The Gender of Mona Lisa - Vol. 4 Ch. 18 - 8:2

[MangaDex]

 

[EnderWin]

Well, atleast the story did well when it comes to changing the situations and factors to fit the whole idea of the story. However, it would seem that they still forget that trans might as well be as likely to exist in that world just like ours. Oh yeah, don't forget that non-binary people do exist.

 

[Colomopri]

solid advice

i saw ritsu as someone's more following what others' wishes; if hinase doesn't want to be a girl she would still accept. but is it true? she found it really hard to accept actually, but she couldn't verbalize them because it would hurt hinase's feelings. shiori, on the other hand, starts out strong and true while on later chapters he finally understood that he was wrong.

they provide us some contradictions altogether, hopefully the triangle would have proper and solid ending.

 

[banksy]

Lol at that year of the rat bonus art
We really got some catching up to do😅

 

[thunderbuggs]

It's interesting that her friend said "there are people who think like that nowadays" in regards to same-sex relationships. This world seems like one that would naturally accept lgbtq+ people more easily, as their gender is already way more fluid that ours is. Sexuality, romantic attraction, gender... they all exist on a spectrum, but it looks like gay relationships are still not the norm to them.

On a loosely related note, this really makes me wonder how much the author themselves knows about the gay community. Because, like. The premise of this is really interesting - but what about nonbinary people? I hope that gets touched upon.

 

[Pandawanka]

This story asks me a lot of questions but it makes me uncomfortable because it somehow seems like the author doesn't know the answer to those questions either

 

[monkry]

Interesting talk on that "what if your partner changes gender". I saw a post on reddit by someone who had it happened to him/her (I forgot it's a man/woman). Basically OP can no longer love his/her partner romantically. OP is bi, but "he/she is not the one I married with".

Wonder what this new chara will reveal to Hinase? o__O

 

[tsuyukihime]

This is getting more and more insufferable. I can't stand how in all of these mangas that do a great first step of exploring gender and sexuality, they always completely ignore one of those key aspects. In this manga's case, apparently gay people don't exist, and to love a man Hinase has to be a girl, and vice versa. What a cop out shitty take; I hope manga can get past this annoying overused trope eventually. Sad to see good story potential wasted like this.

To any homophobes and/or transphobes who have a problem with what I said, don't bother replying, just going to block your shitty takes. 2021 doesn't need your bigotry.

 

[Hitomi_Higurashi]

Interesting discussion for this series circumstances

 

[throughstars]

@tsuyukihime I do think there's a gay dude in here. He was already been introduced in the past chapter.

 

[Darklight99]

Shiori still feels like the clear endgame. I do like it that the manga is actually thinking about whether you could love a person when they change so significantly. Most stories just go, "oh it was true love, we'll always love one another", but that's not how stuff happens in real life. I've read interviews from trans people and their spouses and the fact is that the relationship never remains the same, it tends to end in divorce most times if not all.

 

[smolbaka]

@tsuyukihime

You sound pretty mad.

 

[tsuyukihime]

@throughstars fair enough, I didn't remember about certain characters. Point still stands about defaulting to hetero relationships instead of exploring Hinase's sexuality as part of the process. It's tiring, especially when the explicit premise of this manga is that people are born as "in-between" or "neither of the biological sexes".

 

[zips]

finally someone suggests that Hinase’s future gender doesn’t matter that much, jesus christ every homosexual reading this has spent the entire time yelling

Also, sure some relationships end when one partner transitions, but it’s ridiculous to suggest that it’s all of them. I’ve seen as many relationships get stronger — and more than one cis women figuring out some shit about why this particular “man” was appealing when she’d never been interested in romance before.

As long as I live I will never understand people 20 chapters into a gender bender manga’s comments being angry about the plot or about trans people, lol

 

[Kriss10]

I just do not understand their thought process. They both fell in love with Hinase, who literally has no sex. They did not fall in love with the idea of what they could become. Now, since both of them have had feeling for them since a young age, they might not even have explored their preferences that way (this world despite this very interesting gender/sex trope sounds very heteronormative), they still fell in love with Hinase, a sexless and genderless person. How much are their preferences actually playing into their feeling? Hinase is Hinase, no matter what sex they decide to become. Ritsu does not like Hinase for their manly features and Shiori does not like them for their feminine one, since Hinase is androgynous. Had, for instance, Shiori fell in love with a female Hinase, I would understand all that thought process of ‘would I actually like Hinase just the same but as a guy?”. But then again I blame the heteronormativity of this work, because both Shiori and Ritsu seem to think that they have to like the opposite sex from their own.

Pllease correct me if I am wrong but this whole things a little confused.

 

[Korvalus]

@tsuyukihime: I think that it's because the setting it's so different to us that some sexuality issues we know are almost non-existent there.
The biggest crux on this world is that gender is not fixed, but "chosen": if you feel like a girl, if you feel attacted to guys, if you like "girly" things even a bit more than boyish things; you'll become a girl. And apparently, if you don't have a gender beyond a point in age you'll die, but not having gender a that point is a very rare occurence. They can "choose", unlike us that our biological gender is set before we're born.
I think that by understanding that point, its implications and the consequences of it first, some of the things that for us look weird becomes more undestandable. For instance, the fact gender roles are more set in stone than in our world, or that homosexuality is not that known. Why would you want to be something that you've not chosen to be, even subconsciously?
Several of the gender issues in our world (not all, but several) can be traced to the fact their biological gender doesn't match the gender they feel they are or the one they want (again, it's not a layman term, but some of the terms under the LGTBQ+ umbrella most likely doesn't apply here, like probably transgenderism); that's not an issue here.

The thing with Hinase is not only gender issues, but also related to maturity, I think. He's faced with the fact that their friends are changing not only because of gender, but by adolescence; and because of that, things cannot go on the same way they were before. It can also happen in our world because when you're a kid, it doesn't matter that much if your dear friend is a boy or a girl; but come teen years and ¡pop! nothing's the same. It's a hard truth they has to face like it or not. And he's undestandably scared. It doesn't help that both his childhood friends, who are on different genders love Hinase and wants them to choose, putting even more stress on him. He's faced with gender identity, coming of age, love issues and friendship choices all at once, with an additional biological and social pressure. Really, it SUCKS to be Hinase right now.

 

[FioreFire]

Yep, straight people are confusing as heck, nothing new here

 

[Ace435]

@thunderbuggs on the contrary, it might be harder for them to get used to that because since they can choose what gender they become, it basically turns into and if I want to marry a girl I become a boy and vice versa and that becomes the norm. People would view same-sex relations as weird due to the fact that it isn't actually "necessary"

@tsuyukihime as I explained before, gay people would be less likely to exist due to the fact that if you decide you like boys, the norm already tells you that you should become a girl. you should also think about who wrote this, what context in the world this was written in, and when (although the when doesn't really matter here.) This was written in japan where it is a very conservative community. The world it is set in has a very hard stuck rule that if you like a boy, you become a girl and vice versa. and it does mention in this very chapter that times are changing and same-sex relationships are starting to become more prevalent in that society.

 

[tsuyukihime]

@Kriss10 Oh my god thank you for the first sane take I have read in these forsaken comments. You have expressed what I have been trying to say much better than I can, I suck with words. Thank you!

@Korvalus I think you missed my point, see @Kriss10 's comment right before yours for a much more eloquent take on my issue with this manga.

 

[Korvalus]

@tsuyukihime: I actually read it afterwards I published mine. I kind of agree with the point but I think that having a society with gender roles more defined is "more undestandable" when you can literally choose your gender. There are a lot of factors into that choice, including gender preferences as poor Hinase is finding out now; but essentially everyone has the gender that fits them best and that alone affects their society. Also, being genderless can literally kill you and doctors know it, so they usually push genderless people into choosing a gender.

@Ace435 explained it too: if their biological quirk render most societal gender issues moot, why should they question that boys like only girls and girls like only boys? If you want one, you become the opposite. Sure, gender identity and gender preferences are separate things, but gender preferences in this universe CAN affect your biological gender and your gender identity. If you still don't get it, think about how choosing your gender, even in a subconscious level, can change things; specially for LGTBQ+ people.

Also, it's Japan, a known heteronormative society. But I don't think the rest of that world is much more advanced in that regard.