🙇🏻

okay so as a preface it's very fun for me as a trans person to think about trans headcanons in my medias. i like thinking about transgenderism in the akatsuki because duh!! it's an organization dedicated to chaos and the toppling of the government so like yes, of course that structure(lessness) allows for non-normative gender expression in a way that's a little more supported by canon than anywhere else in naruto. cheering and clapping

itachi (she/her) - strongest candidate for the i am canonically a woman award!! disassociating from her body and selfhood since childhood due to... all of that (hashtag kin) and when she transitions it's like waking up from a nightmare, or maybe like going to sleep after the worst day of her life... i love her! i love her! she wears lots of soft colors, skirts, dresses, chapstick, blush; does her hair back or fully undone, reminiscent of her mom's. dressing a living weapon in linens and silks instead of variations on the same black flak outfit she's worn since she redacted does make a difference as it turns out. she never got a chance to transition but it aligns with canon and would have fixed her somewhat imo. i think many (all) naruto characters would benefit from reassessing the genderalongwithalotofotherstuff assigned to them in childhood...

deidara (any pronouns) - i headcanon them as a tenten foil in a way. in that they're every gender every pronouns girl and tenten is none of the genders any pronouns guy #justhavingfunwithit anyways they're comfortable in fluidity and keep it light! it's not that deep. no tough times, ran away before anyone could get weird about her transition, just stepped out said i am who i am and then bl3w up a building with people in it

nagato/pain (she/her) - i kind of see her holding onto this idea of being a cis guy because she loved yahiko and konan so much and ofc she wanted things to stay like they once were forever. because so much changed or was taken away, she was like but i can stay the same!! i can even keep yahiko for konan and i and wear him and be him. and then in the aftermath of talk no jutsu (lee's everybody lived au) she's like wait so i am not in eternal ontological debt to the past versions of myself and my loved ones? and naruto's like no! never have been (i actually think he might say this?? he's so sweet. even if he is also kind of doing the debt to my loved ones thing). and then she starts using she/her pronouns with konan and chills out. doesn't change much about how she dresses or presents. it's rly the self-realization and konan's support that count (more on konan later ^_^)

orochimaru (she/they/he/it) - well yes. obviously. in canon too!! i think she's pretty invested in being militantly anarchist / doing her own thang / pissing everyone off so it makes sense that her presentation remains subversive throughout the narrative (e.g. feminine man, can't tell what gender that creature is, woman with something Off about her, etc). also one time she wore normie clothes to a konoha black tie event and it was undeniably weird and incorrect. tsunade had to be like hey. dont do that anymore okay.

tobi/obito (pronouns: don't worry about it / not worried about it! respectively) - tobi as an alter ego is i think very trans. like obviously that is not a cis guy. at least three genders there. obito in contrast has other stuff going on and isn't worried about the fact that he's not a guy!! in part because a lot of those feelings he can displace and sublimate through his tobisona #yay!! #noproblem!! this analysis aligns with canon somewhat i think. pretty much everyone in naruto is that im probably nonbinary but i have a job life under a violent system of child warfare so idrc about that rn post

hidan (she/it) - uhh well honestly i couldn't see it at first. but! after philosophical discussion i have decided she is a blood iron and amber smelling knifeplay freak girl. dating kakuzu, aka the only guy who can stand her and who she can stand (this is actually canon). worst t4t couple ever chopping up her boyfriend into little pieces and fucking until they both die. she looks insanely good also. sorry

kakuzu (he/it) - uuuugh this dude. i think his identity is shredded to such an extent that he doesn't think about gender or sexuality and doesn't bother applying it to himself. except like for when he Did and then just kept it like that. worked on transition and installing forever testosterone on his corpse body so he could forget about it and get back to doing freak shit with his girlfriend and making big money

kisame (he/him) - honestly i dont even hc him as trans in particular but it was reaaaaaaally really fun to draw trans sharkboy <3 playing with my tuoys <3 and sure what the hell. samehada shes trans too.

sasori (any pronouns) - YAYYY okay so if we understand the akatsuki as a venn diagram of people who are sick fucking freaks for no good reason and people who are the most abject and tortured victims sin eaters and scapegoats of an international military industrial complex.... well of course everyone has an interesting relationship with self-conceptualization!! sasori is no exception. he doesn't know if his genderfucking started before or after he began swapping his body parts out ship of theseus style for puppet machinery. anyway atp his body is fully detatched from his idea of his actual Self (which is technically/canonically a fucked up puck he can switch out between the machines that he pilots... like come on). he finds identification with every puppet he uses and wears. of course!! so it's, like, whatever gender i have on at the moment thanks. judith butler are your ears burning

konan (they/she, he/him okay with nagato) - MY FAVORITE !!! once again in lee's everybody lived au she gets to reevaluate her relationship to gender alongside and in a similar fashion to nagato. you mean being the same as Before doesn't mean that anything will Be like Before? well in that case. they have always been butch but starts to step into using different pronouns and binding / being more intentional and actualized about how she feels in her body. good for them!!!!

and scene! a disclaimer: as illustrated by kishimoto's treatment of orochimaru in particular, i understand how all the "villains" in this narrative are easier hc as queertrans bc kishimoto, and many other mainstream authors, use queercoding to add extra dimensionality and flavor to their constructions of evil. kishi in particular uses queercoding often to differentiate bad violence from good violence. i'm trying to have fun in spite of this! "in spite" by its truest definition, i.e. i hate that this is a thing and i am trans and i identify with these characters and several other "evil sick and bad" people in media, because being evil sick and bad is, in fiction, often matrixed with queerness. so i am doing this because i like to have fun and also to SPITE the author. kishi i am IN the walls of your home chewing on the wires