Crunchyroll subscription and don’t want to wait a week, then there. I have told you literally every single part of the episode (and probably every moment of the show thus far) that’s concerned with Lily’s gender identity. You can draw your own conclusion from it. 

Personally, I think it’s tasteful. Not even “well it’s good enough”. It’s good. Of all things, an idol comedy anime gave us a respectable portrayal of a transgender character who does not get treated differently for their gender, who is respected by the the rest of the cast, and who has an arc and story unrelated to their gender identity that avoids falling back on torturing them for backstory while still making their gender an important part of their identity and story. We didn’t get a character who was forced out of the closet or forced into a box of stereotypes, and they don’t clunkily hamfist a story about being transgender and make that the full extent of her character and call it a day. They give her a regular, rounded feel-good personal story on top of it and without ignoring it.

 An idol comedy anime of all things was more mature about a transgender character (a 12 year old transgender character no less!) than some other media I’ve seen. I think OP misrepresents the entire episode. 

Maybe in the coming weeks they’ll do or say something to fuck it up. But as it stands right now, Lily Hoshikawa is some of the best transgender representation I’ve seen out of anime, and I’m not even “settling” here.

The only real “joke” is that her deadname is comically masculine and old-fashioned (contrasted with her real name, a delicate flower + “river of stars”). To answer your question @brudehaunter, her dad’s name is so macho and manly and tough that it’s cartoonish. I did laugh out loud when I heard it tbh.

I am not yet fluent in Japanese, but I can understand enough to say that I did not hear anyone refer to Lily by transphobic slurs or swith to masculine language for her. The way they talk about her sounds iffy in the subs at times, but what I heard was the same words Japanese trans women use irt themselves, at least in articles and memoirs I’ve read.

and sorry fellow ‘murricans, but trans people in other cultures aren’t going to use the exact same language as you. There’s a manga by a trans woman about her own life called 花嫁はもと男子 –lit. “The Bride Was a Guy” or “The Bride is a Former Boy”. I don’t know a single trans person who would title their memoir something like that, but this Japanese woman was more than willing to call herself an “ex-guy” repeatedly, in a mostly-joking way.

I was afraid going in to this wpisode tbh, because even with that diffetence in culture, most anime still treats trans people like shit. But this was one of those episodes where I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did.

Lily is Lily.

(also one of the things Kotaro says is “that’s right, she’s not Masao, you all are masao!” and then tells them not to ask stupid questions. It was half nonsense but genuinely funny)