It’s no secret I’ve been on the receiving end of some vicious harassment these past two days over my review of Rain. I don’t expect all my readers to agree with me, and I’m open to different opinions and interpretations of the comics I review. I’m not perfect, and I can take criticism as good as I dish it out. But the mean-spirited nature of the messages I’ve gotten, both here and on Twitter, has done nothing to incline me more positively to the comic in question, nor has anyone constructively challenged my analysis of it. However, I do want to address some misconceptions people repeatedly brought to me, regardless of how abusively they did so.

There seems to be some misunderstanding of what I mean when I talk about positive representation. As many people brought up, Rain depicts acts of transphobia that occur in real life, to real trans people; surely this realism qualifies it as good representation? Well, the issue isn’t the events and actions depicted, although they are definitely depressing and unpleasant to read. The issue is the way the narrative depicts and responds to these things. A narrative that fails to condemn the harmful actions of a character is portraying them as justified; the fact that none of the characters in Rain face consequences for their transmisogyny means the narrative supports them.

The fact that no one speaks up for Rain when she’s misgendered; the fact that no one is corrected for saying she’s not fully female; the fact that no character disagrees with the idea that trans people are liars; the fact that no one is offended by the repeated use of slurs; all these things reinforce transphobia. That is what makes Rain harmful.

By point of comparison, actually good trans representation reinforces the ideas that we are entitled to privacy, bodily autonomy, and self-determination. They normalize us instead of exposing trans characters to scrutiny and ridicule. They protect trans characters from harm instead of voyeuristically zooming in on our suffering. They do this by having characters who are proponents of these ideas, and by rewarding those characters – or by punishing characters who oppose them.

Examples of this are sparse, to be sure, but that’s the point of this website: to help you find them. Iothera, Computer Love, The Blue Valkyrie, Portside Stories – all webcomics by trans writers with trans woman/girl protagonists that don’t make me feel like I’m worthless. Even the totally garbage Sense8 does this better than Rain! Merely depicting transphobia without challenge, as if a neutral party, only supports transphobia. It’s honestly not that hard to do.

I don’t hate DiDomenick. I can’t believe I have to say this. This isn’t a personal condemnation, although I do think her writing choices imply massive internalized transphobia – something I’m sympathetic to! I’ve been there too; what trans person hasn’t? But my internalized transphobia didn’t just hurt me. It hurt all the trans people around me, and it was only with their tough love and a better analysis that I was able to get over it. It’s that tough love that I’d like to offer to DiDomenick and her readers.

Rain is sad because it teaches trans people that cis people are entitled to intimate information about our bodies; that we’re deceptive and those who discover our deception will be justifiably angry; that our bodies have a gender that is both innate and at odds with our identity; that we will be met with unending violence if we don’t pass well enough. It reinforces every horrible thing that we’re taught from before we even know what gender is.

But Rain is utterly terrifying because it teaches cis people the same things, and does so from the horse’s mouth: a trans author. More than one cis person wrote to tell me that Rain had taught them so much about being trans, and that’s frankly chilling.

Please, please stop learning about trans people from this comic, and start learning from communities of trans people who challenge transphobia and write about it, like Eva Problems or Aevee Bee or, like… me.

And definitely check out my reading list for other, better comics about trans people.

Read the original post.