What I can tell you as a transgender woman is that occasionally I will read trans woman characters written by cisgender authors. And I can pretty much always tell when the author is cis, even if the character is portrayed respectfully, because they get some details wrong or something. But I certainly don’t think that they shouldn’t be allowed to take a stab at it, and I actually appreciate any representation that isn’t egregiously harmful. And I certainly don’t think that only transgender women should be allowed to write transgender women because then it falls on me,and that’s rather tokenizing, isn’t it?
Also it seems like demanding that only#OwnVoices authors should be allowed to write certain characters is an excellent way to enforce a situation where most books are about cishet white people.
And no: you probably won’t get all of the specific details of someone else’s lived experience correct, in much the same way that most authors don’t get all of the specific details about how, say, nuclear reactorsorspacework. But so long as your character passes as realistically humanand not a one-dimensional caricature of what you think that other types of people are like, then I think that that’s reasonable.
The Japanese word for the ‘mutant’-type of quirk is 「異形」 - Igyo, which can be translated into [variant/fantastic/grotesque/strange-looking/suspicious-looking/irregular]. Basically it means ‘different, in a bit of bad way. I’m going to use 'Igyou’ as a placeholder for that word for now.
The first time we ever hear the word, it’s spoken by a Villain with a mutant quirk whose part of the group attacking USJ in Chapter 14. Dude says something like, “Eraserhead, you can’t erase my quirk because I’m 「異形型!」” - Igyou-gata(gata being 'type).
The CRC here, they’re called the 異形排斥主義集団: Igyou Exclusionist Group. Spinner notes that they’re against “異形型の人間” - Igyou-gata no ningen - Igyou-type-humans. and they’re shit bastards.
This is when he tells us:
ちなみに「異形」は好ましくない言葉だ。まア皆日常的に使ってるがかしこまった場では気を付けた方がいい
lit. By the way, 'Igyou’ is an unfavorable word. Well, everyone uses it on a daily basis, but in a proper/polite place, be careful to reconsider.
Not too sure if the unfavorable is his opinion, or in general; could be either? either way, he does explicitly say that in formal situations (「かしこまった」 - kashikimatta - which is like funerals or weddings or fancy official things, uptight places) it’s better not to use it.
As far as I know, which doesn’t mean much because I haven’t read through the series in japanese to notice this, and I’m no translator, there’s no other word used for someone with such a quirk. ‘Mutant’ in Japanese is literally just 'mutant’ borrowed from English; mutation is a whole different word together (突然変異); and in the CRC blurb in Volume 23 Extras, Horikoshi says of the targets of the CRC as “姿形の変わった” - sugatakatachi no kawatta - peculiar appearance, which is more of a description than like a label?
Viz just uses 'heteromorph’ for Igyou. Other translations I’ve seen is 'mutant’ (jaimini scanlation) or 'grotesque’ (mangastream scanlation).
Personally for a fic once I used 'grotesque’, 'aberrant’ as the insults and 'heteromorph’ as the okay word. Well either way, it’s still singling out one person as super different/unusual, so no good choice?
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please, please do not trust this to be 100% accurate, my Japanese is bad, thank you
Anemo version of Kujou Sara with a very elaborate AU behind it!
Basically I thought it would be interesting if once Sara handed her Vision in to the Shogun, she lost all that strong devotion to her, and began to feel conflicted about fighting for the Shogun’s army. She would then decide to join the Sangonomiya rebellion instead and would become so convicted to that cause that it would earn her a new Vision of a different element.
I chose Anemo because of the association with freedom, and I gave this design mostly the same base, but with the black and white areas inverted, to show her change in ideology. The short hair is purely for gay reasons though.
