Anyone else notice a highly irregular amount of anime in trans communities?

submitted by [deleted] from self.GenderCritical

I feel like somehow anime, furry (porn) and shit like that are extremely closely related to transgenderism, in the sense that these are usually shared interests among trans communities, but I can't actually prove it. Because of this, it seems to me like the whole transgender craze is just a fetish for a lot of TIMs on the internet. Are there any studies about this phenomenon? Am I the only one who sees this? Is it just my autism seeking patterns and trying to affirm my observations? Please let me know.

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[–]MarkTwainiac 49 insightful - 1 fun49 insightful - 0 fun50 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Yes, others have noticed.

An article about the links between anime and trans, especially amongst young males, was published on Medium in 2017. In November 2018 sexologist and expert on male transsexualism Ray Blanchard brought attention to it on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/blanchardphd/status/1060881360158646273?lang=en

The TRA Twitter mob and woke media slammed the idea of a trans-anime connection, and decried Blanchard as a transphobe for bringing attention to it. This to my mind gives the connection between anime and trans even more credence, as it seems the young male TRAs doth protest too much:

https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/doctor-anime-makes-people-trans/

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/transphobic-doctor-twitter-anime-makes-people-trans/

Of course, Medium removed the article, and banned the author. But it can be found here:

https://outline.com/G2HZdZ

And here: https://blogs.feministwiki.org/socjuswiz/2019/10/20/masculinity-anime-and-gender-dysphoria/

Thread on r/asktransgender titled "What is it with trans people and anime?" from 2016:

https://www.reddit.com/r/asktransgender/comments/68tnwf/what_is_it_with_trans_people_and_anime/

4th wave now thread about anime and trans teen craze from 2017:

https://4thwavenow.com/2017/01/09/anime-culture-teen-trans-trending/

Women's Voices Twitter thread from 2019 about anime, AGP and trans craze:

https://threader.app/thread/1194679074297241600

[–]Skipdip 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Ah you are always killing it with the links to stuff! I’m so glad your on here lol. Thanks for being such a strong advocate

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You're welcome. Thank you for the kind words and the pat on the back. Glad to be of service.

[–]MadLass 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I feel like your the Patron Saint of GC. Anytime I see a well put together comment I scroll back up and go oh yup its /u/MarkTwainiac!

[–]MarkTwainiac 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You are so kind, MadLass. As someone still in recovery from growing up Catholic and attending a convent school in my formative years, I am particularly flattered to be called a "patron saint." As a young child, a book called "Lives of the Saints" full of grisly stories was one of the things I was forced to study religiously until I knew all the details of each saint's biography, faith and suffering by heart.

So thanks for the kind words - you've cheered me up enormously.

[–][deleted] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thank you for linking me that post on feministwiki.org, it really gives a good possible explanation to the how.

[–]MarkTwainiac 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You're welcome. Glad the link was of interest and use to you.

[–]NeedMoreCoffee 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think most people think too much about it.

Anime are just japanese cartoons. But it's a huge industry so there is a big catalogue of genres and series. A large group is made for teens, like superhero stuff and then there is a lot that cater to more adult or mature audience and then there is the weird part with porn and harems and creepy shit.

A lot of anime or manga (comics) actually have a lot of character and story building even up to details like birthdates , bloodtypes, size, ... So it's kind of easy to get fond of certain characters.

Now que the TRA's... a bunch of narcissists that are not to happy with reality. Anime is animated, so it's easier to pretend for them that they are in that world or its easy for them to relate to anime characters that are cool. A lot of them also seem to go for the teen animes that have more vapid characters and story lines because again, not realistic at all.

It is just so sad because it makes people think anime is weird and fucked up shit when there are so many amazing story lines that touch on very dark subject or very personal ones and really make you think about life. Or the ones that are just 100% wholesome and sweet or romantic.

[–]Oof_Too_Humid 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Wow! That was quite an in-depth answer. Thanks for spending the time to put that together.

[–]AugustiJade 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Wow! Ask of this was actually quite an interesting read. Thank you for the links!

[–]Greykittymomma 20 insightful - 2 fun20 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I notice it constantly. I actually like some anime myself and got into it with some guy with a Sailor Neptune avatar. I got blocked after telling him Sailor Uranus isn't trans and to quit making stuff up.

The funny part is this happens over and over for me, always with some DUDE trying to tell me about being a woman. OK I have over 30 years of experience but tansplain it anyhow.

Yesterday I got banned from another trans meme group because I was fighting with men about butterflies. Who is so sensitive they must ban everyone? Maybe someone who knows they are wrong and hates the truth?

Something about the fantasy of being a girl draws them into anime but really it's just refusing to accept reality. Girls don't have dicks and if they do we call them something else, (transwomen or worse depending who you ask.)

The best part though is they are getting that perfect echo chamber going where their dicks ARE vaginas, their cavemen brows are SO feminine and any lesbian that doesn't fuck them is a TRANSPHOBE. Gotta admire that level of dedication to complete nonsense. You aren't a magical girl, you are an asshole.

[–][deleted] 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I 100% agree with you. They really don't like to have their ideas challenged and just cast it away as "transphobia". I'm unable to understand how these people can support ideologies with logic that would make a supercomputer explode. I'm not a woman so I can't exactly relate to the damage being done to women only spaces and sports, although I completely support you guys on those issues. Women's spaces are for females only.

To me it's a lot more about the fact that apparently these dudes have the feeling they're a "woman", even though they've never been one. How does that work? The words to describe the two sexes have no meaning according to these people, yet anyone can tell a male from a female. It's all so contradictory and homophobic, it's unreal. In the case of my brother (see my previous post here), I really don't understand. He is smarter than I am (based on IQ tests) yet he fails to see the obvious logical flaws in these ideas. It's mind boggling to me. I feel like it's some kind of religious cult at this point.

Discussion is pointless with these people. Trust me, I've tried. It got me banned in many places and I don't really have any friends left IRL.

[–]Greykittymomma 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I appreciate speaking with a thoughtful person like yourself. It is a shame we are ostracized for free thinking. I didn't realize how crazy it all was until recently when I kept getting banned and blocked. It was always by men or transwomen. That's what was weird, no women or transmen (that they specified anyhow.)

You have friends here if I can speak for the group. I have not found this place to be as judgemental and block happy and I feel I can actually talk to people here. Hope that lasts!

[–]sisterinsomnia 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I began studying this whole thing because of the quarantine and then spent quite a bit of time on various trans support sites. And I spotted the same thing! Anime, in particular, is much, much more common on those sites, a large number of posters have an anime pic of a toddler-looking girl's face attached to their handle and many of the memes use anime cartoons.

I have seen no studies of this, and it could of course be the case that these interests have something to do with generational cohorts and not with being drawn towards trans. But just from my experience it seems as if anime is playing some kind of a role here. Also, I have been told, certain types of porn where women are degraded.

[–]MarkTwainiac 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yes, quite a number of prominent TIMs such as Andrea Long Chu and the Wachowskis (the guys who made the Matrix movies) have said outright that porn and "sissy porn" have made them trans, or caused them to realize they are trans.

[–]our_team_is_winning 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

said outright that porn and "sissy porn" have made them trans

You know how when you eat a certain food and it causes you pain or multiple runs to the toilet? You learn to avoid that food in the future. "Whacha doin' in there?" "Watching sissy porn. I think it's making me trans." "Maybe turn it off?"

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

But stomach pains, the runs and other symptoms of indigestion are unpleasant and distressing. By contrast, the "gender euphoria" - meaning huge throbbing erections and super-duper orgasms - that these guys get from sissy porn and imagining themselves as female are by far the most thrilling and pleasurable experiences they've ever had in their lives. Hence, they want more of it, not less.

[–]Constantine 13 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Studying this phenomenon would be politically incorrect, but it’s an obvious pattern. I’m a huge nerd just like most of these people, but despite my efforts I was never able to get into anime. It always made me uncomfortable for some reason. Now that makes sense. The over-sexualization of women, children, and LGB people is constant. I’m not surprised that impressionable minds were conditioned to go this way based on years of consuming that stuff.

Also, hello fellow aspie! Welcome to the dark side. Too many of us get caught up in this trans/non-binary nonsense.

[–]MarkTwainiac 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

This fella, who identifies as a "late-diagnosed autistic transgender woman," says that relating to a trans character in anime was the fifth of the 10 signs he was trans but didn't know it:

5) I had a lot of trouble relating to characters in books, shows, movies, and other storytelling media, and emotional connections are very rare. It turns out that I was just consuming the wrong media, because when I read a graphic novel called

Korra is a woman with an incredible ability to manipulate magical elements (a bender), and she is reincarnated from a man who was known as “The Last Airbender” (from a previous series set in the same universe). There is a big scene where she officially comes out to her parents as bisexual, introducing her girlfriend Asami, and I was so happy for her! She is powerful and confident, while also being caring and fun, and I got so excited about this story that I was stimming more excitedly than I can remember. My partner had no idea what was going on since I was rocking so much and so hard! I looked distressed, but I was just ecstatic.

I finally FELT a connection to a character in a story, and WOW, that is such a powerful feeling. At the time, I couldn’t explain why I felt such a connection; I chalked it up to relating to a coming-out story, as I had similar recent interactions when telling people about my autism or non-binary identity. Also, her skin is brown — mostly an oddity in anime — which I’m sure helped me relate. I never before had such a powerful experience with a fictional character, so I never knew the difference.

https://neuroclastic.com/2019/09/09/10-signs-i-was-transgender-but-didnt-know-it/

[–]Constantine 20 insightful - 2 fun20 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I’ve already posted elsewhere in this thread, but this just makes me so angry. Such a disproportionate number of trans-identifying people are young and on the spectrum. They get swept up in all of this and people on the Internet radicalize them.

For those who may not know, one of the hallmarks of ASD is a serious body/mind disconnect, along with accompanying motor skills issues. Pair that with social isolation and a strong tendency toward restrictive interests, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

These people are “egging” socially isolated teenagers by telling them that there is a perfectly reasonable, and curable, explanation for all of their difficulties. Here, if you just do this, everything will be fine! People won’t reject you anymore and you won’t feel like you’re stumbling around dealing with sensory overload in your clumsy body anymore!

With the boys, it becomes a porn thing to do with their restricted interest in anime. For the girls, it’s that they’ve been told all their life that the reason they’re on the spectrum is that they have an “extreme male brain,” and they feel this will solve that.

But then of course, after they go through all these painful treatments, everything’s still the same. Why? Because they’re effing autistic, that’s why. There’s no easy way out, it’s just a fact of life medical condition. But by then, they’re brainwashed and there’s also a sunk cost fallacy going on where they’ve had all these procedures and changed their names and everything. So they get super defensive about it (because they know deep down by now that this wasn’t the magical cure they were sold) and become the most insufferable TRAs on the Internet.

It just makes me so pissed off. I’m lucky I didn’t fall victim to this as a younger woman on the spectrum. Thank you for providing all these links, they’re very informative.

[–]RedditVihaaLesboja 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Btw, Korra is not trans and I don't know what the OP is going on about. In the universe of Avatar, the role of Avatar gets sort of reincarnated but they're still different people aka Korra is not a man reincarnated but a woman who happens to be the current Avatar. (Also the two series are American so technically not even anime)

(Also lol sorry for commenting about random shit but I hate when TiMs try to make female characters trans, esp same sex attracted ones)

[–]JulienMayfair 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's been observed for a long time. I think cartoon characters are appealing to them because they have no inherent biological sex. It's all surface with no depth. Anime characters also typically conform to idealized and exaggerated gender stereotypes.

[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Some links on how trans and changing sex are a huge themes in anime and manga:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Transgender/AnimeAndManga

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Transgender_in_anime_and_manga

https://poplurker.com/2019/01/09/20-most-important-transgender-manga-and-anime-characters-part-one/

https://medium.com/@crnicoyco_/what-i-think-about-this-anime-about-two-transgender-middle-school-kids-9a5ca20f7e49

[–]Overdrive 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Man this sucks because I love anime. Although a lot of the shows make my eyes roll. One of my biggest concerns with a lot of shows is this insistence on including teeny, tiny baby voiced girl characters and some of them somehow still have big tits. And the huge amount of harem series. There's big problems in creating these unrealistic images and expectations for people and a whole slew of sexual deviants that follow it. I stay away from those series because I find only discomfort in it.

[–]LesbiSilly 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree. I'm a sane anime fan and these trenders are annoying. Looking at the TV Tropes page linked above, I am having Envy Gender War flashbacks. I could argue that most of these characters are just unrealistically intersex or that some characters just like to crossdress. I get concerned with anime characters looking so young sometimes. I refuse to watch a lot of Slice of Life Highschool crap, because the characters look about 6. Ew.

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Some history of trans tropes in anime going back to the 80s and 90s:

https://www.cbr.com/80s-sci-fi-anime-dirty-pair-transgender/

https://mytranssexualdate.com/blog/2020/05/top-five-transgender-anime-characters-from-the-90s

https://www.vice.com/en_asia/article/z4kmga/what-a-90s-anime-taught-me-about-gender-fluidity

[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

As someone else astutely pointed out on a similar thread, Trans Inc. is populated by manchildren.

[–]LesbiSilly 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, I have. And as an anime fan, it hurts that not only are people using anime for weird shit. They are using weird anime for weird shit. Gives us normal fans a bad name. Funny enough, due to weird real life events, that slice of life anime is the cause. I personally always hated slice of life. So boring.

[–]MaleFriedanFan 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think maybe it is a form of "false consciousness". Anime has a lot of gender nonconforming women in positive roles that I think helps some men start to change their perspectives about women. However, without added support, it is easy for that to become, "Wow! If only I could be that anime woman -- it would be so much better than being reality man", rather than being a jumping off point about talking about gender roles and how they can cause people difficulties no matter what their birth sex.

[–]joeytundra 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yes there is a big connection. These men are being groomed and it wouldn't surprise me if there is some brainwashing going on subliminally. Think about. Why would Asian men draw mostly white characters that would appeal to white men and why are the vast majority of straight men calling themselves lesbians drawn to anime? It's because it's that way on purpose. I asked several guys why they thought men from Japan would create white anime characters and they said "Because Japanese men worship white men" I laughed because that's not what my Japanese male friends said as a matter of fact..it's the opposite. Men are weakening themselves by what they watch and then blaming feminism.

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Very interesting insight. Perhaps the nationalism, racial prejudices and imperialism that led the Japanese to try to conquer vast swathes of Asia as well as the USA in the mid-20th century didn't disappear with the WW2 generation as we'd hoped. Instead, perhaps those same forces and impulses just went underground and are being manifested in different, more subtle ways.

I'm not saying that's what I necessarily believe, but it's sure an interesting possibility to consider. After all, warrior culture that has played such a central role in Japanese culture goes way back; it didn't arise in the 20th century.

[–]Kikeniggertransfaggo 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

🤔