Gender, sex, and sexuality
May. 21st, 2010 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chainsawmascaraThis is more or less an ooc/meta "how Grelle will appear to those she interacts with" and other relevant elements of gender/sex thing, since obviously icons/poses don't always get across the more physical elements of things.
Sex and Gender - the outward side
Grelle is biologically male. As well, unlike many genderqueer characters in anime/manga fandom, she doesn't try to "pass" as female. She tends to wear suits of various kinds. She's tall and lean and slim-hipped and the cut of her suit doesn't de-emphasize this. Her face, though pretty enough (opinion on the teeth aside *g*) is relatively masculine in features -- square chin, squareish jaw, masculine line of her forehead, etc. Now, she does feminize her appearance somewhat -- a woman's overcoat thrown over her suit, high heels, and light makeup (false eyelashes etc) -- but these still aren't measures taken to "pass" but ones she describes (in her interview in the character guide) of just part of making herself presentable in public (going out with no makeup is 'depressing'). Basically, when a character is looking at her physically, there is no way to "mistake" her for biologically female (unless your character doesn't have a concept of gender identity outside of a binary and is having to "pick one" based on outer trappings like wearing makeup and so on).
Likewise, if you're talking to her -- although she speaks in the feminine, in "older sister" diction ("Atashi" for herself, feminine sentence structure, and use of female-only terminology to refer to herself -- "I am an actress", "you were going to hit a lady's face, weren't you?!") her voice is obviously also that of a biological male. Grelle was voiced by Fukuyama Jun in the anime, and while he was clearly instructed to voice Grelle with a flamboyant tonal structure, he was also very clearly instructed to keep his voice in a masculine pitch. So, basically, to a character listening to her, Grelle talks like a woman but has a male voice.
Obviously, Grelle will tell you flat out that she's a lady ♥ and will bring it up more or less as often as possible because she does that. And I want to say up front that I won't be offended by however your character chooses to respond to it because obviously different characters handle gender issues in different ways. Beyond that, Grelle won't be terribly offended by however your character chooses to respond to it. She gets stuff like that enough in canon and shrugs it off with a comment and pout at most. So, a) I know the difference between IC and OOC transphobia and b) I know how she'll handle it and it's not going to get you killed or anything. *g* So don't feel uncomfortable RPing it however you feel is most IC for srs.
Sex and Gender - the inward side
Grelle identifies female. This was imo pretty clear in the manga itself as she speaks 100% in the feminine, uses female identifiers whenever she uses any, and so on. As well, in early 2008 the Kuroshitsuji character guide came out, and it included an interview (written by the mangaka) with Grelle that I believe makes it incredibly clear that Grelle is definitely transgender. Scanlations of this interview are here and here, but the gist of it is that Grelle says, among other things, that appearing as a man in public without feminine trappings depresses her because "a good woman should appreciate herself", that she uses feminine speech because "I'm a lady", that the thing she wants most (not just "right now" but "in general") is a sex change operation (and adds to that that she isn't joking), and that her biggest complaint since birth is that she was born male and that "Really, God must have made a mistake".
Reading this over, for me, was like... "Okay, there's no debate for me. Grelle's transgender and very confident of this identity; her mind is that of a woman, even to the point that she's felt out of place in a male body since birth."
Beyond this there are some really nicely coded things about her gender in how she approaches the people around her but that's something for a longer essay. NEEDLESS TO SAY one of the things I find fascinating about Grelle is that her attraction to Madam Red is quite clearly a lesbian attraction and that part of what drew her to the Madam was a similar biological 'failing' compared to a traditional feminine desire (neither of them are capable of bearing children).
ANYWAY YEAH.
Sex and Gender - The Pronoun Game
So, a lot of the fandom uses male terminology for Grelle and, as you can see, I'm obviously using female terminology.
I have written like four versions of this section and deleted all of them because I worry about saying this all the wrong way here. But the gist of what I'm trying to say is that using female terms for Grelle is something I view as important for me to do for a number of reasons. It's important to me because it feels to me the best way to pay respect to this side of her characterization. For me, it's the best way to respect the situation of transcharacters in media in general (who are so rare and are so often given incorrect identifiers in a binary gender structure which really demphasizes their existence and emphasizes the problem in general to me). It's important to me to put an emphasis on awareness of her gender on a meta level as well as an ic-level. For me, I also want very much to be aware, as I RP, that transpeople in fandom don't have a lot of characters to relate to, identity-wise, and I want to be sure that I play a part in addressing a transcharacter's gender in a relateable and respectful way. That's how I view the situation and how I want to approach it.
At the same time, I know a lot of fandom DOES use male terms, for various reasons that can range from lack of access to extra information, to different interpretations, to the fact that more or less the only way to engage with the character through other people's fanworks at the moment (fic, doujinshi, esp. in regards to pairings with characters Grelle's interested in, etc) is by looking up the yaoi side of the fandom, which is obviously a sphere that engages heavily in the masculine, and probably other reasons besides. Hell, the English translation of vol 2 itself explains Grelle's speech as common in Japan for both drag queens and male-to-female transgender individuals, and is clearly drawing attention to a difficult to translate part of her identity (as English doesn't have equivalent gendered word forms overall), but the very same note still uses male pronouns for Grelle.
Basically, I get that people have reasons and I get that people have habits, and I absolutely don't intend to start gender wank.
So basically, I'm not going to comment on or interfere with how other people choose to approach Grelle via pronouns or things like that. But I myself intend to always use female terminology, pronouns, and so on, and I wanted to mention it up front because I imagine some conversations could sound pretty weird and passive-aggressive if someone said 'he' to me and I said 'she' back, so I just wanted to make it clear up front that it's not the case -- this is just how I am rolling with the sitch.
Sexuality
Grelle is bi! If you go by the anime, Grelle's actually pansexual up to and including large dogs but there is a reason that, much as I enjoy the anime for nom nom soul nomming and so on, I am definitely playing manga Grelle for a reason. Grelle is also totally happy to hell around and gets crushes fairly easily if someone falls into her type. (As I said in the app, she likes killer chicks and bad bad boys).
Basically Grelle likes women who aren't traditionally feminine, but who manage to juggle being both sexy women and badass killers. She really isn't into "stereotypical" girls and is very dismissive of them; she considers it 'ugly' to be like that. My theory here is that being a PSYCHO KILLER and ALMOST PATHOLOGICAL RULE-BREAKER herself, she's more attracted to women she can relate to; this seems to tie into some of the popular theories on gender and homosexuality with "like" being attracted to "like" and with the whole archetyped "bisexual women are attracted to women emotionally and men physically" thing -- obv. as a lesbian myself I don't really buy that as a rule per se, but I think Grelle sort of fits the theory itself as her love for Madam Red seems to be more on a bonding to/relating to level as in [I will look up this page and link it later] page, while her attraction towards men is very much of the UNF YOU ARE SUCH A STUD AND SO DANGEROUS I LOVE THE THRILL type.
And on that note, Grelle likes men who are cold to her, mean to her, and have the sheer power level to back it up. Fighting is foreplay to Grelle -- this is the lady who headbutts Sebastian in the face hard enough to draw blood and refers to it as a "parting kiss". If you can fight her and hold your own, she'll be interested ♥. She loves the thrill, she's excited by the drama, and fighting and violence and bloodshed is sexy.
SO YEAH wooooo. Bi, but with uh. A twist.
I keep feeling like I should add to this but anything else is going into like. essay territory so I'll just end here XD
Sex and Gender - the outward side
Grelle is biologically male. As well, unlike many genderqueer characters in anime/manga fandom, she doesn't try to "pass" as female. She tends to wear suits of various kinds. She's tall and lean and slim-hipped and the cut of her suit doesn't de-emphasize this. Her face, though pretty enough (opinion on the teeth aside *g*) is relatively masculine in features -- square chin, squareish jaw, masculine line of her forehead, etc. Now, she does feminize her appearance somewhat -- a woman's overcoat thrown over her suit, high heels, and light makeup (false eyelashes etc) -- but these still aren't measures taken to "pass" but ones she describes (in her interview in the character guide) of just part of making herself presentable in public (going out with no makeup is 'depressing'). Basically, when a character is looking at her physically, there is no way to "mistake" her for biologically female (unless your character doesn't have a concept of gender identity outside of a binary and is having to "pick one" based on outer trappings like wearing makeup and so on).
Likewise, if you're talking to her -- although she speaks in the feminine, in "older sister" diction ("Atashi" for herself, feminine sentence structure, and use of female-only terminology to refer to herself -- "I am an actress", "you were going to hit a lady's face, weren't you?!") her voice is obviously also that of a biological male. Grelle was voiced by Fukuyama Jun in the anime, and while he was clearly instructed to voice Grelle with a flamboyant tonal structure, he was also very clearly instructed to keep his voice in a masculine pitch. So, basically, to a character listening to her, Grelle talks like a woman but has a male voice.
Obviously, Grelle will tell you flat out that she's a lady ♥ and will bring it up more or less as often as possible because she does that. And I want to say up front that I won't be offended by however your character chooses to respond to it because obviously different characters handle gender issues in different ways. Beyond that, Grelle won't be terribly offended by however your character chooses to respond to it. She gets stuff like that enough in canon and shrugs it off with a comment and pout at most. So, a) I know the difference between IC and OOC transphobia and b) I know how she'll handle it and it's not going to get you killed or anything. *g* So don't feel uncomfortable RPing it however you feel is most IC for srs.
Sex and Gender - the inward side
Grelle identifies female. This was imo pretty clear in the manga itself as she speaks 100% in the feminine, uses female identifiers whenever she uses any, and so on. As well, in early 2008 the Kuroshitsuji character guide came out, and it included an interview (written by the mangaka) with Grelle that I believe makes it incredibly clear that Grelle is definitely transgender. Scanlations of this interview are here and here, but the gist of it is that Grelle says, among other things, that appearing as a man in public without feminine trappings depresses her because "a good woman should appreciate herself", that she uses feminine speech because "I'm a lady", that the thing she wants most (not just "right now" but "in general") is a sex change operation (and adds to that that she isn't joking), and that her biggest complaint since birth is that she was born male and that "Really, God must have made a mistake".
Reading this over, for me, was like... "Okay, there's no debate for me. Grelle's transgender and very confident of this identity; her mind is that of a woman, even to the point that she's felt out of place in a male body since birth."
Beyond this there are some really nicely coded things about her gender in how she approaches the people around her but that's something for a longer essay. NEEDLESS TO SAY one of the things I find fascinating about Grelle is that her attraction to Madam Red is quite clearly a lesbian attraction and that part of what drew her to the Madam was a similar biological 'failing' compared to a traditional feminine desire (neither of them are capable of bearing children).
ANYWAY YEAH.
Sex and Gender - The Pronoun Game
So, a lot of the fandom uses male terminology for Grelle and, as you can see, I'm obviously using female terminology.
I have written like four versions of this section and deleted all of them because I worry about saying this all the wrong way here. But the gist of what I'm trying to say is that using female terms for Grelle is something I view as important for me to do for a number of reasons. It's important to me because it feels to me the best way to pay respect to this side of her characterization. For me, it's the best way to respect the situation of transcharacters in media in general (who are so rare and are so often given incorrect identifiers in a binary gender structure which really demphasizes their existence and emphasizes the problem in general to me). It's important to me to put an emphasis on awareness of her gender on a meta level as well as an ic-level. For me, I also want very much to be aware, as I RP, that transpeople in fandom don't have a lot of characters to relate to, identity-wise, and I want to be sure that I play a part in addressing a transcharacter's gender in a relateable and respectful way. That's how I view the situation and how I want to approach it.
At the same time, I know a lot of fandom DOES use male terms, for various reasons that can range from lack of access to extra information, to different interpretations, to the fact that more or less the only way to engage with the character through other people's fanworks at the moment (fic, doujinshi, esp. in regards to pairings with characters Grelle's interested in, etc) is by looking up the yaoi side of the fandom, which is obviously a sphere that engages heavily in the masculine, and probably other reasons besides. Hell, the English translation of vol 2 itself explains Grelle's speech as common in Japan for both drag queens and male-to-female transgender individuals, and is clearly drawing attention to a difficult to translate part of her identity (as English doesn't have equivalent gendered word forms overall), but the very same note still uses male pronouns for Grelle.
Basically, I get that people have reasons and I get that people have habits, and I absolutely don't intend to start gender wank.
So basically, I'm not going to comment on or interfere with how other people choose to approach Grelle via pronouns or things like that. But I myself intend to always use female terminology, pronouns, and so on, and I wanted to mention it up front because I imagine some conversations could sound pretty weird and passive-aggressive if someone said 'he' to me and I said 'she' back, so I just wanted to make it clear up front that it's not the case -- this is just how I am rolling with the sitch.
Sexuality
Grelle is bi! If you go by the anime, Grelle's actually pansexual up to and including large dogs but there is a reason that, much as I enjoy the anime for nom nom soul nomming and so on, I am definitely playing manga Grelle for a reason. Grelle is also totally happy to hell around and gets crushes fairly easily if someone falls into her type. (As I said in the app, she likes killer chicks and bad bad boys).
Basically Grelle likes women who aren't traditionally feminine, but who manage to juggle being both sexy women and badass killers. She really isn't into "stereotypical" girls and is very dismissive of them; she considers it 'ugly' to be like that. My theory here is that being a PSYCHO KILLER and ALMOST PATHOLOGICAL RULE-BREAKER herself, she's more attracted to women she can relate to; this seems to tie into some of the popular theories on gender and homosexuality with "like" being attracted to "like" and with the whole archetyped "bisexual women are attracted to women emotionally and men physically" thing -- obv. as a lesbian myself I don't really buy that as a rule per se, but I think Grelle sort of fits the theory itself as her love for Madam Red seems to be more on a bonding to/relating to level as in [I will look up this page and link it later] page, while her attraction towards men is very much of the UNF YOU ARE SUCH A STUD AND SO DANGEROUS I LOVE THE THRILL type.
And on that note, Grelle likes men who are cold to her, mean to her, and have the sheer power level to back it up. Fighting is foreplay to Grelle -- this is the lady who headbutts Sebastian in the face hard enough to draw blood and refers to it as a "parting kiss". If you can fight her and hold your own, she'll be interested ♥. She loves the thrill, she's excited by the drama, and fighting and violence and bloodshed is sexy.
SO YEAH wooooo. Bi, but with uh. A twist.
I keep feeling like I should add to this but anything else is going into like. essay territory so I'll just end here XD
no subject
Date: 2010-05-22 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-24 01:56 am (UTC)