Transgenderism and Ranma-chan/Ranko

There are some people attracted to Ranma-chan/Ranko because she is an incredibly beautiful, high skilled martial artist in a popular Japanese anime series. In the series, the male Ranma falls into a magical spring and is "cursed" to change into a woman when splashed with cold water.

The change (in the series) is physical but not necessarily mental. Ranma always insists he is a male, no matter what his physical appearance. At times Ranma uses his female appearance to serve a purpose such as get extra helpings of ice cream free, to fool Ryouga and so on but never really wants to experience fully what being female means.

The Ranma character is male, physically and mentally, and is absolutely positive about it, including holding some rather narrow views about women in general and their abilities.

The Ranma-chan/Ranko fiction pieces I have included references to all deal with a reality in which Ranma actually welcomes being female, or at least is trapped forever (or at least it seems it will be forever) as a female and has to deal with that fact. The stories range from where Ranma, even female, is still mentally male (the minority of stories) to ones in which Ranma fully embraces being female, even wants desperate to be a female her entire life.

It's the last type of story that deals with transgenderism. Transgenderism is also referred to as "gender identity disorder" or "gender identity dysphoria." This is the situation where a person is born one gender but believes they should have been born a member of the other gender.

M2F refers to people born males who want to be female, and F2M refers to people born female who want to be male.

This is not the same as crossdressing. People who crossdress like to wear clothing of the opposite sex (at times), but are content with people the gender they were born. Crossdressing is basically a choice; people like to do that but can do without it if necessary.

Transgenderism is not a choice an individual makes. In American society, with its incredibly strong homophobic element, transgendered individuals are subject to the same types of prejudice that gays and lesbians are but , in most cases, are not given the same legal protections (in the places that legal protections actually exist). So a person can easily be fired, for example, if an employer learns that the person is actually transgendered.

Why this hatred? It again ties in with the homophobic thinking of many people. Being gay or lesbian is assumed by them to be immoral, usually because it is prohibited by the Bible. Interestingly enough, two women having sex is quite acceptable to most men (actually, a rather major turn-on for many), but the same men would be violently opposed to watching two males having sex (and, to a degree, the reverse, women disliking watching women have sex but like watching two men have sex).

There is also an assumption made about the sexual orientation of the transgendered person. If the person is a M2F, for example, then the assumption is made that because the person wants to be female then that person is interested in men, sexually. In some cases that is true; in some cases the person is really bi-sexual and in some cases the person is attracted sexually only to women. (In one Ranma-chan fiction piece she refers to herself as a "heterosexual lesbian", meaning in her male form she was attracted to females and in her female form she is still attracted to females.)

In addition to lack of legal protection, people who are transgendered are basically shunned; they become (in many cases) outcasts. Their own parents might disown them. If a person finally realizes that they are really transgendered and they are in a marriage, in many, many cases that marriage ends up being doomed.

Transgendered people often encounter hostility from their own children. Unless a person can "pass" as the opposite gender then that person also takes a major risk dressing in the clothes of the gender they feel they are and then going out in public. These people are subject to stares, name-calling and at times actual physical attack.

Why am I stressing this point? To show that transgenderism is not a choice a person makes. Who would be willing to chose something which will cause them intense personal and financial hardship and perhaps even physical attack. People do not wake up one day and decide "well, today I'm going to become gay" or "today I'm going to become lesbian" or "today I'm going to become transgendered." It is not a choice of lifestyle.

On top of all of this there are other things which make a transgendered person's life at times a continual living hell. If you are a heterosexual person, say a male, and suddenly you found yourself trapped in a female body and knowing you could never return to your male body how would you feel? No doubt very, very angry. You would want to be changed back somehow, but any means you could find. You would probably want to seek revenge on the person who trapped you in the "wrong" body.

This is how a transgendered person feels all of the time. They are trapped in the "wrong" body. Even with sexual reassignment surgery (an incredibly expensive option that many cannot afford) the person will have the outward appearance of their "real" gender but not the actual inward biology. The person will not have grown up being their "real" gender. What should have been their "real" life has been stolen from them by fate (or whatever) and they will never, ever been a full, genetic version of what they feel themselves to be.

Let's also deal with the word "feel" here. The word "feel" is actually inadequate. The term "know" is better; a M2F, for example, "knows" that he is really a she. But what do I mean by "know?"

Again, for someone reading this piece (if anyone actually ever does), try this approach. First, ask yourself what gender were you born. (A no-brainer to start out with.) Then ask yourself this: how do you know you are that gender?

Your answer will probably be along these lines. You have the physical appearance of a man (for example, I'm not ignoring F2M people). You have the biological structure of a male internally which has certain outward manifestations during sexual arousal. When you speak you voice is deeper pitched than that of a typical female. If you touch your body again you will be able to identify it as being male. There might even be a "male scent" that you can detect. So, of the five senses you've used four to identify yourself: sight, hearing, touching and smelling.

So the information from this senses verifies that you are a person born male.

Now imagine this scenario. You are placed into a sensory deprivation tank. You are strapped into the tank so you cannot move. You are gagged so you cannot make any sound. A non-human smell, such of that of oranges, is piped into the tank. Once it is closed you can no longer see yourself. You can't move and feel certain body parts moving in expected ways. You cannot verify your gender by sound because you are gagged, and you cannot detect any scent from your body because the strong smell of oranges is pervasive in the tank.

Now, what gender are you? In the above situation you have no physical way of verifying your gender. None. You might say, "well, I know I'm male because I remember that I'm a male."So let's go one step further. You are administered a drug while in the tank which gives you temporary amnesia. Thus, you cannot even remember being any specific gender.

Again, now what gender are you? You would still probably say you are male (or female) because you "know" you are. How do you know? Not by the world of the standard senses. You don't know on the physical level; you know on the level of your soul (or your core being in case you don't believe that people have souls). You are absolutely certain that you are male (or female) even though you have no way of physically verifying that.

This is the case for transgendered people. On the level of the soul (or core being), the person absolutely knows that they are really a member of the gender opposite to that which they were born. It's not a matter of choice; it's not a simple matter of physicality; it's a spiritual knowing that you really are the other gender no matter what your actual physical appearance is.

The transgendered person also lives with the knowledge that they have been cheated out of the life they should have had growing up. For example, a M2F will never know slumber parties; will never know the joys of talking with other girls about "girl things." They will never have their parents treating them as the gender they should have been growing up. They are, instead, forced into a role that is totally opposite to everything that they feel.

Even something as basic as clothes can be a source of psychological pain. Try being a "genetic male" ( a person born male) and go to a shopping mall in female clothes, carrying a purse and wearing lipstick and make-up. You will be asking for a world of trouble if you do so yet this person knows that they really should wear women's clothes and use women's cosmetics. Again, not by choice but by that internal "knowing."

So not only do many transgendered people feel they have been cheated out of the life they should have had growing up, but they know that it is not safe to be their "real" gender in public (although women in men's clothes is considered somewhat acceptable while the opposite is definitely not considered "normal.")

This is shown in many of the Ranma-chan/Ranko fanfiction pieces, where the male Ranma "knows" that "he" is really a "she." In those pieces, once the male Ranma starts living as a female then her life improves dramatically, especially in her relationships to other people. Now, I'm not saying that everything would be automatically better if a person changed to their "real" gender, but the inter-personal relationships could become much, much better, making life easier to live.

In the episode Pretty Womanhood, Ranma is changed into Ranma-chan when she is hit by Akane into the pool and hits her head on a rock. When Ranma-chan wakes up, she is sure that she is a woman. Her language (there are very gender-specific words in Japanese) is female as are her interests and body mannerisms.

She and Akane are eating and she says to Akane:

"How do I explain it? It feels like I've just awakened from a long, refreshing sleep. As if I've experienced an amazingly long dream. I don't know quite how to describe it. It's as if my experiences until now aren't mine. It seems so unreal. As if I have another person's memories. And this morning, the real me awakened. I finally realized that I was a woman."

To me. this is one of the most beautiful ways of describing how a M2F person feels when they realize that they really are supposed to be female.

In my favorite Ranma fanfiction of all, Genma's Daughter, Ranma is born a girl but is cursed to become male. She is finally able to rid herself other. She describes her feelings about realizing that she really is a girl and not a boy in this way:

"Ranko looked deep in thought. For a minute, she looked into the fire, as the others waited. Finally, she spoke. ‘I...it hasn't been like I expected. I...I haven't had the feeling that I've been changing into another person.' She paused a moment, then continued with wonder and realization in her voice. ‘I...I feel like I ‘was' another person, and...and I'm become ‘me'. Like I was a puzzle put together the wrong way, and not I'm slowly being put together the right way.'"

M2F people know, also, that if they had been born female then they would also have some of the negative things that come along with that, things such as periods. Yet, the transgendered person considers that type of thing a price well worth paying if they could be their "real" gender.

So, in general, the transgendered person is often an outcast from society, subject to hatred and physical attack, cheated out of the life they know they should have had growing up and knowing that they will never, ever be a "genetic female" or "genetic male". Although some transgendered people get sexual reassignment surgery and are very happy with that and can live a life as their "real" gender, there will still be the sadness there knowing that they never were and never will be fully, completely the gender they know they actually are.

So, everyone raise their hands who would choose this way of being. No takers? Not surprising. Again, knowing that you are should be the opposite gender is not a conscious, logical choice. It's a soul-level, core-being knowing that can lead to intense emotional and psychological pain.

There are, in many places, support groups set up for people who are transgendered. There are numerous on-line resources the transgendered person can explore. For some people psychological counseling can be helpful. So the sadness and the emotional pain can be tempered somewhat by turning to these sources but, no matter what, each day the transgendered person wake up knowing that this is another day that they will live in the "wrong" physical form.

A M2F person can easily identify with Ranma-chan/Ranko in the fiction pieces. By some wonderful magical means the male Ranma becomes Ranma-chan/Ranko without having to go through the entire psychological/medical process that they would have to go through in the "real" world to become a female. In some stories, there are also F2M themes, including stories where Akane goes to the cursed springs and willingly becomes male, or where Nabiki does the same thing to become male (although, in those cases, it's not because the girl mentioned really is transgendered; it's done as a matter of love for Ranma or out of self-preservation.)

The life denied the M2F person can be lived vicariously through these Ranma-chan/Ranko pieces. At least for a little while the person reading the story can become, in their mind, Ranma-chan/Ranko and live their life as they know it should have been.

Some written resources on transgenderism

Gender Outlaw: on men, women and the rest of us by Kate Bornstein.

Trans-sexuals: Candid answers to private questions by Gerald Ramsey.

True selves: understanding transsexualism by Mildred Brown and Chloe Rounsley.

There is also Transgender Tapestry and Ladylike magazines.

Some on-line sources

CURRENT INFORMATION ON PROFOUND GENDER IDENTITY DISORDER (TRANSSEXUALITY)(medical approach)

gender queers.com, gender revolution in action (largely about people who don't accept the traditional rules of gender identity and behavior)

Rachel's Web (information, links)

Crossport, a support group for transgendered people in Cincinnati

Cyber-Goddess (numerous links)

Diane's place (personal info; links)

Fictionmania, a place with many, many, many stories based on transgenderism and other related areas

The Global Transgender web ring

a Unitarian Universalist website for bisexual, lesbian, gay and transgendered concerns

an activist group

a listing of transgendered web rings

Transgender Care medical site

This is by no means all the relevant sites; many of these have numerous links that you can explore.