i can only think of three canon and important transmasc characters: one of whom is ignored in his transmasculinity by a large part of the fandom despite his cousin being a trans woman from the same genderless origin and being accepted by the fandom or he's headcanoned as female all because of his gender nonconformity and isn't present in the ending scene on the cliff even though he should have been (mettaton), one of whom is almost outed by the host and has to deal with a lot of bullshit and is almost killed twice (aiden from disventure camp), and one of whom is otis from barnyard which is a wild fuckin place to find transmasc rep (his transition is confirmed in a scene where another character said she remembered watching the night sky with his sister, but then after otis reminded her he has no sister, she remembers that "oh yeah, that was you".)
Another thing I've noticed that what little transmasc representation is almost exclusively teens/children...amd hmmm don't like that it feels infantilisating like "yeah you can have rep but all will subtly enforce that transmascs are all immature/children" also very little visibly POC (even though 98% of pale anime characters are Japanese to ignorant people they don't read as Japanese) crying in transneutral black adult 😢
What eats at me even more is how little scholarship there is on the lack of representation. You can buy entire books of media analysis written about and by trans women, but I’ve noticed a reluctance in the trans male community to even acknowledge how and why we’ve been done so dirty.
I think that just speaks to how relatively invisible trans men are. We just get viewed as butch lesbians by the larger LGBT community so our perspectives immediately are dismissed, from what I've seen. + might be infighting with the usual internet "trans women have it worse no matter what" thing that's all over Tumblr/Reddit.
theres a trans boy in a movie called "a man called otto", from my memory it was really good and stuck a huge cord with me cuz i was in the closet at the time... id reccommend the movie to anyone whose not suicidal, cuz spoilers but the mc, otto tries to commit suicide and fails several times throuhout the story. thats the premise. also theres a trans guy in seasons 4+ of the dragon prince ((terry)) hes a great character and carries season 4 of the dragon prince so hard ngl... watch the dragon prince, its really good !!! not only for the trans character but in general ((besides s4 😭 what happened)) um but yeah you made so many good points !!! i wish we had more rep. im a writer and im planning on making one of my major character ((Mc's brother)) a trans man :) hes the fourth most major character in the story ((first three most important being the tritagonists))
DUDDEE OMG ive been wanting to talk about this for AGES, ever since i realized and came out as transmasc ive begun to search for transmasc rep in media, specifically in manga and anime, and was surprised to realize that there rlly isnt a bunch!! And i was surprised nobody is talking about this, like i went on a list of all the manga that had trans rep and there were at least like 20 manga with transfem representstion compared to transmasc that had at least like 7-10 and usually its a minor character almost all the time actually, and i was really dishearten ontop of the fact that ppl dont believe our identity and group us up with “girls that are just confused/girls that never got over how bad female puberty is” it jst feels like another stab to the throat with how little representation there are of us in media its like re-echoing the narrative that we are confused girls and it just feels like people have less belief in us as trans ppl/dudes Like no diss to the transfems i love my girlies but there are like 10x representation of them in media (EDIT: not that im saying transfem ppl being hypervisible to the media is always a good thing im sure they dont want to be so visible and focused on to the world either) idk maybe its the fact ppl still view transmen as girls so they think that maybe were jst tomboys or sumn and there is nothing interesting to explore about that but we know thats not true Im just really disappointed man, it makes me really sad i have a lot of struggles trying to affirm my gender and feeling like everyone doesnt believe me as a boy so when i see less of us in media it just feels like ppl who pick up and serializes medias do not view us as worthy to make series/medias about because they simply view us as confused girls or think our struggles are lesser and easier
exactly. what adds to this is people have such a narrow idea of being masc (literally white masculinitiy) that makes it even harder to be taken seriously + a lot of being masc (personality wise) is so rooted in sexism aswell
i agree with the 2% gingers in the world point as someone who's genuinely actually met like at least twice as many transmascs irl than i've met gingers irl (i'm not making this up)
i really enjoy seeing trans male characters in tv and movies so over the years ive seen almost every series with any transmasc character and my favorites have definitely been cole and aaron from the fosters trevor from shameless Buck from the OA Oberon from the end Raúl from wandel and wild joe from cowboys (2020) theres way more i can mention but these are the ones where the media is good and the character is written well and have decent screen time
Theo is a very relevant character in the chilling adventures of Sabrina, at least in the second season (where I started watching from kss kss) - or maybe you're right but I still felt like his presence was strong.
This is why I like headcanons, because I can just trans a character's gender hehe XD like for me, Herbert West from Reanimator is trans (and autistic). Lake from Infinity Train isn't explicitly trans but the creator heavily implied that if it weren't for network restrictions they would've been trans
its also an obscure comic i guess but there's an ongoing manga "villain" based on the song of the same name by teniwoha (i recommend the song btw... lyrics are pretty trans vibes but its also just a good song.) and one of the 2 main characters seems to be transmasc. like, explicitly. it's still very early on so we're not really sure how they identify, currently it seems they might be non-binary. anyway it was really cool to see for me especially because its so rare.. its sad that theres like almost nothing about transmascs
I’ve read the part of the manga of saiki k that you’re referring to and what actually happens is that he is originally male in the womb and then transforms into female and then reverts back into male after being born. I personally don’t see this as him being a trans guy and I don’t see him as rep because of this (however one can argue that he could be non binary coded due to not caring what his gender is) I see a lot of people act like he is canonly trans and that annoys me cause of how often I see it happen and I feel like it covers up the actual rep that we do have (this isn’t your fault though, I just see it happen a lot and I wanna avoid misinformation) while most of the explicitly trans characters in animanga are usually transfem, I can think of a few trans masc characters off the top of my head and I’ll do my best to list them down below (I wrote a lot of stuff so just a quick warning for that 😭😭) I’m only gonna write characters from animanga though since that’s mainly the media type I consume: the first one is togata from fire punch. fire punch is by the same author as chainsaw man, but it’s a lot darker and there’s a lot of tws. also unlike csm it is only a manga series and there is no anime adaptation, but you can find it online. it’s set in a post apocalyptic world and togata is one of the main characters in it, I don’t want to spoil much but it has one of the best representations of dysphoria (imo) and togata is a really interesting character! the second one is a bit more of a popular character it’s james bond (spelled as “bonde” in the anime) from moriarty the patriot. once again I don’t wanna spoil much, but mtp is an adaptation of sherlock, but in moriarty’s perspective and it’s a lot different from the original. james bond doesn’t show up until the second season and in it he starts out as being introduced as a girl and later on he needs to fake his death and get a new identity and decides to live as a man. there is a bit of transphobia with another character, but all of the main characters defend bond and states that he is a man (this is set in the late 1800s, but it’s clear he is trans.) I suggest reading the manga (you can read it online) since the anime removes a lot (and actually removes one of the characters due to copyright I think) but the anime is fun too. also james bond isn’t a huge character in the series but he is still important and one thing I like about him is that he is happy cause I feel like a lot of trans rep involves characters being depressed to due to being trans etc and it’s just nice to see. another character is from wonder egg priority. it’s been like three years since I’ve seen wep so I don’t remember his name and he is a minor character (only in one episode) but the episode is focused on him. I don’t really recommend this anime because the writing at the end took a turn for the worse, but I still felt like I had to mention it. shou in stars align is another minor character, but I feel like stars align is very underrated so I wanted to mention him. he is the main character’s mom’s friend (possibly dating?) and the main character really looks up to him. there is another trans character besides shou in the series (they’re name is yuu and theyre nonbinary.) in episode 9 they talk to the main character (maki) about their identity and stuff about them questioning and maki mentions that he knows someone (shou) who is ftm. I watched this anime while it aired in 2019 and I was really shocked to hear that since it was the first time I had actually heard an anime say the words “ftm” and “non binary.” boys run the riot is another good recommendation I have, it’s focused on a trans main character and he’s really into fashion. it’s a pretty short manga that’s only around 4 volumes? wandering son is about a trans girl, but there is a trans guy character who she is friends with. the anime has pretty good representation, but I do want to give a warning about the manga which has the transmasc character detransition in the end which all the other characters get to transition and I feel like that was a bad way to end things. the series is really old and of I’m correct the manga is out of print and never actually finished translating which is a bit sad but you can find it online. finally I wanna add the manga “to strip the flesh” on here. it’s only a chapter long, but it’s about this trans guy and he’s a hunter so content warning for that. (I don’t wanna write any more about it though cause of spoilers and it’s really short) if I’m correct the book is full of short stories, but that’s the only one in t it I’ve read (it’s the first story) okay thank you if you’ve read this far and I honestly don’t blame you if you didn’t get this far since I wrote a lot, if you have any questions about anything feel free to ask also sorry about any potential typos in here
For something more adult oriented, the manga Yuureitou (murder mystery/horror) also has a trans man. I can't attest to how well it's done yet because it's on my TBR list, but just wanted to throw it out there as another option
Miles morales is my headcanon bc there's no "right" way to be spider-man, you just say you are and thats the cost of entry. I also say Camillo from Encanto, not just because he can transform-trope but because of the sarapa that he wears to cover his chest. Raul from Wendell & Wild is canonically trans too, but of course theres a lot of "struggle" writing in it, in that the audience doesn't know that he's trans unless hes being bullied or deadnamed. Bow from Princess of power I think is an honorable mention lol Another user mentioned, not a lot of adults, I can't think of any off the top of my head
@@austincde i see. You read Spider-Man as a Trans allegory in general. I think i understand. He fits many metaphors no matter whos behind the mask. Thanks for clarifying.
I can name only one trans male character in fiction off the top of my head, and it's a character who wasn't even trans or a man in the original material. Sad.
The main character of the 2002 anime .hack//sign is canonically trans (sort of...I'll explain). Basically Tsukasa (mc) is trapped in a video game and has amnesia. Near the end of the show when he wakes up from the coma it's revealed he's "actually a girl" (wrong!!!) But his friends are all fine with this and I remember they continue to refer to his as Tsukasa and with he/him in the English subs. I haven't watched it since I was 12 so I checked wiki and apparently the explanation for Tsukasa being trans is because his father's abuse made him dissociate from his gender... :| which sucks. However it's still very important to me. It was the first trans masc representation I remember seeing. I had a rough time at home too so I really resonated with him. He has a special place in my heart :)
Also the fact that Tsukasa gets a happy ending is really nice. I like to think that some time after the events of the show - a month or two or a year later - he learns what being trans is and is like "that's me, that's what I am!" He tells his friends and they all accept him of course.
i can only think of three canon and important transmasc characters: one of whom is ignored in his transmasculinity by a large part of the fandom despite his cousin being a trans woman from the same genderless origin and being accepted by the fandom or he's headcanoned as female all because of his gender nonconformity and isn't present in the ending scene on the cliff even though he should have been (mettaton), one of whom is almost outed by the host and has to deal with a lot of bullshit and is almost killed twice (aiden from disventure camp), and one of whom is otis from barnyard which is a wild fuckin place to find transmasc rep (his transition is confirmed in a scene where another character said she remembered watching the night sky with his sister, but then after otis reminded her he has no sister, she remembers that "oh yeah, that was you".)
Another thing I've noticed that what little transmasc representation is almost exclusively teens/children...amd hmmm don't like that it feels infantilisating like "yeah you can have rep but all will subtly enforce that transmascs are all immature/children" also very little visibly POC (even though 98% of pale anime characters are Japanese to ignorant people they don't read as Japanese) crying in transneutral black adult 😢
Most trans characters in general are the most wafer-thin, conventionally attractive white people. I can relate to none of those experiences.
What eats at me even more is how little scholarship there is on the lack of representation. You can buy entire books of media analysis written about and by trans women, but I’ve noticed a reluctance in the trans male community to even acknowledge how and why we’ve been done so dirty.
I think that just speaks to how relatively invisible trans men are. We just get viewed as butch lesbians by the larger LGBT community so our perspectives immediately are dismissed, from what I've seen. + might be infighting with the usual internet "trans women have it worse no matter what" thing that's all over Tumblr/Reddit.
Thats coz we had less rights i noticed this too it really disheartens me!!
theres a trans boy in a movie called "a man called otto", from my memory it was really good and stuck a huge cord with me cuz i was in the closet at the time... id reccommend the movie to anyone whose not suicidal, cuz spoilers but the mc, otto tries to commit suicide and fails several times throuhout the story. thats the premise.
also theres a trans guy in seasons 4+ of the dragon prince ((terry)) hes a great character and carries season 4 of the dragon prince so hard ngl... watch the dragon prince, its really good !!! not only for the trans character but in general ((besides s4 😭 what happened))
um but yeah you made so many good points !!! i wish we had more rep. im a writer and im planning on making one of my major character ((Mc's brother)) a trans man :) hes the fourth most major character in the story ((first three most important being the tritagonists))
DUDDEE OMG ive been wanting to talk about this for AGES, ever since i realized and came out as transmasc ive begun to search for transmasc rep in media, specifically in manga and anime, and was surprised to realize that there rlly isnt a bunch!! And i was surprised nobody is talking about this, like i went on a list of all the manga that had trans rep and there were at least like 20 manga with transfem representstion compared to transmasc that had at least like 7-10 and usually its a minor character almost all the time actually, and i was really dishearten ontop of the fact that ppl dont believe our identity and group us up with “girls that are just confused/girls that never got over how bad female puberty is” it jst feels like another stab to the throat with how little representation there are of us in media its like re-echoing the narrative that we are confused girls and it just feels like people have less belief in us as trans ppl/dudes
Like no diss to the transfems i love my girlies but there are like 10x representation of them in media (EDIT: not that im saying transfem ppl being hypervisible to the media is always a good thing im sure they dont want to be so visible and focused on to the world either) idk maybe its the fact ppl still view transmen as girls so they think that maybe were jst tomboys or sumn and there is nothing interesting to explore about that but we know thats not true
Im just really disappointed man, it makes me really sad i have a lot of struggles trying to affirm my gender and feeling like everyone doesnt believe me as a boy so when i see less of us in media it just feels like ppl who pick up and serializes medias do not view us as worthy to make series/medias about because they simply view us as confused girls or think our struggles are lesser and easier
exactly. what adds to this is people have such a narrow idea of being masc (literally white masculinitiy) that makes it even harder to be taken seriously + a lot of being masc (personality wise) is so rooted in sexism aswell
its sad how little represent transmasc's get in media, but that also makes me proud for the representation i have in my stories
i agree with the 2% gingers in the world point as someone who's genuinely actually met like at least twice as many transmascs irl than i've met gingers irl (i'm not making this up)
i really enjoy seeing trans male characters in tv and movies so over the years ive seen almost every series with any transmasc character and my favorites have definitely been
cole and aaron from the fosters
trevor from shameless
Buck from the OA
Oberon from the end
Raúl from wandel and wild
joe from cowboys (2020)
theres way more i can mention but these are the ones where the media is good and the character is written well and have decent screen time
Theo is a very relevant character in the chilling adventures of Sabrina, at least in the second season (where I started watching from kss kss) - or maybe you're right but I still felt like his presence was strong.
This is why I like headcanons, because I can just trans a character's gender hehe XD like for me, Herbert West from Reanimator is trans (and autistic). Lake from Infinity Train isn't explicitly trans but the creator heavily implied that if it weren't for network restrictions they would've been trans
its also an obscure comic i guess but there's an ongoing manga "villain" based on the song of the same name by teniwoha (i recommend the song btw... lyrics are pretty trans vibes but its also just a good song.) and one of the 2 main characters seems to be transmasc. like, explicitly. it's still very early on so we're not really sure how they identify, currently it seems they might be non-binary. anyway it was really cool to see for me especially because its so rare.. its sad that theres like almost nothing about transmascs
I’ve read the part of the manga of saiki k that you’re referring to and what actually happens is that he is originally male in the womb and then transforms into female and then reverts back into male after being born. I personally don’t see this as him being a trans guy and I don’t see him as rep because of this (however one can argue that he could be non binary coded due to not caring what his gender is) I see a lot of people act like he is canonly trans and that annoys me cause of how often I see it happen and I feel like it covers up the actual rep that we do have (this isn’t your fault though, I just see it happen a lot and I wanna avoid misinformation)
while most of the explicitly trans characters in animanga are usually transfem, I can think of a few trans masc characters off the top of my head and I’ll do my best to list them down below (I wrote a lot of stuff so just a quick warning for that 😭😭) I’m only gonna write characters from animanga though since that’s mainly the media type I consume:
the first one is togata from fire punch. fire punch is by the same author as chainsaw man, but it’s a lot darker and there’s a lot of tws. also unlike csm it is only a manga series and there is no anime adaptation, but you can find it online. it’s set in a post apocalyptic world and togata is one of the main characters in it, I don’t want to spoil much but it has one of the best representations of dysphoria (imo) and togata is a really interesting character!
the second one is a bit more of a popular character it’s james bond (spelled as “bonde” in the anime) from moriarty the patriot. once again I don’t wanna spoil much, but mtp is an adaptation of sherlock, but in moriarty’s perspective and it’s a lot different from the original. james bond doesn’t show up until the second season and in it he starts out as being introduced as a girl and later on he needs to fake his death and get a new identity and decides to live as a man. there is a bit of transphobia with another character, but all of the main characters defend bond and states that he is a man (this is set in the late 1800s, but it’s clear he is trans.) I suggest reading the manga (you can read it online) since the anime removes a lot (and actually removes one of the characters due to copyright I think) but the anime is fun too. also james bond isn’t a huge character in the series but he is still important and one thing I like about him is that he is happy cause I feel like a lot of trans rep involves characters being depressed to due to being trans etc and it’s just nice to see.
another character is from wonder egg priority. it’s been like three years since I’ve seen wep so I don’t remember his name and he is a minor character (only in one episode) but the episode is focused on him. I don’t really recommend this anime because the writing at the end took a turn for the worse, but I still felt like I had to mention it.
shou in stars align is another minor character, but I feel like stars align is very underrated so I wanted to mention him. he is the main character’s mom’s friend (possibly dating?) and the main character really looks up to him. there is another trans character besides shou in the series (they’re name is yuu and theyre nonbinary.) in episode 9 they talk to the main character (maki) about their identity and stuff about them questioning and maki mentions that he knows someone (shou) who is ftm. I watched this anime while it aired in 2019 and I was really shocked to hear that since it was the first time I had actually heard an anime say the words “ftm” and “non binary.”
boys run the riot is another good recommendation I have, it’s focused on a trans main character and he’s really into fashion. it’s a pretty short manga that’s only around 4 volumes?
wandering son is about a trans girl, but there is a trans guy character who she is friends with. the anime has pretty good representation, but I do want to give a warning about the manga which has the transmasc character detransition in the end which all the other characters get to transition and I feel like that was a bad way to end things. the series is really old and of I’m correct the manga is out of print and never actually finished translating which is a bit sad but you can find it online.
finally I wanna add the manga “to strip the flesh” on here. it’s only a chapter long, but it’s about this trans guy and he’s a hunter so content warning for that. (I don’t wanna write any more about it though cause of spoilers and it’s really short) if I’m correct the book is full of short stories, but that’s the only one in t
it I’ve read (it’s the first story)
okay thank you if you’ve read this far and I honestly don’t blame you if you didn’t get this far since I wrote a lot, if you have any questions about anything feel free to ask also sorry about any potential typos in here
For something more adult oriented, the manga Yuureitou (murder mystery/horror) also has a trans man. I can't attest to how well it's done yet because it's on my TBR list, but just wanted to throw it out there as another option
Miles morales is my headcanon bc there's no "right" way to be spider-man, you just say you are and thats the cost of entry.
I also say Camillo from Encanto, not just because he can transform-trope but because of the sarapa that he wears to cover his chest.
Raul from Wendell & Wild is canonically trans too, but of course theres a lot of "struggle" writing in it, in that the audience doesn't know that he's trans unless hes being bullied or deadnamed.
Bow from Princess of power I think is an honorable mention lol
Another user mentioned, not a lot of adults, I can't think of any off the top of my head
You got me curious. Miles in your head canon reads as Trans for you but Gwen did not? Thats very interesting. How?
@@sammireyoung I didn't mention Gwen because Gwen is not a guy that's all
@@austincde i see. You read Spider-Man as a Trans allegory in general. I think i understand. He fits many metaphors no matter whos behind the mask. Thanks for clarifying.
I can name only one trans male character in fiction off the top of my head, and it's a character who wasn't even trans or a man in the original material. Sad.
Praying for you
The main character of the 2002 anime .hack//sign is canonically trans (sort of...I'll explain). Basically Tsukasa (mc) is trapped in a video game and has amnesia. Near the end of the show when he wakes up from the coma it's revealed he's "actually a girl" (wrong!!!) But his friends are all fine with this and I remember they continue to refer to his as Tsukasa and with he/him in the English subs. I haven't watched it since I was 12 so I checked wiki and apparently the explanation for Tsukasa being trans is because his father's abuse made him dissociate from his gender... :| which sucks. However it's still very important to me. It was the first trans masc representation I remember seeing. I had a rough time at home too so I really resonated with him. He has a special place in my heart :)
Also the fact that Tsukasa gets a happy ending is really nice. I like to think that some time after the events of the show - a month or two or a year later - he learns what being trans is and is like "that's me, that's what I am!" He tells his friends and they all accept him of course.