I hadn't read the essay this was a response to before, but being a Tahno stan, I'd seen the "maybe Tahno is trans*?" theory floating around. There's even a prompt on the kinkmeme about him using bloodbending to bind or aid with transition, and asking Korra to help with that after losing his bending. Just to clarify, I don't think it was canon, and I don't think the person shown in that episode was Tahno. I think they were just a random background character. So the following stuff isn't meant as any kind of canon interpretation.
However, I had a conversation about this very thing with a friend of mine who is a trans man. We bounced the idea off each other, and in it he becomes so discouraged by the loss of his bending and the severe blow to his confidence that he loses the will to fight back against how society (and his family) want to gender him. It was meant not to show that living as a woman was easier, but that he was that beaten down, that he'd given up, that he'd lost control of his identity and was at the world's mercy. That maybe being knocked down so low, being humiliated and losing his career, he was in a position to be abused by his family, who don't accept his identity. I guess it would use the bending loss to parallel the idea of being forced to be someone he's not, losing his ability to fight back and be authentic to himself.
I think this idea had a lot of personal value to my friend. His identity isn't respected by his family, and when he tried to come out to his mother, she ridiculed and ignored him. He has a lot of self-confidence issues, and has trouble asserting his right to have his identity recognized by others, especially when he's already depressed or feels overwhelmed. The idea was probably too personal for him to write, plus he has a lot of anxiety about sharing his fic online as it is. He told me I should write it, but I felt really awkward about speaking for such a painful trans* experience without being trans* myself.
Even I knew that a trans* character wouldn't detransition just to stay out of the public eye, though. I'm shocked that anyone could read the idea of trans!Tahno detransitioning after his bending loss as anything but a painful tragedy and a further violation of his being.
Basically I wanted to say I agree with all your points here.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2013-02-15 07:20 pm (UTC)I hadn't read the essay this was a response to before, but being a Tahno stan, I'd seen the "maybe Tahno is trans*?" theory floating around. There's even a prompt on the kinkmeme about him using bloodbending to bind or aid with transition, and asking Korra to help with that after losing his bending. Just to clarify, I don't think it was canon, and I don't think the person shown in that episode was Tahno. I think they were just a random background character. So the following stuff isn't meant as any kind of canon interpretation.
However, I had a conversation about this very thing with a friend of mine who is a trans man. We bounced the idea off each other, and in it he becomes so discouraged by the loss of his bending and the severe blow to his confidence that he loses the will to fight back against how society (and his family) want to gender him. It was meant not to show that living as a woman was easier, but that he was that beaten down, that he'd given up, that he'd lost control of his identity and was at the world's mercy. That maybe being knocked down so low, being humiliated and losing his career, he was in a position to be abused by his family, who don't accept his identity. I guess it would use the bending loss to parallel the idea of being forced to be someone he's not, losing his ability to fight back and be authentic to himself.
I think this idea had a lot of personal value to my friend. His identity isn't respected by his family, and when he tried to come out to his mother, she ridiculed and ignored him. He has a lot of self-confidence issues, and has trouble asserting his right to have his identity recognized by others, especially when he's already depressed or feels overwhelmed. The idea was probably too personal for him to write, plus he has a lot of anxiety about sharing his fic online as it is. He told me I should write it, but I felt really awkward about speaking for such a painful trans* experience without being trans* myself.
Even I knew that a trans* character wouldn't detransition just to stay out of the public eye, though. I'm shocked that anyone could read the idea of trans!Tahno detransitioning after his bending loss as anything but a painful tragedy and a further violation of his being.
Basically I wanted to say I agree with all your points here.