"Batgirl" Creative Team Apologizes for Handling of Transgender Storyline in "Batgirl" #37

[Grim Ghost]

I don't get this. Does this mean we can't ever have any LGTB villains? That seems very short sighted. I sent a few scans of this over to a couple of friends who do drag shows and they both thought it was great.

[Park Slope Pixie]

Heroes? lol.

Give me thoughtful stories and fleshed out characterizations and please save me the dated, constrictive notion of "heroes v. villains".

Modern characters shouldn't have to fit old "black & white" pigeonholing.

[Sans Simian]

Heroes? lol.

Give me thoughtful stories and fleshed out characterizations and please save me the dated, constrictive notion of "heroes v. villains".

Modern characters shouldn't have to fit old "black & white" pigeonholing.

Have you read (or heard of) Trees? One of the characters is a trans woman who is as fleshed out a character you can have in a mini series. There was some controversy over how they revealed she was trans in issue one but she has an awesome speech in issue four or five (to a romantic interest!) that more than makes up for it.

Warren Ellis writes it if that sways you one way or the other.

[DemonRin]

Heroes? lol.

Give me thoughtful stories and fleshed out characterizations and please save me the dated, constrictive notion of "heroes v. villains".

Modern characters shouldn't have to fit old "black & white" pigeonholing.

I may have oversimplified, the characters don't have to be perfectly moral beings or to follow the conventional "Hero" mold, but mainstream DC comics is about superheroes. That's the world and universe I'm talking about, and that world has ONE Trans character right now, and you'd never know it since it was briefly mentioned on two pages in Batgirl 19 and then never again.

[Hypestyle]

curious. didn't babs have lgbt friends already?

[QBall]

I counter your question with one of my own. Where are all the Trans* HEROES?!

Honestly? No idea. I'm less of a Big 2 reader these days so can't speak definitively on their overall representation. If it's not there then it's not there, I'll take you're word for it. It's been pointed out to me that the definition of "trans" can be wide-ranging though so not sure if that factors into things or not.

Ok, you've named Alysia Yeoh, now name me another. I'll wait.

Sorry, wasn't me. I think you need to be aiming that at someone else

The visibility of the entire Gender expression spectrum in comics whether it be Trans/Drag/Crossdressing is extremely low, and we don't need what little representation we DO get to be Villains.

That is a fair shout. I'd guess a number of prominent team book characters would be a good first step. Doubt DC or Marvel would be willing to jump into a solo book at the moment (regardless of either companies diversity pushes at the moment).

[PhenomStar]

Comic Books have issues with portrayals of women at large, and minority groups in general. It's getting better, for sure, but we have to keep at it.

The character in this issue may not be transgender, but thinking about it I could see why a trans person might find faults with this story line. Can you imagine living your whole life not feeling like you're in the right body? And then, when you try to do something about it, all of society seems poised against you? Ready to strike you down, ridicule you, even kill you, just because you don't conform to their limited (and not backed up by Science) understanding of biological sex and gender?

Perhaps then you could realize how they might feel in the moments when reading about this character, who was portrayed with a womanly shape for the entire issue until his big reveal, reveals themselves and presents as male, when the entire issue we all thought it was a women. How might that be linked to the struggles that trans individuals face every day? Might we be able to better understand why someone, who's already on edge just for being who they are, might get upset?

It can be a struggle to balance creative story telling while at the same time not offending marginalized groups, but we are the better (as a species and comic book loving community) for it.

[sicsexsix]

As for the shocked reaction: as i've pointed out elsewhere, someone whose best friend is trans might be surprised to find she's been impersonated by a male, but would not have that jaw-dropping, frozen moment.

The whole "offense troll" argument is being used as a "get out of thinking" hall pass. Yes, I've known a handful of people who looked for things to offend them. But the significance of that is about as real, and the potential to use it to destroy something important, is about as large as that of the limousine-riding welfare queen of the Reagan era, a super-rare occurrence that was used to legitimize the destruction of the social welfare safety net and throw millions into the streets. The fact that there are a handful of people who go offense-hunting does not let you off the hook from considering the effect of your statements and actions.

I stand by my feelings, that the blogger who started this whole thing is just after the attention, because this issue simply is not guilty of what the blogger claims. Just because Babs' best friend is trans, why would she even presume that person impersonating her was really a guy? The look on her face in that panel reads as shock, not disgust, which is what the blogger insists it is. The quoted paragraph from my first post is a comment that I left on the blogger's article, and it's not the only one there saying this person is over reacting. And when someone goes out of their way to be offended by something, projecting something negative where there's nothing, because they want attention, they're doing a disservice to the very cause they claim to be defending. When a particularly loud member of a group has a spotlight shone on their petty nitpicking, that unfortunately has a tendency to shift public perception of the group as a whole. We're all intelligent enough to know that not all trans folk are like that, but there's plenty of ignorant people still out there who, upon seeing something like that, are going to think "wow, trans people sure are a whiny, overly-sensitive lot!" and it's crap like THAT which sets their cause back. Not because Batgirl was surprised to find out she was being impersonated by a guy, who explicitly identifies himself as one.

[DemonRin]

We're all intelligent enough to know that not all trans folk are like that, but there's plenty of ignorant people still out there who, upon seeing something like that, are going to think "wow, trans people sure are a whiny, overly-sensitive lot!" and it's crap like THAT which sets their cause back.

This exact same logic can be applied to the issue itself.

Sure, YOU Are intelligent and informed on trans issues enough to be able to identify that this character is basically a Drag Queen and isn't actually a transperson, but there are still plenty of ignorant people out there in the comic book reading audience who look at this and go "Wow, ANOTHER Media portrayal of a crazy transsomethingerother being a villain and pulling a gun on people. Obviously these types of people are evil, because we only get about 99% villains like this in our media and barely 1% heroes like this!!"

[Nipower888]

I don't get this. Does this mean we can't ever have any LGTB villains? That seems very short sighted. I sent a few scans of this over to a couple of friends who do drag shows and they both thought it was great.

There should be more LBGT heroes first so having a LBGT villian won't be made out to be all LBGT are villans.

[DemonRin]

There should be more LBGT heroes first so having a LBGT villian won't be made out to be all LBGT are villans.

This. Exactly 100x This.

LGB Portrayals are getting better as we have some heroes of those persuasions. Batwoman, Bunker, and Constantine for example. We can use a lot MORE, but it's at least starting to permeate in those fields.

Us Ts have nothing. Nobody. The DC Universe has not one single hero that falls under ANY of the Gender non-conforming spectrum, because the majority of the readership still sees us as Icky and Wrong, so the best way to sell books featuring those characters is for them to either be easily ignored (Like Alysia and her ONE mention of Transness in 35 issues of Batgirl) or Villains like Dagger Type.

[resipsaloquitur]

...so Ystin the Shining Knight doesn't count?

I am still continuing to not see how Dagger is transgendered. All signs point to him being a crossdresser at best, and even then, it doesn't seem that he's a "lifestyle" CD so much as somebody who did it for a very specific reason. I frequently see writers go to great pains to explain the difference among TG, TS, and CD...so why is that so hard to do here if Dagger isn't TS?

[sicsexsix]

This exact same logic can be applied to the issue itself.

Sure, YOU Are intelligent and informed on trans issues enough to be able to identify that this character is basically a Drag Queen and isn't actually a transperson, but there are still plenty of ignorant people out there in the comic book reading audience who look at this and go "Wow, ANOTHER Media portrayal of a crazy transsomethingerother being a villain and pulling a gun on people. Obviously these types of people are evil, because we only get about 99% villains like this in our media and barely 1% heroes like this!!"

Well, unfortunately, our mainstream media has built entire empires doing just that. It's disgusting, but it's a fact.

And while I'm 150% all for equal representation among the DCU, as well as real life, it's the real people that are going to have a greater influence on the perception as a whole. A real person drawing negative attention to him/her self is going to be taken more seriously than a fictional character that only a small fraction of the public is even aware of will. And I feel that that's counterproductive to a cause that otherwise absolutely deserves support.

[DemonRin]

...so Ystin the Shining Knight doesn't count?

No, Shining Knight doesn't count because they were deliberately ambiguous about His gender and reasons for taking on a male appearance, specifically so Ystin could be whatever the reader wanted him to be. To quote a member of the creative team directly: "I think that's down to what each individual reader wants from that exchange, or most identifies with. Why shut down any of the possibilities?"

I am still continuing to not see how Dagger is transgendered. All signs point to him being a crossdresser at best, and even then, it doesn't seem that he's a "lifestyle" CD so much as somebody who did it for a very specific reason. I frequently see writers go to great pains to explain the difference among TG, TS, and CD...so why is that so hard to do here if Dagger isn't TS?

Dagger is clearly at least a Drag Queen, and we still live in a world where the majority of the people out there don't directly know the difference between one gender non conforming individual and the next. All they'll see is "Man dressing and presenting as female is bad guy"

[PretenderNX01]

I don't get this. Does this mean we can't ever have any LGTB villains? That seems very short sighted.

It's more about making sure the reasoning behind your villain doesn't seem to rely on old stereotypes. The killer trans (be it transvestite or transgender as the media often mixes them up) who wants to be the female protagonist has been done in hurtful ways before. The whole "She's a man, baby" reveal. I'm sure it wasn't there intent to portray it that way but people are not in the writer's head, they only have the finished pages to go by.

curious. didn't babs have lgbt friends already?

Yes but also a character having black friends doesn't mean there always is the best thought out portrayal of characters if color and their motivations. Being a white guy myself, I hadn't realized some of the tropes against people of color until they were pointed out to me. Just as someone regularly representing LGBT characters doesn't mean they always have the best thought out motivations for them. From a creative standpoint, it's worth getting more input on issues so we're not falling into the same traps each time as can happen with any minority representation.

There should be more LBGT heroes first so having a LBGT villian won't be made out to be all LBGT are villans.

That's really it. The more variety among the heroes (including all diversity types) the less you have to worry that the only representation of a group being seen in the antagonists.