#batman

Frank Miller put a trans woman character in Dark Knight Returns, a demonized butch Nazi named Bruno with swastika tattoos on exposed breasts and buttocks… Yeah.

This stems from a transphobic conspiracy theory in conservative circles, holding the trans rights movement to have Nazi origins. While in reality, Nazis attempted to exterminate trans people under the label of “homosexual” and considered trans science rooted in Jewish degeneracy, American conservatives wrote decades later about trans science not existing until Nazis invented it as an exercise in horrific medical abuses. They then characterized the modern ‘70s trans movement as a Nazi movement. Contemporary TERFs accepted this idea, too. Frank Miller ended up sticking it in a Batman comic as an illustration of gothic horror.

The animated adaptation tried to clean it up by removing the lines indicating Bruno is trans and sticking her in pants that cover the buttocks. Now, it’s a cis woman demonized for being butch, still a Nazi, still with swastika boobs. Yeah, not much of an improvement.

There’s a good reason why we don’t talk about Bruno.

human batmobile 2022

@/jmdy.jpg on Instagram

i just noticed