#jake young

down from the first stage

"Over time, our encounters with extraterrestrial and otherworldly beings challenged limited notions of sex and gender. But the story of Angela's soulmate, Sera, shows that even heavenly beings can go through the very human experience of overcoming impositions ot reveal your true self."

Trans legends in Marvel's Voices: Pride; illust. Luciano Vecchio

(Note: I wrote the majority of this before the United States of captain America released)

With the new United States of Captain America series that is releasing, we soon will see the introduction of Aaron Fischer, a queer Captain America who’s a runaway from Missouri.

While we don’t know if he is trans, or a supersoldier, i wanted to take a chance to talk about a trans supersoldier from Marvel. Meet Trace.

Trace is a shared identity and suit that is shared by several victims of an experiment to create women who would give birth to supersoldiers. But I want to take the opportunity to talk about one of the holders of the identity in particular.

This is Jake Young.

He is a trans man. He participated in this experiment under his dead name and did not disclose he was on hormones. Because of this, while the others who received the same serum as him died, he instead developed fire powers.

Jake Young is not the only trans man in marvel comics but he is one of the few. He was not presented the absolute picture perfect best. But for 2011 this is more and better rep than can be found in most other media.

The trans experience has been likened to that of supersoldiers in media. But this metaphor can extend to other mutates as well. Spider-Man and other spider line characters have been adopted in the last five years by the trans community and many are widely headcanoned as trans.