5 Fantastic Trans Anime Characters

Happy pride month, Senpais! In honor of this beautiful month, we're highlighting the T in LGBT. These five anime characters don't identity with their assigned gender. Most trans anime characters are trans women, but My Hero Academia recently introduced Yawara Chatora, a trans man! Let's celebrate these awesome characters.

1. Shuichi Nitori - Wandering Son

Shuichi Nitori is one of the few trans anime characters whose identity is a focal point in the story. The story of Wandering Son is one of a middle school student who is coming to terms with her identity as a trans girl. She experiments with presenting as female, deals with both positive and negative reactions to her social transition, and makes friends who support her. The manga goes even further, focusing on her dating life, her feelings of dysphoria as she hits puberty, and her plans for physically transitioning in adulthood.

2. Alluka Zoldyck - Hunter x Hunter

While Alluka's gender identity is never officially confirmed, it's pretty likely that she a trans girl. Most members of the Zoldycks, use male pronouns to refer to Alluka. However, the Zoldycks are known for being abusive, especially toward Alluka, who is typically regarded as too dangerous to be allowed outside of the family home. Alluka herself uses the female pronoun "atashi", and wears dresses and other feminine items. Also, Killua, the only member of the family who treats Alluka with love and respect, uses female pronouns and refers to her as his sister.

The best thing about Alluka is that in spite of having a genuinely difficult life - her magical abilities isolate her from society and her family is terribly abusive in more ways than misgendering - she acts like regular, happy little girl.

3. Isabella Yamamoto - Paradise Kiss

Isabella Yamamoto is widely regarded as an excellent example of positive trans representation. She's elegant and feminine without being outlandishly so. She does have to deal with realistic levels of misgendering and microaggressions, but she's found a group of people who support her and respect her identity.

On the other hand, Isabella also gets very little screen time compared to the other members of Paradise Kiss, and she is one of the few characters who never gets what she wants romantically. So that part's not so great.

4. Yawara Chatora - My Hero Academia

Yawara Chatora, also known as Tora, is a member of the Wild Wild Pussycats, a troupe of superheroes who help run a training camp in the beginning of Season 3. Tora is a trans man who received gender confirmation surgery on a trip to Thailand.

Here's why Tora is so awesome. In order to be acknowledged as their gender, trans people often feel like they have to conform more rigidly to gender norms than cis people do. Hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity don't come naturally to most people, and it can be exhausting.

Because everyone around Tora respects him for who he is, he isn't hemmed by this unfair expectation. Yes, his bulging muscles and tough attitude make him seem manly as hell, but he also wears dresses all the time. That's awesome - whether they're trans or cis, men should be able to rock a dress if that's what makes them happy.

5. Yuto Shinkai - Yowamushi Pedal

After a fellow cyclist makes fun of Yuto Shinkai for wearing a girl's festival mask, Yuto says something that can be translated as "I want to be a girl." Exactly what that means will apparently be revealed later on in the manga.

Yuto's primary character arc is about defining herself as unique from her older brother Hayato, since everyone they ever met expected her to be his clone, and denied her an identity that was separate from his. While one could make some connections between this issue and her transness, none are explicitly made. Regardless of gender, Yuto is a complex character with multiple attributes - just like a good character should be.

Who is your favorite trans anime character? Are these picks good representation? Let us know in the comments!