i was always under the impression that people thought spamton being trans was canon because he used to be an addison (canonically genderless i thought, but i am realizing now that there is only one they/them pronoun citation on the wiki) and is now certainly a man. i thought it was similar to how the ghosts were defaulted to they/them before transing their genders also. (obviously pink & mettatons arcs are made specifically to be trans allegories though)
basically i thought trans spamton was canon due to the implied pronoun change.
i think having a trans character who is straight up evil and misogynistic is valuable. he thinks he's better than everyone else, he's a MAN. it's a man's world or whatever. he treats women like shit, not because of trauma, but because he believes it's his right as a man. he and kris are "bros" because kris is fulfilling a traditionally masculine role in WR or, at the very least, because they're not a woman.
i think this can exist alongside him being transgender and can add to the reading of his character if done right. he's wrong about what it means to be "free" and what you're meant to do with your freedom. akin to him being wrong about what it means to be a "man" and what you're "meant to do" as one. the stealing of mettaton's trans body in my opinion can be seen as him twisting and warping the definition of someone's personal freedom (transing of gender...) for his own personal gain. he doesn't understand that you can just Be that without Using it.
of course, this also works in a cisgender lens. misunderstanding masculinity and manhood. anyone can do it. i apologize for being unable to find the right words to say it, but i think transgender spamton just adds a little something to the pot in a satisfying way.
you and i honestly agree on our readings of spamton generally! these points about spamton's relationship to gender are things i also see as very crucial to who he is and some of the most fascinating things about his character.
i'm not opposed to reading spamton as trans and i think that can be a super interesting angle if you wanna take it there. like, he could just be doing it because he's adopted a toxic understanding of masculinity while transitioning — this happens irl too. the way you phrase it, in which it adds something to the pot, actually does a lot more for me than the way so many other people tend to frame this reading.
i think my problem is with the way fans talk about it. firstly, being an annoying ass english major, for some reason i get really ticked over referring to mettaton as "coded" as trans or "implied" because i think it inadvertently obfuscates the very direct evidence that undyne uses they/them pronouns for napstablook's cousin, her own neighbour (which we know is mettaton) — same with mad dummy, we have a use of they/them pronouns we can use to juxtapose against mad mew mew going by she/her, so we can apply it to how both characters talk about their bodies. hypothetically, even if napstablook was a woman, for example, and ghosts could be born any gender, as long as we have this piece of mettaton and mad dummy both formerly using "they/them" and then transitioning, changing their names, and using different pronouns, we have extremely explicit evidence which leaves no room for doubt. so i think my frustration is that people will put this up against much more circumstantial evidence. for example, the addisons could be nonbinary, but we know trashy calls them "funny-looking guys" and in japanese dub they are referred to as men explicitly.
^ the japanese dub of undertale, comparatively, does its best to maintain gender neutrality for napstablook even in a language with a very different system than english. so if toby didn't really have an issue with them being called men/"otoko" in the japanese dub, it's harder to say the species is gender neutral so as to extrapolate that spamton was inherently genderless/gender neutral and transitioned later. forgive that dogshit quality pic from the localization book.
in a game with 1000x the amount of dialogue in it than undertale, with a character as notorious and discussed in game as spamton, i find it hard to register that toby would find a way to provide specific cases of they/them for pre-transition mettaton (even if they're relatively tucked away), but not give us a glint of that beyond assumption with spamton.
so that's my pushback on the addison/ghost argument, but this is where i probably agree with you a lot more:
i really resist the tendency towards positive readings of spamton's fascination with NEO. there is a lot of language about "inspiration" in a lot of the circles most insistent on spamton as indisputably canon trans. that he is "inspired by mettaton's art", that it's some kind of empowering encounter for him, that NEO is a reasonable thing for him to want and have, which i find to be a misreading of the actual text. he is "his OWN WORST INVENTION", after all, so it is a cautionary tale that spamton tells us. his fascination with NEO, as you suggest, is not a positive one. especially when it's not enough, it's still dark. it's because he's letting fantasies of infinite power win, because he's desperate, because (similar to mettaton, actually) he is always wanting more. by which i mean mettaton's lapse in judgement in undertale, when he claims to want millions of humans to watch him. we know it will never be enough. he'll get that and want more still, because he has a gaping void where friendships should be. this is what he has the most in common with spamton, for me, this tendency to lose sight of things. "You lost it when you tried to see too far."
so we're really not too different in the things we find interesting about spamton. i do think my most major pet peeve is the way positive comparisons of the two are a result of people not really knowing all that much about mettaton, and as a mettaton defender that makes me sad. it makes me sad that people tend to shut down the more compelling readings of spamton where his actions reflect patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and simultaneously, desperation because he really was the victim of forces beyond his comprehension. many men are victims of the very things they turn to to build their egos on. spamton being trans is honestly a really interesting possible reading from the pov of especially trans and queer fans who want to explore that relationship between transition and patriarchy and attitude etc etc. and if you wanna have a headcanon even if you're not an analysis person, that's also cool! i do it all the time! still, i think it's important to be cautious with how we're framing it if we're doing analysis, as if it's gloriously immutable.
