My experiences as a trans woman cosplayer.
(This is a very long post that I’m crossposting here from Facebook. Please give it a read.)
Ten years ago, I first took an interest in cosplaying. On the surface, I made it seem like I was just looking for a way to express my love of my favorite nerdy stuff, as I had done with Star Trek in my early childhood. In reality, I was doing so because I wanted to explore my gender identity.
I figured these conventions were the perfect safe space for me to explore this aspect of myself. I was wrong.
See, this was 2005-2007, when the “it’s a trap” meme was… extremely prevalent. I’ll admit to taking part in this charade, if only because I wasn’t sure how to truly express myself. By the time 2008 rolled around, I completely abandoned the term and resented any time someone said it to me. I regret ever using it to describe myself.
In early 2009, I finally adopted the name “Sophia” and started presenting solely as myself at all cons I went to. I thought things were going to look up. I was wrong.
If anything, the bullshit continued and got worse. I’ll never forget, when I did the mecha panel with my crew in 2010 at AnimeBoston, we’d invited two newcomers to join us on it that year. I remember introducing myself, saying how long I’ve been a fan, and one of those two chucklefucks said, “and he’s been a trap for just as long” to an audience that laughed at this horrible joke. I remember Doug turning to me, the one who runs these panels each year, with a look on his face of “oh my god, sophie, I am so sorry.”
Later that year, I finally started hormones. I said to myself, finally, I can be who I was meant to be. I’ll look better in costumes and people will always know to gender me properly. I was wrong.
I learned that there were people, ones I considered friends, deliberately misgendering me behind my back, including one I looked up to due to a shared resemblance. She was incredibly horrible about it, saying things like “she didn’t want to look like a man”, because apparently saying you look like a girl who happens to be AMAB means you look like a man. Nice covering for your transmisogyny there, honey.
In 2012, I got into Homestuck. I’d noticed the fandom was filled with transgender men, nonbinary people, and all sorts of other weird queers. I figured I’d finally found my safe haven from the bullshit I deal with every time I put on a costume. I was wrong.
I was called “boy Terezi” while I was cosplaying her, despite my breasts clearly being visible in the tight shirt I was wearing. I had someone ask me, “are you… a guy?” minutes into my arrival at a meetup while I was cosplaying Roxy. It was soul crushing and frankly humiliating.
In 2013, I briefly moved to California, hoping I’d find safe haven in their cosplay community. I was wrong.
At AnimeExpo, I was working some boring event at the con because I wanted a free pass. My roommate and I did Touhou costumes for it, because, why not. Before we’d even arrived at the con center, I was misgendered by another guest in the hotel we were staying while we waited for the shuttle. Once we got to the event, one member of its staff misgendered me as well, and I lost it, running back to my hotel room to change because I just couldn’t take it.
In 2014, I returned to my homeland of New England in an attempt to get my life back on track. I ran a panel on gender identity in convention culture with one of my best friends, hoping we might just change some minds among the con’s unwashed masses. I was wrong.
While the panel was a success, with a line so long they couldn’t let everyone into the room, it did nothing for those who were not in attendance. After the concert Saturday night, I was hoping to meet up with my (cool) Homestuck friends in the bar at the Hilton. I tried getting in through the side door, but it was locked. There was a man next to me, who only heard me say “goddamnit” muttered under my breath. As he walked away, he yelled out to be, “You’re really attractive from behind even though you’re a guy!” I yelled out a few choice words to him, as you’d expect.
Look… all I can say is being a trans woman who cosplays is extremely tough, and there are so many factors that work against us, like the existence of male crossplayers doing it “for the lulz”. Some of them tend to be incredibly transmisogynist… I speak from experience. If you do know a person who is, as far as you know, an AMAB male, who wants to cosplay a female character, ask them why. It could be they’re just a big jerk who wants to make fun of trans women, or maybe they themself is a trans woman coming to terms with who she is. If the former, advise them that it may just be a terrible idea. If the latter, do what you can to support them. God knows we need it.
