Anime Boston prides itself on being a convention at which everyone can feel comfortable. Our attendees include people of many gender and ethic identities, but the only thing that ought to matter is that we all love anime and are here to enjoy it together.
Two transgender presenters, Arthur and Sophie, presented “Gender Identity and Convention Culture” as a dialogue with panel attendees on making anime conventions a safe space for everyone. Here were some of the suggestions panelists and attendees made for fans:
Educate yourself on pronouns
Transgender means a person whose gender identity is different from what they were assigned at birth. Cisgender means your gender identity is congruent with what you were assigned at birth. Nonbinary individuals fall somewhere in between.
Arthur and Sophie encouraged attendees to learn about the various ways people choose to identify themselves in order to make congoers of diverse identities more comfortable.
“We wish we could make this panel a requirement,” said Sophie. “To educate people.”
Avoid making “trap” jokes.
“It’s a trap!” We’re not talking about Admiral Ackbar in this case. Sophie explained that the anime community joke of calling a person who looks like a woman but isn’t a “trap” is offensive, especially to transgender women.
The panelists explained that the joke isn’t harmless because it assumes that people who dress as women but have male genitalia are trying to “trick” or “trap” people maliciously. Still, they said there’s nothing wrong with donning your Misty costume with a full beard.
“Although there are trans cosplayers, there are also people who crossdress either as a joke or for fun, and it can be hard to tell what the person’s message is,” she said. “Don’t assume.”
New policies for gender support.
Anime Boston has a very thorough anti-harassment policy and take discrimination very seriously. We also have two gender neutral bathrooms on the third floor which congoers can feel comfortable using regardless of their gender identity.
However, the panelists and attendees suggested that conventions can do better. One attendee suggested mandatory gender empathy training for all volunteers.
“It’d also be great if the con provided optional pronoun ribbons so you can integrate your gender identity into your con badge,” said Arthur.
Use the gender of the cosplay, not the cosplayer.
Is that Naruto cosplayer a boy? Or is it a girl dressed as a boy? The panelists said that’s not something you should worry about. Simply refer to that person as “he” or “him” since they’re dressed as a recognizable male character, Naruto.
Sophie said that as a transgender woman, she is a little upset when people ask her for her pronouns in cosplay because, “I feel like I’m not doing my job.” She feels much more comfortable when people refer to the pronoun of whomever she is cosplaying.
“Refer to cosplayers by the pronouns of the character they are cosplaying,” said Sophie.
Anime Boston should be a safe space for people of all identities. If you don’t feel safe for any reason, alert a member of Anime Boston staff. We take attendee concerns very seriously.
My favorite thing about Thomas the Tank Engine is that it canonically takes place in a train post-apocalypse where the Island of Sodor is the only safe zone in a totalitarian dystopia in which steam trains are routinely killed and their body parts are sold or cannibalized for repair
If you think I’m kidding you need to read the original books
could you please direct me to a source? i would feel much better if this was validated.
It took me so long to find this quote online but I did it because it’s so much darker than one might expect from Thomas the Tank Engine:
“…Engines on the Other Railway aren’t safe now. Their controllers are cruel. They don’t like engines any more. They put them on cold damp sidings, and then,” Percy nearly sobbed, “they…they c-c-cut them up.” -”The Bluebells of England.” Stepney the Bluebell Engine. Rev. Awdry, Wilbert. London: Egmont Publishing, 1963.
This illustration, by Gunvor and Peter Edwards, accompanied the above text in the original book, and depicts a pair of unfortunate Other Railway engines moments before being disassembled with a blowtorch.
HOLY FUCK LOOK AT THE ONE IN THE BACKGROUND THEY TOOK ITS FUCKING FACE OMG
the early thomas the tank engine books are pretty standard stuff. saccharine bubblegum type stories and illustrations. if you watched the show, it’s like that in book form.
the second half of the railway series are so fucking dark and surreal i’m convinced they were a result of reverend wilbur awdry doing copious amounts of lsd and having hallucinations of his own death.
Excuse me but the very first story in the Railway Series is about an engine who hides in a tunnel and refuses to run because he doesn’t want to get his paint job ruined in the rain, so railway management seals off the tunnel.
They eventually let him out because another engine breaks down or something, but the original plan was to just leave him in there forever.
On the show, didn’t they also hook up one engine to a generator, so he’d never move again? That was literally one of the lines, I think. It’s on some other post on here. It was chilling.
Yes! This also happened in the books, to an engine referred to only as “No. 2″, but the television series applied the same scenario to an invented character named “Smudger”, in the episode “Granpuff”.
“Smudger,” said Duke. “Was a show-off. He rode roughly and often came off the rails. I warned him to be careful, but he took no notice.” “Listen, Dukie” he snared. “Who worries about a few spills?” “We do here! I said, but Smudger just laughed.” “Hahaha!” “Until one day, Manager said he was going to make him useful at last. Smudger stopped laughing then!” “W-w-why? What did he do?!” “He turned him into a generator. He’s still there behind our shed. He’ll never move again.”
This is so fucked up
No, listen.
Okay, so we see Railway Management doing all this shit, right, but supposedly it’s so much worse in the Other Railways? I mean, sure, you might get turned into a generator or bricked into a tunnel for not doing as you’re told, but at least you’re not cut up and sold for parts, right? It’s not so bad on the island of Sodor, right?
Or maybe that’s just what Railway Management wants the engines to think.
Maybe the island of Sodor is the real totalitarian regime, and the engine citizens (slaves) are fed propaganda, illustrated in hellish grays and sulfuric yellows, about how bad it is everywhere else, at all the Other Railways.
SOPHIA 30/F/Inglessa Province
Expect to see lots of Gundam, robots (namely of the transforming and piloted variety), Star Trek, tokusatsu, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Marvel Comics, Overwatch, Dragon Age.
