World's gayest, straight white boy.

I'm a cisgender, straight, male, but was raised gender neutrally. My personality and interests can range from traditionally feminine to traditionally masculine. I often have been called or asked if I'm gay (hence the title of this blog), because I'm a nonconforming male.

Please do challenge me on my opinions if you believe I am wrong or ignorant, as I do wish to continue to learn and understand people and view different perspectives.😊

One thing I'm not excited about P4R is the transphobia and homophobia controversies reviving as well. While the homophobia complaints make sense (looking at you yosgay), the transphobia isn't so black and white as both sides of the argument make it out to be.

No, Naoto is not trans, you can have that headcannon, but don't act like it is cannon. I've seen people get all pissy for not referring to Naoto as a man, or just straight up calling people transphobic for liking P4. That isn't ofc saying all people with this headcannon act like this, it's just a very loud minority.

HOWEVER, I will say that the oppossite to this will be even louder and more aggressive, even using it as a way to let loose their transphobia. If someone headcannons Naoto as trans, LET THEM FUCKING BE DICK HEAD! They literally are not hurting anybody doing this. It's just a fucking headcannon over a silly fictional videogame, calm tf down.

I also literally thought that Naoto was gonna come out as trans until she says that she just wants to be accepted and taken seriously as a girl, in the same way they take men are accepted and taken seriously in a men dominated workforce. I loved her story about learning to be more comfortable in their own skin, while accepting that they will face judgement and ridicule from others for not conforming to gender norms, but will still continue to be true to who she is because she has people in her life that do accept, love, care and take her seriously. Although her story is one about misogyny, these same struggles and overall story is something so many trans people can genuinely relate to.

There's also obviously her shadow planning to do a gender reassignment surgery, which is portrayed as an evil and bad thing that will kill her. I don't think I need to explain why this is transphobic, your a grown-up with a brain, you can figure this out. It's made apparent that this gender reassignment shadow stems from her thoughts, that she would've been better off born as a man so she could be taken seriously and accepted, which actually is messaging used in A LOT of transphobic rhetoric.

"She's actually not a man, she's just very insecure about her womanhood. If she just accepted herself, she'll stop playing pretend and stop dressing up like she has a penis.☝️🤓" -some transphobe asshat.

Again. ALL of this makes sense as to why so many trans people, or friends and family of them, would take such offense and become so emotional about this character. They were able to heavily relate to them, but then the game immidiately starts using some Matt Walsh talking points on why you're not a real boy.

I personally wish to believe that the writers who wrote this were just ignorant, because I don't feel as though they were trying to say something about transness, they were more focused on talking about sexism, but the route they went lead to it being caught in the crossfire. This isn't to say that this therefore, "makes it not at all transphobic at all, because they were actually just ignorant!" Transphobia through ignorance is still transphobia, all we have to do is learn from it. I'm just trying to say that I hope it doesn't come from a place of hate. They could also very well be transphobic as well. I don't fucking know them OR where their head was at when writing this. I just want to hope this was a mistake on their part because they were so focused on one thing, that they ended up denying another.

So in conclusion, I honestly believe the transphobia complaint is both right and slightly wrong, because Naoto isn't trans and her story is instead about sexism. The writers (I hope) ignorantly wrote something that uses typical transphobic rhetoric, when writing a character that challenges gender norms, to then learn to finally be more comfortable and confident about who she is and prove wrong a society that will try to tell her "she can't". Which is a great message to convey to, not only women, but everyone as well and I think P4 does a good job with Naotos story in conveying that. Even if it is rough around the edges.

Would like to hear other's opinions and thoughts on this as well.