A PIECE OF THE TRUE SELF EXISTS IN THE FALSE SELF

seeing bread replaced with lettuce is so heartbreaking bring her back right now

Irish flag

Except it was cis, actually; all art is a found object that we do with what we will, but at the time the line was 100% about sexism in the tech industry. “You’re telling me a GURL did a COMPUTER THING?!” The interpretation of it as a positive statement of trans affirmation is a very presentist act.

The original script had an explicitly trans character the studio removed, but even without that, the continuing theme of society attempting to force people into identities that don’t fit is very relevant to the trans experience. The sense of subtle wrongness with with Neo’s pre-Morpheus life, the hollowness of the roles he occupies within it, and the rejection of the name he was given at birth to embrace a new identity outside the artificial hierarchy he was forced into, aren’t exclusively transgender themes, but there is a remarkably straightforward trans reading of the film.