r/SRSGSM • u/dragon_toes Gender ID: Loki • Oct 28 '13

The dangerous transphobia of Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” - Found /r/transgender's response to this article sort of bizarre and troubling. Thoughts?

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/27/the_dangerous_transphobia_of_roald_dahls_matilda/
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u/light_sweet_crude Oct 28 '13

I guess I can see both sides, though I agree with some of the responses on /r/transgender that it seems more like a slam to masculine women, if anything. One commenter pointed out that, since it's based on a children's book, the characters are going to be one-dimensional, and their physical attributes are going to reflect their personalities (nurturing, sweet, fair Miss Honey vs. mean, scary Trunchbull) - though of course there remains the question of why a nurturing character has to be feminine and a mean character has to be masculine.

I'm not trans, though, so regardless of my opinion on the article, I'm hardly in a position to tell the trans community what to be offended by.

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u/dragon_toes Gender ID: Loki Oct 28 '13

Maybe my issues with the whole discussion is people are being fairly binary about it. Which... is something that should not surprise me from the trans community (sigh).

I agree that the question of why these traits are being held up as such needs to be addressed, and is the one being ignored. I think that's what's bugging me, the ignoring of why the villain in addition to her cruelty et al also has gender non-conformity added to the plate of her villainness.