Remy's Writing Corner

I was wrong about Jax. Queer people can be messy. Not inherently; it's not some sort of brain disorder that predisposes us to upset the moral fiber of an upright society we disrupt. We are shaped by our nearly universal collective trauma, our families, our institutions, our cultures. We are put into the closet by force and barricaded inside, denied healthcare, housing, jobs, our rightful place in the communities we are a part of. So we build our own, find our own families, carve our own niches into the wood grain of our closet door.

But queer people can be messy nonetheless. A damaging reality is that sometimes that messiness can resemble something else, something sinister, darkly reinforced by a patriarchal society.

For the first eight episodes of TADC, I tolerated Jax. I did not hate her, did not feel a bitter resentment like I would for my abusive father, the male friend that violated my boundaries and my sense of safety, the numerous men along that way that bullied, belittled, and tormented me in the name of testing the limits of teasing a "friendship" would allow. In the same way I'd forgiven their behaviors as cuts from shattered psyches suspended in time, there to cut and prod anyone that got too close, so too did I see it in her behavior. But it didn't mean I had to like it. To understand why people lash out and to reject the idea of your doing the same are not mutually exclusive.

I've harbored the theory that Jax is a closeted transfem for less time than some, but I truly believed it; fervently, defensively, proudly. Not because I loved her, but because I love when a messy character is that way due to being in denial, in pain, in a period of growth. I wasn't sure how obvious the finale would make it, how subtle a trans creator with a podium the size of an island nation would see fit to be, if that was even the goal of the work. I would have been happy with whatever Goose had done; she is brilliant, transgressive, and insightful. I had every confidence in her.

What I can genuinely say is that I did not expect Jax's expression of trauma to find a mirror in myself. Mine more closely mirrored Ragatha's; an eternal apology for my existence, an endless endeavor to somehow make up for using space, the crime of breathing. I saw Jax's tit-for-tat desire to make her pain everyone else's selfish, inconsiderate, spoiled, the tantrum of a child. And yet, reframed as an expression of gender pain, I found an uncomfortable parallel.

Many years ago, my partner softly launched the idea of their being transmasc. I was supportive, letting them borrow clothes of mine that fit loose on me, paying for a haircut, policing their new pronouns, using their new name, anything that I could do. I loved them as much as I do now, I wanted their happiness, I even undid some vestiges of internalized misogyny, finally accepting that I was not heterosexual, as I'd assumed, but bisexual, because my partner was a man, and I loved them the same.

But something deep within me wasn't satisfied with this arrangement. A part I now recognize as the latent gender identity I had buried so, so very deep. Subconsciously, I felt a mixture of pity and anger, that they hadn't suffocated the life out of their own desire to transition genders the way that I had. With what I convinced myself was genuine concern, I wondered if their expression of masculinity wasn't a way to protect themselves, to shed the feminine identity that had made them a target, a sufferer of abuse. I told them that I wouldn't ever let them be a victim again, that I supported them no matter what, but that I worried about the long-term hardships that could come from the transition they longed for. And in the end, they made the decision to remain non-binary.

It is impossible to ignore or overlook the harm that I caused, the way in which my gender pain was amplified and sent outward to cut down another who dared to exit the closet before I'd even discovered I was in one. And while we've talked about this at length, and I have expressed regret and disgust for the things I said, and they have assured me they are happy with their identity, the shame lingers. I am finally living as a transgender woman, and they continue to identify as non-binary. I can't know if that's the way things would have been had I not played a part in discouraging their full transition. We are still happily together, and I would support any decision they made, as I should have from the start.

I found myself wondering for hours after the conclusion of TADC if the reason that I could do nothing more than tolerate Jax was for the same reason that I despise who I used to be, a coward that harmed others in large part because of a denial of self, a belief that someone who isn't even a person can't impart lasting consequences. It was an abdication of responsibility, perpetuated by a deeply harmed individual.

Jax abstracted because she never felt safe to express who she truly was. She was eaten alive by regret, shame, and guilt. Her experience is a dark alternate timeline, a divergence from the journey of her real world counterpart, who continues down a path of self-discovery with one eventual conclusion, a twisted cautionary tale of the consequences of closeting by force. A clear-cut case of "estrogen would have saved her" not being a hyperbolic, tongue-in-cheek observation. A cry of self-actualization from a transgender woman who is on record claiming she is the closest representation of her creator amongst the cast. A resigned admission of the all-too-real possibility of what the alternative to coming out may have been.

Ever since I finished UNBEATABLE on 12/28/2025, I've been hard at work on a track that wasn't so much inspired by the soundtrack as it was an attempt to emulate it Anyway I think it's pretty good. Everything was done by me