Hi! I was reading your trans sejanus post and I really enjoyed it. You mentioned mtf Tigris and it seemed like you had some interesting ideas. I was wondering if you had any more thoughts about it?
OHHH ANON!!! I GOT YOU!!! I DO HAVE IDEAASSSS.
First I need to clarify that I have some preconceptions of the Snow Family as specific characterizations of many characters, we have vague ideas about their personality in canon, along other traits namely that they are quite conservative (I often joke that they are Mormon) and patriarchal. I don't necessarily think they were the most LGBTQ+ friendly, but I said: βThere's something too about her and all the ways she get a supportive Family that give most horrendous gender affirmative treat to her and the ways her already bad relationship with grandma go in a weird route of love, hate, abuse, admiration.β
So let me explain. I think Tigris was quite aware from a young age. I feel like her mother let her experiment with certain things because they probably took her to a child psychologist, and in my lore, her mother was a bit more progressive in her ideas comparing to the rest of the Family, so I think for her mom, she was a somewhat effeminate boy (probably gay on her head) who have an open interest in fashion and that was all and nothing more, right? However, war breaks out, but before I get into that...
For me, Tigris is the βsonβ of Crassus' older brother. My reasoning was that her last name was Snow, and in the US, children usually take their parents' last name. Tigris is also three years older than Coriolanus, and there are actually several creative ways to explain the age difference (for example, she could be the βsonβ of a younger brother who was careless, haha), but I took a classic route, so her father is the older brother, and the thing is, I think this would put pressure on her to be the future heir to the Snow Family.Β
Which means that Snow's grandmother (who in my opinion, is the kind of person who is quite meddlesome in many things but in special when it comes to the upbringing of her grandchildren) pestered her son with questions like, βWhy is Tigris going to the psychologist? Why are they letting her do this and wear that?β Scolding because what are they doing with the future president of Panem!
At the same time, I think this would make Tigris initial relationship with Coriolanus a little tense, because I think there would be some pressure from Crassus to convince everyone that his son would in fact be a better choice for the heir position, you know? So Baby Coriolanus is there showing off that he doesn't play with dolls unlike Tigris, and he might be a little mean to her, but I don't think they get a bad relationship (even if the seeds of such scenario were planted by worst father the Mr. District People Drink Blood of CXS), they were good playmates despite everything, and they trust each other.
Now, going back to the war, that's when everything changes. The three of them form a very strong bond, and I think the death of her parents, the catalyst for Tigris to claim her own identity. She always knew she was a woman, she was just worried about what she might lose if telling those exact words. Her parents, her grandparents, everybody had such high hopes for her! but she's already lost everything, so whatβs next?
I think about Tigris's mother's coat for example, we are told in the canon she wears it when she feels scared or very stressed, the comfort it brings her, and how I think in a way femininity / womanhood is a way for her to reconnect with her mother, because I think her mother was very typically feminine, worked as a model and all for a while, womanhood for her is very tied to feminity yet.
Now Tigris claims her identity, which I think is a very confusing issue at first for everyone involved, but this is where I like to think of Pluribus Bell, as we know, a friend of the Snows who helped them during difficult times, and I think he could be the one to more or less help them deal with this matter. Because Coriolanus is a child, one younger than her at the moment,Β he more or less easily accepts what Tigris tells him without questioning it. I think he even likes the idea, ha ha ha, because the thing is... being a girl, Tigris is no longer the future heir or head of the Snow house! It's him!
He will be so happy and although this will have implications later on regarding the type of obligations that will be imposed on him and how it stifles the role he believes he must fulfill as the protector and provider of his family, at least when he knows, it feels great to know for him that he is now the authority, who will give Tigris orders around! (In his mind that's what it means and he wasnβt exactly wrong). And I think in a terrible way, for Coriolanus too, it makes a lot of sense. If Tigris is a girl, that's why she was like that! Why she played for a while with dolls, why she liked to read fashion magazines and wear pink! Now it all makes sense and he likes her better (for that and because she will act more as a caretaker mother-like figure than before).Β
I wouldn't say that Grandma is openly transphobic, but she would definitely have this attitude of skepticism because βHe's a child, Bell. How is he supposed to know if he's a girl or a boy?β That doubt about whether Tigris is capable of such judgment at her age, but the thing is, Tigris was also warning them rather than asking for their permission, and the three of them need each other to survive, so I think there is a kind of social transition within the immediate family circle and Grandma starting to assign her a lot of tasks and conflicting expectations, between being held yet to the βman of the houseβ idea and the if sheβs a girl, she will be then a caregiver.
Things are going more or less well until bitterness strikes because this is my thing about grandma. I wouldn't say she hates Tigris for being trans exactly, but in my head, based on what I've read in the canon, she's a character I perceive as misogynistic and hostile, so I think she would resent what Tigris had done. In the sense of believing that it is a rather stupid action, born of her own contempt for a rigid and limiting idea of womanhood that she herself has of her own gender, as men are free, they can do whatever they want, and she (Tigris) is giving that up!
It would be frustrating from her perspective, because she wouldn't understand why Tigris has voluntarily decided to lower herself to what it means to be a woman: weakness, fragility, etc. So it's not like she's confusing Tigrisβs pronouns on purpose (although maybe if they fight badly LMAO I think that woman is cruel when she gets upset, but maybe she wouldn't do that exactly, but she would attack her in something she knows makes Tigris insecure because βshe's not biologicalβ, so, again, it's not necessarily your typical transphobia; it's like double misogyny LMAO because she's being horrible, just as she would be with any other woman, except that there's more to attack about Tigris if they have a fight and she wouldn't doubt in use it but I don't think it happens very often because, at least from what we see, Tigris tries to get a good relationship with her and the grandmother for TBOSAS Era was already quite senile).
But there is this strange acceptance where Tigris is treated as someone who has wasted a golden opportunity and part of the obvious favoritism towards Coriolanus, may will come not only from the fact that he is now the heir, the future president of Panem who will make chocolate rain, but because he did not waste the advantages he was given as a man!
It's a bit contradictory, since I said there was this aspect of imitation and love because I don't think Grandma minded having a young girl to teach how to put on makeup, how to walk in heels, and to put her necklaces on, but there's also this latent need to box Tigris in, that because she's a woman she must lose her freedom and lock herself into suffocating molds; βYoung ladies don't get angry because they look ugly, they keep their legs closed and aren't sluts,β etc., that kind of thing. At the same time, I think that Grandma, like almost all Snow women, had this typical feminine expression of gender, so Tigris enjoyed imitating her grandmother, taking her example as a βlady,β and enjoyed those moments when was being teach to be a βproper woman,β but all of that felt like a cage in the end.Β
However, I think Tigris has a long way to go to free herself from that because, having been raised in a family with more traditional values, she undoubtedly internalized some ideas and probably, as I think she had a later medical transition, embraced hyperfemininity as a validation of her identity.
I once spoke with a mutual about being transgender in Panem. I have already included some ideas in everything I have said, but there is a point about the limited possibilities for Tigris to access medical treatments in Capitol Post War, such as operations or hormone control, which, as another mutual rightly pointed out, would probably be more effective, faster, and less invasive in the distant future of Panem.
But I still think it would cost money, and we know the Snows are going bankrupt, and let's face it, I don't think it would be a priority for Tigris to transition in that sense.
She can dress herself (it's possible that this is added on why she knows how to sew, as she always had to adjust her clothes), she probably trained her voice, and she can do some tricks, but if they are living in a precarious style compared to the millionaire life they once had, then yes, it wasnβt a priority. This is where the black market would be interesting to think about, especially Pluribus Bell's connection to it. It's possible that Tigris self-medicated for a while, and if she avoided any kind of biomedical danger while transitioning (e.g., injecting something she shouldn't have), it could be again because Bell was the intermediary.Β
But there is something to consider, and that is puberty, adolescence in general. The Snows seem to have a long relationship with the Academy, they have a reputation and influence, so I don't know if there was a legal transition of change of papers for Tigris, maybe there was, but it was slow or it was fast because even without money, they had contacts and good relationships, regardless of that, I think it's entirely possible that Tigris could have made a social transition at the Academy, but again, given the apparent lack of progress in the transmedicalism that the Capitol demands, there would be a certain social pressure that she herself would feel in the face of a body that is changing and not as she wants it to.
Here I bring up a somewhat controversial point. Tigris, strongly implied in the canon as someone who practiced "sex work" (not really sex work when she's a minor and with nuance if later on life she chose willing to practice it) I offers this concept, where there was certainly a need, a βsacrificeβ for her family, as well as an act that she consciously performed in search of approval and to reaffirm her gender identity.
This has its nuances, but I think the most obvious thing is that, as she was a minor, it would be a crime, and any disgusting guy who agreed to sleep with Tigris should be in jail, no excuses, I also offer, without wanting to romanticize anything, the reality that into her apparent consent of such act, hypersexualization felt validating to a teenager who cannot feel comfortable in her body and express herself the way she would like to, the act of sex give a young Tigris the feeling that she was in control, that she could be desirable at the same time it traumatize her at be a minor in risk being taken advantage by people who fetishized her for be trans and her family vulnerable situation, both things CAN be true.
I would say Tigris had gender dysphoria? Yes and no. Kinda, not necessarily in certain more typical aspects; I wouldn't say for example that Tigris wanted breasts, or even a more curvaceous/feminine body. It was minor details that caused her insecurities, such as the shape of her face, the jaw, Adamβs apple, that she did not like but maybe she could make the peace with if these werenβt magnified by her youth fears.
I don't think it was necessary for Tigris to passΒ later on, but at that moment it's what she longs for in order to feel validated, since her family, in their fucked-up acceptance, have told her that she will be loved ONLY if she is a woman in a very specific way. If she gets a cis pass, and personally, I like to think that, as an adult, Tigris likes non-binary / agender gender expressions. She doesn't shy away from femininity, and I think she likes it, but masculinity didn't necessarily terrify or disgust her in itself; it was more the possible social reaction to being associated with it, and all envolved in something else, that canβt be defined but it's okay.
In addition, the money would obviously allow her to access what she needs at this time in relation to her transition, along with other necessary expenses to support her family.Β
For the TBOSAS era, Tigris has started working in the fashion industry, which to me means she has had her first encounters with people who are just like her, in the sense that she has finally met other queers, even if her boss is the devil, lol. I think she had a very good relationship with her colleagues and beyond her dreams as a designer, is why she puts up with basically being Fabriccia's servant, because it's a unique opportunity to finally find people who understand her, something I think is a relief, especially since her situation at home has become quite overwhelming, with her grandmother's dementia and Coriolanus becoming a fascist LOL.
Considering the ending of TBOSAS, I tend to believe that Tigris and Ma have a very good relationship. If we add what I said about Sejanus Trans, I think she is someone who offers real support and total acceptance to Tigris, like even if you're not totally feminine, it's okay, and even someone like Strabo, who in my post-canon hcs always becomes pathetic and sad since his son died without knowing how much he loved him and has learned all his lessons from how he behaved with Sejanus, so while I wouldn't say he's a very sociable man or talks to Tigris much, at least he would make certain gestures that would encourage her independence (ecomomical mostly), which I tend to believe happens when her grandmother dies.
I didn't talk much about her relationship with Coriolanus, but I think it would be very much like in the canon, there were just extra steps to get there, if anything, but since Coriolanus experienced it all while being very young, for him, Tigris was for the most part of his life Tigris, a girl.
However, I believe that when their relationship begins to have problems, Coriolanus who is very republican, and yes he is the worst trans ally ever recorded but when he begins to get involved in politics portraying himself as very traditional Family man and Tigris is probably already being Tigris, moving away from this mold of a traditional woman that she longed for in her youth. So I think that, in addition to the tensions between them, he would reject this and would disapprove of Tigris ceasing to be a βgoodβ woman.
I don't think he would mess with her identity as such, but he would judge her for her choices. Oh, and I forgot to mention her boyfriend, whom she broke up with. We are told in the text that she had a boyfriend, and the thing is that I think Tigris tried to fit in and be a more traditional woman with this boyfriend. They talked about weddings and children, but the breakup happened when Tigris realized that she didn't necessarily want that, but simply the social validation of what that would imply: being a wife, undoubtedly a woman to society eyes but why does she need that? In her eyes, she knows she IS ONE, she sees it.
