#doncdesole

As far as I can tell--mind, my first thoughts are coming purely from her initial post--Scout picked up what he thought and assumed to be a woman (read: presumed to be female) to bring back to Spy as 'proof', of sorts, that he can pick up women.

Canonically, we all know Scout to be a silly baby who's not the most skilled with wooing, so this triumph (which, if you want to look at the taboo surrounding 'picking up' a sex worker--hooker, etc--would undoubtedly incur a scoff and guffaw from Spy, as he'd likely pick up on the fact that who Scout came back with was a sex worker and mock him for it, only because he'd tease him with 'you can only ever get such-and-such-type-of-woman'.)

According to donc-desole, it's actually a cop in disguise. This is apparently where things get tricky. The sex trade, by legal definition, is largely not legal at all. There are severely blurred lines, where this trade is involved, including but not limited to: sex trafficking, drugs, and all manner of not-good things.

Most enforcers of the law that go undercover are mostly detectives, but still put under the umbrella term of 'officer'. They're not always the big, burly officer body types you'd normally think of when you think 'cop', but range in a very wide variety of body types. It's this very reason that detectives are so useful in going undercover, because it's their job to be unassuming and adhere to the role they were given. In this context, the officer (read: likely a detective) was presumably given the task of going undercover to bust some sex trafficking or drug ring that these sex workers were involved in. Because, let's face it--detectives aren't used in sex worker-related areas unless there's a larger picture of crime involved.

However, she does kinda state, and I quote: "Both mercs are immediately dispensed a beating by the curiously muscular-looking hooker and ‘her’ partner who just so happened to be waiting in the next car over. After which they are cuffed, tasered for good measure and hauled off to jail."

Bear in mind, however, that there are some cis-women who can boast some physical traits that would seem 'masculine' in some form. As a side note, everyone has different tastes, and perhaps this whole endeavor was meant in the context that Scout simply wanted to be able to tout this prospective 'conquest' before Spy simply because he wanted the bragging rights. We all know he's immature like that.

What I'm failing to understand is a large part of the argument that claims donc-desole's comic to be 'transphobic' and contributing to violence against trans*women. I get that, at face value, not much is really expanded upon in her (donc-desole's) idea for the comic panel, and is left largely up for discussion. Honestly, I think that's where the springboard for this argument came from.

However, there was no violence in the description of the panel at all towards this cop/detective. It was, in fact, against Scout--and, subsequently, Spy--because Scout was dumb enough to bring the undercover cop to Spy.