As a robot there's no reason for Wall-E to have an inherent gender at all, and yet he gravitates to the male lead of an old musical, using him as a template for his own behaviour. He sees masculinity from an outside perspective and decides "that's how I choose to be." I can absolutely see that as trans masc.
I mean, Wall-E is either transmasc, or a butch (could be a butch transfem). Either way, ain't no way he's cis het. Eve absolutely radiates transfem energy
The reason is to conform to the customer... I mean audience's expectations of gender norms. EVE is a "girl" so Wall-E has to be a "boy". Otherwise the forks and pitchforks come out to storm the Disney castle.
That Rodney from Robots mention gave me such an intense flashback to being a kid watching that scene thinking "i wish i could build myself like a robot" 💀
That, and always being jealous of the shapechanger characters. Which I assumed everyone was, because who wouldn't want to change their body??? :facepalm:
I feel like a lot of these points also connect to neurodivergence/ autism, but I never realized how much the trans exaperence also connected with robots! I love your video.
As the video said, there's a lot of ways robots map onto a whole buncha marginalized identities, and it's fairly obvious neurodivergence is one of the big ones. ...The rates of comorbidity between being trans and being ADHDtistic also help, to be fair.
while looking at stuff for this video, it became clear that there is also a big connection between robots and neurodivergence. i didn't really touch on that because i wasn't confident that i was informed enough to talk about that topic, and didn't want to misrepresent anyone. one of the articles i linked in the description, the first one, actually has a section specifically on that and i recommend checking it out !
@@ejoty_6128 Considering his disdain for LGBTQ+ individuals expressed in that exact video and putting a doublethink on display by describing his own oppression as a marginalized group, then putting down other marginalized groups, I'd say stay away from this video.
I think a lot of trans people could relate to Astro Boy. Astro was built to replace Dr. Tenma's deceased son, Tobio. Astro fails to demonstrate the qualities Tenma is looking for, reinforcing his feelings of loss for his son. Instead of learning to love Astro for who he is, he kicks him out (well, sells him to a circus). While Astro continues to self actualize and build a found family, Dr. Tenma becomes more bitter. Even after rejecting Astro, Tenma tries to control his life, often coming into conflict with each other.
4:42 interjecting here! Sechs from Battle Angel Alita is an excellent example of a transmasc robot, and he's really overt about it too! He was originally created to be a copy of female cyborg, but he hated being forced into that role. Gender was one of the ways that he differentiated himself from the original Alita, and he used to wear bulky armor to look more masculine until a mechanic was nice enough to give him a masculine body. After that point, he completely ditched the bulky armor and showed off his new body at every opportunity he could get! My memory is slightly fuzzy, but I think he even mentioned some emotions that sounded a bit like gender dysphoria pre-transition, and gender euphoria post-transition. But the visual storytelling of seeing him strip half naked and flex his new muscles pulled a lot of the weight for that trans narrative! Being trans isn't his only character trait though! He's a state of the art machine, an incredible martial artist, and a surprisingly goofy person once you get to know him! He can be a very... enthusiastic individual, so he's always a pleasure to watch whenever he comes up! (And he does have quite the character arc, but I don't want to spoil all of it!) All in all, he's a really cool character! You should look up some art of him if you haven't already! You can search for "Sechs Fizziroy Body," he's the one-eyed doofus with the number 6 on his forehead!
"Queer relationships a lot of the time don't conform to that structure. Like, me and my wife can't figure out who the dog is gonna be!" This line absolutely fuckin killed me. Good video
@@Megapixel8063 I dunno, as a trans man, Mettaton definitely felt more cis than trans masc, even when he was obviously meant to be coded as transitioning from ghost to robot. His androgynous experience is more "cis rockstar man rebelling against socially-enforced trad masculinity with androgyny" than the transmasc experience I've lived and the similar stories of other trans guys and transmasc NB peeps I'm friends with, at least in my view of things. If he's transmasc, then he's a very niche one. Also this is your friendly reminder that not all non-binary umbrella people are they/them, neopronouns, xenopronounts, it/its, or she/they or he/they. There's she/her and he/him enbies around too who don't think they're going to be taken seriously if they go out of the "standard pronoun sets", and genderfluid people who don't see the point in switching pronouns because they're fluid between masc and non-binary. (this was my soapbox moment, thank you for reading it if you got to this point, my best bros are a masc they/them-but-he/him-is-acceptable enby and a "it's slightly complicated" he/him-because-of-being-neopronoun-shamed trans guy so I have Words about pronouns gatekeeping gender)
Here to inform everyone that starscream is the best trans rep we've ever gotten. In the comics he changes his body every so often because instead of his spark being able to help shape a body when he was born he was put in a mass produced one. So he's trying to find a body that's right until he sees it in a mind battle thing. Another character gives him a little hologram locket of it and he spends a fair bit of time crying over what could have been while looking at it. He doesn't get a chance to reformat himself again unfortunately because the world starts ending and he has to save it.
IDW comics!! It spans over a few series but I think this part of Starscream most prominently features in The Transformers: Till All Are One Anyone feel free to correct me, it’s been a while since I’ve read them
IDW also had three explicitly trans characters in the same continuity: Arcee, who was retconned into being trans*, and Anode and Lug, who were both original characters who were created as trans. Interestingly, while Arcee looks like her classic fembot appearance from the G1 cartoon, Anode and Lug are both significantly less feminine in design: Arcee got a full-body makeover, Anode made a few minor alterations to her appearance after coming out, and Lug didn't bother changing anything. So not only did the comic have trans representation, the trans characters aren't forced into conventional standards of gender presentation. *Long story due to IDW having to address some seriously transphobic content from early in the comic's run thanks to Simon Furman hating the idea of Transformers having gender.
@@Macrochenia The early stuff with arcee was so rough. Not a big fan of simon. I do find it funny that starscream still best represents the trans experience while there are other characters in the comic that are actually trans.
Movie monsters and robots have always been a stand-in for "the other." The only thing that changes down throughout time and location is *which* "other" they stand for.
And interestingly, even the same monster can be interpreted differently by readers. Dracula was written at a time when the other was a foreigner, the vague eastern European with different culture and mannerisms, and now we see queer subtext.
Nai from Yokohoma Kaidashi Kikou is the one potential transmasc robot allegory I can think of. In a manga series where all robots are made to look indistinguishable from humans, he's the only male one that's shown, and all other robots in the story are surprised to meet him for that reason. There's dialogue between him and main character Alpha when they meet in which she says that she simply assumed all other robots were female, and he says that gets that a lot, but that he's as much a man as she is a woman. There's not any explicit discussion of gender beyond this that I can recall, but it was worth mentioning
> characters raised to be only a weapon but slowly learning how to be human? > this trope is actually about being transfem btw welcome back A2 (NieR: Automata) I knew I liked you too much
@@eliselianaboyd2547 Works of art can have multiple interpretations, it doesn't have to be one way only and it would be extremely boring if that was the case. To me, and to most, Ghost in The Shell is about trascending humanity and merging with robots (or AI), freeing yourself of the limits of being human. That, however, does not stop me from thinking that the idea of robots being a trans allegory is very interesting and quite fitting, in Ghost in the Shell too.
One of my favorite bits of trans rep and one of my fictional characters is Bot from the web series inanimate insanity. Without getting too in detail, they were made to be a robotic recreation of a deceased character, but after learning the truth they strive to become their own person. Over the next few episodes we see them slowly transition into their true self and its just great. The scene where their creator/parents sees them transitioned for the first time and instantly accepts them made me tear up ngl. Their design looks like a butterfly for crying out loud!!!
Really great video!! I feel like I'm gonna explode if I dont mention the absolute GOAT that is Mettaton from Undertale as an example for transmasc robots here lol. His backstory is a super clear allegory for transness and his relationship to his own body and his close relationships are all super interesting and well written in my opinion. Also he's hilarious and his themes go EXTREMELY hard
@@goIdy Undertale is really, really good. Easily one of the best games I've ever played, and I've been playing video games since the early 90s so it has a ton of competition. The music alone is worth the price of the game.
@@goIdyI think a really good example of dysphoria and the issues it can branch out to cause is mutski from Tokyo ghoul. While INCREDIBLY exaggerated, I feel like the way mutski thinks and feels about himself and his relationship with haise because haise simply treats him like a human is a really good way of looking at trans relationships, that feeling that just because someone has accepted you, you kinda of become their best friend, reciprocated or not, even thought it's a very basic thing. Sorry for rambling but I think they are a very good example of how relationships while trans can work sometimes.
Me and a friend were just talking about the intersection of dolls and robots in allegory representation and you drop it?? The stars alligned for sure Great vid!! There's a comic that you might like called O Human Star
The intersection of robot and doll has been something stuck in my head for a while, and had been some inspiration for some fantasy writing for having dolls as robots. I don't think I realised quite so much the allegory I was baking in, but the specific elements I have made essential defy dehumanisation and flip the gender culture. I think my interest falls a bit in the appreciation of artificiality through attempts to look human. Something putting in the effort to show they are genuine being more than something that never had to try.
maybe i dont go here but the thing with transmasc robots really caught me off guard because i dont think i've seen any good transmasc rep like ever. maybe something worth exploring
if you like manga i would highly recommend Boys Run the Riot by Keito Gaku! It's a story about a trans man written by a trans man and its super good imo
the protag in kino's journey is nonbinary transmasc!! the anime is from 2003, so even though it's really progressive in many ways it's still limited in its vocabulary and such.
Not a transmasc robot but some transmasc rep I liked was the Netflix cartoon Dead End Paranormal Park. Think I got the title right. Main character is a trans guy who runs away from home and lives at a haunted theme park that he also works at
The idea of robots as trans metaphors really clicked with me personally when I finished the game library of ruina, where the robot protagonist is exiled for having "thoughts a machine shouldn't have" and identifying herself as a human, her defending herself was a greatly written scene and honestly really helped me with coming to terms with how I identified myself.
my friends always tease me about how much i love the "ancient robot now without a purpose not knowing what to do" trope, which they always blamed on my autism but now theres this! also an an avid my life as a teenage robot fan who is trans..stop making me feel feelings ]:
Right, generally there's no transmasc robots because robots only have trans sisters(say it out loud) but to get into Sechs from Battle Angel Alita: What you need to know about Alita is that she's an amnesiac cyborg found in a dump and given a new body by a kind doctor who moonlights as a bounty hunter, and the story goes a lot of places. One of these places is a government entity making copies of Alita for her Martian Martial Arts technique that is very effective against Cyborgs and super secret and not taught. They do this by copying her skills onto brainchips, as there's two types of cyborgs in the seetings on Earth split between the floating city and the grounded city, the grounded city cyborgs have human brains but cyborg bodies, the floating city cyborgs have human bodies but their brains get taken for a quantum computer and replaced with a chip that functions as a brain. It's a big reveal in the manga. So these Alita copies are cyborgs with Cyborg Bodies and Brains and there's a bunch of them that are numbered. One of these, Number 6, Sechs, ends up becoming a member of the crew, first getting the brainchip installed into this little chibi gremlin pocket bot and then plugging that bot into a body built for him which is explicitly masculine, as if Alita went on Testosterone and got taller, and it's only this one copy of Alita that transitions, the other ones like being girls. I do recommend reading it but it is taking a while to release the third run, Mars Chronicle, which gives us details on Alita's life before she was a cyborg, which is zero time because of how she was born. Pretty solid phylosophical study of Humanity. And, you know, it only just hit me that Robots (2005) is another example of TME people claiming rep from a Transmysoginist Caricature, since the "Red Guy" robot has the whole bit in the third act of the movie where he loses his lower half, grabs the first one, it's a skirt, which makes her transition pretty quickly and the yellow robot girl excitedly goes "I have a sister?!" before we see red robot's still same face and yellow robot goes "An ugly sister" with a frowny face. The Britney cover dance bit was neat but, still, ya know. I'm also gonna shill for myself since I got an hour and a half video covering the play R.U.R. which gave the word Robot to the science fiction world, comparing it to the two blade runner movies and ending on O Human Star, which I cannot recommend enough, hence why I finish that video of mine with it. It's on my channel if you're curious.
I do really hope this comment is not written by a Landian accelerationist or a D Haraway cyborg-feminist, or a techopagan (I.E incoherent Larper). I mean, there's a common pattern among these types of people. Which is that of glorifying the Femininity, comparing transfems to sci-fi robots like those from the Animatrix, and a likely moral resentment of TMEs, specifically transmascs due to their transmisogyny (we should give up on these people alright; that's definitely how difference works). And I'm assuming you're engaging in this pattern and therefore belonging to one of these milleus. I apologize if this accusation causes some unwanted offense. I want you to understand that I've had some run-ins with these types of people and that has earned me a new trigger, and I find their philosophies to be generally disgusting, especially and especially accelerationism. Like it's not just a disgustingly reactionary philosophy but they have managed to distort and taint Deleuze and Guattari beyond repair. So now one of the first things one knows about Deleuze and co is their false association with accelerationism and his non-discipline known as Nick Land. There is a great description by a real Deleuzian about Land and the appeal of his incoherent philosophy, "Land is an eschatologist who thrives on predictions of doom and death, which is what accelerationism tends to concern itself with anyway: speculation about mass death with an unclear distinction made between its cautionary prediction and its summoning. With his cybernetic runaway teleology, hyperstition, hyper-racism [Ewwwwww] and the Dark Enlightenment, Land reminds me of a kind of Marxist I dislike, one who implicitly desires the kind of worsening of material conditions apt to hasten a presumed revolution. There's a distastefully misanthropic voyeurism in it, the analysis persistently reorients itself towards Land's cathexis in human extinction. I get why this thought is enjoyable, but it's like smoking meth: one can acknowledge it feels excellent without wanting to make a habit of it." Regardless, this video and your comment have helped clear away my confusion of the relationship between robots and transness. I can't exactly relate to much of this despite being trans myself, it's very weird. But at the same time it makes me realize the lack of substantial non-gender robots or a true non-gender world for matter. I'm starting to vision my own worldbuilding and philosophical system that is meant to get pass all power systems of humanity which includes gender, but not descending into accelerationism which ironically has once attempted to co-opt anarchism in the 90s. It won't be an easy task though.
i just want to say, as a baby trans/genderfluid/nonbiary/idk man, i always love watching your videos and knowing other people are having or had simialr expexperiences to me, i really loved watching your "wait im retro" video and hearing your story of discovery and seeing how mine parallels
thank you ! i love hearing from people with totally different perspectives, but ultimately shared experiences. when i make these videos i always try to leave enough room open so that anyone can find themselves in them to an extent. "wait am i retro now?" is my favorite video i've made so far, and while it issss my worst performing video, the responses i've gotten from it are far and away my favorite to read.
@goIdy its a shame that video is your worst preforming because thats what made me decide to become a memeber and support you, aswell as getting to see videos early as since that video ive looked forward to whatever you post next, i love video essays and talking about the trans experience so
I remember seeing a little flavour text in persona 3 reload saying that Aigis was “passing” more as human, as a trans person that really struck a chord with me and made me see Aigis as a trans allegory
This reminds me of a oddly aged well chapter of “Astro Boy”, where Astro, as a robot, was wishing he was a human, while in the same story, found about a boy who wanted to become a robot, but his father didn’t approve and didn’t allow any surgery. Mind you, the original manga pages of Astro Boy ran from *1952 to 1968*
i’m absolutely obsessed with robots in media. I love the thought of robot found family and robots that are accepted and supported by humans/non-robots, it doesn’t matter if you’re organic or not, because you’ll always be a friend. i’m also agender, so i see myself in robots that simply don’t experience gender, but i like thinking about robots who DO experience gender and their struggle with figuring out who they are and how they’d like to present themselves. wonderful video btw
the "me and my wife" joke made me laugh so so hard. great video overall i'm loving your stuff i just wanted to specifically comment on how good that bit was
I've been struggling a lot with my identity lately, I think I might be androgynous because while I physically express myself male I've never really done it for traditionally male reasons, but because Im masc people have often treated me as a chaser for being attracted to trans women but explaining how people only saw it as a fetish and something people couldn't keep long term really helped reassure me because the reason I gravitate towards trans women to begin with is because I seek something more romantic and long term and in my life I've found trans women to be some of the most empathetic and kind people in the world and I think a lot of that is because those scars build empathy. I really do admire the trans community and what it stands for, a lot of the times I feel ashamed for being masc presenting but this video did genuinely help to reassure myself so thank you so much for that
NO FUCKING WAY I’ve literally been talking about this all year. I swear to god Astro Boy make me a lifelong trans ally at the age of five. I remember the little spark lighting up in my head when I heard the story about a person made of metal like other robots, but with something different inside that made his experience human, only not in the same way as fleshy humans, and so many people hurt him and talked shit about him because they refused to believe. It just blew my mind, and when I went to school and talked to a little boy who said he was on the bad guy’s side because Astro Boy was just a robot, it blew my mind all over again. That’s literally one of the first moral decisions I can remember consciously making. It’s, like cognitive equilibrium dependent on flexibility, trust and the drive to empathize. That’s what sci-fi is all about. Man, I love robots. Especially ✨Data✨
As someone attempting to write a robotic character as an overtly trans allegory (albeit as one of my many, many scattered passion projects) this video was great to see in my recommended. Something that’s very recently fascinated me immensely on the topic of robots is robots created to hold the roles of humans that reject that, and instead of trying to be a human person try to be a robot person. I think this resonates so heavily with me because of how heavily the idea of either trans people being a deviation from some understood “base,” which I often see in robots as trans allegories as physically rebuilding their body or that trans people can exist only if they conform to the standards of society (robots as “human people”) as opposed to transness being an inherent, natural trait of some people. Small tangent over, this is not at all meant at a jab at robots building themselves bodies or becoming traditionally human, those are both still amazing tropes that I love but I wanted to share why I think I love rejecting humanity without rejecting personhood as a trope is one I love so much :)
A few other posters above have mentioned Martha Wells' Murderbot series as a great example of this theme. If you're not familiar, you really should grab a copy from your library and read it.
The OG Ghost in the Shell was a big part of my trans awakening (FtM). i already had a strong disconnect with my body as The Major did. The part where she undresses in front of Batou, as she feels her body is little more than a utilitarian vehicle, stood out to me.
the murderbot novel series is a good example of that arc of starting as a deadly weapon and, through your experiences and the bonds you make with those around you, learning to be human
Murderbot specifically stated that it didn’t want to be human. It even says that humans egotistically think that being human is what all robots want. Whereas it seems to be more interested in bodily autonomy. It is also strongly against sex related things and is worried at one point that if it had sex related parts it would be like a sex-bot and possibly be seen as more human. It does run programs to blend in with human society but it still firmly holds to the idea that is different from humans and augmented humans.
I remember seeing the scene in the Animatrix with the girl being killed on twitter when I was in class and I felt sick for rest of the day and I couldn't stop thinking about it. nothing I have seen has other than that has made me feel sick for a whole day I've seen a lot of gross, gory, and disturbing things nothing has messed me up like that. I think it's primarily because it specifically represented violence against trans people and I've probably seen other things that also represent violence towards trans people but at the time I didn't know that I was trans so it went over my head and didn't feel as strong.
yeah i censored it in my video because it actually made me sick to my stomach while editing, figured it was a little more graphic than what i wanted to show here
4:28 This scene !! I have screamed to the moon and back that this was accidentally coded as trans acceptance. 'Nano is just Nano. isn't that enough?'. When I was younger it always used to make me cry and still does. The EXTREMELY RARE time Yuuko decides to use her brain cells for once, and it's in the most casual caring way possible. Yuuko would be a trans ally.
This video immediately reminded me of bot from inanimate insanity where even before they actually came out as trans I genuinely thought they were a really good trans allegory. Bot in the beginning was made as a replica of person who passed and once they figure out they are a robot they feel very uncomfortable in their own body which is very relatable as a trans person. After becoming more comfortable in changing their appearance and obviously transitioning they get really nervous about how their parents would react to their new everything, in the end their parents accept them and love them for them and that always warms my heart. Bot is genuinely one of my favorite characters from the third season
"I was never so sure of myself until I started to be myself" wow you're really gonna drop that one on me with no fanfare huh. I'm gonna have to sit and chew on that quote.
Buddy, GLaDOS is absolutely the kind of robot I looked at and went "That's so me!" I grew up in a family that's HEAVILY sarcastic, it's our love language. I played Portal 2 and immediately related to that sarcastic woman in the ceiling (to the point i got a crush on her but I would not realize this for at least a decade afterwards). The only two songs I've ever learned all the lyrics to are Replica by Miracle of Sound (A fan song for Prey 2017 and unrelated to the discussion) and Want You Gone from Portal 2, I started voice training with her voice in mind, I'm genuinely getting a degree for physics because I love science, I quote her all the time. I even occasionally move like the damn robot because I learned how to express myself through how characters moved and acted (I'm autistic, could you tell?)
The point about relationships really stuck with me, and while you said the fetishization of robots was a subject for another video, it really reminds me of how often i'll see men saying things like "I need a trans girlfriend" or something that's oddly objectifying along those lines, and it always rubs me the wrong way, because it just screams that those men see trans girls as an object of their fantasies, especially with the specification, and it's true that trans people, trans women especially, are fetishized. And about the point about worrying about how romantic partners seeing you and how you see yourself, is something I've really struggled with, not especially with romantic relations but familial, the worry that my parents or my siblings will never see me how I feel I wanna be seen, in comparison to that dysphoria and how they might see me the same way as myself, which, in contrast, isn't a good thing. It's terrifying not knowing what people think because someone's always looking at you, and you never know what's going through their mind, as soon as you think about what others see, you almost lose trust in them too, not knowing whether they actually feel the way you hope they do. Sorry, my wording's a little messy, just those points really stood out to me, love the video!
If you haven't read The Murderbot Diaries i highly recommend them. the main character isn't actually a robot, it's a construct (robotic parts and cloned human tissue put together into a humanoid form) but it has to constantly decide between passing as a safer option or being itself and i relate to that as a non-binary person. it's also just a really fun sci-fi series
Every robot is trans, even having an assigned at build gender, either be their nature to not be any or to be in human binary, having their gender identity depends on having a sentient choice, either it is to go to their assigned one, exploring gender and how a bot could feel dysphoria is something i want to do so much in my own transformers AU, basing cybertronians as agender, characters can even despise human gender and its binary
Also, i think my identity might been built entirely by Jenny, Sari sumdac and AVA Gotta love the robot girls that go through some type of transformation
You have no idea how glad I am to see a transformers fan exploring transformers gender outside of the stereotypical binary crap holy, Its weird how all the fanfic writers in this fandom just do the same stuff it's annoying!
Fucking based. I'm not trans myself, but I often find it annoying how Transformers never does anything really groundbreaking with gender when it literally has the PERFECT concept for that; The potential to explore and discuss gender as a social concept is IMMENSE, and neither Hasbro nor the fans ever seem to do ANYTHING with it! I also plan to do this with my own Transformers project, and I'm glad to see that there are others out there that have the same/similar ideas.
With regards to Ghost in the Shell, in the original manga, the Major ends up getting her brain put into a male body (Batou took her brain after her body was destroyed and tried pacing it in a new body for her, but didn't realize the body he'd found was male). After she wakes up, she expresses gender dysphoria over it and goes to find another female body.
i grew up more with fantasy books than with scifi ones, so for me this dehumanised representation is fulfilled by the undead. though sadly they seem to get far fewer pieces of work using them for narratives the way robots get used so i very rarely get to scratch the itch of seeing something categorised as inhuman living as itself and showing that even if society can't accept it, it is still equal to the living. shoutout to Gak from the Discworld novels - that skeleton's a one-off cameo character but i enjoyed it so much i lifted it for rp campaigns (with a lot of extra stuff) and it was really helpful in feeling more at home with a fictional character than the others i was writing at the time. also for the record i dont just mean vampires, they usually get lifted above the other undead frustratingly enough. anyways undead woo! and undead women! c:
There's also good ol' Reg Shoe, for the Discworld books! Proud to be a Zombie! Undead? Yes! Unalive? No! He doesn't get many appearances, but he's around in a couple books. Some *very* heavy tones towards marginalized groups wrapped around him, too. He's fighting the good fight.
Another banger from one of the up and coming transgender essayists on TH-cam! As someone who has read Alita manga but not the second series that features Sech, that story is steeped in gender and identity with many stand out moments and evocative panels. Well worth the read imo.
Back in 2018, when my puberty began, therapist I attended back then assigned me to pottray my feelings with artwork. I drew a humanoid lady-looking robot who is shopping for spare parts she needs so desperately through Darknet. I did NOT know it was a trans allegory, but oh god, does it make sense!
As a trans woman who is incredibly Dysphoric over the fact that I can not ever get pregnant, the fact that men see women is terms of who can produce offspring seemingly solely makes it so hard for me to just feel like living, like I never got a say in what body I was born in, and never got a say in wether I can create children (hell even cis women don’t have 100% say in such thing’s either) but the fact that I feel like no one will ever love me for good because they could find a girl like me who is just cis and decide I’m not worth not making children that are “his” genetically. Yet my struggles are trivialized by bigots that I am not a “real woman” when I’m pretty sure any cis woman who found out she isn’t fertile goes through just with the added layer of my existence constantly called into question by horrible people.
You are not alone. People will put us down for things we already feel awful about, but do not be discouraged. We must persist through this life and use pain as fuel for our journey. I'm not sure if you're spiritual, but having faith in something is a great way to gain confidence and hope in life. I personally think being trans is a baptism before being reincarnated as the other gender, so we can be a perfect version of ourselves.
@@commetsftw I am also a trans woman and well said, I have a similar faith that after death we get into a dimension in which we finally can be ourselves.
14:50 OMG, this happened to me so many times. I remember sitting in church with a friend and the pastor went on about how marriage for a man should be about being respected, and for the woman about being loved. We looked at each other and whispered "but, I prefer being loved? Wtf?" etc. I sometimes wonder if that friend ever transitioned too, lol
Seeing the first bit about the animatrix, where 1 robots actions, done out of fear of being murdered, then reflected suddenly on all robots haunts me. I knew about the other part of it, with the woman robot, from the twitter debate a while back where some people were a little too overzealous on saying it *wasnt* a trans woman allegory and refused to see why it would be interpreted as such as well as the reasonings behind their refusal.
Seriously the actions of 1 marginalized person always gets reflected on all of that persons community. I hate that. Especially when in this case they simply didn't want to be murdered.
"I was never so sure of myself until I actually started to be myself." I felt that. A lot. I never thought of robots as an allegory in this way, but this is a really interesting perspective. I like a lot of your points, and the "weaponized purpose" for robots was a really interesting comparison.
TRANS ROBOT ALLEGORYS AND TRIGUN SOUNDTRACK USED AS BACKGROUND MUSIC AT 6:58????? ive never seen such a perfect video befor eomg- this feels tailored to me wtf
not exactly what you were talking about, but I can't believe you didn't bring up Bubs from Space Sweepers! She's a robot built with a masculine body and voice but is saving up for a skin graft to have a more feminine body (which she gets!) and expresses euphoria when she's called big sis by essentially her crew's adopted robot girl. I was so surprised when I watched that movie for the first time, especially having genuinely good transfem representation in a Netflix Korean movie, though I understand why it might not fit the video since she's less "robot as trans allegory" and more "robot that is trans" lol. i think hearing about squid game s2 casting a cis guy to play a trans woman got me thinking of her recently, as a Korean trans girl starving for representation
15:06 and since we're already talking about allegories and such with non-humans, I just wanna tack on a little thing: This also means being kind and empathetic to your _fellow nonhumans._ Because therianthropy is real and on the rise and we're getting attacked even by trans people, despite a lot of us (myself included) literally also being trans (how else do trans people think we're ending up in the same spaces?)
it was great work !! it shared a lot of ideas to my original train of thought and helped to find actual examples rather than just speaking in general terms. loved the inclusion of Nano from Nichijou because that was one of my favorite anime growing up, and one of the first characters i thought of when writing
amazing video. aigis is an amazing character, thank you for mentioning her. you also gave me another reason to look into animatrix. i realized this more or less one time listening to "Moonlight Rendezvous" by Beast In Black, actually listening to the lyrics and hearing "save me / come close and whisper my true name / and become all soothing rain" hit me way too hard in the feels....
THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING. All robots are trans/trans metaphors to me. I see aliens the same way. A living thing that is considered “othered” or.. literally alienated from the majority. I could go on for ages about the alien thing but it’s a lot harder to articulate because so many aliens are so different. But for machines it can be applied in relatively identical ways across various types of media and characters. One thing that is common between these groups is generalization. In media with robots, if one is violent, they all must be. Like in the example you mentioned at the start. This is common in alien media as well. Even if someone is just trying to defend themselves, they can easily become the example all others are seen as. I read stories and experiences from other trans people about how they’re stereotyped and generalized. I see how people react when a bad person turns out to be queer. I can’t help but draw conclusions between how real and fictional people/beings are treated. The blending of sci/fi creatures, real animals, and trans people has existed in my mind for a while. As a trans person, I’ve related to robot media like Wall-E and Portal, or alien movies like Nope, that unintentionally have the right stuff in them for me to draw these parallels. It’s equally upsetting and comforting. Trans people are everywhere and we will live forever 🙂❤️
Thank you for including a shout out to Nano in this video! I first watched Nichijou (despite being aware of it for a looooong time) when I came out as trans in limited theatres. Things weren't going well, but seeing Nano's struggles felt really relatable and I felt like things would be ok, cuz the people that care would have my back! Then I saw the "You want to go to school?' scene again after everything had gotten even worse because I found the "people that care" was a much smaller group than I had thought. That moment of acceptance in Nichijou, despite Hakase's discomfort, had once brought me so much hope. It eventually got me to get out and be a supportive voice for other trans people who had no one, like myself. I've helped guide a lot of baby transes in my time now... But oof, I almost didn't make it to that point. That was a fun video though! I look forward to seeing more 😊
My partner wrote her university dissertation on roughly this topic back in 2009. This and post-human scifi body-modifications in the same light. She pointed to the Matrix, Bladerunner, and Ghost in the Shell as some examples, IIRC. I just remember getting to watch a bunch of cool robot movies, that was fine by me. nyway, I gave this a like and added it to my watch later cos the topic is interesting. Ta.
Oh hey, I was just thinking recently about how cis people are able to see a robot or other non-biological sentient being on screen and recognize them as male or female despite the robot, presumably, not having the body parts that many cis people claim are necessary for those labels. If a male robot character were given a human body and it was what cis people normally describe as female, I don't think anyone would be confused if the now-human robot expressed distress about their body not matching their previously-established persona- in fact, I think most people would be justifiably upset for the character. And I'm like "oh man maybe this will be the metaphor that breaks through the barrier for someone" but then again maybe all the people who'd cry for a robot are already awesome. Anyway, nice bideo, robots are neat.
Okay, one major robot, or droid, that I think is an excellent example of this, is L3-37. She went from what typically is a masculine coded astromech droid to a fully vocal and self modifying fem-coded humanoid droid, whom has her own agency and recognized by Lando as her own bieng and self. The tragedy she faces, which now that I look in hindsight, is that she has her agency stripped from her and hard coded in to the millennium falcon as the new navicomputer, essentially like she was stripped of her ability to continue HRT with her body and forced to detrans and her autonomy stripped of her. Granted it was presented as a way to save her mind, but she no longer has the body she built for herself (her gender affirming surgery, her self modifying, her identity and affirmation and body euphoria)
I feel like the same argument could be made with monsters/ aliens/ whatever. I feel like another big part of the trans experience is feeling like a monster or not deserving of love, idk it might just be me but I’m horrified of telling people about that part of myself, because I feel like once I do I have to be perfect or that identity will be stripped from me if I do something wrong…. That or I relate more to less human characters bc I’m a furry lollll
i thought id check out your video mainly to spite some paranoid bigots on twitter and it's actually sooo good!! love trans art! love trans media! love trans media analysis! love your essay style! subscribed ~
Aigis's story hits so close, same as you we tried desperately to be this "alpha" male type of person. We became a spiteful, mean-spirited, and uncaring weapon. It took our life collapsing, a family member dating a transman, and finding not only a gf but a pseudo family with a bunch of transfem and making a discord, that our mind changes and we became happy.
13:00 IT JUST CLICKED. This is why I see myself in Ramlethal Valentine more than any other character in Guilty Gear. She was a weapon turned human bc of puppies, hamburgers, and found family. Ramram isn't canonically trans, but she's trans in my heart.
Ghost in the Shell somehow hits the same, if not more, every time I rewatch it. Especially at this point in my life. Wish I picked up more from it when I was younger tbh.
A transmasc "robot" character is Nimue Alban from David Weber's Safehold books. They are born female but after their death the wake up as a robot. As part of a plan to blend in to a artificially low tech human society they choose a male presenting form. As the books go on he decides he prefers being male.
I think Mettaton from Undertale could definitely count as a trans masc allegory (as in he identifies as male and his story is about him experiencing the basics of the transition process. He otherwise enjoys feminine aesthetics and I think that's great!)
im not done with the video yet but i just couldnt stop myself from coming here to comment that i love trans people i love all of you guys. we'll go through everything together. stay strong fam.
as a trans and neurodivergent creature, the "being less than human" is deeply engraved into me and mostly everyone like me I've met or just observed. So like you explain, I definitely relate to robots and I think it is a very common sentiment cause like damn the Ultrakill fandom is so gay compared to other retro FPSs like it. Instead of being a big muscle man with a shotgun u r a robot running around causing problems.
Lots of great serious stuff of course, but the simple and unaddressed joke of "like me and my wife can't figure out who the dog is going to be" was so funny
...idk how you explained this feeling so well. I have ASD and ADHD too and the whole experience of being something "other" than normal or human has always been a part of my life, even before I realized I was trans. Thank you for this lol it explains so much of my affinity towards robots and the like Edit: - also! Astro from Astroboy 2003 was such a mood as a kid. Even being positive and kind and people still see you as something to be afraid of or cautious of... AAAAAAAAAAAA EDIT EDIT: WAIT METTATON WHY DID I FORGET METTATON
If you speak French, I would highly recommend reading the novel La séquence Aardtman by Saul Pandelakis, it’s a sci-fi story that puts in parallel the experience of being trans and being a robot (both main characters being trans and one of them being a robot) and dives into the theme of capitalism having huge impacts on people’s lives and bodies. I think it’s one of my favorite novel of all time !!
I've been waiting for someone to make a video on this topic! As someone who's writing a story about an explicitly trans robot and her queerplatonic partner, I resonate with this subject so much. I think a second video on how robots can be allegories for neurodivergent ppl would be amazing, as that's something i feel not many ppl realize. The experience of having people tell you that your thoughts, feelings, experiences are not real, that you're just faking it, is something I've dealt with a lot and connects me even deeper to robot characters in fiction. Anyways i should probably stop before i go on a several paragraph long rant lol. Robots are my biggest hyperfixation if you couldn't tell lol.
Metatton from ‘Undertale’ has major transmasc coding. In his case though he was originally a genderless ghost (using they/them pronouns at the time) who had a scientist craft male-coded body for him inhabit. So less FtM than NtM
@@piskyys191Ghosts appear to be standalone monster types with the ability of possession in the context of the game, so it’s very possible that ghosts “default” to they/them but may transition when they find a body they like inhabiting, which we know happened with Mettaton (he/him) and I think Mad Dummy turned Mad Mew Mew (they/them, then she/her). I think - but can’t be certain - that Deltarune has a they/them ghost strongly hinted to be a pre-robot body Mettaton as well.
A transmasc example is HUX from Dead by Daylight! A line from his lore reads "Him. Not It. He decided that first night he will never be It again. The human crew are asleep, and HUX - yes, HUX is as good a name as any." He literally chooses his own pronouns and name :)
I’m not trans but as a girl I’ve always been into big robots like transformers and gundams, heck even Samuel Hayden from Doom. I think they allow me to explore and enjoy aspects of masculinity because them not being human made it easier for me to attach myself onto them especially as a child being constantly told “boys and girls are different”
i would really really recommend watching scavengers reign, as one of the characters is a trans coded robot, and their arc centres around not accepting themself, but hoping the people they care about can accept them
This was great video, as somebody who has a robot dog fursona, I relate a lot to robots and didn't even realise that robots were also used as an analogue for asexuality until I found out that I was ace. I'm glad robots are being used to represent more people and you did great job with talking about them as trans allegory.
I love that you showed parts of Armitage III. I watched it as a teenager in the 90's. It blew me away and at the same time scared me. I still can't find words to describe it. The Anime touched something inside me, and I was out of Order for weeks. It took me anorher 25 years to figure out im trans. I watched it again for the first time in 25 Jears after my egg cracked and cried a lot.
when i was younger, i just chose a robot mascot because i thought they were cool. now over the years, the more i realised how much i shared with them, being autistic, and now being trans. guess i was fated to be the robot!
Have you ever read the comic "Judgement Day!" written by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Joe Orlando? It's not about trans people, but it IS about robots representing marginalized communities, and the last frame was so powerful/controversial that the publisher told the artist they wouldn't publish it, to which he pressed them, trying to get them to admit exactly why they couldn't (spoiler alert, they wouldn't say it outright. Shocker). Even when they tried to "compromise" by asking for the sweat to be taken off the drawing, Orlando basically told them to go fuck themselves lol. Highly recommend anyone to check it out, it's a very short read!
4:33 There's a 1999 Robin Williams film that comes to mind on the subject of transmasc robots. It's called Bicentennial Man. It's about a robot named Andrew and his journey transitioning into a human man, complete with body modifications, the struggle for independence, and fighting for his rights and legal recognition. I haven't seen it in years, but I remember it being pretty good! Maybe I should check it out again soon.
Julian Moore, one of the Thirds from Armitage III: Poly Matrix, is the only male model of the line, but looks VERY feminine and, in the original Japanese version, is voiced by a female actress, bluring the lines quite a bit. That could be an example of a transmasculine-coded robot, since the Thirds were very specifically designed to be "biologically female" to serve as incubators to increase the Martian population and Julian is a notable exception. Edit: wrote this before I saw you had clips of Armitage in the Family Unit chapter.
Man I *really* like robots
who are you?
NEW CO2GOLDY FEATURING OOMFIE!?
@@goIdy friend of the channel
enemy of the channel
robo-chaser 😍 🤖
As a robot there's no reason for Wall-E to have an inherent gender at all, and yet he gravitates to the male lead of an old musical, using him as a template for his own behaviour. He sees masculinity from an outside perspective and decides "that's how I choose to be." I can absolutely see that as trans masc.
that’s real as hell, i love that
@@goIdy wall e is so peak
feels more accurate to call that enbymasc but fair enough
I mean, Wall-E is either transmasc, or a butch (could be a butch transfem). Either way, ain't no way he's cis het.
Eve absolutely radiates transfem energy
The reason is to conform to the customer... I mean audience's expectations of gender norms. EVE is a "girl" so Wall-E has to be a "boy". Otherwise the forks and pitchforks come out to storm the Disney castle.
That Rodney from Robots mention gave me such an intense flashback to being a kid watching that scene thinking "i wish i could build myself like a robot" 💀
That, and always being jealous of the shapechanger characters. Which I assumed everyone was, because who wouldn't want to change their body??? :facepalm:
My takeaway from this vid is that Robots is about DIY HRT
And that's why there's little to no transmasc robots. Synthesing your own T is illegal, unlike E.
I don't even know how all that works tbh
@@carimeslockdownedtree2654
It's mainly due to T being categorized as a type of steroid
@@carimeslockdownedtree2654 lots of people diy
@@carimeslockdownedtree2654 yeah its a massive shame and really shouldn't be the case.
@@carimeslockdownedtree2654 considering T is a precursor to E that doesnt seem very like it would be necessary legistlation.
I feel like a lot of these points also connect to neurodivergence/ autism, but I never realized how much the trans exaperence also connected with robots! I love your video.
As the video said, there's a lot of ways robots map onto a whole buncha marginalized identities, and it's fairly obvious neurodivergence is one of the big ones.
...The rates of comorbidity between being trans and being ADHDtistic also help, to be fair.
while looking at stuff for this video, it became clear that there is also a big connection between robots and neurodivergence. i didn't really touch on that because i wasn't confident that i was informed enough to talk about that topic, and didn't want to misrepresent anyone. one of the articles i linked in the description, the first one, actually has a section specifically on that and i recommend checking it out !
davey gunface video
("robots and autism")
As someone with cripplingly severe OCD I definitely have related to the idea of being a malfunctioning machine.
@@ejoty_6128 Considering his disdain for LGBTQ+ individuals expressed in that exact video and putting a doublethink on display by describing his own oppression as a marginalized group, then putting down other marginalized groups, I'd say stay away from this video.
I think a lot of trans people could relate to Astro Boy. Astro was built to replace Dr. Tenma's deceased son, Tobio. Astro fails to demonstrate the qualities Tenma is looking for, reinforcing his feelings of loss for his son. Instead of learning to love Astro for who he is, he kicks him out (well, sells him to a circus). While Astro continues to self actualize and build a found family, Dr. Tenma becomes more bitter. Even after rejecting Astro, Tenma tries to control his life, often coming into conflict with each other.
4:42 interjecting here!
Sechs from Battle Angel Alita is an excellent example of a transmasc robot, and he's really overt about it too! He was originally created to be a copy of female cyborg, but he hated being forced into that role. Gender was one of the ways that he differentiated himself from the original Alita, and he used to wear bulky armor to look more masculine until a mechanic was nice enough to give him a masculine body. After that point, he completely ditched the bulky armor and showed off his new body at every opportunity he could get!
My memory is slightly fuzzy, but I think he even mentioned some emotions that sounded a bit like gender dysphoria pre-transition, and gender euphoria post-transition. But the visual storytelling of seeing him strip half naked and flex his new muscles pulled a lot of the weight for that trans narrative!
Being trans isn't his only character trait though! He's a state of the art machine, an incredible martial artist, and a surprisingly goofy person once you get to know him! He can be a very... enthusiastic individual, so he's always a pleasure to watch whenever he comes up! (And he does have quite the character arc, but I don't want to spoil all of it!)
All in all, he's a really cool character!
You should look up some art of him if you haven't already! You can search for "Sechs Fizziroy Body," he's the one-eyed doofus with the number 6 on his forehead!
interjecting for a moment?
Satisfactory
"Queer relationships a lot of the time don't conform to that structure. Like, me and my wife can't figure out who the dog is gonna be!"
This line absolutely fuckin killed me. Good video
LMAO that one knocked me out.
Actual relationship goals
Made me genuinely laugh
I SNORTED AND MY SINUSES HURT
I just about choked on my water and hrt when I heard this line 💀💀💀
Transmasc robots? Mettaton from Undertale, obviously. He might be the most blatantly transgender robot of all time.
soo true!!
I see them more as gender fluid/nonbinary but honestly them being transmasc works too
@@Dhampire1976 But he’s he/him though. Undertale/Deltarune’s got enough enbies as it is lol. Let the trans boys have their boy :P
@@Megapixel8063 I dunno, as a trans man, Mettaton definitely felt more cis than trans masc, even when he was obviously meant to be coded as transitioning from ghost to robot.
His androgynous experience is more "cis rockstar man rebelling against socially-enforced trad masculinity with androgyny" than the transmasc experience I've lived and the similar stories of other trans guys and transmasc NB peeps I'm friends with, at least in my view of things.
If he's transmasc, then he's a very niche one.
Also this is your friendly reminder that not all non-binary umbrella people are they/them, neopronouns, xenopronounts, it/its, or she/they or he/they. There's she/her and he/him enbies around too who don't think they're going to be taken seriously if they go out of the "standard pronoun sets", and genderfluid people who don't see the point in switching pronouns because they're fluid between masc and non-binary.
(this was my soapbox moment, thank you for reading it if you got to this point, my best bros are a masc they/them-but-he/him-is-acceptable enby and a "it's slightly complicated" he/him-because-of-being-neopronoun-shamed trans guy so I have Words about pronouns gatekeeping gender)
A Non-binary robot is an amazing joke, so I prefer to go with that.
Here to inform everyone that starscream is the best trans rep we've ever gotten.
In the comics he changes his body every so often because instead of his spark being able to help shape a body when he was born he was put in a mass produced one. So he's trying to find a body that's right until he sees it in a mind battle thing. Another character gives him a little hologram locket of it and he spends a fair bit of time crying over what could have been while looking at it. He doesn't get a chance to reformat himself again unfortunately because the world starts ending and he has to save it.
💎which Starscream is this/what continuity does this take place in?💎
@@DiamondDude-so6dz the IDW comics.
IDW comics!! It spans over a few series but I think this part of Starscream most prominently features in The Transformers: Till All Are One
Anyone feel free to correct me, it’s been a while since I’ve read them
IDW also had three explicitly trans characters in the same continuity: Arcee, who was retconned into being trans*, and Anode and Lug, who were both original characters who were created as trans.
Interestingly, while Arcee looks like her classic fembot appearance from the G1 cartoon, Anode and Lug are both significantly less feminine in design: Arcee got a full-body makeover, Anode made a few minor alterations to her appearance after coming out, and Lug didn't bother changing anything. So not only did the comic have trans representation, the trans characters aren't forced into conventional standards of gender presentation.
*Long story due to IDW having to address some seriously transphobic content from early in the comic's run thanks to Simon Furman hating the idea of Transformers having gender.
@@Macrochenia The early stuff with arcee was so rough. Not a big fan of simon.
I do find it funny that starscream still best represents the trans experience while there are other characters in the comic that are actually trans.
Movie monsters and robots have always been a stand-in for "the other." The only thing that changes down throughout time and location is *which* "other" they stand for.
And interestingly, even the same monster can be interpreted differently by readers. Dracula was written at a time when the other was a foreigner, the vague eastern European with different culture and mannerisms, and now we see queer subtext.
@@Crushanator1 *Also as exploitative nobility, someone corrupted by greed and wealth but yes many valid readings.
Nai from Yokohoma Kaidashi Kikou is the one potential transmasc robot allegory I can think of. In a manga series where all robots are made to look indistinguishable from humans, he's the only male one that's shown, and all other robots in the story are surprised to meet him for that reason. There's dialogue between him and main character Alpha when they meet in which she says that she simply assumed all other robots were female, and he says that gets that a lot, but that he's as much a man as she is a woman. There's not any explicit discussion of gender beyond this that I can recall, but it was worth mentioning
what a great catch!!
> characters raised to be only a weapon but slowly learning how to be human?
> this trope is actually about being transfem btw
welcome back A2 (NieR: Automata) I knew I liked you too much
lol I immediately commented this thinking they wouldn't put her on screen, but they sure did
so thats why this is one of my fav tropes
WELCOME BACK ANGELA LOBOTOMY CORPORATION
i could talk for hours about ghost in the shell, that movie was beautiful.
great video! really enjoyed it.
@@eliselianaboyd2547 Works of art can have multiple interpretations, it doesn't have to be one way only and it would be extremely boring if that was the case. To me, and to most, Ghost in The Shell is about trascending humanity and merging with robots (or AI), freeing yourself of the limits of being human. That, however, does not stop me from thinking that the idea of robots being a trans allegory is very interesting and quite fitting, in Ghost in the Shell too.
One of my favorite bits of trans rep and one of my fictional characters is Bot from the web series inanimate insanity. Without getting too in detail, they were made to be a robotic recreation of a deceased character, but after learning the truth they strive to become their own person. Over the next few episodes we see them slowly transition into their true self and its just great. The scene where their creator/parents sees them transitioned for the first time and instantly accepts them made me tear up ngl. Their design looks like a butterfly for crying out loud!!!
oh this is a great example!! i also love bot, they’re my fav season 3 character :]
@@Marbles-q3h Bot is my favorite II character in general :3
I love Bot so much grrr. I even have their plush :D
OSC SPOTTED ALSO YESSSSS
YESSS I KNEW ID SEE A COMMENT LIKE THIS BOT IS SO COOL
Really great video!! I feel like I'm gonna explode if I dont mention the absolute GOAT that is Mettaton from Undertale as an example for transmasc robots here lol. His backstory is a super clear allegory for transness and his relationship to his own body and his close relationships are all super interesting and well written in my opinion. Also he's hilarious and his themes go EXTREMELY hard
i have shocked a lot of people by saying that i've never played undertale lol. i've gotten a lot of replies mentioning mettaton, thats really cool !
@@goIdyWHAT ARE YOU DOING WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN HOW DO YOU EXSIST?? Jokes aside, you should its really fucking good
@@goIdy Undertale is really, really good. Easily one of the best games I've ever played, and I've been playing video games since the early 90s so it has a ton of competition. The music alone is worth the price of the game.
HOLY SHIT UR SO RIGHT ABT METTATON BEING TRANS OMG MY MIND IS BLOWN >:0000
@@goIdyI think a really good example of dysphoria and the issues it can branch out to cause is mutski from Tokyo ghoul. While INCREDIBLY exaggerated, I feel like the way mutski thinks and feels about himself and his relationship with haise because haise simply treats him like a human is a really good way of looking at trans relationships, that feeling that just because someone has accepted you, you kinda of become their best friend, reciprocated or not, even thought it's a very basic thing. Sorry for rambling but I think they are a very good example of how relationships while trans can work sometimes.
Me and a friend were just talking about the intersection of dolls and robots in allegory representation and you drop it?? The stars alligned for sure
Great vid!! There's a comic that you might like called O Human Star
The intersection of robot and doll has been something stuck in my head for a while, and had been some inspiration for some fantasy writing for having dolls as robots. I don't think I realised quite so much the allegory I was baking in, but the specific elements I have made essential defy dehumanisation and flip the gender culture.
I think my interest falls a bit in the appreciation of artificiality through attempts to look human. Something putting in the effort to show they are genuine being more than something that never had to try.
maybe i dont go here but the thing with transmasc robots really caught me off guard because i dont think i've seen any good transmasc rep like ever. maybe something worth exploring
if you like manga i would highly recommend Boys Run the Riot by Keito Gaku! It's a story about a trans man written by a trans man and its super good imo
the protag in kino's journey is nonbinary transmasc!! the anime is from 2003, so even though it's really progressive in many ways it's still limited in its vocabulary and such.
Not a transmasc robot but some transmasc rep I liked was the Netflix cartoon Dead End Paranormal Park. Think I got the title right. Main character is a trans guy who runs away from home and lives at a haunted theme park that he also works at
Metatton from Undertale is pretty accurate when you look at who he was beforehand. It's worth a wiki dive.
Mulannnnnnnn
The idea of robots as trans metaphors really clicked with me personally when I finished the game library of ruina, where the robot protagonist is exiled for having "thoughts a machine shouldn't have" and identifying herself as a human, her defending herself was a greatly written scene and honestly really helped me with coming to terms with how I identified myself.
Angela’s entire storyline in ruina is one big trans allegory, it’s great
@@boneappleyee8356 angela is peak character
this fucks so fucking hard, i love trans media analysis
my friends always tease me about how much i love the "ancient robot now without a purpose not knowing what to do" trope, which they always blamed on my autism but now theres this!
also an an avid my life as a teenage robot fan who is trans..stop making me feel feelings ]:
0:18 the nails look so good!!
Right, generally there's no transmasc robots because robots only have trans sisters(say it out loud) but to get into Sechs from Battle Angel Alita:
What you need to know about Alita is that she's an amnesiac cyborg found in a dump and given a new body by a kind doctor who moonlights as a bounty hunter, and the story goes a lot of places. One of these places is a government entity making copies of Alita for her Martian Martial Arts technique that is very effective against Cyborgs and super secret and not taught. They do this by copying her skills onto brainchips, as there's two types of cyborgs in the seetings on Earth split between the floating city and the grounded city, the grounded city cyborgs have human brains but cyborg bodies, the floating city cyborgs have human bodies but their brains get taken for a quantum computer and replaced with a chip that functions as a brain. It's a big reveal in the manga. So these Alita copies are cyborgs with Cyborg Bodies and Brains and there's a bunch of them that are numbered. One of these, Number 6, Sechs, ends up becoming a member of the crew, first getting the brainchip installed into this little chibi gremlin pocket bot and then plugging that bot into a body built for him which is explicitly masculine, as if Alita went on Testosterone and got taller, and it's only this one copy of Alita that transitions, the other ones like being girls. I do recommend reading it but it is taking a while to release the third run, Mars Chronicle, which gives us details on Alita's life before she was a cyborg, which is zero time because of how she was born. Pretty solid phylosophical study of Humanity.
And, you know, it only just hit me that Robots (2005) is another example of TME people claiming rep from a Transmysoginist Caricature, since the "Red Guy" robot has the whole bit in the third act of the movie where he loses his lower half, grabs the first one, it's a skirt, which makes her transition pretty quickly and the yellow robot girl excitedly goes "I have a sister?!" before we see red robot's still same face and yellow robot goes "An ugly sister" with a frowny face. The Britney cover dance bit was neat but, still, ya know.
I'm also gonna shill for myself since I got an hour and a half video covering the play R.U.R. which gave the word Robot to the science fiction world, comparing it to the two blade runner movies and ending on O Human Star, which I cannot recommend enough, hence why I finish that video of mine with it. It's on my channel if you're curious.
I do really hope this comment is not written by a Landian accelerationist or a D Haraway cyborg-feminist, or a techopagan (I.E incoherent Larper). I mean, there's a common pattern among these types of people. Which is that of glorifying the Femininity, comparing transfems to sci-fi robots like those from the Animatrix, and a likely moral resentment of TMEs, specifically transmascs due to their transmisogyny (we should give up on these people alright; that's definitely how difference works). And I'm assuming you're engaging in this pattern and therefore belonging to one of these milleus.
I apologize if this accusation causes some unwanted offense. I want you to understand that I've had some run-ins with these types of people and that has earned me a new trigger, and I find their philosophies to be generally disgusting, especially and especially accelerationism. Like it's not just a disgustingly reactionary philosophy but they have managed to distort and taint Deleuze and Guattari beyond repair. So now one of the first things one knows about Deleuze and co is their false association with accelerationism and his non-discipline known as Nick Land. There is a great description by a real Deleuzian about Land and the appeal of his incoherent philosophy,
"Land is an eschatologist who thrives on predictions of doom and death, which is what accelerationism tends to concern itself with anyway: speculation about mass death with an unclear distinction made between its cautionary prediction and its summoning.
With his cybernetic runaway teleology, hyperstition, hyper-racism [Ewwwwww] and the Dark Enlightenment, Land reminds me of a kind of Marxist I dislike, one who implicitly desires the kind of worsening of material conditions apt to hasten a presumed revolution. There's a distastefully misanthropic voyeurism in it, the analysis persistently reorients itself towards Land's cathexis in human extinction.
I get why this thought is enjoyable, but it's like smoking meth: one can acknowledge it feels excellent without wanting to make a habit of it."
Regardless, this video and your comment have helped clear away my confusion of the relationship between robots and transness. I can't exactly relate to much of this despite being trans myself, it's very weird. But at the same time it makes me realize the lack of substantial non-gender robots or a true non-gender world for matter. I'm starting to vision my own worldbuilding and philosophical system that is meant to get pass all power systems of humanity which includes gender, but not descending into accelerationism which ironically has once attempted to co-opt anarchism in the 90s. It won't be an easy task though.
Me looking back at my childhood, always having a fondness for Teenage Robot, Bionicle, and Ghost in the Shell:
"Yeah, I may be trans..."
i just want to say, as a baby trans/genderfluid/nonbiary/idk man, i always love watching your videos and knowing other people are having or had simialr expexperiences to me, i really loved watching your "wait im retro" video and hearing your story of discovery and seeing how mine parallels
thank you ! i love hearing from people with totally different perspectives, but ultimately shared experiences. when i make these videos i always try to leave enough room open so that anyone can find themselves in them to an extent. "wait am i retro now?" is my favorite video i've made so far, and while it issss my worst performing video, the responses i've gotten from it are far and away my favorite to read.
@goIdy its a shame that video is your worst preforming because thats what made me decide to become a memeber and support you, aswell as getting to see videos early as since that video ive looked forward to whatever you post next, i love video essays and talking about the trans experience so
@@goIdy Wait I just noticed how less views that video has why?!!! it's soo good
"...like me and my wife. we can't figure out who the dog is gonna be." had me rolling lmao
I remember seeing a little flavour text in persona 3 reload saying that Aigis was “passing” more as human, as a trans person that really struck a chord with me and made me see Aigis as a trans allegory
This reminds me of a oddly aged well chapter of “Astro Boy”,
where Astro, as a robot, was wishing he was a human, while in the same story, found about a boy who wanted to become a robot, but his father didn’t approve and didn’t allow any surgery. Mind you, the original manga pages of Astro Boy ran from *1952 to 1968*
i’m absolutely obsessed with robots in media. I love the thought of robot found family and robots that are accepted and supported by humans/non-robots, it doesn’t matter if you’re organic or not, because you’ll always be a friend. i’m also agender, so i see myself in robots that simply don’t experience gender, but i like thinking about robots who DO experience gender and their struggle with figuring out who they are and how they’d like to present themselves. wonderful video btw
the "me and my wife" joke made me laugh so so hard. great video overall i'm loving your stuff i just wanted to specifically comment on how good that bit was
I've been struggling a lot with my identity lately, I think I might be androgynous because while I physically express myself male I've never really done it for traditionally male reasons, but because Im masc people have often treated me as a chaser for being attracted to trans women but explaining how people only saw it as a fetish and something people couldn't keep long term really helped reassure me because the reason I gravitate towards trans women to begin with is because I seek something more romantic and long term and in my life I've found trans women to be some of the most empathetic and kind people in the world and I think a lot of that is because those scars build empathy. I really do admire the trans community and what it stands for, a lot of the times I feel ashamed for being masc presenting but this video did genuinely help to reassure myself so thank you so much for that
NO FUCKING WAY I’ve literally been talking about this all year. I swear to god Astro Boy make me a lifelong trans ally at the age of five. I remember the little spark lighting up in my head when I heard the story about a person made of metal like other robots, but with something different inside that made his experience human, only not in the same way as fleshy humans, and so many people hurt him and talked shit about him because they refused to believe. It just blew my mind, and when I went to school and talked to a little boy who said he was on the bad guy’s side because Astro Boy was just a robot, it blew my mind all over again. That’s literally one of the first moral decisions I can remember consciously making. It’s, like cognitive equilibrium dependent on flexibility, trust and the drive to empathize. That’s what sci-fi is all about. Man, I love robots. Especially ✨Data✨
As someone attempting to write a robotic character as an overtly trans allegory (albeit as one of my many, many scattered passion projects) this video was great to see in my recommended. Something that’s very recently fascinated me immensely on the topic of robots is robots created to hold the roles of humans that reject that, and instead of trying to be a human person try to be a robot person. I think this resonates so heavily with me because of how heavily the idea of either trans people being a deviation from some understood “base,” which I often see in robots as trans allegories as physically rebuilding their body or that trans people can exist only if they conform to the standards of society (robots as “human people”) as opposed to transness being an inherent, natural trait of some people.
Small tangent over, this is not at all meant at a jab at robots building themselves bodies or becoming traditionally human, those are both still amazing tropes that I love but I wanted to share why I think I love rejecting humanity without rejecting personhood as a trope is one I love so much :)
A few other posters above have mentioned Martha Wells' Murderbot series as a great example of this theme. If you're not familiar, you really should grab a copy from your library and read it.
The OG Ghost in the Shell was a big part of my trans awakening (FtM). i already had a strong disconnect with my body as The Major did. The part where she undresses in front of Batou, as she feels her body is little more than a utilitarian vehicle, stood out to me.
the murderbot novel series is a good example of that arc of starting as a deadly weapon and, through your experiences and the bonds you make with those around you, learning to be human
I'd argue that becoming human was not the point of Sec Unit.
Also tens of thousands of hours of entertainment serials
@@SpaceSoups Stories are meant to be interpreted.
Murderbot specifically stated that it didn’t want to be human. It even says that humans egotistically think that being human is what all robots want. Whereas it seems to be more interested in bodily autonomy. It is also strongly against sex related things and is worried at one point that if it had sex related parts it would be like a sex-bot and possibly be seen as more human. It does run programs to blend in with human society but it still firmly holds to the idea that is different from humans and augmented humans.
I remember seeing the scene in the Animatrix with the girl being killed on twitter when I was in class and I felt sick for rest of the day and I couldn't stop thinking about it. nothing I have seen has other than that has made me feel sick for a whole day I've seen a lot of gross, gory, and disturbing things nothing has messed me up like that. I think it's primarily because it specifically represented violence against trans people and I've probably seen other things that also represent violence towards trans people but at the time I didn't know that I was trans so it went over my head and didn't feel as strong.
yeah i censored it in my video because it actually made me sick to my stomach while editing, figured it was a little more graphic than what i wanted to show here
@@goIdy ngl I appreciated the blur b/c I remember how intense it felt the first time that was pointed out to me on social media
4:28 This scene !! I have screamed to the moon and back that this was accidentally coded as trans acceptance. 'Nano is just Nano. isn't that enough?'. When I was younger it always used to make me cry and still does. The EXTREMELY RARE time Yuuko decides to use her brain cells for once, and it's in the most casual caring way possible. Yuuko would be a trans ally.
This video immediately reminded me of bot from inanimate insanity where even before they actually came out as trans I genuinely thought they were a really good trans allegory. Bot in the beginning was made as a replica of person who passed and once they figure out they are a robot they feel very uncomfortable in their own body which is very relatable as a trans person. After becoming more comfortable in changing their appearance and obviously transitioning they get really nervous about how their parents would react to their new everything, in the end their parents accept them and love them for them and that always warms my heart. Bot is genuinely one of my favorite characters from the third season
"I was never so sure of myself until I started to be myself" wow you're really gonna drop that one on me with no fanfare huh. I'm gonna have to sit and chew on that quote.
Buddy, GLaDOS is absolutely the kind of robot I looked at and went "That's so me!"
I grew up in a family that's HEAVILY sarcastic, it's our love language. I played Portal 2 and immediately related to that sarcastic woman in the ceiling (to the point i got a crush on her but I would not realize this for at least a decade afterwards). The only two songs I've ever learned all the lyrics to are Replica by Miracle of Sound (A fan song for Prey 2017 and unrelated to the discussion) and Want You Gone from Portal 2, I started voice training with her voice in mind, I'm genuinely getting a degree for physics because I love science, I quote her all the time. I even occasionally move like the damn robot because I learned how to express myself through how characters moved and acted (I'm autistic, could you tell?)
The point about relationships really stuck with me, and while you said the fetishization of robots was a subject for another video, it really reminds me of how often i'll see men saying things like "I need a trans girlfriend" or something that's oddly objectifying along those lines, and it always rubs me the wrong way, because it just screams that those men see trans girls as an object of their fantasies, especially with the specification, and it's true that trans people, trans women especially, are fetishized.
And about the point about worrying about how romantic partners seeing you and how you see yourself, is something I've really struggled with, not especially with romantic relations but familial, the worry that my parents or my siblings will never see me how I feel I wanna be seen, in comparison to that dysphoria and how they might see me the same way as myself, which, in contrast, isn't a good thing. It's terrifying not knowing what people think because someone's always looking at you, and you never know what's going through their mind, as soon as you think about what others see, you almost lose trust in them too, not knowing whether they actually feel the way you hope they do.
Sorry, my wording's a little messy, just those points really stood out to me, love the video!
If you haven't read The Murderbot Diaries i highly recommend them. the main character isn't actually a robot, it's a construct (robotic parts and cloned human tissue put together into a humanoid form) but it has to constantly decide between passing as a safer option or being itself and i relate to that as a non-binary person. it's also just a really fun sci-fi series
i read your comment, was like "yeah i fw this" then saw your pfp and spit out my drink at v1 plushie jumpscare
Every robot is trans, even having an assigned at build gender, either be their nature to not be any or to be in human binary, having their gender identity depends on having a sentient choice, either it is to go to their assigned one, exploring gender and how a bot could feel dysphoria is something i want to do so much in my own transformers AU, basing cybertronians as agender, characters can even despise human gender and its binary
Also, i think my identity might been built entirely by Jenny, Sari sumdac and AVA
Gotta love the robot girls that go through some type of transformation
You have no idea how glad I am to see a transformers fan exploring transformers gender outside of the stereotypical binary crap holy, Its weird how all the fanfic writers in this fandom just do the same stuff it's annoying!
Fucking based. I'm not trans myself, but I often find it annoying how Transformers never does anything really groundbreaking with gender when it literally has the PERFECT concept for that; The potential to explore and discuss gender as a social concept is IMMENSE, and neither Hasbro nor the fans ever seem to do ANYTHING with it! I also plan to do this with my own Transformers project, and I'm glad to see that there are others out there that have the same/similar ideas.
With regards to Ghost in the Shell, in the original manga, the Major ends up getting her brain put into a male body (Batou took her brain after her body was destroyed and tried pacing it in a new body for her, but didn't realize the body he'd found was male). After she wakes up, she expresses gender dysphoria over it and goes to find another female body.
I mean, robots are so 'oppressed groups' coded that the literal word comes from an old Czech play and is derived from the word for "slave".
i grew up more with fantasy books than with scifi ones, so for me this dehumanised representation is fulfilled by the undead. though sadly they seem to get far fewer pieces of work using them for narratives the way robots get used so i very rarely get to scratch the itch of seeing something categorised as inhuman living as itself and showing that even if society can't accept it, it is still equal to the living. shoutout to Gak from the Discworld novels - that skeleton's a one-off cameo character but i enjoyed it so much i lifted it for rp campaigns (with a lot of extra stuff) and it was really helpful in feeling more at home with a fictional character than the others i was writing at the time. also for the record i dont just mean vampires, they usually get lifted above the other undead frustratingly enough. anyways undead woo! and undead women! c:
There's also good ol' Reg Shoe, for the Discworld books! Proud to be a Zombie! Undead? Yes! Unalive? No!
He doesn't get many appearances, but he's around in a couple books. Some *very* heavy tones towards marginalized groups wrapped around him, too. He's fighting the good fight.
Another banger from one of the up and coming transgender essayists on TH-cam! As someone who has read Alita manga but not the second series that features Sech, that story is steeped in gender and identity with many stand out moments and evocative panels. Well worth the read imo.
I just wanna say that the line comparint robots having value/identity/selfhood and trans people as “a glitch in the binary” is fucking genius
Back in 2018, when my puberty began, therapist I attended back then assigned me to pottray my feelings with artwork.
I drew a humanoid lady-looking robot who is shopping for spare parts she needs so desperately through Darknet.
I did NOT know it was a trans allegory, but oh god, does it make sense!
As a trans woman who is incredibly Dysphoric over the fact that I can not ever get pregnant, the fact that men see women is terms of who can produce offspring seemingly solely makes it so hard for me to just feel like living, like I never got a say in what body I was born in, and never got a say in wether I can create children (hell even cis women don’t have 100% say in such thing’s either) but the fact that I feel like no one will ever love me for good because they could find a girl like me who is just cis and decide I’m not worth not making children that are “his” genetically.
Yet my struggles are trivialized by bigots that I am not a “real woman” when I’m pretty sure any cis woman who found out she isn’t fertile goes through just with the added layer of my existence constantly called into question by horrible people.
You are not alone. People will put us down for things we already feel awful about, but do not be discouraged. We must persist through this life and use pain as fuel for our journey.
I'm not sure if you're spiritual, but having faith in something is a great way to gain confidence and hope in life. I personally think being trans is a baptism before being reincarnated as the other gender, so we can be a perfect version of ourselves.
@@commetsftw I am also a trans woman and well said, I have a similar faith that after death we get into a dimension in which we finally can be ourselves.
@@commetsftw This life is only a gate for something better.
> My wife and I can't decide who the dog is going to be
You missed the most important lesson of Undertale! Dogs can pet each other!
This is true
14:50 OMG, this happened to me so many times. I remember sitting in church with a friend and the pastor went on about how marriage for a man should be about being respected, and for the woman about being loved.
We looked at each other and whispered "but, I prefer being loved? Wtf?" etc.
I sometimes wonder if that friend ever transitioned too, lol
Seeing the first bit about the animatrix, where 1 robots actions, done out of fear of being murdered, then reflected suddenly on all robots haunts me. I knew about the other part of it, with the woman robot, from the twitter debate a while back where some people were a little too overzealous on saying it *wasnt* a trans woman allegory and refused to see why it would be interpreted as such as well as the reasonings behind their refusal.
Seriously the actions of 1 marginalized person always gets reflected on all of that persons community. I hate that. Especially when in this case they simply didn't want to be murdered.
"I was never so sure of myself until I actually started to be myself." I felt that. A lot.
I never thought of robots as an allegory in this way, but this is a really interesting perspective. I like a lot of your points, and the "weaponized purpose" for robots was a really interesting comparison.
Terminator: "John I just finished my top surgery let's go get ice cream to celebrate"
TRANS ROBOT ALLEGORYS AND TRIGUN SOUNDTRACK USED AS BACKGROUND MUSIC AT 6:58????? ive never seen such a perfect video befor eomg- this feels tailored to me wtf
not exactly what you were talking about, but I can't believe you didn't bring up Bubs from Space Sweepers! She's a robot built with a masculine body and voice but is saving up for a skin graft to have a more feminine body (which she gets!) and expresses euphoria when she's called big sis by essentially her crew's adopted robot girl. I was so surprised when I watched that movie for the first time, especially having genuinely good transfem representation in a Netflix Korean movie, though I understand why it might not fit the video since she's less "robot as trans allegory" and more "robot that is trans" lol.
i think hearing about squid game s2 casting a cis guy to play a trans woman got me thinking of her recently, as a Korean trans girl starving for representation
Im not even trans i just clicked because i like robots
Robots are awesome!
Me too
15:06 and since we're already talking about allegories and such with non-humans, I just wanna tack on a little thing: This also means being kind and empathetic to your _fellow nonhumans._ Because therianthropy is real and on the rise and we're getting attacked even by trans people, despite a lot of us (myself included) literally also being trans (how else do trans people think we're ending up in the same spaces?)
i second this as someone who's (ironically, considering the video topic) robotkin
Hi, I heard that you referenced my essay. It's cool to see it getting noticed!
it was great work !! it shared a lot of ideas to my original train of thought and helped to find actual examples rather than just speaking in general terms. loved the inclusion of Nano from Nichijou because that was one of my favorite anime growing up, and one of the first characters i thought of when writing
@@goIdy Glad it helped out! That's just my style of writing. Also, my name is pronounced with a hard G. lol.
nooooo i apologize !! i went back and forth a couple times between pronunciations lol
@goIdy Coulda asked, lol. I'm not exactly hard to reach.
@@goIdy Oh yeah, and thanks for referencing me!
amazing video. aigis is an amazing character, thank you for mentioning her. you also gave me another reason to look into animatrix. i realized this more or less one time listening to "Moonlight Rendezvous" by Beast In Black, actually listening to the lyrics and hearing "save me / come close and whisper my true name / and become all soothing rain" hit me way too hard in the feels....
Your use of “laugh” in place of pun intended gets me every time (10:44)
THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING. All robots are trans/trans metaphors to me. I see aliens the same way. A living thing that is considered “othered” or.. literally alienated from the majority. I could go on for ages about the alien thing but it’s a lot harder to articulate because so many aliens are so different. But for machines it can be applied in relatively identical ways across various types of media and characters.
One thing that is common between these groups is generalization. In media with robots, if one is violent, they all must be. Like in the example you mentioned at the start. This is common in alien media as well. Even if someone is just trying to defend themselves, they can easily become the example all others are seen as.
I read stories and experiences from other trans people about how they’re stereotyped and generalized. I see how people react when a bad person turns out to be queer. I can’t help but draw conclusions between how real and fictional people/beings are treated.
The blending of sci/fi creatures, real animals, and trans people has existed in my mind for a while. As a trans person, I’ve related to robot media like Wall-E and Portal, or alien movies like Nope, that unintentionally have the right stuff in them for me to draw these parallels. It’s equally upsetting and comforting. Trans people are everywhere and we will live forever 🙂❤️
Thank you for including a shout out to Nano in this video! I first watched Nichijou (despite being aware of it for a looooong time) when I came out as trans in limited theatres. Things weren't going well, but seeing Nano's struggles felt really relatable and I felt like things would be ok, cuz the people that care would have my back! Then I saw the "You want to go to school?' scene again after everything had gotten even worse because I found the "people that care" was a much smaller group than I had thought. That moment of acceptance in Nichijou, despite Hakase's discomfort, had once brought me so much hope. It eventually got me to get out and be a supportive voice for other trans people who had no one, like myself. I've helped guide a lot of baby transes in my time now... But oof, I almost didn't make it to that point.
That was a fun video though! I look forward to seeing more 😊
when i played elster in signalis, "omg thats so me" was EXACTLY what i thought actually :D
My partner wrote her university dissertation on roughly this topic back in 2009. This and post-human scifi body-modifications in the same light. She pointed to the Matrix, Bladerunner, and Ghost in the Shell as some examples, IIRC. I just remember getting to watch a bunch of cool robot movies, that was fine by me. nyway, I gave this a like and added it to my watch later cos the topic is interesting. Ta.
WAKE UP BABE NEW GOLDY VIDEO JUST DROPPED
I really love your channel :3
Oh hey, I was just thinking recently about how cis people are able to see a robot or other non-biological sentient being on screen and recognize them as male or female despite the robot, presumably, not having the body parts that many cis people claim are necessary for those labels. If a male robot character were given a human body and it was what cis people normally describe as female, I don't think anyone would be confused if the now-human robot expressed distress about their body not matching their previously-established persona- in fact, I think most people would be justifiably upset for the character.
And I'm like "oh man maybe this will be the metaphor that breaks through the barrier for someone" but then again maybe all the people who'd cry for a robot are already awesome. Anyway, nice bideo, robots are neat.
Okay, one major robot, or droid, that I think is an excellent example of this, is L3-37. She went from what typically is a masculine coded astromech droid to a fully vocal and self modifying fem-coded humanoid droid, whom has her own agency and recognized by Lando as her own bieng and self.
The tragedy she faces, which now that I look in hindsight, is that she has her agency stripped from her and hard coded in to the millennium falcon as the new navicomputer, essentially like she was stripped of her ability to continue HRT with her body and forced to detrans and her autonomy stripped of her.
Granted it was presented as a way to save her mind, but she no longer has the body she built for herself (her gender affirming surgery, her self modifying, her identity and affirmation and body euphoria)
I feel like the same argument could be made with monsters/ aliens/ whatever. I feel like another big part of the trans experience is feeling like a monster or not deserving of love, idk it might just be me but I’m horrified of telling people about that part of myself, because I feel like once I do I have to be perfect or that identity will be stripped from me if I do something wrong…. That or I relate more to less human characters bc I’m a furry lollll
i thought id check out your video mainly to spite some paranoid bigots on twitter and it's actually sooo good!!
love trans art! love trans media! love trans media analysis! love your essay style!
subscribed ~
Aigis's story hits so close, same as you we tried desperately to be this "alpha" male type of person. We became a spiteful, mean-spirited, and uncaring weapon. It took our life collapsing, a family member dating a transman, and finding not only a gf but a pseudo family with a bunch of transfem and making a discord, that our mind changes and we became happy.
I come from that one dumb twitter post and was really confused when I saw the title
13:00 IT JUST CLICKED. This is why I see myself in Ramlethal Valentine more than any other character in Guilty Gear. She was a weapon turned human bc of puppies, hamburgers, and found family.
Ramram isn't canonically trans, but she's trans in my heart.
Ghost in the Shell somehow hits the same, if not more, every time I rewatch it. Especially at this point in my life. Wish I picked up more from it when I was younger tbh.
2nd one is fantastic too, just less relatable to me personally, and more something I relate to things/topics and people in our world.
A transmasc "robot" character is Nimue Alban from David Weber's Safehold books. They are born female but after their death the wake up as a robot. As part of a plan to blend in to a artificially low tech human society they choose a male presenting form. As the books go on he decides he prefers being male.
I think Mettaton from Undertale could definitely count as a trans masc allegory (as in he identifies as male and his story is about him experiencing the basics of the transition process. He otherwise enjoys feminine aesthetics and I think that's great!)
im not done with the video yet but i just couldnt stop myself from coming here to comment that i love trans people i love all of you guys. we'll go through everything together. stay strong fam.
as a trans and neurodivergent creature, the "being less than human" is deeply engraved into me and mostly everyone like me I've met or just observed. So like you explain, I definitely relate to robots and I think it is a very common sentiment cause like damn the Ultrakill fandom is so gay compared to other retro FPSs like it. Instead of being a big muscle man with a shotgun u r a robot running around causing problems.
only on the 10th time youtube recommended me this video did uli decide to watch it, and it was good
Lots of great serious stuff of course, but the simple and unaddressed joke of "like me and my wife can't figure out who the dog is going to be" was so funny
"Me and my wife can't figure out who the dog is gonna be" is so fucking funny I can't believe there's no comments about it
...idk how you explained this feeling so well. I have ASD and ADHD too and the whole experience of being something "other" than normal or human has always been a part of my life, even before I realized I was trans. Thank you for this lol it explains so much of my affinity towards robots and the like
Edit: - also! Astro from Astroboy 2003 was such a mood as a kid. Even being positive and kind and people still see you as something to be afraid of or cautious of... AAAAAAAAAAAA
EDIT EDIT: WAIT METTATON WHY DID I FORGET METTATON
If you speak French, I would highly recommend reading the novel La séquence Aardtman by Saul Pandelakis, it’s a sci-fi story that puts in parallel the experience of being trans and being a robot (both main characters being trans and one of them being a robot) and dives into the theme of capitalism having huge impacts on people’s lives and bodies. I think it’s one of my favorite novel of all time !!
This is an incredible video!! I loved it so much, thank you for it!
I've been waiting for someone to make a video on this topic! As someone who's writing a story about an explicitly trans robot and her queerplatonic partner, I resonate with this subject so much. I think a second video on how robots can be allegories for neurodivergent ppl would be amazing, as that's something i feel not many ppl realize. The experience of having people tell you that your thoughts, feelings, experiences are not real, that you're just faking it, is something I've dealt with a lot and connects me even deeper to robot characters in fiction. Anyways i should probably stop before i go on a several paragraph long rant lol. Robots are my biggest hyperfixation if you couldn't tell lol.
Bloody good video. Being a human is wild and weird and wonderful and I love it. Also nice use of a Rav song in the outro
Metatton from ‘Undertale’ has major transmasc coding.
In his case though he was originally a genderless ghost (using they/them pronouns at the time) who had a scientist craft male-coded body for him inhabit.
So less FtM than NtM
But Metta wasn't really born a ghost. He had to have been assigned a gender at birth like everyone else
@@piskyys191Ghosts appear to be standalone monster types with the ability of possession in the context of the game, so it’s very possible that ghosts “default” to they/them but may transition when they find a body they like inhabiting, which we know happened with Mettaton (he/him) and I think Mad Dummy turned Mad Mew Mew (they/them, then she/her). I think - but can’t be certain - that Deltarune has a they/them ghost strongly hinted to be a pre-robot body Mettaton as well.
A transmasc example is HUX from Dead by Daylight! A line from his lore reads "Him. Not It. He decided that first night he will never be It again. The human crew are asleep, and HUX - yes, HUX is as good a name as any." He literally chooses his own pronouns and name :)
I’m not trans but as a girl I’ve always been into big robots like transformers and gundams, heck even Samuel Hayden from Doom. I think they allow me to explore and enjoy aspects of masculinity because them not being human made it easier for me to attach myself onto them especially as a child being constantly told “boys and girls are different”
i would really really recommend watching scavengers reign, as one of the characters is a trans coded robot, and their arc centres around not accepting themself, but hoping the people they care about can accept them
This was great video, as somebody who has a robot dog fursona, I relate a lot to robots and didn't even realise that robots were also used as an analogue for asexuality until I found out that I was ace. I'm glad robots are being used to represent more people and you did great job with talking about them as trans allegory.
idk why but when reading the title my brain tried rlly hard to make me believe that the title said "robots as trans allergy"
I love that you showed parts of Armitage III. I watched it as a teenager in the 90's.
It blew me away and at the same time scared me. I still can't find words to describe it. The Anime touched something inside me, and I was out of Order for weeks.
It took me anorher 25 years to figure out im trans. I watched it again for the first time in 25 Jears after my egg cracked and cried a lot.
Will Arcee be mentioned? Let's see.
Edit: she is canonically trans, as implied with her Spotlight comic.
when i was younger, i just chose a robot mascot because i thought they were cool. now over the years, the more i realised how much i shared with them, being autistic, and now being trans. guess i was fated to be the robot!
I AM USING THIS ALLEGORY AS A PRIMARY TOPIC FOR MY WEBSERIES PROJECT (in the making)
Have you ever read the comic "Judgement Day!" written by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Joe Orlando? It's not about trans people, but it IS about robots representing marginalized communities, and the last frame was so powerful/controversial that the publisher told the artist they wouldn't publish it, to which he pressed them, trying to get them to admit exactly why they couldn't (spoiler alert, they wouldn't say it outright. Shocker). Even when they tried to "compromise" by asking for the sweat to be taken off the drawing, Orlando basically told them to go fuck themselves lol. Highly recommend anyone to check it out, it's a very short read!
4:33 There's a 1999 Robin Williams film that comes to mind on the subject of transmasc robots. It's called Bicentennial Man. It's about a robot named Andrew and his journey transitioning into a human man, complete with body modifications, the struggle for independence, and fighting for his rights and legal recognition. I haven't seen it in years, but I remember it being pretty good! Maybe I should check it out again soon.
Julian Moore, one of the Thirds from Armitage III: Poly Matrix, is the only male model of the line, but looks VERY feminine and, in the original Japanese version, is voiced by a female actress, bluring the lines quite a bit. That could be an example of a transmasculine-coded robot, since the Thirds were very specifically designed to be "biologically female" to serve as incubators to increase the Martian population and Julian is a notable exception.
Edit: wrote this before I saw you had clips of Armitage in the Family Unit chapter.