#nonbinary hannibal lecter

Oh man don’t apologize!!! Since it’s TDOV I feel this is an especially appropriate time for an ask like this

He and Will have a conversation about it fairly early on (like season one time) where he doesn’t really explicitly say he’s nonbinary but does say some things: Will notices him react sort of oddly to someone calling him a man, and brings it up, and Hannibal says something noncommittal but honest that Will doesn’t question (bc yk he’s just as allergic to clarity as Hannibal is) and his basic takeaway is that Hannibal is weird about some gender-related things but not particularly inclined to correct people about them

It makes Will pay more attention to Hannibal’s microreactions when people use gendered terms on him, and it makes Will more conscious about his own use of gendered terms for Hannibal—although of course knowing Will most of that is subconscious. He doesn’t really Think much about it after the initial conversation but with the way he reads people and mirrors them he just stops using gendered terms for Hannibal basically at all

Hannibal corrects him on that a couple of times during s2 stuff: when they talk about Mischa, for example, Will says sibling and Hannibal says brother. And after that when they talk about Abigail Hannibal talks about having been her mother, and Will doesn’t question him about it bc he can’t engage with that in that context but he knows it’s another important piece of himself that Hannibal gave him, a piece he’s never given to anyone else. Another thing to feel betrayed about when he discovers Will was plotting against him

It doesn’t really come up again until they’re living together post fall and Hannibal really gets the chance to notice how far out of his way Will is going to always use gender-neutral language for him: he starts correcting Will about preferred terms more often, and as it becomes clear that Will is eager to respect that Hannibal starts to feel properly comfortable in his gender for the first time 

And Will isn’t super sure about bringing it up himself, but at some point he comes across an nb person who uses alternate pronouns and he asks Hannibal if there are other pronouns he’d prefer, which prompts them to have an actual conversation about it: Hannibal is feeling v safe about it in a way he never has before, and it gives him a chance to verbalize a lot of gender-related thoughts he’s been having for years but had resigned himself to never saying to anyone

After that it’s even better, because he can just talk about it? He doesn’t have to be worried that Will will be bothered or put off by the fact that sometimes certain words feel good in certain contexts and not others, or when he changes his mind about preferred terminology. And Will feels much better about it too, bc he understands the things better and he’s been given permission to try out some terms he’d assumed were off limits

Congratulations!! I’m hoping to be able to get that done this year

Honestly I think Will is a trans man and I think Hannibal is amab but non-binary

I like the idea of Will having transitioned while he was in college? After he moved out of his father’s home, possibly after his father died. Not necessarily because he thought his dad would reject him but because he didn’t want to have to explain it; it just seemed easier to ignore it as long as his dad was around

Once he started transitioning he went through it pretty fast: he got top surgery as soon as he could after starting T and he never had an overly feminine face. He’s always been a very physically fit and active person so he put on a lot of shoulder muscle very quickly after starting T and that helped him pass faster than he might have otherwise. He still can’t grow a real beard though, which is why he just keeps the stubble (having facial hair is like a security blanket for him; if he had to shave it while they were on the run he’d feel Awful)

Hannibal never really cared to transition or anything; he doesn’t care to have other people perceive him as anything other than cis, but he definitely doesn’t identify at all with maleness. Being nb is part of being Seen for him, which means it’s simultaneously something he wants desperately to be known but also is something he guards incredibly carefully

Like the person suit is a cis man, actual Hannibal is probably entirely agender, you know? There are certain things he connects with in a masculine way and things he connects with in a feminine way but he doesn’t identify with a gender at all, and sometimes it’s jarring to him to be expected to interact with things as if he were a man. That’s probably something Will picks up on pretty quickly and just sort of naturally accommodates; idk if they ever actually talk about it but they might eventually it Will were to bring it up

I’m also not entirely sure how Aware of his gender Hannibal is: like he knows that he doesn’t feel particularly Male but I don’t know if he’d have actually sat down and determined an identity bc he’d have immediately decided that it wasn’t something he was ever going to actually openly explore, since being a cis man gives him an edge that being nb wouldn’t. I guess maybe he comes across the term agender and thinks “oh shit it me”? But it’s overall not so much a big deal what his gender is or isn’t as that he’s allowed to interact with gender however he pleases

Hannibal basically does a cost-benefit analysis and determines that the rewards of not being constantly misgendered don’t outweigh the social penalties of not being a cis man, you know? Plus since he’s not a woman either he’s very aware that he’d still be misgendered most of the time, and he doesn’t really like any pronouns better than he/him anyway

He doesn’t have very much dysphoria of any kind except with specific gendered words and in certain specific social situations, and even then it’s less painful dysphoria and more that weird sense of “oh that’s right these people don’t perceive me the same way I perceive myself at all”

What he does have is gender euphoria when Will does things that acknowledge that he isn’t a man, when he’s allowed to refer to himself with whatever terms he chooses without Will reacting with surprise or confusion or correction

(god, the correction: when he was first realizing he was nb was around the same time as he first started living in an English-speaking country, while he was in med school; he tried out some terms that felt better to him and people would just assume his English was bad, which made it safe but also was Incredibly Grating)

He’s learned how to twist a sentence to avoid having to use masculine language for himself without using feminine language instead, and he enjoys turns of phrase that vaguely imply femininity without outright stating it

I’m so glad you agree!! 

Honestly it’s difficult for me to conceptualize the idea of Hannibal having a particularly strong attachment to any gender,,, I’ve been thinkin a lot about nb Hannibal lately and I just can’t get over it honestly

Like Will reads to me as completely 100% man bc he’s just like an incredibly manly person 

But Hannibal’s masculinity reads to me as almost entirely performative? He dresses in a really masculine way I guess but mostly he’s just dressing formally. He’s a man bc he was assigned male at birth and being a man gives him an edge that being an amab woman or obviously nonbinary person certainly would not, and that’s really the end of the story

it’s also why I can see Will being a trans man when I really can’t see Hannibal being a trans man: it’s nothing to do with body types or something bc there are plenty of trans men built more like Hannibal, it’s just that Hannibal would be a woman if he’d been assigned female at birth, bc his whole relationship with “”gender”” is basically “I am a god in a mortal body, how can I best utilize this mortal body’s form?”

And like yeah probably if he’d somehow gotten to entirely choose which genitals he’d have and how his body would develop he’d probably have picked havin a dick and things, but that’s because cis men overall have more power and it would give him an edge, not bc he’s like fundamentally male

(newsflash: being a trans man does not give you this edge)

Thanks!!! I’m really glad so many people have connected to those hcs bc it’s super validating for me!! Because that’s a lot how I feel about gender, honestly: if I have to pick one I’m a man I guess and I do what I can to be seen as being a man bc then at least I’m making the choice, I’m being seen the way I walked out of my house hoping to be seen

And I’m afab so that’s a little different than Hannibal but I used to do the same thing with feminity, before I could grow a beard: I’d wear dresses and heels and try to look As Much Like A Girl As Possible so that it wouldn’t hurt that I wasn’t being perceived correctly.

Well, he isn’t a man and he was assigned male at birth lol that’s like the most basic definition of Not Cis that I can come up with

Gender nonconforming people still identify completely with their gender—gender nonconforming just means you don’t fully fit into the box of what society suggests your gender should look like, not that you’re not your gender

Hannibal—in the context of my nb Hannibal headcanons which, while a plausible read of canon, are not actually based on anything except I’m nb and I like the idea—is not a man. Doesn’t identify with maleness, finds the prospect of identifying with maleness uncomfortable, experiences gender euphoria when the fact that he is not a man is acknowledged

I talked some in one of my other posts about the kinds of dysphoria I think he experiences so I’m Really not sure where this came from but also you don’t have to experience dysphoria to be trans? Your assigned gender just has to not feel as good as some other option lol that’s literally it

And many nonbinary people experience dysphoria in ways that are difficult to describe to a person who identifies strongly with a binary gender

So you can be a nonbinary person and still prefer to have the genitals you were born with over any other options, you know? I mean I think a lot of nb people low key wish we didn’t have genitals at all but we don’t actually wish that bc yk orgasms feel good

And a really great way to combat the dysphoria of having a body that you know, no matter what you do, will always be read differently than what you feel inside (bc strangers will gender you without your consent) is to make it feel like a costume. Dress up to look As Gender As Possible and pretend the only reason they’re seeing you that way is because you wanted them to, because you’re presenting that way intentionally.

And that’s really how I see Hannibal interacting with the whole thing. If he presented in a gender nonconforming way he’d be hurt every time he was still read as male (or read as entirely female), but bc he’s trying really hard to look like a man then being seen as a man has the same kind of satisfaction as tricking people into eating human flesh: he’s pulled one over on them