Jenny’s narrative in my life as a teenage robot is implicitly trans, and her struggle with being viewed as a normal girl by society going so far as to wear a human suit is a perfect representation of trans people’s struggles to pass and be accepted by their communities. In this essay I will….
Trans people are not the only group to struggle to fit in to anywhere. It is not implicitly anything
Being a misfit isn’t exlusively trans. But take this show as you will.
Hey! No shit struggling to fit in is relatable to any marginalized community. I’m saying the very specific narrative of wanting to be a real girl, (which is text not subtext by the way, she at one point has a short speech about wanting to be a ‘real girl’) changing your name because it doesn’t match how you see yourself (Xj9 to Jenny), changing your appearance to pass as a real girl only for it not to work and to be seen and regarded by mainstream society as a literal freak, finally getting what you want and conforming to standards only for it to necessitate you changing who you are as a person, are all intensely trans experiences. Obviously the showrunners didn’t construct this narrative with a trans intent and there is the potential for parallels to other marginalized experiences, but Jenny’s character arc bears uncanny resemblance to the experience trans people have coming to terms with their genders.
Also it’s fucking trans.
Actually. I wouldn’t be too quick on saying there was no intent on the show runners part:
Like OP mentioned Jenny often is shown to experience disphoria. Especially in relation to her outwards appearance.
She also was shown to go through “puberty” in one episode. And the writers decided to give her symptoms that are traditionally associated with male puberty. Which horrified her despite people around her assuring her it’s just fine.
Jenny also learned mutiply times that she doesn’t need to comform to anything to be a real girl. She already is, the only difference is that she was made with diffrent parts.
While there certainly are diffrent interpretations, as is always the case with metaphores, it’s not unlikely that some of the writers explicitly had the trans community in mind while writing some of the episodes.
Jenny’s narrative is heavily tied to self image issues, insecurities about her identity and a feeling of issolation.
She is surrounded by people who are supportive of her but still can be ignorant and even hurtfull without intend (her mom and Brad come to mind which both clearly love her but both have upset her on multiply occasions due to not really getting her). She is constantly side eyed by society for potentially being dangerous. She is often treated like a sort of “freak show” by others and generally a lot of the people around her only give her respect if what she is doing is directly benifitial to them or is a source of amusement for them.
Then there is Sheldon who almost fetishizes her to a very uncomfortable amount.
All of them had induvidual arcs which relate back to said issues. Jenny’s mom starts viewing her more as a daughter then as a robot. Sheldon started to be less of a creep and developed more genuine feelings for Jenny based on her personality rather then on her being a robot.
Even Brad, who already was just the best, was called out and confronted with instances where he unintentionally was being hurtfull more then once.
So yeah. Jenny is very heavily trans coded and a lot of the narrative mirrors the experiences and struggels of real life trans teens.
And frankly I think that are too many coincidences to 100% rule out intent.
Me: “clears throats” “strums guitar” When I was a young boy. My father took me into the city, to see a marching band. He said, son, when you grow up. Would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned? He said, will you defeat them, your demons and all the non-believers?
guiltycrunch asked: i got a comic idea in class and im too exhaudted to execute it but. / jade: hey karkat i finaly remember what this reminder on my finger is for! / karkat: WHAT / jade: tuwut / karkat: :0
theres actually a documentary you can watch on youtube called “Who Is The Fool” which is about how the april fools pranks can break up tension that had been building up for the last few months as well as the history of how the holiday even came to be
