a pause, a road.

if iwtv season 3 really has completely erased every scrap of gender non-conformity or transgender coding that gabrielle had in the book, i genuinely think that the writer’s are fucking cowards, especially in this political climate and contrasted with the explicit and celebrated queerness of basically every other character. even lestat gets to be gnc this season.

the only somewhat comprehensible reason for this i can even think of is that having a trans character “preying on”/“grooming” (heavy emphasis on the quotation marks) their son would be bad optics. but that still only forces the choice of: incest or transgenderism? and they chose the one that they felt was more important to portray, and that choice was not trans (or even gnc) representation.

seasons 1 and 2 also made the incest between louis and claudia emotional/subtextual in service of louis’s queerness (gayness). the fact that they didn’t do the same for gabrielle makes me think of something that starts with mis and ends in ogony… i also don’t buy into the theory that amc is the one who wouldn’t allow trans gabrielle considering mayfair witches literally created a trans female character for the show that wasn’t even in the books.