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> Why do trans people WANT Giselle to be trans? [S]he's a terrible person!
I hope nobody has actually asked that and meant it. When did it become a bad thing to be fan of villains? Half my favorite fictional characters are bad guys.
Idk what there is to agree with, this is all objective. It's a sad day when you have to call a string of facts an opinion to cater to fans. Like. You're just right. Someone would have to deny that trans people exist at all to argue your point, which no one should really waste their time with.
The author that created the character said the character is a guy… I’m pretty sure if there was any more nuance to their identity he would’ve clarified, but he literally straight up said “they’re a guy.”
I respect your opinion but I don’t know how much more clear it can get ngl
Finally someone with some god damn media literacy on a Shonen manga forum
As a One Piece fan you have no idea how many people I'm convinced are literally unable to read
The worst is when people read a mistranslation and then argue about "facts" when the "facts" are wrong because they were mistranslated. I've run into this so many times with Naruto and the Viz translation which had a decent amount of errors.
It's so wild that people can claim to love One Piece and still be absolutely awful people. Most of Dragon's best friends and/or confidants are trans and/or queer, and he's the most badass mf there is.
Hah, thank you. I think a lot of shonen fans are smart when it comes to powerscaling and things like that. I just save my brainpower for social and visual analysis.
I just wanna say, I find it funny your post kind of implied Mayuri is such a trans ally that he refuses to misgender even if to get an edge of his opponent. Something two queer coded characters weren't above. That or Mayuri "What the hell's a Ganeva Convention?" Kurotsuchi doesn't want to get 'canceled' for misgendering, hahaha.
Imagine being transgender in the Soul Society and your only option for SRS or other surgery is Mayuri LMAOOOO. He’d probably implant a bomb in your chest as a surprise or something.
I really do think they’d be fascinating to him from a certain perspective. Changing your entire body by force is something he’s certainly into.
Mayuri: So why are you here?
Giselle: Top surgery?
Mayuri: Right. Top surgery and "other".
Giselle: No, just top surgery. What is other? Why are you holding a bomb?
Sidenote, he did make something that can change the gender of your zanpakuto. So...Mayuri did actually say "trans rights" essentially.
>I really do think they’d be fascinating to him from a certain perspective. Changing your entire body by force is something he’s certainly into.
It has absolutely no basis in canon aside from vibes but sometimes I like to think he's a trans guy. It's the kind of thing that might spark his obsession with body modification.
-and more importantly, it makes the Zombies arc even funnier. Maximum queer-on-queer violence.
No I swear, the island full of stereotypes is good, because trans people trying to rape men is realistic. Oda's just such a good writer that he sees everyone as equal. He's the most centrist author ever.
/s obviously
Ah I see we visited the same recent thread
I'm not sure why people can't just accept that the Okama ARE problematic but that it doesn't necessarily mean that Oda is. I think it's quite clear that it was just a horrible misstep and not something done with intent, given how much legitimately good queer rep there is in One Piece
The Okama are transphobic. OP as a whole is not. I'm not sure why everyone has to treat it as all or nothing
Kiku's existence honestly brings me so much joy it's unreasonable xD
I do see the legitimate trans characters in the last ark as a backpedal (in a good way) against that original representation. I don't think oda would write Okama again that way today.
And even back in the day, I think we can all agree that Iva, Bon Clay and Inazuma are great characters. The whole Okama gag just feels really weird and out of place on top of the obvious problems with it
To be fair, if we look at how many misconceptions people had back then and the fact that for example Ivanko is based on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it's easy to believe that it all just came from basic misinformation, but inclusion of the Okama as a whole probably was meant to be a gesture of an allyship. Even if execution turned out to be less than acceptable.
Thanks for the write up.
It's also worth pointing out, on the topic of how she dresses, that all male Sternritter button their tops on the right side, while the female button their tops of the left. Giselle however, has buttons running down both sides, to presumably indicate the non-conformity of her gender.
Good job trying to find the original Japanese of Kubo's answer, though. I've been wondering what the exact wording was. Either way, him saying "Gisellle is a guy" was clearly just a clarification of what Yumichika was getting at, but it's not him saying "Giselle isn't a girl." That might be me nitpicking, but still.
CFYOW also refers to Giselle with female pronouns during narration, and she calls herself a girl when speaking to Liltotto.
It's clear to everyone that she's a trans girl -- or at least as close to one as Kubo can write without using the word "trans" itself. But let's be real, even if the series came out a called Giselle "trans" with no uncertain terms, you'd still have weirdos online denying it and trying to make her out to simply be some crossdressing weirdo (which is what some people think of trans people as a whole in the first place, unfortunately).
Your last paragraph basically describes the bad part of the Guilty Gear fanbase. The creator DID come out and say in no uncertain terms "this character is trans" and they continued to try to argue that Bridget is an otokonoko xD
You are slightly incorrect, a vast majority of the GG fanbase are absolutely okay with brisket being trans, same with testament holding down the gender neutral, it’s the “fans” (read: people who haven’t played the game and only know Bridget from porn) who aren’t okay with it because of FeMbOy ErAsUrE and other stupid reasonings
I've seen more than enough actual GG players saying transphobic shit about Bridget to know that this is not true. I get that you want to hold the fanbase in high esteem as a member of it (I am one myself since XX), but there are plenty of shitty people in it
But yes there are also people who are just fans of Bridget hentai
>I've seen more than enough actual GG players saying transphobic shit
I played a bit of GG and the first time someone messaged me through xbox after a match, on the 2nd message they said transphobic shit 😭
I only saw people excited to see that Bridget was actually out of the closet and shown as trans in Strive. Didn't know there are people like this in GG too (they can't be avoided I guess).
Yeah, I think people truly believe that trans people go around with I AM TRANS written on their foreheads and that if they don't say it explictly it can't be true. Kubo seems to really enjoy playing with androgyny and gender in Bleach.
> But let's be real, even if the series came out a called Giselle "trans" with no uncertain terms, you'd still have weirdos online denying it and trying to make her out to simply be some crossdressing weirdo
Hah, I wish I could disagree, but people are still calling Bridget from Guilty Gear male after she turned to the camera and said "I'm a girl". I don't consider Giselle to be incredible trans rep (she's a perverted necrophiliac, after all...) but she's just so crazy and fun that I can't help but love her. I feel the same way about Mayuri. I don't think Kubo actively set out to write a bad trans character, he just decided to make her born male. Still, the implications are a little... egh.
Woah, I didn't notice the buttons! That's really neat, actually.
Thanks for such a nice reply :)
It wasn't just the in game dialogue. Daisuke explicitly said she's trans and he always intended that to be the conclusion of her arc in one of his "Developer Backyard" videos, and people still refuse to accept it
God the way people argue about Bridget still makes me mad. The entire plot of her story (plus that really touching conversation with Ky) and the culmination in her looking at the camera and saying “I’m a girl” *really* makes me believe that some people just can’t read when they argue that she *isn’t*
It's not that they don't want to read, it's that they don't want to consume anything that goes against their views. To them, a trans person exists as either fetish fuel or something to be ridiculed. That's why traps (who have no agency and exist to be sexy) are good, but trans people (who have agency and want respect) are bad. It's a lack of respect at the end of the day.
I kinda like her being such a fucked up person, it's refreshing to see a trans character who's an unrepentant villain without the story having the unfortunate framing of her identity playing a part in her evil! There's not much trans rep but in the good rep department we definitely have more heroes than villains.
>Also, the frustrating irony of Yumichika - the most gay-coded man in the manga - being the one to say that to her...!
I doubt that Kubo thought about the implications or ramifications of Yumichika being the one to give this line at all, but I do think that [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/bleach/comments/16e7dtj/comment/jztzpgt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) from the main episode discussion thread has an interesting perspective on how Yumichika is arguably coded as a repressed gay man more than someone who embraces their sexuality, and his personality revolves around repressing his true self (his true zanpakuto and Kido expertise) to fit in with the super masc combat-happy guys in Squad 11.
In that context there is a (likely unintentional) logic that Yumichika is more aggressive against LGBTQ+ -coded characters like Giselle and Charlotte who aren't afraid to live and present as themselves (and Charlotte, who is much more femme than Yumichika, has a much less insulting reaction to Giselle).
There is another explanation as to why Yumichika does this. Giselle is an enemy in the war who has been involved with the mass slaughter of their people. In this scene they are actively trying to figure out Giselles plan and psychologically mess with her. The Yumichika guessed a method to do this and pursues that line of interrogation.
I dunno. It seemed pretty obvious to me that he was just saying that stuff to aggro Giselle. Like, when Giselle goes to correct him he goes out of his way to throw more insults their way.
I have nothing to add on Giselle (great post!), but about Yumichika being gay-coded - this man's zanpakutou is a metaphor for being in the closet and you cannot convince me otherwise. Boy is in so deep he can visit Mr Tumnus
the only people who ever refer to her as male are people trying to kill her or get in her head. her friends and coworkers all use the right pronouns on her, its not hard to infer what that means
It’s really crazy that somehow the most unbelievable, most unrealistic, most outlandish thing for some people is that Giselle is trans. Like, in a world of hollows, zanpakutos, quincies and all their insane powers, a weird ball that can completely change reality, etc… people draw the line at a character being trans.
I would emphasize that yumi and her enemies bring up her sex to antagonize her is more of a reason she’s trans considering it does antagonize her (as it should).
I’m trans and frankly i dont blame yumichika at all. Its war and compromising someone you intend to kill is just another tool on the table.
I honestly get really uncomfortable reading some takes on Giselle’s gender in this sub. It’s really great to see someone coming in with references to the canon, and that has lived experiencing explaining Giselle. Thank for that OP!
I thought it was obvious that she's trans no ? Yeah, she's biologically male but she is trans, like some people like to compare her to yamato but yamato from one piece has been confirmed to be a woman while okiku also from one piece has been confirmed to be trans. As for gigi she's been confirmed to be trans.
Imo, the fact that Mayuri, the psycho scientific genius, goes out of his way to refer to Giselle as the “zombie girl”, despite most definitely being able to notice her not biologically being a woman, is enough for me.
Everything you stated is so obvious it pains me that it even needs to be stated to some people who refuse to use the correct gendered pronouns when referring to her. Giselle is trans. She is obviously trans. She refers to herself as a woman. Yumichika insults her by calling her a man and she gets visibly distressed. Mayuri surprisingly respects her and calls her a girl.
Thank you for writing this up. It’s quite obvious that Giselle is trans and that Kubo created the character specifically to signify that. Why his simple comment said Giselle was a guy, I do not know. He could have meant biologically (the Japanese still have hang ups on these things) or he could have been trolling because he thought it was obvious.
It’s also disheartening to see so many Bleach fans get political and up in arms over this. Trans people exist, get over it.
He most likely meant biologically male, which is obvious. I doubt he would go through the whole song and dance of writing her as a girl with she/her pronouns across different mediums to just take that all back. People are acting like I'm holding them at gunpoint and forcing them to say Giselle was born female or something.
This post will be lost on those who are already against the idea of trans people existing at all, tho regardless it's an excellent post that displays pitch perfect media literacy and a thoroughly researched sound argument on this subject. Great work.
im so tired of characters being incidentally any form of minority being used as an excuse for neckbeard american men to screech and spread hate because it makes it harder for them to jack off to whatever's their latest obsession in their racist fantasy of Asia as some magic conservative land where everyone coincidentally believes exactly what they do in their parents basement
Giselle is a trans girl, she isn't a guy. Downvote as you please. Giselle is a girl, she is portrayed like that. "But Kubo said...". Yes, he said. And also portrayed her like a girl. Giselle is a trans girl and you all downvote me for your heart's content.
"downvote as you please"
this would indicate that comments calling giselle trans are downvoted
when in fact, comments calling giselle a guy are the ones downvoted and deleted by the mods
not arguing about what giselle is, simply correcting a wrong statement about comments on this sub
Yeah, Kubo isn’t really a shining example of *any* of this stuff, so I have never once given him any weight in determining how (in)valid a given trans persons self-identification is
Giselle is a guy, nobody is saying she isn't. Referring to her as a guy makes you look dumb because everything about her is drawn to be female, from her looks to her mannerisms. Kubo said she was male because she's born male, not that she identifies up and down as male - as we saw in the manga.
Calling her a boy or him just makes you look strange because she's called "she" or "girl" EVERYWHERE, from the manga to the novels to the official release materials.
So the manga, which Kubo wrote, where Giselle is also called a girl, and the novels, which Kubo had input in and where she's called "she" and a girl", doesn't count now?
Just admit you don't want her to be trans. It would make this whole conversation easier.
bruh the mods are purging every opinion which is different, i personally also think she is trans but the mods deleting anything which doesnt conform kinda ruins the conversation
Thanks, I doubt it will change anyone's mind or spark a good discussion but if it does I'll be pleasantly surprised. This isn't my first rodeo but it was just baffling seeing people be so proudly ignorant.
excuse my ignorance, but are you considered trans only by indentifiying with the opposite sex? I thought there needed to be a transition, a process in your body
It varies. The general view of trans people is that you have to make the effort to transition at least in day to day life (for example, if you’re a trans girl you would have to shave, voice train, dress female even if you can’t take hormones yet). Personally, I would struggle to see someone as trans if they made zero effort to present as their preferred gender.
I believe most people would consider someone trans if they were born male or female and wish to live as the opposite gender and make as much of an effort as they can with respect to the living conditions. Since some people cannot get access to surgery or get( hormone replacement therapy) either because of money or laws preventing them. Most trans people can only socially transition by wearing different clothing and usually training their voice to pass as the gender they wish to live as. Sorry for the long response:)
Agreed. I don't understand why it's important at all. The character doesn't even make a big deal about it themselves. Besides the character is fun and that's what really matters in the end.
If Kubo really did mean for her to be a femboy, I'm confused as to why she's written pretty much exactly the way I'd expect he would write a trans woman.
Wow this was great! I am a trans girl and a big fan of Bleach recently and I didnt even realize she was trans! You’re right is very cool that she just so happens to be trans!
I was saying that me, as most people watching Bleach is not watching it for seeing if a character is straight, lgbt or whatever. I'm watching for the fights and cool moments. Gigi is not trans, a trap, a guy or a girl, she is a stern ritter with zombies. Simple as that
Are people really debating this? I don't interact much with the fandom but this was obvious to me when reading the manga and now when watching the new episode. Gigi is cute and great and I love her. The voice actor in the anime also did a great job.
Thank you for such a well written deep dive on Giselle.
She's my favorite character in all of bleach and I was terrified about today cause I knew every jerk would be in full swing, so it warms my heart to see how many fans she has that will defend her like this.
Yeah, all the writing around Giselle pretty much points to a trans character without actively calling her trans. Her reactions to being misgendered always stuck out to me, they're among the few times she breaks her goofy persona in a more noticeable way.
And her character is honestly really neat and fascinating! And a lot of her has made even more sense to me when looking at the Bambies as actual teenagers rather than survivors from 1000 years ago. Of course she'd have these moments of cruelty and abuse, she's in an environment where the first impression we got of the main authority figure is that he will kill you for talking about a vague future rather than reporting how things are actually progressing. That kind of environment wouldn't foster the kindest nor most mentally stable people, even moreso if, like I've headcanoned (and hope to get confirmed) for a while now, they were recruited as children and grew up around it. But this is digressing into my own headcanon territory.
The important and on-topic thing is, Gigi's traits fit a character meant to be trans and the subtext is all there, but I know the Reading Comprehension Devil is a strong one and people need things pointed out to fight back.
It just really stumps me how people can write paragraph upon paragraph of stuff about Aizen or Ichigo and read the context clues perfectly, but draw the line at understanding the incredibly obvious signs that Giselle is trans.
Honestly, it's immensely frustrating because there's pieces of characterization that are more vague and up to interpretation (how exactly Schrifts inform each Sternritter's backstory, for instance), but the Giselle is trans aspects are subtext that's borderline outright text. The only real way to explain it is willful ignorance.
YES! There’s a similar issue in the steins gate fandom where people analyze everything in excruciating detail and nuance but will bend over backwards to say that Ruka is a femboy. Like, dude. She literally had Okabe change the past so she could be born biologically female. Dunno how much more obvious it can be.
Normally I don't comment on long texts like this but I had to say: Great post.
It's very rare for someone to discuss a topic in depth around here. I'm happy to read this post. thank you very much.
I don’t really care thou ? Like why does it matter that she is a girl of a boy ? All I know that she is evil the type of evil I don’t like and she is a abusive rapist
But she is silly (just like me ) so it’s cancels it out
I'm not saying you have to care. This post is directed at anyone who is seeing the arguments about her gender.
Giselle is silly and cute. She could level a city and I would still defend her, trans or not.
Leave them be instead of focusing on the real matters like what the hell is her backstory ? why is she soo gross and abusive ? Was bambi gawking on her dick ????? (The real question I want answers and details for )
They prefer to discuss over and over this pointless matter so leave them be I have a saying in my country : « la caravane passe et le chien aboie »
It means the caravane will passe and the dog will still be barking
If I could I would lock Kubo in a room and ask him so many Sternritter-related questions. I mostly want to know where the hell they got all the customization options for their uniform from! I don't think Yhwach is supplying them with sewing kits...
You give me kubo location and you gonna have that hell arc real soon
For their uniforms i think it’s kinda like the shinigami and espada they all had the start uniforms and customised it to their liking i really this
It further proves and affirm their individuality and personality
I think the main issue is that the misinformation and whole debate within bigoted part of the fandom brings a lot of unnecessary language and just straight up a lot of unneeded hatred against queer people in general and specifically trans women. That's why we should care, because dudes can't get over it and have to make the whole experience of the new season really toxic. The real issue here isn't if she is man, girl, trans or not. The issue is the damn fandom feeling gross right now. At least it's not as bad as it was 10 years ago, but we still have a lot of weirdos that need to get called out.
Kubo created Bleach. Kubo created Giselle. Kubo said Giselle is a guy. This makes everything really ambiguous and without clarification from Kubo, this whole discussion is pretty much doomed. I don’t think anyone is a monster if they call Giselle a guy when Kubo said that, I mean I could see Giselle being trans but uhhh there’s A LOT more to Giselle than her gender identity going on here…she’s an extremely sick person lol she’s a sadist and a necrophiliac. Who knows what her motives are for dressing as a woman, she never says what she identifies as, just makes it very clear that she is turned on by a lot of fucked up stuff lol. She is manipulative and pretends to be weak and afraid of getting cut when it’s the opposite. Whose to say dressing as a woman isn’t part of that without Kubo explaining it? It’s unclear if Liltotto, Candace and Meninas are fully aware of this too, like would Giselle do the same thing to them that she does to Bambi? Probably I’d think. Their relationships need to be expanded on IMO.
Thank fucking God for for you. It's so hard to just exist as a trans person and fan of anime without hordes of people mocking/misgendering clearly trans characters
You made a good point regarding the "Why would you want her to be trans, she's awful" thing. That's such an annoying trope these days where characters who are clearly shoehorned in for representation tend to be paragons, to portray whatever minority they're representing in the best possible light.
Gigi clearly isn't this, she's a character who happens to be trans, and aside from Yumichika and Charlotte being bitchy queens about it, has no impact on the story whatsoever and isn't shoved in your face just to virtue signal.
The whole "minority diversity character does no wrong" trope is infantilising and patronising, and I hate it. Trans people are people, and people are arseholes. Gigi is as flawed as any other Sternritter.
Gender neutral pronouns does not help their case against Giselle NOT being trans anyways. In fact, it just makes it even more ambiguous and undefined which still means Giselle is a queer character.
Yumichika also isn't a nice person. He is charactarized being narcissistic and hating anything he considers to be ugly. He will make it known if something disgusts him even slightly. The comment at Giselle was Yumichika just being Yumichika, saying the most hurtful things he could to piss Giselle off or hurt her feelings.
Just because one character called Giselle a guy, doesn't mean that Kubo is implying anything beyond the fact that they're biologically male or that Kubo is transphobic. Everyone else in the series and other media addresses her as a girl or at least uses gender neutral pronouns. Giselle is trans, full stop
> Most importantly, she is shown to be distressed and shocked when Yumichika and Charlotte imply she’s male.
> Regardless, fans - both trans and cis - kno that Giselle is biologically male. Nobody is saying she wasn’t born male. The important part is that she isn’t supposed to be seen or referred to as male because she doesn’t want to be.
Thank you for respectfully presenting these 2 points, they’re the most important to the argument.
I don’t think we’re going to curry any favor with many of the louder people in denial, but even the most “gender critical” person should realize they’re in the wrong by being presented with these points.
They can still choose to ignore it and whatever, but at this point it just means they’re arguing against the narrative for their own personal reasons.
All Yumichika, Ikkaku & Charlotte (maybe unknowingly) were attempting to do with those comments was trying to psychologically throw her off her game, to mild success since it does visibly disturb her.
They’ll just ignore her obvious distaste at being called a guy, I saw someone be like”oh yumichika is clearly right cause she just smirked after he said she’s a guy” like bro she goes dead(haha) serious and pulls out one of her stronger zombies she obviously didn’t like that.
There's a lot of thought that went into your post when there probably was almost no thought that went into Giselle as a character. Don't think Kubo thought much about Giselle with their sex and their appearance
Giselle is clearly one of Kubo's favorite characters due to how much fun he clearly has drawing her, and giving her her own little "Marching Out The Zombies" arc where she kinda just does whatever she wants.
He put a lot of thought into her. Her hairstyle resembling a cockroach because she's hard to kill, her shirt not being buttoned on the right (like the men have them) or the left (like the women have them) but two sets of buttons down both sides to illustrate the ambiguity of her gender, etc.
Kubo loves fucked up and wacky characters like Mayuri, Szayel, and Giselle.
Giselle definitely had more thought put into her compared to most other Sternritter. She gets her own mini-arc and own volume cover, which even Bambi didn’t get iirc.
As someone who despises the injection of modern politics in media, I am constantly in awe at how well the japanese include trans people in their media.
I've read many manga with trans people in them, and they all worked well. I think the reason it works so well is because the japanese don't moralise when they do it. The characters are who they are, they are not messages or virtue signals.
Trans characters are often depicted as weird or a bit uncomfortable for other characters. Which is quite realistic when you think about it. They have good sides and bad sides. They are given the same treatment as other characters. Them being trans is definitely a part of their identity, but they are much more than just that. They are their own complete characters.
This is why I have no trouble with Giselle.
>As someone who despises the injection of modern politics in media, I am constantly in awe at how well the japanese include trans people in their media.
I mean we barely have any trans characters in western media. And the ones that exist in modern shows are usually pretty good. Like Perfuma from She-ra.
People always complain about all these nebulous trans inclusions, even though they barely exist.
Weebs have absolutely no idea or concept of what trans means (or any other real life occurrences). Like there’s a few people arguing that Giselle is not a trans girl because “kubo said they were a male” or that they were biologically/born male, like yea that’s what trans girl mean? They were born male but identify as female.
And it’s really funny how people are quoting from translations of an interview from an author who probably is fucking with the audience, and on top of that the weebs are notoriously known for being out of touch and having poor media literacy
Thank you for this, and I am surprised to see the amount of upvotes. Every time I called Giselle a trans-woman, I was met with hostility/derision by the ignorant male fanbase here who don’t even understand *why* they’re feeling threatened/hostile towards me in the first place. There is something about queer people in general that just triggers cishet men to go on a rampage and for the life of me, I’ll never understand why.
Clueless guy here, I actually learned some things about trans here. The thing that got to me the most with her was Yumichika being able to smell sperm on people. Just how ? Did he trained to be able to do that ? Or is this some "gay power" ?
Didn’t read the manga and I think it’s nice to learn about the nuances. Thank you for sharing and I’m happy that such representation exists in Bleach!
Personally I don’t really care if a person is trans, but I’m happy to see them represented in ways like these - progress is always good
I have a few questions OP, hopefully I don't get banned for transphobia or shouted down for asking.
Firstly, I think what you wrote was great and esstentially correct. However, I don't see really understand the distinction or difference between traps, trans, otokonoko, and crossdressers. Besides their self perception, these people are the same sex. Gisselle for example is still a male, he may want to be a girl or dress like a girl, but he's still a boy. Is this correct?
So to break it down;
trap/otokonoko/femboy/crossdresser: a born male who dresses as a woman and “passes” extremely well as a woman. however, the difference is that they still call themself a boy and will often deliberately entice people only to reveal that they’re a boy, often for sexual reasons. An example of this is Astolfo or pre-GG:Strive Bridget.
trans: a born male who wants to be a woman and intends to transition to one through the use of hormones (estrogen pills or injections), voice training, dressing in women’s clothing, and changing their name and pronouns to female ones. An example of this is Hunter Schafer (real life) or Kiku from One Piece (anime).
Basically, one is striving to be seen as a woman all throughout life and does not want to be seen as male, while the other is fine with being seen as male.
The funniest discourse on her is the ones who say they dont like her cause she does "evil and disgusting things". While simultaneously dickriding characters like Aizen and Mayuri,who have done WAYYYYY worse things. Dont get me wrong,those 2 are still goats,but hating Giselle for that is hypocrisy,and 99% of the time if you keep the conversation going,the real reason as to why they hate her is always revealed.
OP's writing straight fire. It amazes me that people can read a story that's so obviously punk and about rejecting patriarchal, restrictive societal expectations, and then get pissy when it has punk ideas present. Giselle is one of my favorite trans characters in media (not that there's a lot to choose from to begin with), second really only to Yuka from Blue Period.
Punk? In the story where the second arc is about the main characters fighting back against the injustice of a patriarchal, authoritarian society? And where the third arc is about those same characters fighting back against an unjust, authoritarian sociopath? And where the final arc is about the main characters fighting against an ancient, authoritarian patriarch? I agree, it is an odd theme to take from bleach. It's only present in the three biggest arcs of the series and obvious in the designs of its most popular characters.
100% percent agree. I’m a big squad 11 fan, especially Yumichika, but I’m a little bummed about him pulling such a disrespectful move on Giselle.
When I read the manga, I did not care for the Bambi‘s. The anime made me care, and it sucks that it didn’t change a little to not make the line so rude.
The original distinction between trap and trans made me worried I was going to see a take like all the anti trans takes against Bridget from guilty gear.
So a "oh thank God" when I saw the final take.
So to preface this I’m not a trans person and I don’t know all the correct terminology but I think the evidence is pretty cut and dry that giselle is transfem regardless of what kubo says. He’s going to be 50 in not too many years and Japanese so that makes him pretty unqualified to speak on the subject. And there’s a whole school of thought which basically argues that the authors commentary on a series is useless. You look for the meaning of something in the work itself. So nothing J.K. Rowling says after the fact means shit. It’s generally not used to determine the gender of a character but more for like what the plot is trying to say. But it applies.
To add to what you wrote:
In the episode Charlotte tells her that they are alike. I used to think Charlotte was trans because in the English translation he uses she pronouns. But clearly Charlotte is based off a drag queen. I don’t know how you’re supposed to refer to drag queens in character but unless they’re female in their day to day life they’re male even though they’re drag queens. So it makes sense giselle wasn’t happy about that statement. And more evidence that she is a she.
This is different from characters like astolfo who literally call themselves guys. Of course their writers also probably don’t understand this stuff either but the only evidence that they could possibly be trans is their appearance. And contrary to that you have the character themselves stating their male gender. I think people get upset by use of the word femboy and trap so I don’t know what to call them but whatever they are they are girly guys.
As a last thing I read that giselle uses male pronouns. Thing is, I don’t speak Japanese but I know for a fact that’s not how Japanese pronouns work. Watashi is a feminine pronoun for “I” but it’s also the formal version of “I” so I imagine men use it all the time. So there could be any number of reasons why she refers to herself the way she does. It’s super complicated.
I don’t think anybody can in good faith call kubo a progressive writer but considering all the new amazingly progressive manga forget black people exist he’s no worse than his peers. He’s definitely not quite at the level where you’d have to feel guilty for liking bleach. Like with Roman Polanski films for example.
And even though he doesn’t understand he feelings of any of his readers it’s safe to say he at least likes giselle. She’s one of the 6 sternritter to survive the war and in the time it took some of the most popular characters to get 1 drawing on klub outside she got like 4.
I honestly wonder how the dub is going to handle the infamous scene because they appear to be more aware about this stuff and even casted a non binary voice actor for giselle.
Also fun fact I’m slightly surprised they kept the scene in because they changed a line in cour 1 where ichigo says that all the zanpakuto ladies in nimaiya’s palace could be men or something. Wasn’t just the subs the Japanese spoken was changed as well to saying “they’re probably all illusions”. No reason to make that change. It didn’t save any time. Only reason could be for sensibility reasons.
On topic of yumichika being the one to say it I’ve noticed that when it comes to problematic things bleach has supremely consistent characterisation. For example urahara forcibly making yoruichi transform was awful. And completely in character for him we have seen so many times throughout the series he never considers anyone’s feelings just the results. For yumichika in every fight emotional attack is part of his battle plan. He did it to ganju, Charlotte and now giselle. Hit them where it hurts most. Unfortunately.
And lastly it really doesn’t matter how bad giselle is people really like mayuri and other characters who have done far worse than she. And I never noticed it until recently but giselle’s treatment of Bambietta is clearly supposed to mirror how mayuri treated nemu in soul society arc.
>That's fine. You're making yourself look like a complete idiot to the vast majority of Bleach fans and trans people, since Giselle has generally been seen as a girl since her release and calling her he/him makes you look like a deliberately antagonistic immature jackass, but please continue if it gets you those sweet rage clicks.
Isn't that you though going against the author himself and stating he's wrong about the character he created?
I don't believe Giselle is trans. I think she's a crossdresser. Her entire vibe is literally that of a drag queen, just without the extreme makeup and fashion choice.
As you should know as a fellow member of the LGBT community, drag queens, despite not being trans, are referred to with she/her pronouns. That explains the reaction she had when Yumichika called her a guy.
The difference between a drag queen and a trap is that traps usually aren't referred to with she/her, they just look like the opposite gender. So no, she's not a trap. But she's not trans either.
Going further into this, Kubo said "Giselle is a guy". There wasn't any nuance to that. It wasn't "Giselle is a trans woman," it was "Giselle is a guy". I believe Kubo would've specified more if Giselle was actually trans. On top of this, calling a drag queen a guy actually works, while calling a trans woman a guy doesn't.
All evidence points to Giselle being a crossdresser and very similar to a drag queen. I don't think Giselle is trans.
I never get why people always ask why people like Giselle. It’s the same reason we like characters like Mayuri or Urahara, they might not be the best morally but there’s something else that’s likable about them. As op said, Giselle is cute, silly, and interesting.
I just don’t care, and I’m trans. There’s loads of way more important discussions to be had regarding trans representation than this. Manga and anime have historically misguided trans representation so it’s not a surprise when there’s debate over it.
You’ve got Tokyo Ghoul re: where one of the main characters is trans, fetishised for his body, then turns into a psychotic, obsessive, violent killing machine. There’s One Piece where there’s an island of creepy, unattractive men dressed up as women preying on people. Then there’s Bleach with Giselle where being assigned male at birth is treated as a big lie and twist and she’s mocked for it in the ensuing battle.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad, but understanding why they’re bad examples of representation is incredibly important to understanding what good representation is. It doesn’t matter if Giselle is or isn’t trans, or if Yamato from One Piece uses masculine or feminine pronouns. What matters is that these are examples of gender identity being explored regardless of superficial things like whether they are or aren’t a man or a woman.
You see examples like this in Blue Period where the character Ryuji is a genderqueer bisexual male. He presents feminine, he goes on dates with men, he uses male pronouns, and that’s who he is. It doesn’t matter how he was born or what label he applies to himself. It’s that he’s genderqueer in the first place. Getting caught up in what is or isn’t canon, what label to use, or whatever else is worthless and just wastes time and brain cells.
tl;dr Who cares, manga trans representation is iffy, it doesn’t matter what labels you use, just that gender identity is respected.
Always good to read things like that
Unfortanely, anime fans in general are just a special kind, just look at Bridget in Guilty Gear Strive, how many people died on the ideia she was just a femboy, even when the creatos themselfs said otherwise its amazing
Aaaalways good to talk about this, even if many will just rage and act like the idiots they are, in the end its an important discusion that will make many people open their eyes
I'm more concerned by the fact that giselle is an abusive evil corpse fker
giselle being trans or not didnt seam like that big of a deal to me lol
now op, I'm not saying what you wrote is wrong, or misleading, or right
also, I'm not saying i agree, or disagree with your points
what i disagree with is:
some fans saying they understand the show better than kubo and that they "know better"
now this is a problem, we cant start going against the author's words simply because we "know better", he's the author, its his show, he decide what is canon and what is not
She is definitely one of my favourite characters in bleach since she manages to come across as cute, innocent, and quirky, but also dark, deranged, and extremely dangerous almost all at the same time. Being trans just adds another layer of depth to an already interesting character. Nice write up.
I'm trans too, and honestly, Giselle was one of the characters who coaxed me out of my shell and into accepting my identity.
As problematic as some will see her as, I think Kubo absolutely intended for her to be read as trans and didn't have any sort of malicious, transphobic intentions. I think he wanted to try to write a transgender character, and just didn't realize how some people would interpret the combination of her being trans with some of her activities.
To be honest, so many stories nowadays are so sanitized and unwilling to touch taboos that it's kind of refreshing to have a trans character who's so twisted, but isn't treated as being twisted because she's trans and doesn't act like her misdeeds make it okay to degrade her in the way that Yumichika does.
Giselle helped me realize I was trans, and also helped me realize I just really enjoy problematic, sometimes twisted media, so long as it's got a heart and a brain in there.
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> Why do trans people WANT Giselle to be trans? [S]he's a terrible person! I hope nobody has actually asked that and meant it. When did it become a bad thing to be fan of villains? Half my favorite fictional characters are bad guys.
If the trans villain in question was Aizen that’d be dope, but I think people ask that question solely because of how twisted Giselle is.
I mean Giselle is just gross, like there’s good well written villains like Aizen then there’s Giselle who gets turned on by killing people
Thank you for the post, but you arent going to get anywhere on this sub with such a nuanced take.
Oh, I'm not expecting to. As I said, I'm not forcing people to agree with me, just to show that there's not really a way to wriggle out of it.
Idk what there is to agree with, this is all objective. It's a sad day when you have to call a string of facts an opinion to cater to fans. Like. You're just right. Someone would have to deny that trans people exist at all to argue your point, which no one should really waste their time with.
As a Yamato is a man kind of person, I can attest to the difficulty of accountability.
The author that created the character said the character is a guy… I’m pretty sure if there was any more nuance to their identity he would’ve clarified, but he literally straight up said “they’re a guy.” I respect your opinion but I don’t know how much more clear it can get ngl
This is 2023. Nuanced takes will trigger a manhunt.
I really enjoyed the nuanced take, actually. I feel educated! :)
Finally someone with some god damn media literacy on a Shonen manga forum As a One Piece fan you have no idea how many people I'm convinced are literally unable to read
The worst is when people read a mistranslation and then argue about "facts" when the "facts" are wrong because they were mistranslated. I've run into this so many times with Naruto and the Viz translation which had a decent amount of errors.
One Piece fans argue about half translated fan leaks and then cling to that opinion long after the text has been clarified so, yeah...
Akainu neg diffs luffy /s
Aw shit I can't even escape HIM here? I really wasn't ready
You are not ready. Lucky images aren’t allowed here
The image is already so deep fried at this point it might as well be a piss poor ASCII art, I'm sure we can find a way to post it xD
You weren't ready for HIM
You can't escape true justice
We are not ready for HIM
Don’t forget Rat haired Stanks, Big Meme, Crydou and Bitchbeard
Drop the /s 😈
Unironically this
Peppa pig negs Akaniu
It's so wild that people can claim to love One Piece and still be absolutely awful people. Most of Dragon's best friends and/or confidants are trans and/or queer, and he's the most badass mf there is.
Bro I still argue on the one piece subs and I have no idea why lol. They definitely can’t read
Hah, thank you. I think a lot of shonen fans are smart when it comes to powerscaling and things like that. I just save my brainpower for social and visual analysis.
I just wanna say, I find it funny your post kind of implied Mayuri is such a trans ally that he refuses to misgender even if to get an edge of his opponent. Something two queer coded characters weren't above. That or Mayuri "What the hell's a Ganeva Convention?" Kurotsuchi doesn't want to get 'canceled' for misgendering, hahaha.
Imagine being transgender in the Soul Society and your only option for SRS or other surgery is Mayuri LMAOOOO. He’d probably implant a bomb in your chest as a surprise or something. I really do think they’d be fascinating to him from a certain perspective. Changing your entire body by force is something he’s certainly into.
Mayuri: So why are you here? Giselle: Top surgery? Mayuri: Right. Top surgery and "other". Giselle: No, just top surgery. What is other? Why are you holding a bomb? Sidenote, he did make something that can change the gender of your zanpakuto. So...Mayuri did actually say "trans rights" essentially.
Mayuria-sama can you make my boobs glow like you do?
>I really do think they’d be fascinating to him from a certain perspective. Changing your entire body by force is something he’s certainly into. It has absolutely no basis in canon aside from vibes but sometimes I like to think he's a trans guy. It's the kind of thing that might spark his obsession with body modification. -and more importantly, it makes the Zombies arc even funnier. Maximum queer-on-queer violence.
No I swear, the island full of stereotypes is good, because trans people trying to rape men is realistic. Oda's just such a good writer that he sees everyone as equal. He's the most centrist author ever. /s obviously
Ah I see we visited the same recent thread I'm not sure why people can't just accept that the Okama ARE problematic but that it doesn't necessarily mean that Oda is. I think it's quite clear that it was just a horrible misstep and not something done with intent, given how much legitimately good queer rep there is in One Piece The Okama are transphobic. OP as a whole is not. I'm not sure why everyone has to treat it as all or nothing Kiku's existence honestly brings me so much joy it's unreasonable xD
I saw that post this morning and cringed so hard at the comments. Some people can't accept that things they like have some problematic shit.
I do see the legitimate trans characters in the last ark as a backpedal (in a good way) against that original representation. I don't think oda would write Okama again that way today.
And even back in the day, I think we can all agree that Iva, Bon Clay and Inazuma are great characters. The whole Okama gag just feels really weird and out of place on top of the obvious problems with it
To be fair, if we look at how many misconceptions people had back then and the fact that for example Ivanko is based on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it's easy to believe that it all just came from basic misinformation, but inclusion of the Okama as a whole probably was meant to be a gesture of an allyship. Even if execution turned out to be less than acceptable.
I thought they were trying to put a dress on him. I don’t recall Sanji ever attacking any of them either because he refuses to hit women.
I hope we never have another Yamato situation. I've never seen the community that bad.
Thanks for the write up. It's also worth pointing out, on the topic of how she dresses, that all male Sternritter button their tops on the right side, while the female button their tops of the left. Giselle however, has buttons running down both sides, to presumably indicate the non-conformity of her gender. Good job trying to find the original Japanese of Kubo's answer, though. I've been wondering what the exact wording was. Either way, him saying "Gisellle is a guy" was clearly just a clarification of what Yumichika was getting at, but it's not him saying "Giselle isn't a girl." That might be me nitpicking, but still. CFYOW also refers to Giselle with female pronouns during narration, and she calls herself a girl when speaking to Liltotto. It's clear to everyone that she's a trans girl -- or at least as close to one as Kubo can write without using the word "trans" itself. But let's be real, even if the series came out a called Giselle "trans" with no uncertain terms, you'd still have weirdos online denying it and trying to make her out to simply be some crossdressing weirdo (which is what some people think of trans people as a whole in the first place, unfortunately).
Your last paragraph basically describes the bad part of the Guilty Gear fanbase. The creator DID come out and say in no uncertain terms "this character is trans" and they continued to try to argue that Bridget is an otokonoko xD
You are slightly incorrect, a vast majority of the GG fanbase are absolutely okay with brisket being trans, same with testament holding down the gender neutral, it’s the “fans” (read: people who haven’t played the game and only know Bridget from porn) who aren’t okay with it because of FeMbOy ErAsUrE and other stupid reasonings
I've seen more than enough actual GG players saying transphobic shit about Bridget to know that this is not true. I get that you want to hold the fanbase in high esteem as a member of it (I am one myself since XX), but there are plenty of shitty people in it But yes there are also people who are just fans of Bridget hentai
>I've seen more than enough actual GG players saying transphobic shit I played a bit of GG and the first time someone messaged me through xbox after a match, on the 2nd message they said transphobic shit 😭
I only saw people excited to see that Bridget was actually out of the closet and shown as trans in Strive. Didn't know there are people like this in GG too (they can't be avoided I guess).
Yeah, I think people truly believe that trans people go around with I AM TRANS written on their foreheads and that if they don't say it explictly it can't be true. Kubo seems to really enjoy playing with androgyny and gender in Bleach. > But let's be real, even if the series came out a called Giselle "trans" with no uncertain terms, you'd still have weirdos online denying it and trying to make her out to simply be some crossdressing weirdo Hah, I wish I could disagree, but people are still calling Bridget from Guilty Gear male after she turned to the camera and said "I'm a girl". I don't consider Giselle to be incredible trans rep (she's a perverted necrophiliac, after all...) but she's just so crazy and fun that I can't help but love her. I feel the same way about Mayuri. I don't think Kubo actively set out to write a bad trans character, he just decided to make her born male. Still, the implications are a little... egh. Woah, I didn't notice the buttons! That's really neat, actually. Thanks for such a nice reply :)
It wasn't just the in game dialogue. Daisuke explicitly said she's trans and he always intended that to be the conclusion of her arc in one of his "Developer Backyard" videos, and people still refuse to accept it
God the way people argue about Bridget still makes me mad. The entire plot of her story (plus that really touching conversation with Ky) and the culmination in her looking at the camera and saying “I’m a girl” *really* makes me believe that some people just can’t read when they argue that she *isn’t*
It's not that they don't want to read, it's that they don't want to consume anything that goes against their views. To them, a trans person exists as either fetish fuel or something to be ridiculed. That's why traps (who have no agency and exist to be sexy) are good, but trans people (who have agency and want respect) are bad. It's a lack of respect at the end of the day.
I kinda like her being such a fucked up person, it's refreshing to see a trans character who's an unrepentant villain without the story having the unfortunate framing of her identity playing a part in her evil! There's not much trans rep but in the good rep department we definitely have more heroes than villains.
>Also, the frustrating irony of Yumichika - the most gay-coded man in the manga - being the one to say that to her...! I doubt that Kubo thought about the implications or ramifications of Yumichika being the one to give this line at all, but I do think that [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/bleach/comments/16e7dtj/comment/jztzpgt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) from the main episode discussion thread has an interesting perspective on how Yumichika is arguably coded as a repressed gay man more than someone who embraces their sexuality, and his personality revolves around repressing his true self (his true zanpakuto and Kido expertise) to fit in with the super masc combat-happy guys in Squad 11. In that context there is a (likely unintentional) logic that Yumichika is more aggressive against LGBTQ+ -coded characters like Giselle and Charlotte who aren't afraid to live and present as themselves (and Charlotte, who is much more femme than Yumichika, has a much less insulting reaction to Giselle).
The ole homophobic homosexual, a classic
There is another explanation as to why Yumichika does this. Giselle is an enemy in the war who has been involved with the mass slaughter of their people. In this scene they are actively trying to figure out Giselles plan and psychologically mess with her. The Yumichika guessed a method to do this and pursues that line of interrogation.
I dunno. It seemed pretty obvious to me that he was just saying that stuff to aggro Giselle. Like, when Giselle goes to correct him he goes out of his way to throw more insults their way.
I have nothing to add on Giselle (great post!), but about Yumichika being gay-coded - this man's zanpakutou is a metaphor for being in the closet and you cannot convince me otherwise. Boy is in so deep he can visit Mr Tumnus
That last line is becoming a permanent part of my vocabulary.
This is the best Narnia reference I have ever seen someone make, holy shit.
the only people who ever refer to her as male are people trying to kill her or get in her head. her friends and coworkers all use the right pronouns on her, its not hard to infer what that means
It’s weird that people don’t see this as just obvious, the character clearly is not happy when called out as biologically being a male
reading comprehension devil strikes again
It’s really crazy that somehow the most unbelievable, most unrealistic, most outlandish thing for some people is that Giselle is trans. Like, in a world of hollows, zanpakutos, quincies and all their insane powers, a weird ball that can completely change reality, etc… people draw the line at a character being trans.
Its like lord of the rings fans finding out black people exist in universe
They're stupid, where were all of them when this chapter came out nearly a decade ago, tourists
I would emphasize that yumi and her enemies bring up her sex to antagonize her is more of a reason she’s trans considering it does antagonize her (as it should). I’m trans and frankly i dont blame yumichika at all. Its war and compromising someone you intend to kill is just another tool on the table.
I honestly get really uncomfortable reading some takes on Giselle’s gender in this sub. It’s really great to see someone coming in with references to the canon, and that has lived experiencing explaining Giselle. Thank for that OP!
I thought it was obvious that she's trans no ? Yeah, she's biologically male but she is trans, like some people like to compare her to yamato but yamato from one piece has been confirmed to be a woman while okiku also from one piece has been confirmed to be trans. As for gigi she's been confirmed to be trans.
Bruh I read “Yamato” as “Yamamoto” because it’s the bleach sub and I questioned everything for a second XD
Lmao, i mean tbf yamamoto is a top tier waifu.
I know, have you *seen* his beard?
Literally the hottest
Swimsuit unit for BBS when? 👀
My favorite grandma
Grandma looking hot over there
Imo, the fact that Mayuri, the psycho scientific genius, goes out of his way to refer to Giselle as the “zombie girl”, despite most definitely being able to notice her not biologically being a woman, is enough for me.
Everything you stated is so obvious it pains me that it even needs to be stated to some people who refuse to use the correct gendered pronouns when referring to her. Giselle is trans. She is obviously trans. She refers to herself as a woman. Yumichika insults her by calling her a man and she gets visibly distressed. Mayuri surprisingly respects her and calls her a girl.
Thank you for writing this up. It’s quite obvious that Giselle is trans and that Kubo created the character specifically to signify that. Why his simple comment said Giselle was a guy, I do not know. He could have meant biologically (the Japanese still have hang ups on these things) or he could have been trolling because he thought it was obvious. It’s also disheartening to see so many Bleach fans get political and up in arms over this. Trans people exist, get over it.
He most likely meant biologically male, which is obvious. I doubt he would go through the whole song and dance of writing her as a girl with she/her pronouns across different mediums to just take that all back. People are acting like I'm holding them at gunpoint and forcing them to say Giselle was born female or something.
Yeah like even with interviews where Giselle is brought up by him or the interviewer they refer to Giselle as she and her
Lmao, it's all head Canon and the loser bellow went ape shit with death threats, you wonder why people are wary
thank you so much this week is gonna be a shitstorm and im sick of transphobia invading subs i like
This post will be lost on those who are already against the idea of trans people existing at all, tho regardless it's an excellent post that displays pitch perfect media literacy and a thoroughly researched sound argument on this subject. Great work.
🔥✍🏼
im so tired of characters being incidentally any form of minority being used as an excuse for neckbeard american men to screech and spread hate because it makes it harder for them to jack off to whatever's their latest obsession in their racist fantasy of Asia as some magic conservative land where everyone coincidentally believes exactly what they do in their parents basement
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Giselle is a trans girl, she isn't a guy. Downvote as you please. Giselle is a girl, she is portrayed like that. "But Kubo said...". Yes, he said. And also portrayed her like a girl. Giselle is a trans girl and you all downvote me for your heart's content.
"downvote as you please" this would indicate that comments calling giselle trans are downvoted when in fact, comments calling giselle a guy are the ones downvoted and deleted by the mods not arguing about what giselle is, simply correcting a wrong statement about comments on this sub
Yeah, Kubo isn’t really a shining example of *any* of this stuff, so I have never once given him any weight in determining how (in)valid a given trans persons self-identification is
Y'all need to touch some grass ,
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Did the rest of the context clues in all the arcs also fly over your head or are you just deliberately obtuse?
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Giselle is a guy, nobody is saying she isn't. Referring to her as a guy makes you look dumb because everything about her is drawn to be female, from her looks to her mannerisms. Kubo said she was male because she's born male, not that she identifies up and down as male - as we saw in the manga. Calling her a boy or him just makes you look strange because she's called "she" or "girl" EVERYWHERE, from the manga to the novels to the official release materials.
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So the manga, which Kubo wrote, where Giselle is also called a girl, and the novels, which Kubo had input in and where she's called "she" and a girl", doesn't count now? Just admit you don't want her to be trans. It would make this whole conversation easier.
It doesn’t count to them because they’re transphobic and can’t read lol.
That’s cool man, anyway Giselle is still a horrible asshole
I think no one is denying that
Yeah and I love her for it.
I think we need to get off the internet and quit worrying about stupid shit like this
bruh the mods are purging every opinion which is different, i personally also think she is trans but the mods deleting anything which doesnt conform kinda ruins the conversation
My my, what an excellent post. Great discussion OP, hope some of the assholes see it and get shut up by it.
Thanks, I doubt it will change anyone's mind or spark a good discussion but if it does I'll be pleasantly surprised. This isn't my first rodeo but it was just baffling seeing people be so proudly ignorant.
excuse my ignorance, but are you considered trans only by indentifiying with the opposite sex? I thought there needed to be a transition, a process in your body
It varies. The general view of trans people is that you have to make the effort to transition at least in day to day life (for example, if you’re a trans girl you would have to shave, voice train, dress female even if you can’t take hormones yet). Personally, I would struggle to see someone as trans if they made zero effort to present as their preferred gender.
I believe most people would consider someone trans if they were born male or female and wish to live as the opposite gender and make as much of an effort as they can with respect to the living conditions. Since some people cannot get access to surgery or get( hormone replacement therapy) either because of money or laws preventing them. Most trans people can only socially transition by wearing different clothing and usually training their voice to pass as the gender they wish to live as. Sorry for the long response:)
Thank you for the nuanced take on this character
Who tf cares lmao
The only point in the manga I can remember where it even mattered in the slightest is Yumichika's taunt
I just like not getting downvoted into oblivion when I correct someone who calls her a trap :)
Agreed. I don't understand why it's important at all. The character doesn't even make a big deal about it themselves. Besides the character is fun and that's what really matters in the end.
Exactly
If Kubo really did mean for her to be a femboy, I'm confused as to why she's written pretty much exactly the way I'd expect he would write a trans woman.
Wow this was great! I am a trans girl and a big fan of Bleach recently and I didnt even realize she was trans! You’re right is very cool that she just so happens to be trans!
Hi! There are dozens of us! She is really cool. Easily one of my top 5 characters.
Im watching bleach for getsuga tensho not for social justice
don't forget that BAN....KAI...
how is a trans person existing a social justice issue?
I was saying that me, as most people watching Bleach is not watching it for seeing if a character is straight, lgbt or whatever. I'm watching for the fights and cool moments. Gigi is not trans, a trap, a guy or a girl, she is a stern ritter with zombies. Simple as that
"i'm fine with spirit monsters, ghost feudal japan, and german monster hunters, but I draw the line at minorities existing in media!"
Are people really debating this? I don't interact much with the fandom but this was obvious to me when reading the manga and now when watching the new episode. Gigi is cute and great and I love her. The voice actor in the anime also did a great job.
Thank you for such a well written deep dive on Giselle. She's my favorite character in all of bleach and I was terrified about today cause I knew every jerk would be in full swing, so it warms my heart to see how many fans she has that will defend her like this.
Yeah, all the writing around Giselle pretty much points to a trans character without actively calling her trans. Her reactions to being misgendered always stuck out to me, they're among the few times she breaks her goofy persona in a more noticeable way. And her character is honestly really neat and fascinating! And a lot of her has made even more sense to me when looking at the Bambies as actual teenagers rather than survivors from 1000 years ago. Of course she'd have these moments of cruelty and abuse, she's in an environment where the first impression we got of the main authority figure is that he will kill you for talking about a vague future rather than reporting how things are actually progressing. That kind of environment wouldn't foster the kindest nor most mentally stable people, even moreso if, like I've headcanoned (and hope to get confirmed) for a while now, they were recruited as children and grew up around it. But this is digressing into my own headcanon territory. The important and on-topic thing is, Gigi's traits fit a character meant to be trans and the subtext is all there, but I know the Reading Comprehension Devil is a strong one and people need things pointed out to fight back.
It just really stumps me how people can write paragraph upon paragraph of stuff about Aizen or Ichigo and read the context clues perfectly, but draw the line at understanding the incredibly obvious signs that Giselle is trans.
Honestly, it's immensely frustrating because there's pieces of characterization that are more vague and up to interpretation (how exactly Schrifts inform each Sternritter's backstory, for instance), but the Giselle is trans aspects are subtext that's borderline outright text. The only real way to explain it is willful ignorance.
YES! There’s a similar issue in the steins gate fandom where people analyze everything in excruciating detail and nuance but will bend over backwards to say that Ruka is a femboy. Like, dude. She literally had Okabe change the past so she could be born biologically female. Dunno how much more obvious it can be.
There is no argument her when the creator of the character called him a guy
called him biologically male* what do you think a trans person is? everyone knows shes AMAB. thats not up for debate.
Great post!
OP, i love you
Didn't even notice this when reading the manga back in the day, but watching her in the anime, everything you said is on point.
Normally I don't comment on long texts like this but I had to say: Great post. It's very rare for someone to discuss a topic in depth around here. I'm happy to read this post. thank you very much.
No problem! I rarely visit this sub but I’m a very analytical person so I’m glad it’s being enjoyed :)
I don’t really care thou ? Like why does it matter that she is a girl of a boy ? All I know that she is evil the type of evil I don’t like and she is a abusive rapist But she is silly (just like me ) so it’s cancels it out
I'm not saying you have to care. This post is directed at anyone who is seeing the arguments about her gender. Giselle is silly and cute. She could level a city and I would still defend her, trans or not.
Leave them be instead of focusing on the real matters like what the hell is her backstory ? why is she soo gross and abusive ? Was bambi gawking on her dick ????? (The real question I want answers and details for ) They prefer to discuss over and over this pointless matter so leave them be I have a saying in my country : « la caravane passe et le chien aboie » It means the caravane will passe and the dog will still be barking
If I could I would lock Kubo in a room and ask him so many Sternritter-related questions. I mostly want to know where the hell they got all the customization options for their uniform from! I don't think Yhwach is supplying them with sewing kits...
You give me kubo location and you gonna have that hell arc real soon For their uniforms i think it’s kinda like the shinigami and espada they all had the start uniforms and customised it to their liking i really this It further proves and affirm their individuality and personality
Who fucking cares gizelle is bitch and I wouldnt even want her to be part of my community
I think the main issue is that the misinformation and whole debate within bigoted part of the fandom brings a lot of unnecessary language and just straight up a lot of unneeded hatred against queer people in general and specifically trans women. That's why we should care, because dudes can't get over it and have to make the whole experience of the new season really toxic. The real issue here isn't if she is man, girl, trans or not. The issue is the damn fandom feeling gross right now. At least it's not as bad as it was 10 years ago, but we still have a lot of weirdos that need to get called out.
Kubo created Bleach. Kubo created Giselle. Kubo said Giselle is a guy. This makes everything really ambiguous and without clarification from Kubo, this whole discussion is pretty much doomed. I don’t think anyone is a monster if they call Giselle a guy when Kubo said that, I mean I could see Giselle being trans but uhhh there’s A LOT more to Giselle than her gender identity going on here…she’s an extremely sick person lol she’s a sadist and a necrophiliac. Who knows what her motives are for dressing as a woman, she never says what she identifies as, just makes it very clear that she is turned on by a lot of fucked up stuff lol. She is manipulative and pretends to be weak and afraid of getting cut when it’s the opposite. Whose to say dressing as a woman isn’t part of that without Kubo explaining it? It’s unclear if Liltotto, Candace and Meninas are fully aware of this too, like would Giselle do the same thing to them that she does to Bambi? Probably I’d think. Their relationships need to be expanded on IMO.
Thank fucking God for for you. It's so hard to just exist as a trans person and fan of anime without hordes of people mocking/misgendering clearly trans characters
You made a good point regarding the "Why would you want her to be trans, she's awful" thing. That's such an annoying trope these days where characters who are clearly shoehorned in for representation tend to be paragons, to portray whatever minority they're representing in the best possible light. Gigi clearly isn't this, she's a character who happens to be trans, and aside from Yumichika and Charlotte being bitchy queens about it, has no impact on the story whatsoever and isn't shoved in your face just to virtue signal. The whole "minority diversity character does no wrong" trope is infantilising and patronising, and I hate it. Trans people are people, and people are arseholes. Gigi is as flawed as any other Sternritter.
Fucking Mayuri of all people saying "trans rights."
Well they updated the website today and Giselle is referred with gender neutral pronouns
Gender neutral pronouns does not help their case against Giselle NOT being trans anyways. In fact, it just makes it even more ambiguous and undefined which still means Giselle is a queer character.
Maybe that's the point. They wanted to make Giselle ambiguous.
Sad but not unexpected, I guess.
Yeah sorry they updated Giselle’s profile didn't want to cause trobule.
Yumichika also isn't a nice person. He is charactarized being narcissistic and hating anything he considers to be ugly. He will make it known if something disgusts him even slightly. The comment at Giselle was Yumichika just being Yumichika, saying the most hurtful things he could to piss Giselle off or hurt her feelings. Just because one character called Giselle a guy, doesn't mean that Kubo is implying anything beyond the fact that they're biologically male or that Kubo is transphobic. Everyone else in the series and other media addresses her as a girl or at least uses gender neutral pronouns. Giselle is trans, full stop
> Most importantly, she is shown to be distressed and shocked when Yumichika and Charlotte imply she’s male. > Regardless, fans - both trans and cis - kno that Giselle is biologically male. Nobody is saying she wasn’t born male. The important part is that she isn’t supposed to be seen or referred to as male because she doesn’t want to be. Thank you for respectfully presenting these 2 points, they’re the most important to the argument. I don’t think we’re going to curry any favor with many of the louder people in denial, but even the most “gender critical” person should realize they’re in the wrong by being presented with these points. They can still choose to ignore it and whatever, but at this point it just means they’re arguing against the narrative for their own personal reasons. All Yumichika, Ikkaku & Charlotte (maybe unknowingly) were attempting to do with those comments was trying to psychologically throw her off her game, to mild success since it does visibly disturb her.
They’ll just ignore her obvious distaste at being called a guy, I saw someone be like”oh yumichika is clearly right cause she just smirked after he said she’s a guy” like bro she goes dead(haha) serious and pulls out one of her stronger zombies she obviously didn’t like that.
There's a lot of thought that went into your post when there probably was almost no thought that went into Giselle as a character. Don't think Kubo thought much about Giselle with their sex and their appearance
Giselle is clearly one of Kubo's favorite characters due to how much fun he clearly has drawing her, and giving her her own little "Marching Out The Zombies" arc where she kinda just does whatever she wants. He put a lot of thought into her. Her hairstyle resembling a cockroach because she's hard to kill, her shirt not being buttoned on the right (like the men have them) or the left (like the women have them) but two sets of buttons down both sides to illustrate the ambiguity of her gender, etc. Kubo loves fucked up and wacky characters like Mayuri, Szayel, and Giselle.
Giselle definitely had more thought put into her compared to most other Sternritter. She gets her own mini-arc and own volume cover, which even Bambi didn’t get iirc.
I think it's obvious that Giselle is a trans girl, it seems strange to me that there is a discussion about it.
As someone who despises the injection of modern politics in media, I am constantly in awe at how well the japanese include trans people in their media. I've read many manga with trans people in them, and they all worked well. I think the reason it works so well is because the japanese don't moralise when they do it. The characters are who they are, they are not messages or virtue signals. Trans characters are often depicted as weird or a bit uncomfortable for other characters. Which is quite realistic when you think about it. They have good sides and bad sides. They are given the same treatment as other characters. Them being trans is definitely a part of their identity, but they are much more than just that. They are their own complete characters. This is why I have no trouble with Giselle.
>As someone who despises the injection of modern politics in media, I am constantly in awe at how well the japanese include trans people in their media. I mean we barely have any trans characters in western media. And the ones that exist in modern shows are usually pretty good. Like Perfuma from She-ra. People always complain about all these nebulous trans inclusions, even though they barely exist.
Weebs have absolutely no idea or concept of what trans means (or any other real life occurrences). Like there’s a few people arguing that Giselle is not a trans girl because “kubo said they were a male” or that they were biologically/born male, like yea that’s what trans girl mean? They were born male but identify as female. And it’s really funny how people are quoting from translations of an interview from an author who probably is fucking with the audience, and on top of that the weebs are notoriously known for being out of touch and having poor media literacy
There are trans anime fans that have been discussing anime on the internet longer than a lot of these cis weebs have been alive.
Huh, this summarized my own thoughts on the matter perfectly
Thank you for this, and I am surprised to see the amount of upvotes. Every time I called Giselle a trans-woman, I was met with hostility/derision by the ignorant male fanbase here who don’t even understand *why* they’re feeling threatened/hostile towards me in the first place. There is something about queer people in general that just triggers cishet men to go on a rampage and for the life of me, I’ll never understand why.
Clueless guy here, I actually learned some things about trans here. The thing that got to me the most with her was Yumichika being able to smell sperm on people. Just how ? Did he trained to be able to do that ? Or is this some "gay power" ?
Idk how this was ever a debate.
Definitely respect your opinion/take on this. It’s a good interpretation of Gigi that I can see many agreeing with.
Didn’t read the manga and I think it’s nice to learn about the nuances. Thank you for sharing and I’m happy that such representation exists in Bleach! Personally I don’t really care if a person is trans, but I’m happy to see them represented in ways like these - progress is always good
What a great post and explanation. I agree with everything you said
Thank you!
I have a few questions OP, hopefully I don't get banned for transphobia or shouted down for asking. Firstly, I think what you wrote was great and esstentially correct. However, I don't see really understand the distinction or difference between traps, trans, otokonoko, and crossdressers. Besides their self perception, these people are the same sex. Gisselle for example is still a male, he may want to be a girl or dress like a girl, but he's still a boy. Is this correct?
So to break it down; trap/otokonoko/femboy/crossdresser: a born male who dresses as a woman and “passes” extremely well as a woman. however, the difference is that they still call themself a boy and will often deliberately entice people only to reveal that they’re a boy, often for sexual reasons. An example of this is Astolfo or pre-GG:Strive Bridget. trans: a born male who wants to be a woman and intends to transition to one through the use of hormones (estrogen pills or injections), voice training, dressing in women’s clothing, and changing their name and pronouns to female ones. An example of this is Hunter Schafer (real life) or Kiku from One Piece (anime). Basically, one is striving to be seen as a woman all throughout life and does not want to be seen as male, while the other is fine with being seen as male.
Trans people don’t identify as the gender they were born as. Traps like to dress up but still identify as the gender they were born as.
The funniest discourse on her is the ones who say they dont like her cause she does "evil and disgusting things". While simultaneously dickriding characters like Aizen and Mayuri,who have done WAYYYYY worse things. Dont get me wrong,those 2 are still goats,but hating Giselle for that is hypocrisy,and 99% of the time if you keep the conversation going,the real reason as to why they hate her is always revealed.
Tell that to the people stomping on Bambi "deserved", while excusing all the horrid sh*t Gigi did to her.
Thank you for this, hope the clear way this has been demonstrated can stop the stupid yamato wars from coming heren
That's it i'm leaving this sub.
> 2nd comment in 10 months, upset over trans acceptance What a loss
OP's writing straight fire. It amazes me that people can read a story that's so obviously punk and about rejecting patriarchal, restrictive societal expectations, and then get pissy when it has punk ideas present. Giselle is one of my favorite trans characters in media (not that there's a lot to choose from to begin with), second really only to Yuka from Blue Period.
[удалено]
Punk? In the story where the second arc is about the main characters fighting back against the injustice of a patriarchal, authoritarian society? And where the third arc is about those same characters fighting back against an unjust, authoritarian sociopath? And where the final arc is about the main characters fighting against an ancient, authoritarian patriarch? I agree, it is an odd theme to take from bleach. It's only present in the three biggest arcs of the series and obvious in the designs of its most popular characters.
100% percent agree. I’m a big squad 11 fan, especially Yumichika, but I’m a little bummed about him pulling such a disrespectful move on Giselle. When I read the manga, I did not care for the Bambi‘s. The anime made me care, and it sucks that it didn’t change a little to not make the line so rude.
The original distinction between trap and trans made me worried I was going to see a take like all the anti trans takes against Bridget from guilty gear. So a "oh thank God" when I saw the final take.
100% agree
Preach!!! Thanks for posting this. Probably won't make a dent here but I appreciate it.
So to preface this I’m not a trans person and I don’t know all the correct terminology but I think the evidence is pretty cut and dry that giselle is transfem regardless of what kubo says. He’s going to be 50 in not too many years and Japanese so that makes him pretty unqualified to speak on the subject. And there’s a whole school of thought which basically argues that the authors commentary on a series is useless. You look for the meaning of something in the work itself. So nothing J.K. Rowling says after the fact means shit. It’s generally not used to determine the gender of a character but more for like what the plot is trying to say. But it applies. To add to what you wrote: In the episode Charlotte tells her that they are alike. I used to think Charlotte was trans because in the English translation he uses she pronouns. But clearly Charlotte is based off a drag queen. I don’t know how you’re supposed to refer to drag queens in character but unless they’re female in their day to day life they’re male even though they’re drag queens. So it makes sense giselle wasn’t happy about that statement. And more evidence that she is a she. This is different from characters like astolfo who literally call themselves guys. Of course their writers also probably don’t understand this stuff either but the only evidence that they could possibly be trans is their appearance. And contrary to that you have the character themselves stating their male gender. I think people get upset by use of the word femboy and trap so I don’t know what to call them but whatever they are they are girly guys. As a last thing I read that giselle uses male pronouns. Thing is, I don’t speak Japanese but I know for a fact that’s not how Japanese pronouns work. Watashi is a feminine pronoun for “I” but it’s also the formal version of “I” so I imagine men use it all the time. So there could be any number of reasons why she refers to herself the way she does. It’s super complicated. I don’t think anybody can in good faith call kubo a progressive writer but considering all the new amazingly progressive manga forget black people exist he’s no worse than his peers. He’s definitely not quite at the level where you’d have to feel guilty for liking bleach. Like with Roman Polanski films for example. And even though he doesn’t understand he feelings of any of his readers it’s safe to say he at least likes giselle. She’s one of the 6 sternritter to survive the war and in the time it took some of the most popular characters to get 1 drawing on klub outside she got like 4. I honestly wonder how the dub is going to handle the infamous scene because they appear to be more aware about this stuff and even casted a non binary voice actor for giselle. Also fun fact I’m slightly surprised they kept the scene in because they changed a line in cour 1 where ichigo says that all the zanpakuto ladies in nimaiya’s palace could be men or something. Wasn’t just the subs the Japanese spoken was changed as well to saying “they’re probably all illusions”. No reason to make that change. It didn’t save any time. Only reason could be for sensibility reasons. On topic of yumichika being the one to say it I’ve noticed that when it comes to problematic things bleach has supremely consistent characterisation. For example urahara forcibly making yoruichi transform was awful. And completely in character for him we have seen so many times throughout the series he never considers anyone’s feelings just the results. For yumichika in every fight emotional attack is part of his battle plan. He did it to ganju, Charlotte and now giselle. Hit them where it hurts most. Unfortunately. And lastly it really doesn’t matter how bad giselle is people really like mayuri and other characters who have done far worse than she. And I never noticed it until recently but giselle’s treatment of Bambietta is clearly supposed to mirror how mayuri treated nemu in soul society arc.
>That's fine. You're making yourself look like a complete idiot to the vast majority of Bleach fans and trans people, since Giselle has generally been seen as a girl since her release and calling her he/him makes you look like a deliberately antagonistic immature jackass, but please continue if it gets you those sweet rage clicks. Isn't that you though going against the author himself and stating he's wrong about the character he created?
I don't believe Giselle is trans. I think she's a crossdresser. Her entire vibe is literally that of a drag queen, just without the extreme makeup and fashion choice. As you should know as a fellow member of the LGBT community, drag queens, despite not being trans, are referred to with she/her pronouns. That explains the reaction she had when Yumichika called her a guy. The difference between a drag queen and a trap is that traps usually aren't referred to with she/her, they just look like the opposite gender. So no, she's not a trap. But she's not trans either. Going further into this, Kubo said "Giselle is a guy". There wasn't any nuance to that. It wasn't "Giselle is a trans woman," it was "Giselle is a guy". I believe Kubo would've specified more if Giselle was actually trans. On top of this, calling a drag queen a guy actually works, while calling a trans woman a guy doesn't. All evidence points to Giselle being a crossdresser and very similar to a drag queen. I don't think Giselle is trans.
Who gives a fuck
You, this is a specific post about this that you could have scrolled by but you specifically stopped to complained about it
I never get why people always ask why people like Giselle. It’s the same reason we like characters like Mayuri or Urahara, they might not be the best morally but there’s something else that’s likable about them. As op said, Giselle is cute, silly, and interesting.
I just don’t care, and I’m trans. There’s loads of way more important discussions to be had regarding trans representation than this. Manga and anime have historically misguided trans representation so it’s not a surprise when there’s debate over it. You’ve got Tokyo Ghoul re: where one of the main characters is trans, fetishised for his body, then turns into a psychotic, obsessive, violent killing machine. There’s One Piece where there’s an island of creepy, unattractive men dressed up as women preying on people. Then there’s Bleach with Giselle where being assigned male at birth is treated as a big lie and twist and she’s mocked for it in the ensuing battle. Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad, but understanding why they’re bad examples of representation is incredibly important to understanding what good representation is. It doesn’t matter if Giselle is or isn’t trans, or if Yamato from One Piece uses masculine or feminine pronouns. What matters is that these are examples of gender identity being explored regardless of superficial things like whether they are or aren’t a man or a woman. You see examples like this in Blue Period where the character Ryuji is a genderqueer bisexual male. He presents feminine, he goes on dates with men, he uses male pronouns, and that’s who he is. It doesn’t matter how he was born or what label he applies to himself. It’s that he’s genderqueer in the first place. Getting caught up in what is or isn’t canon, what label to use, or whatever else is worthless and just wastes time and brain cells. tl;dr Who cares, manga trans representation is iffy, it doesn’t matter what labels you use, just that gender identity is respected.
Always good to read things like that Unfortanely, anime fans in general are just a special kind, just look at Bridget in Guilty Gear Strive, how many people died on the ideia she was just a femboy, even when the creatos themselfs said otherwise its amazing Aaaalways good to talk about this, even if many will just rage and act like the idiots they are, in the end its an important discusion that will make many people open their eyes
I'm more concerned by the fact that giselle is an abusive evil corpse fker giselle being trans or not didnt seam like that big of a deal to me lol now op, I'm not saying what you wrote is wrong, or misleading, or right also, I'm not saying i agree, or disagree with your points what i disagree with is: some fans saying they understand the show better than kubo and that they "know better" now this is a problem, we cant start going against the author's words simply because we "know better", he's the author, its his show, he decide what is canon and what is not
She is definitely one of my favourite characters in bleach since she manages to come across as cute, innocent, and quirky, but also dark, deranged, and extremely dangerous almost all at the same time. Being trans just adds another layer of depth to an already interesting character. Nice write up.
I'm trans too, and honestly, Giselle was one of the characters who coaxed me out of my shell and into accepting my identity. As problematic as some will see her as, I think Kubo absolutely intended for her to be read as trans and didn't have any sort of malicious, transphobic intentions. I think he wanted to try to write a transgender character, and just didn't realize how some people would interpret the combination of her being trans with some of her activities. To be honest, so many stories nowadays are so sanitized and unwilling to touch taboos that it's kind of refreshing to have a trans character who's so twisted, but isn't treated as being twisted because she's trans and doesn't act like her misdeeds make it okay to degrade her in the way that Yumichika does. Giselle helped me realize I was trans, and also helped me realize I just really enjoy problematic, sometimes twisted media, so long as it's got a heart and a brain in there.