Originally Posted by
jinjitsu
I think this has illustrated for me what my issue is with how representation, especially trans representation, is often handled in well-meaning "woke" works.
If a character is trans and being trans is a thing that makes their life complicated in some way, then I understand it being part of their identity; after all, the whole reason there's such attention paid to identity in the real world is that having a marginal identity makes one's life complicated, to put it comically lightly.
But if transition is simple, uncomplicated, and easy to access, and nobody in the setting views trans people as being any different from cis people, then it feels kind of weird to have it called out. Instead of the intended message of, "this character is a woman regardless of what people have thought about her in the past or want to think about her now" - which IME tends to be the desired view that real-life trans women want others to have of them - to feeling more like, "this character is basically a woman, but like... she's not totally a woman, to enough of a degree that I feel it necessary to point out that she's different from cis women."
I dunno, feels iffy to me, but I'm cis; take my views with a whole cellar of salt and ignore them if a trans person says I'm wrong.