Kiri (me) responds: Spoiler: moar sadie's song spoilers I've noticed that parental theme too and I cannot wait for more Rose. I had actually a harder time with Barb than with Priyanka. Priyanka is weird and controlling but at the end realises that she's wrong which is something my evil mother would never do. Barb... Watching Barb reminded me why, even though my mother was supportive of SOME of my interests when she wasn't being an abusive alcoholic b****, I never felt grateful for that. Because she always wanted to take over and make things more complicated than they needed to be and way way way more complicated than I wanted them to be. On one level, yeah I am grateful that she supported me in some things, but it was so hard to just be myself with her because what I wanted to do and be was never, ever enough for her. And @Acey? I think you will be OK by the time you are ready to have kids. Also, I am told that while I do not have much maternal instinct, I am an excellent wicked-fun-enabling auntie.
I finally watched Sadie's song. Spoiler I found Sadie's panic really uncomfortable to watch, it made me panic with her. For some reason I thought this would end like a lot of cartoons with this set-up where she goes on stage and embarrassed herself. But I'm really glad I powered through that. (I cannot watch shows where characters embarrass themselves like that) the feels were balanced out by Steven's awesome performance. I liked how he walks on the stage with make up, a crop top, a skirt, and high heels, singing a pop song and nobody laughs or treats it like a joke? There isn't even a moment of hesitation where he doesn't want to go out on stage like that. In fact he is totally pumped to go out and rock that routine and throw glitter everywhere and have fun. Everybody cheers and and is like "Yep. That's our Steven." I find that 1000 times more affirming than any of the gender politics on tumblr.
what do people think about the trans girl Steven headcanon that's gained a lot of popularity recently, especially after Sadie's Song aired? Here's a post that's basically a montage of the most cited moments from the show supporting the headcanon (video contains sadie's song spoilers): http://bpd-amethyst.tumblr.com/post/129391662983/something-click-in-that-head-of-yours-kid Spoiler I personally prefer him as a boy, since I really like it when cis characters have interests and stuff outside traditional gender roles and nobody makes any fuss about it (like when he came out on stage in that outfit and nobody batted an eye, that was such an excellent moment!). But honestly the trans headcanon is very supported by canon, much more than trans headcanons usually seem to be, and I think that's really awesome. A lot of people on my dash are really excited about it :) It seems like it could genuinely go either way and I'm interested to see what future episodes will add. I just hope tumblr doesn't do the tumblr thing and politicize it, attack people who don't share the trans headcanon, etc., though a certain amount of that is probably inevitable.
The claim for ANY kind of gender weird is very strong with steven and I'm super happy about that in general. Steven Universe has consistently been REALLY great about gender whenever it came up so I'm excited!
Re: Steven's Song Spoiler Great episode! Like everyone else, I love that Steven unquestioningly went out in glitzy feminine clothing like that and got nothing but normal cheering. That said though, OOF. Two 'Steven watches his friends have relationships with their moms' episodes in a row. Poor kid. Re: Trans Girl Steven Spoiler It's definitely a valid headcanon that has sensible root in canon events! I personally lean more towards the idea that Steven is nonbinary and uses male pronouns out of convenience, similar to how the gems are nonbinary and use female pronouns. As long as Steven has freedom of gender expression, I'll be happy with however it turns out though.
Spoiler: trans steven headcanons I like the idea of Steven being non-binary but presenting as/using male pronouns, the same way the gems are agender but still present as and use female pronouns for convenience. I don't mind people who headcanon him as a trans girl or people who think he's 100% cis male who just likes to break gender stereotypes because all these options are pretty great. The only thing that annoys me is when people get pissy at other people's headcanons, like there are some fans on reddit who are annoyed that the tumblr part of the fandom for having the rather popular headcanon that he is either trans or nonbinary instea of a normal cis boy, and I am not in the SU fandom on tumblr anymore but I can imagine there are a few fans with trans/nonbinary Steven headcanons who think cis Steven is transmisogyny or erasure, because the tumblr SU fandom is toxic like that.
My thoughts are also similar with a large side of "having been raised by gems and Greg without anyone telling Steven what Steven is supposed to be like wrt gender, Steven is perfectly happy with Steven and has probably not even thought about gender too much yet because Steven is only getting nasty binary gender messages from television and even then his favourite shows are about a flying dog and weepy food."
I kind of really like the idea of steven as a cis boy? Because there are so few examples of boys who get to be gentle, get to be loving and respectful of the women in their lives, who get to protect without infantilizing. And yeah, who get to do "girly stuff." The messages out there for little boys are so narrow, and usually so toxic, that itd kind of make me sad for them to be like "oh nevermind actually steven gets to be like that because hes not really a boy, jkjk" THAT SAID, i think the trans/nb headcanon's got a lot of support in the canon and i can totally 100% see people wanting to see him as trans representation and i think thats totally okay too! Honestly i hope the canon leaves it ambiguous so that people can interpret it how they like.
I honestly have no idea what I want it to be, if I want it to be one or the other, I just like the way it is written.
yeah my own headcanons aside I love that it is very ambiguous and people can interpret things however they want and every option is pretty well supported? I hope there will be more moments like this in the future but it stays ambiguous
Personally leaning heavily towards the idea of Steven as a cis boy who just doesn't give a shit about gender norms. It's nice to see boy characters who like "girly" things, honestly, and I kinda feel like him being a trans girl would kind of take away from that in a lot of ways. Seconding @alchemicalheart there--the whole "character likes Girl Things TM, therefore character is obviously a girl" mentality is kind of weird to me and I don't like it, since isn't it just enforcing gender roles? It's the same reason I'm always a little annoyed by the whole "Buttercup ends up identifying as male" headcanon that a lot of Tumblr PPG fans have--she's the most "masculine" Powerpuff Girl, but having been a young girl who was into Boy Things TM but still identified as a girl, it was really fucking nice having a character who was just like me in that regard. Although I will admit that Steven's line in Giant Woman ("But if it were me, I'd really wanna be a giant woman!") could lend definite credence to him identifying as some form of not-male. Shruuug. I dunno, I just like the idea of Steven being male but also liking to wear pretty clothes and having pink as his favorite color and experimenting with makeup and generally not giving a fuck about societal expectations in that regard.
I think the best thing to do is: we all produce media where all of these things happen. Where cis boys like girly things, where characters realize they're trans girls, and when NB people just dgaf and look fabulous doing it. And we make a lot, and then, we have lots of these stories and it's great. And. Where was I going with this?
Yeah, reading David Reimer's story in high school was the moment I stopped believing that gender was just bullshit. Mostly by gripping a blanket and going "oh god, fuck" and shuddering.
