Discussion Yamato’s Gender

[Zmsp]

When I'm calling out transphobic messages I'm not saying you actively hate trans person, I'm saying you're committing micro-aggressions.

Sure, but when you say that said messages would elicit a ban if you were a moderator, or claiming that you'd educate people by elaborating on a certain point, you're pretty much applying a form of censorship to someone's speech just because it might offend someone, or compelling them to speak in a certain way that doesn't conflict with your own values. Any sort of argument is bound to have micro-agressions, because it's always about confronting ideas and beliefs, and that's somewhat agressive by nature. The distinction between that and hate speech is not as thin as some people make it out to be, and I hope you understand that I'm speaking in broad terms, not specifically, although it obviously derived from this topic in particular.

This goes beyond the topic at hand, but rather on the way people conduct themselves over an argument.
Anyways, I'm jumping ship on this back and forth between us. I think we've both explained our points.

 

[Core D. Roy]

unless they are being openly transphobic.

I think you're being wildly unaware of how incredibly blurry that line is in this fandom.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 11, 2022, Original Post Date: Jun 11, 2022 ---

PS: Vivre card were wrong before too.
PS2: Drag and Trans are very different experiences. Kamabakka island is closer in concept to DragQueens than trans persons.

This is a thing I don't think non-queer people understand, or even binary queer people. Oda himself would probably just shrug if presented with the question: "What is the difference between drag, trans, and non-binary?" It's understandable to watch Rocky Horror and just conflate all the things, but damn if it doesn't create friction when you inject it into your wildly popular magnum opus.

People see Kiku, and transfolk like Kiku and feel that that's how transfolk *should* be: binary. Kiku and Yamato aren't just opposites because of their identifying genders, they're opposites in how binary they are. Kiku is a straight up binary transwoman. Yamato confuses people because BOOBS=WOMAN, but Oda conflates this with the dumb "I am Oden" thing so it muddies the water of the conversation before it even begins. When in reality there are plenty of non-binary people who just look a certain way but identify another way *points to self*.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 11, 2022 ---

Good point. This is a very specific thread. If it were something like "The Character Gender" thread maybe we could have some rules like that but in this case you're right. I guess the forum rules will have to be enough to keep things as civil as possible.

Pretty much, it's on everyone here to not be an asshole because if this thread gets closed, we're looking forward to this discussion popping up every single week until the series ends. And by "until the series ends", I mean into eternity.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 11, 2022 ---

"Is it transphobic to misgender a fictional character, who has been refered as both male and female on official sources?"

1) I'm sick of people using "it's a fictional character so bla bla bla"; it's a tiresome qualifier. I shouldn't have to define the value of representation in fiction to every person on the internet but holy shit does this bad faith junk come up a lot.

2) No, it's not and if you look at the wide range of discourse, there's barely anyone that sees Yamato being referred to as "she" that is corrected, and there is always some maggot coming out of the woodworks to *she whenever somebody calls Yamato he or they. It's just not a both sides thing.

 

[Zmsp]

After thinking about it for a bit, I really do hope Yamato joins the crew, and there's no sort of moment where Yamato sheds off the Oden persona. That'd be the best way to go about it, and probably the most consistent with Luffy's character.

He doesn't give a fuck, why would he now? You're cool, interesting and you want to come along on an adventure? Tag right in.
We'll go look for One Piece and leave the viewers to add/strip whatever layers of complexity to the character they want.


Oda will probably keep making controversial panels that will end up being scrutinized by us, but not by Luffy, and that's always been the lesson, irrespective of more holistic views one might have on the matter.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 12, 2022, Original Post Date: Jun 12, 2022 ---

People see Kiku, and transfolk like Kiku and feel that that's how transfolk *should* be: binary. Kiku and Yamato aren't just opposites because of their identifying genders, they're opposites in how binary they are. Kiku is a straight up binary transwoman. Yamato confuses people because BOOBS=WOMAN, but Oda conflates this with the dumb "I am Oden" thing so it muddies the water of the conversation before it even begins. When in reality there are plenty of non-binary people who just look a certain way but identify another way *points to self*.

I'm sorry, but could you explain the "they're opposites in how binary they are" part?

Kiku has feminine traits and identifies as a woman, so she's a binary transwoman because the physical characteristics that she's confortable exhibiting match the gender that she identifies with, right?

Yamato is not opposite, but different, because there's no self-compelled will to have the physical aspects match the gender that the character identifies with, so it's not a dichotomy between man/woman and being viewed as one? Is that it?

Not trying to start any arguments, just trying to understand your point.

 

[kcd]

Yamato is not opposite, but different, because there's no self-compelled will to have the physical aspects match the gender that the character identifies with, so it's not a dichotomy between man/woman and being viewed as one? Is that it?

Not trying to start any arguments, just trying to understand your point.

I think Yamato's logic is quite different.

IIRC, she told Luffy she's a man because Oden was a man. If Oden's gender was different let's say a woman, I'm pretty sure Yamato would remain a woman as well. Her claims are simply because of Oden, not that she sees herself like that at heart, unlike Kiku who truly views herself as a woman.

And for Yamato it goes beyond that. She also said Luffy was more Oden than she was. This means it isn't exclusive to only just her, others can be Oden as well as long as they exhibit certain characteristics. This to me just means it was more about representing freedom to her than gender personality per se, lol, but I guess anyone can call her whatever they pleased.

 

[Hannibal Psyche]

I think Yamato's logic is quite different.

IIRC, she told Luffy she's a man because Oden was a man. If Oden's gender was different let's say a woman, I'm pretty sure Yamato would remain a woman as well. Her claims are simply because of Oden, not that she sees herself like that at heart, unlike Kiku who truly views herself as a woman.

And for Yamato it goes beyond that. She also said Luffy was more Oden than she was. This means it isn't exclusive to only just her, others can be Oden as well as long as they exhibit certain characteristics. This to me just means it was more about representing freedom to her than gender personality per se, lol, but I guess anyone can call her whatever they pleased.

I think people don't understand what Oden means to Yamato.
Oden is an adjective to her which means - Freedom.
Like you said, when she said Luffy is more Oden than her, she's pretty much saying Luffy's freer than she is as she was cuffed to Onigashima.
Yamato claiming to be Oden has nothing to do with gender, but his philosophy.

What was Oden's favourite statement? This place is too cramped.... he always yearned for freedom, and Yamato understands this. Being Oden has nothing to do with being male... just freedom. And if being male also = freedom to Yamato, she'll claim to be male.

 

[Zmsp]

IIRC, she told Luffy she's a man because Oden was a man. If Oden's gender was different let's say a woman, I'm pretty sure Yamato would remain a woman as well. Her claims are simply because of Oden, not that she sees herself like that at heart, unlike Kiku who truly views herself as a woman.

Don't get me wrong, I agree.
I'm just trying to understand some concepts/views on the topic for future reference.

 

[M3J]

1) I'm sick of people using "it's a fictional character so bla bla bla"; it's a tiresome qualifier. I shouldn't have to define the value of representation in fiction to every person on the internet but holy shit does this bad faith junk come up a lot.

2) No, it's not and if you look at the wide range of discourse, there's barely anyone that sees Yamato being referred to as "she" that is corrected, and there is always some maggot coming out of the woodworks to *she whenever somebody calls Yamato he or they. It's just not a both sides thing.

Literally! The way one talks about a fictional character does indicate or imply what their actual thoughts are, especially if they're spending time and energy being bigoted or disrespectful.


Though I hope everyone agrees on calling Yamato a "he" after this chapter. As for his actual gender, that can still be debated, I guess, since his gender seems to be associated with his identity as Oden.

 

[shionoro]

The men's bath confirmed it. Yamato is a man. A dickless man, but still a man, hanging out in the men's bath. Bathing with them man. He is a man. A manly man.

 

[Tengou]

A note here: There are micro-aggressions that we ALL do and suffer, even when we don't notice.
When I'm calling out transphobic messages I'm not saying you actively hate trans person, I'm saying you're committing micro-aggressions. The aggression in this case is to force someone to identify as a Male/Female when their reality may be a bit more complex than that.

For Yamato, is clear that it-s being shown as a counterpart of Kiku.

PS: Vivre card were wrong before too.
PS2: Drag and Trans are very different experiences. Kamabakka island is closer in concept to DragQueens than trans persons.

I do not believe that speech can be equated to violence. So the concept of micro-aggressions which equates speech to violence is, to me, profoundly ridiculous.

Yamato, in my mind, is someone that does not care about sex or gender in the slightest. She does not seek liberation from her femininity, but from her father's overweening influence. All of the epithets she has been bestowed with - the Oni Princess, for example - carry a female connotation. Besides, at the end of the day she is still a fictional character, and no amount of shoehorning her into either gender will hurt her in the end. The only ones that could hurt her that way would be other characters in the same fictional universe; and do keep in mind that the only one who's consistently calling her a man and forcing her to be a man in the world of One Piece is Kaidou himself, who refers to her as 'my son' any chance that he gets. If anyone has compelled a change in Yamato's gender identity, it is the very father that abused her.

I don't know whether or not the vivre cards are infallible. But it takes someone with a special motive to ignore the only potentially canon source of information in order to promote the opposite conclusion.

The men's bath confirmed it. Yamato is a man. A dickless man, but still a man, hanging out in the men's bath. Bathing with them man. He is a man. A manly man.

Lol, I would call that a 'bro'.

 

[Fox666]

Yamato, in my mind, is someone that does not care about sex or gender in the slightest. She does not seek liberation from her femininity, but from her father's overweening influence. All of the epithets she has been bestowed with - the Oni Princess, for example - carry a female connotation. And do keep in mind that the only one who's consistently calling her a man and forcing her to be a man is Kaidou himself, who refers to her as 'my son' any chance that he gets. If anyone has compelled a change in Yamato's gender identity, it is the very father that abused her.

It does raises the question as to why Kaido refer to Yamato as male, despite always being shitty to him

There's some videogames which the villain is some mass murdering psychopath, yet they will respect the player / character preferred pronouns... but I hope One Piece does something better than that

It would be ironic if Kaido is the one who told Yamato that he wanted to have a son, then he decided to become Oden

I don't know whether or not the vivre cards are infallible. But it takes someone with a special motive to ignore the only potentially canon source of information in order to promote the opposite conclusion.

It's not just the Vivre Card, plenty of sources have Yamato as female


It's even more odd that Kiku is on this too

Perhaps these sources know more, and are throwing a potential spoiler (i.e. Yamato getting over the idea of being Oden).

 

[Erinyes]

It does raises the question as to why Kaido refer to Yamato as male, despite always being shitty to him

I think it has to do with succession, pretty much like Versailles no Bara. Similar case for instance are the princes of Kakin, in HxH. all be it females or males are referred as "prince"

 

[Tengou]

It's not just the Vivre Card, plenty of sources have Yamato as female

It's even more odd that Kiku is on this too

Perhaps these sources know more, and are throwing a potential spoiler (i.e. Yamato getting over the idea of being Oden).

It is telling, but there's a grey area with merchandise. My focus on the vivre cards specifically is because they're supposedly 100% canon, until Oda states otherwise.

 

[grey matter]

I don't subscribe to the whole gender ideology.
But if we're going by that, Kiku would be the one arguably fitting that bill, not Yamato. (When will Kiku get to purple haired Okama dude? Life wish fulfilled)

Yamato doesn't care about gender at all, she's completely clueless about that. She wants to be Oden cause she's obsessed about him and what he represents, that's really just it.
She's somewhat like the original DB Goku in this respect, sheltered and completely oblivious.

I think it has to do with succession, pretty much like Versailles no Bara. Similar case for instance are the princes of Kakin, in HxH. all be it females or males are referred as "prince"

Yep, Kaido referring to her as son seems to have a lot to do with that.
He wants her to take over as the Shogun of Wano, always has.

There are many instances in history and stories where a wealthy family or royal family raises a daughter as the son when they don't have sons, because they want male successors.

 

[Zmsp]

I do not believe that speech can be equated to violence. So the concept of micro-aggressions which equates speech to violence is, to me, profoundly ridiculous.

I agree with a lot of your views (most of them, really), but I do believe that speech can be equated to violence. It's just that a lot of people seem to think that opposing certain beliefs is the same as perpetrating violence towards people who think otherwise, just because the topic touches them deeply.

Religion is an easier example to explain when it comes to this.

If you're an atheist debating religion, you can explain the reasons why you don't believe there's a god, the contradictions you find within certain religious books, or even drawbacks of allowing certain religious views to influence decisions, under certain circumstances. This will probably be seen as an aggression by religious people, because you're trying to invalidate a profound belief of theirs, that branches out to a lot of domains in their daily lives. In no sort of way does that equate to you being prejudiced against religious people.

- If, however, you use those arguments to conclude that religious people are morons and have poor judgement, you've fallen into the realm of hate speech, and that's condemnable. You're the idiot.

- If you go around sharing your atheistic views with religious people when unsolicited, and you remain respectful in the way you speak about it, you're not using hate speech, but you're a complete jackass, and you're harassing them, so that's also condemnable.

This is a public forum, and we're debating a sociological topic or the lack of reasons to believe it is one. It all stemmed from our shared interest: One Piece.
No one's harassing anyone, and I've yet to see anything even close to hate speech in this thread. (at least recently... there might've been, but moderators probably took care of it, as they should).

It's only as personal as someone makes it out to be.

 

[Uriel]

I do not believe that speech can be equated to violence. So the concept of micro-aggressions which equates speech to violence is, to me, profoundly ridiculous.

Let me give you one quick example: "Women belong to the kitchen"

 

[Tengou]

I agree with a lot of your views (most of them, really), but I do believe that speech can be equated to violence. It's just that a lot of people seem to think that opposing certain beliefs is the same as perpetrating violence towards people who think otherwise, just because the topic touches them deeply.

Religion is an easier example to explain when it comes to this.

If you're an atheist debating religion, you can explain the reasons why you don't believe there's a god, the contradictions you find within certain religious books, or even drawbacks of allowing certain religious views to influence decisions, under certain circumstances. This will probably be seen as an aggression by religious people, because you're trying to invalidate a profound belief of theirs, that branches out to a lot of domains in their daily lives. In no sort of way does that equate to you being prejudiced against religious people.

- If, however, you use those arguments to conclude that religious people are morons and have poor judgement, you've fallen into the realm of hate speech, and that's condemnable. You're the idiot.

- If you go around sharing your atheistic views with religious people when unsolicited, and you remain respectful in the way you speak about it, you're not using hate speech, but you're a complete jackass, and you're harassing them, so that's also condemnable.

This is a public forum, and we're debating a sociological topic or the lack of reasons to believe it is one. It all stemmed from our shared interest: One Piece.
No one's harassing anyone, and I've yet to see anything even close to hate speech in this thread. (at least recently... there might've been, but moderators probably took care of it, as they should).

It's only as personal as someone makes it out to be.

I think that in order for my belief to be profound, it must be based on a state of thinking I have reasoned myself into. One of the reasons why religion is so profound to many is because it provides a basis for morality that isn't self-evident in a purely rational world. And I do think that to further nurture my view of the world and my own identity within it, I should actively welcome invalidation of my beliefs and my identity. What makes a person think that they've got their own number? As complicated and as clueless as we are about ourselves in the grand scheme of things, how can I hope to represent the totality of myself? It's impossible, but with a little luck we get help from other people to fill in the blanks and help us revise our beliefs and our identity into a shape that is acceptable to ourselves. We cannot hope to do this if we are not allowed to engage in speech that some people might consider hurtful or aggressive.

If instead you're only ever exposed to 'nice' speech that validates your identity, you will lose yourself in it. That's how cults are made. Whether it has to do with religion or transgenderism, I don't think that it's in anyone's best interest to only ever affirm people's identities and beliefs. That is why I think that equating speech with violence will lead to absolute self-destruction, because if we shut out all of the speech that we find hurtful we are only left with a mirror to reflect our own narcissism back at us.

That said, I haven't seen anything here that comes close to hate speech either.

--- Double Post Merged, Jun 13, 2022, Original Post Date: Jun 13, 2022 ---

Let me give you one quick example: "Women belong to the kitchen"

That is neither a micro-aggression nor hate speech. That is just ignorance, and many women throughout history and the postmodern world in particular have proven that statement to be demonstrably untrue. And ignorant beliefs deserve to be invalidated and revised.

 

[Uriel]

That is neither a micro-aggression nor hate speech. That is just ignorance, and many women throughout history and the postmodern world in particular have proven that statement to be demonstrably untrue. And ignorance deserves to be called out for what it is and refuted.

You reach an important conclusion here: Every aggression is, in fact, ignorance. Racism is ignorance, homophobia is ignorance, misogyny is ignorance and transphobia is ignorance.

The thought behind that phrase is that works are separated by gender and even if you don't realize it there are, still, people upholding those ideas. Even if it's not "the kitchen".

 

[Tengou]

You reach an important conclusion here: Every aggression is, in fact, ignorance. Racism is ignorance, homophobia is ignorance, misogyny is ignorance and transphobia is ignorance.

The thought behind that phrase is that works are separated by gender and even if you don't realize it there are, still, people upholding those ideas. Even if it's not "the kitchen".

No, that is not aggression. Aggression is malicious and intentional; that's where the hate speech argument comes in. Ignorance is neither of those things. If speech is allowed to be seen as aggression and punished in a manner befitting the punishment for aggression, we defang ourselves and our children and take away our ability to express ourselves, and I'd rather people would retain the strength of character to allow themselves to be vulnerable or hurt, to suffer some lumps in pursuit of self-betterment, then force people to affirm every aspect of my identity under pain of punishment.

 

[Uriel]

Hate speech: "abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation."
Microaggression: "a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination against members of a marginalized group such as a racial or ethnic minority."

When you force a pronoun on someone, that's a microaggression. English (Unlike my language, Spanish) have They/Them for cases like this in which you don't know it. People here, instead, actively use "She" even when Yamato refers to himself as "He"

So...

 

[Sachsenhesse]

Let me give you one quick example: "Women belong to the kitchen"

Sanji would agree with this, so he can harass them nonstop.

But honestly. I dont care about microaggression or whatever grinds the gears. Sometimes you need to be above some things.