Okay... it's been a while since I've posted to the FFML, but this
particular C&C got to me because of the personal experience of a friend.
On Fri, 17 Mar 2000, Kaoru L. Shimitsu wrote:
Gender Dysphoria: Now then. Speaking as someone who scores
a pretty damn high score on the tests for determining
transsexualism, I will say this much. This isn't as easy as the
author makes it out to be. This is a hard, tough decision that,
despite Ranma's curse (Which makes things easier) is NOT anywhere
easy to make. There is also no amount of *EASY* coping involved
with ANYONE who is involved in the situation.
I find it demeaning and trivializing that Akane, Kasumi,
Nabiki, and everyone else just ACCEPTS Ranma as female and rally
against genma (Which I am beginning to *GAG* over by now), and
despite how everyone says "Oh, it's Ranko's choice, don't force it,"
in the story, they *ARE* Forcing it. ESPECIALLY AKANE.
Ranma being who Ranma is, I cannot believe in any sense of
the word BELIEVE that he would just drop everything he is in favor
of being a girl. Doesn't work.
Now, see _this_ is perhaps the second biggest problem I have with this C&C
(the first being addressed below). Not, as far as this goes, I feel that
Ranko's situation puts the story into a rather different category than
that of a classic transgendered person, and I can't help but wonder if
this is your problem with it; if you can't get distance from the issues in
it, your reactions may be stronger one way or another than others who read
the same story.
I have a friend who was born 'intersexed' (basically, having both male and
female biological parts). This friend was raised as a girl for the first
5 years of her life, and then her mother died. Her stepmother had always
wanted a son, and decided that since my friend 'could be either', she was
going to be a boy for sure.
So this friend grew up, raised as a boy, and was _miserable_. Even if she
never consciously, clearly remembered those first five years, they were
there in the back of her mind. She tried, as a boy, to enter the
military... did well, but still never felt right or that she fit in.
When she learned her past and finally decided to transition to living as a
girl again...?
Took her less than two weeks to fall back into place as a girl naturally;
less time than it took Ranko.
She's quite well, happy, and living with a boyfriend now, who knows but
can't believe she was ever trying to live as a 'boy'. Everyone except the
aforementioned stepmother has accepted my friend unquestioningly.
As a result, I personally, as a reader, find Ranko's transformation from
Ranma to be perfectly believable...and this is also why I don't believe
the claims that 12 years of life as a boy would have eradicated the female
core of Ranko from Ranma, and made it harder to adjust back. After all,
17 or so years, several of them as an Airborne Ranger who served in the
Gulf War, did not do it for my friend.
I see Ranko's situation as more like that of my friend than being like the
case of the 'classic' transgendered person you read about on the net.
The majority of transgendered folk seem to be worried more about 'will my
family accept me, will I be able to act naturally, etc.' I tend to think
that, much like my friend, Ranko's only real problem is allowing _herself_
to be a girl. She was a girl as a child, and I imagine it is a very
freeing experience to be able to know why she felt that way, and to let
herself act naturally.
A NOTE FOR ALL THOSE HOSERS WHO LIKE THIS FIC: All the power to you.
Obviously you haven't read much fanfiction out there. Leifker, Zen,
Lawson, Perry all put this fic to shame in the general keep-ability
of most readers. I don't much care for pandering to the popular,
and I never have. I read what I like, and if I don't like it, then
I either leave it alone (My usual reaction) or I write about what i
didn't like and found obnoxious (Which is what happens when everyone
gloats, raves, and oozes about how good a fic is, and I read it and
become disappointed).
This may be needlessly combative to comment on, but...this is just my
$0.02. Hear me out, this is not intended as a flame.
I know that, were I the author, I would find constructive criticism to be
valuable. However, I also know that if someone calls a piece of writing
'horseshit' and refers to everyone who likes it as 'hosers', the authors -
and indeed, most everyone else - will probably disregard it. Any actual
merit in the comments is lost... and if that is the case, what was the
point of posting the comments in the first place?
I get the feeling - perhaps erroneous - that this particular piece of
fanfiction struck a nerve with several people, hence the reactions either
violently in favor of or violently against it. :)