- #1
At first, I thought it the subject matter would be handled with care. The author recognizes the original owner as a trans individual—the MC concludes that they were presenting as female because of the incongruity experienced with their assigned s*x at birth—and the MC points out that she most likely presented as a girl because of dysphoria. However. There is basically no respect given to this character past this point. The MC was talking with the original's social media agent and discovered that the original owner was trans. Once the readers are brought to this realization, the original owner proceeds to be misgendered at every opportunity. When referenced in past tense, the pronouns used are completely incongruous with her gender identity. The pronouns the author uses in these instances are 'he/him.' And the author created her? But it gets worse. In chapter five, the main character describes the original owner in this fashion: "Lu Xi suspected he had entered a girl's room but then thought that the original owner had identity recognition issues, always believing themselves to be a woman." This is, in my opinion, an extremely flippant way to approach this subject. 'Always believing themselves to be a woman' sounds to me that the author is insinuating her identity would and will not be respected by anyone else if they knew her assigned s*x at birth; that her gender identity has no validation besides it being a 'disorder.' Additionally, the original owner is referred to by her present guardian, her cousin, as a cross dresser rather than a member of the trans community. Here: "In his view, Lu Xi, as a pure cross dresser, wouldn't have the guts to get into a fight. At most, he'd just have a quarrel with others."
There is a very big distinction between cross dresser and trans, not that there is anything at all wrong with either. However, cross dressing is referred to as 'cross' dressing because it generally applies to someone who identifies as one gender dressing in clothes people associate with the opposite gender. Using it as a substitute for transgender basically bypasses acknowledging their preferred gender entirely, by saying: he's a boy who just likes to wear feminine clothes—rather than: she's a girl. Not to mention the fact that she was misgendered yet again.
[collapse]Now, time for the post-disclaimers: In China, the LGBTQ community is generally much less accepted than in say the US, particularly by the government. It could be the case that the author wished to portray such discrimination through the attitudes of the various characters in the book towards the trans character's identity. However, be that as it may, if that was what the author was going for, then I believe it would make sense for them to respect the characters pronouns when she is being referenced through narration, even if it follows the MC's perspective. I would think that they would at least make the main character more understanding of the transgender community. However, this is not the case. The most the author ever goes to validate the original's gender identity is to use 'they/them' on very specific occasions, at least at this point in the story.This leads to my second disclaimer. I have only read six chapters of this book. I do not know if it gets better or if the misgendering is intentional because the author plans to validate the trans character's gender in future. Take what I've described and make your own judgements while reading.And I finally want to note that transphobia often originates from ignorance. It is not that they are intent on being a bad person or cause harm, it is simply because they do not fully understand the matter nor the harm that they are causing.In the end, my opinion is this: if you are going to write a trans character, please give them accurate representation and respect. After all, they are people too, and deserve just as much respect in media as anyone else.