1st Mar 2017, 12:22 PM
in Ch. 31 - A Symbol of Trust
Author Notes:
Jocelyn
1st Mar 2017, 12:22 PM
The script called for this to be a two-pager with the next page, but I split it up. Sorry if this scene feels incomplete because of it, but there've been a lot more two-pagers than I think I realized lately when I'm already kinda busy.
Anyway, I know a lot of you called it. I'm gonna be drowning in those comments, I'm sure. ^^;
But more importantly, what does this revelation mean? Even if you predicted Ana's past - whether it was 3 pages ago or 300 pages ago - what does this mean for her now? What does it mean for Rain? Can they be friends? Or will their varying degrees of openness lead to them butting heads?
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Rain, all characters and all other aspects of the story are copyright material belonging to me.
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Anyway, I know a lot of you called it. I'm gonna be drowning in those comments, I'm sure. ^^;
But more importantly, what does this revelation mean? Even if you predicted Ana's past - whether it was 3 pages ago or 300 pages ago - what does this mean for her now? What does it mean for Rain? Can they be friends? Or will their varying degrees of openness lead to them butting heads?
©2004-2017
Rain, all characters and all other aspects of the story are copyright material belonging to me.
Follow Rain on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RainWebcomic/
Buy Rain: Vol. 1, 2 and/or 3 - http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/LittleLynn84
Also t-shirts/mugs/notebooks/etc - http://www.redbubble.com/people/littlelynn84
User comments:
She might long for the way everybody, from the conscious to the unconscious level, sees Ana as "normal girl," no strings attached, etc. Trans girls ARE normal girls, of course, and I think Rain would be overplaying her friends' reactions, but I do recognize it as a very human and Rain-like response.
The good part of that is that I think, throughout the plot, that encourages the other characters to be the best versions of themselves.
Of course, it doesn't always work out that way...
Hermaphrodite is still used medically and with doctors when SPECIFICALLY referring to someone with both genitalia but, yes, in general vernacular, hermaphrodite is considered to be rude and, to many, out right insulting.
No two trans people necessarily have the same experience. Ana's not implying Rain's anything less. Rather, I included the wording of "some extent" because I wanted to stress that she's trying not to assume anything. Ana doesn't know what Rain's been through; she's knows they're both trans, and so some experiences might be shared between them. But she doesn't know which ones or to what extent. She doesn't know if Rain is intersex or not (or if Rain herself even knows that). She doesn't know if Rain has been aware of her transness her whole life, or if she only realized fairly recently. She doesn't know if Rain has experienced trauma over being trans. She doesn't know if Rain experiences dysphoria the same way.
EDIT: And as I found out from my new doctor shortly after I first posted this, I am XX/XY with central nervous aystem, eyes, skin, digestive tract a mixed blend of 70% XX, 30% XY and that’s why my wye color changed from solid brown to tri-color central heterochromia in both eyes after starting HRT.
Makes me feel a bit like the mutants from Marvel stories.
its interesting both the overlap and differences with someone who is trans. and to trans people i ... typically don't mention being intersex... idk how its relevant and don't want to be thought of as different.
i've also found that cis people tend to have no sympathy for the infant surgeries and are just as mad at me for transitioning as they would be to any trans person. i even had a guy break up with me for the intersex part (he figured cos i had a medical condition, that what if my treatment plan changed and i was told i had to live as male... apparently there's a movie with that as its main plot point >.<
i don't particularly worry that being around other intersex or trans people would out me... then again i'm old enough to be Ana's mother. idk how i would have thought if i could have fixed things when i was 17 (or if i could have even handled finding out about the hysterectomy at that age...)
I appreciated seeing some intersex people commenting as well, as I think it helped grow my perspective here a bit....
It is sad how little outreach there is for intersex people, even when compared to trans people... That perspective alone can help me understand Ana's frustration...
(Now obviously some of this is bc of the large current witch-hunting campaign against trans people, and thus outreach has come up to match and combat that, but obviously also...)
Unnecessary surgeries on intersex babies still happens all the time... And it's genuinely so upsetting to think about. Like a totally medically unneeded [b]surgery[b] performed on babies, who can't consent and have no say in their own bodily autonomy.... it's so truly deeply upsetting...
I'm glad to see more intersex representation in recent media (including in your works), as well as more awareness campaigns and the like (the progress pride flag variant used officially by the government where i leave includes an intersex symbol on it now, as of just a couple years ago)... put i do think more could be done... i think imo the minimum should be sex-ed classes being required to teach people that surgery on intersex people is not medically necessary, so crappy doctors won't have as much ability to coerce unknowing parents (who may be very open and accepting people) into agreeing to a surgery they don't need to ever agree to. And realistically the practice should be banned entirely, (ideally in replaced by offering surgeries to any intersex person who actually wants one, once they're a certain age or over, all with minimal gatekeeping), and more general support and social acknowledgement for people who want no surgery, we really need to normalize having people who don't fit into they constructed male or female binary society is so heavily built around, and have ways for those people to exist without having to arbitrarily pick a binary option
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To just look directly at what Ana is saying here, I think a key element here is in her mind she is intersex first, and trans incidentally... Not even incidentally truly, she is trans because someone forced her into the wrong body, not some unknowing force of nature, but a real individual person who exists somewhere, who flipped a coin and took away her bodily autonomy.
This distinction does put a divide between Ana and Rain in a way that might be hard to see at first. Rain is someone who was always going to be assigned amab, whereas Ana by the flip of a coin could have been afab from the start, or, with a better doctor in a better system, left alone to make a decision of her own later.
So the distinction is Rain is trans in the more "traditional" sense, where-as Ana doesn't feel trans, she feels like she's fixing a choice a doctor made on her behalf when she was a literal baby
I am oversimplifying here, and I'm not trying to up-play(?) or underplay either Ana or Rain, they are both valid in how they feel completely. Rain is not any less trans for not being intersex, and Ana can view herself as trans or not trans, it's not our job to put labels on her.
While obviously if you view "intersex" as it's own sex category, then you may perceive that Ana would still be transitioning to female, even if she had never been forcibly given any assigned sex, and was simply given the label of "intersex"... Still it's not our job to put labels on her. This is all just to say it's a lot to think about, and it must be a lot for Ana in particular to think about.
So, I see how Ana could feel very out of place in this interaction, her and Rain are the same in many ways, they likely have so many things they could relate over, and shared experiences that bond them on some level implicitly... But Ana's experience is very specific, and it's one that she knows Rain is unlikely to share or fully understand... It must be a lot
I do think when I read this part of the story for the first time I found Ana too harsh (and still like I said in my last post, the interaction could probably have been handled better), but I feel like I have a better sense of why her reaction is the way it is this time, and it's very understandable
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General note: I hope this all makes sense, and wasn't ignorant in any major way, the last thing I'd wanna do is misrepresent any real groups of people, or hurt anyone! I'm not an expert on intersex issues by annnyyyyyyyy stretch, and while I have my lived experience as a trans person for that side of things, trans people aren't a monolith and I'm not an expert in the science or psychology of trans-ness... So I hope this all came out the way i wanted it to