transfem jax is a transphobic misogynistic stereotype and im tired of pretending she isnt

[IF YOU DISAGREE TELL ME WHY!!! ID LOVE TO KNOW!!!! /gen]

tl;dr : jax being transfem is shallow and a dumb idea. she's an abusive stereotype, misogynistic, and is written shallowly. gooseworx is a terrible person who probably should have gone to therapy (/lh) before trying to write a show.

ahhhh, tadc.... truly a marvel of writing gone to waste. to start, i do NOT condone sending hate to anyone involved in tadc. i think gooseworx wrote a show that was pushed to cut content that could have saved the show. but i also ! think gooseworx should be held responsible (IN A WAY THAT DOES NOT INVOLVE HARRASEMENT) for what they wrote, and that their actions (of being homophobic, misogynistic, and racist) deserve a spotlight to be called out on. so here is my IN-DEPTH thoughts about the finale of the amazing digital circus and why it sucks. especially transfem jax.

the finale has officially been out for over a month, so i can pretty safely say this isnt a knee-jerk reaction. after YEARS of the show building up its characters, the story was this: they were indeed mindscans on a computer (congratulations matthew patrick for yet another correct theory), and the hopes of learning more about the tertiary cast? shattered, all in favour of focusing on jax and confirming a (rather shitty) fan theory that had little actual basis in the show.

to get to the meat and potatoes: yeah. transfem jax is a terrible idea, and ruined the beautiful arc they had built for jax as a male character. allow me to elaborate:

(for context, i'll be using she/her and he/him pronouns interchangeably for jax depending on the gender that makes sense in that context. i wont be referring to anyone else with pronouns, so keep that in mind.)

jax was built up from the beginning as an asshole. the trouble-maker, no good bad-guy, cut and dry. he abused gangle, was hinted to have a complicated past with ragatha, and as the show continued these actions only got more extreme, eventually targetting pomni and zooble too. in the final episode, jax abstracts (we'll get to that later because this was lazy writing too) and pomni, by the grace of god (or deus ex machina in the form of kinger teaching her code in a lazy excuse to justify this choice) is able to hug the abstracted jax and see him one final time, finally uncovering his (of course, because why wouldnt it be) tragic backstory including an abusive dad and him killing his mom before escaping to the circus. 

let me be clear: i ENJOY JAX AS A CHARACTER. i think, as a man, he's my favourite in the entire series. but as a trans woman? that all falls apart. 

as a man, jax's story follows themes not often explored. jax is abused as a child, and therefore as an adult parrots that abuse back onto the women around him, becoming a male abuser. this is INTERESTING!!!!! this is GOOD WRITING!!!! this is FUN!!!!! throughout the course of the story, jax kills two women. one, his mother, in the real world by inflicting physical pain on her during an argument. the second, ribbit, a character highly implied to have a romantic connection to him, that he pushes away and drives to suicide after a moment of emotional intimacy leading to him dropping his mask and being genuine with her. we see this pattern happen again when, after winning with pomni, he shoves her away from a hug and immediately returns to his abusive self in order to save himself from the pain of genuine connection once again. he also victimizes gangle to the point of even branding her with an insult as a name. it just,,, gets to be a lot.

let me be CLEAR. jax IS an abuser!! he follows those tendencies and routinely hurts the women around him. and this is IMPORTANT!!! it is a specific narrarative decision from gooseworx and the other writers that these behaviours ONLY happen with women!! jax does NOT attack kinger or caine, the only two men in the cast, in the same way he does every other character. this is becase jax, being raised by his abusive father, learned to parrot the ideologies of "femininity is weak, so women are weak, so women are bad". and HOW OFTEN DOES THAT HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE????? using this lens, of jax being a male abuser, pomni breaking into his psyche after he abstracts and jax finally letting her in is POWERFUL. its too late for him to break the cycle of abuse, but it humanizes him in a way that allows audiences to see that abusers often come from a pattern. his abstraction is still punishment, he isnt 'cured', and he still remains stuck in the circus. but he starts healing, and thats what matters. he's shown to have messed up, is punisned, and then grows and remains punisned by the narrative in a way that you almost NEVER see. gangle, his primary victim, also DOESNT FORGIVE HIM. she's allowed the power of not feeling sorry for him. this is,,, still not handled well. but even still its nice to see, only if just for a little bit.

jax also HATES being perceived as feminine. the maid dress? my least favourite gag. not only is it humiliating a character that obviously doesnt enjoy it (something something normalization of noncon themes. thats a rant for another day. its just gross.), but its making fun of one of the deepest parts of his character. jax HATES being weak. he hates being belitlled. he hates being made fun of. so for the other characters to be abusive (yes, humiliating someone is abuse, talk to the fuckin wall. also yes, its abuse even if the person hurt you first. talk to the SECOND, even THICKER wall) to him??? it ruins him!! to the point its internalized as homophobia (because in his mind femininity is also him being gay, even if you hc him as straight or not) in his internal narrative!!! which then shoves him FURTHER intl that mindset !!!!!! 

in totality, jax's character as a man shows representation FOR men about the logical pitfalls abusive men fall into. are some people just abusive? sure. but so many MORE are CREATED. this doesnt excuse jax's actions, but it DOES show audience members a side of the abuser storyline that you dont often see.

now flip the script and view jax as a trans woman. her abuse? "shes just pushing away femininity as a coping mechanism !!!!1!!1!!! internalized transphobia, INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIAAA1!!!1!1!!!". her aversion to femininity that entirely contradicts any semblance of sense for this character trait? "SHE SECRETLY LIKES IT!!!! ITS PROOF!!!!", i could go on. it doesnt read as an interesting character point (character abused as child later learns to heal from that and accept themselves as the very thing they were raised to hate), it reads as using her being trans as a shitty excuse for her actions. also?? lets address the god damn elephant in the room???

being a trans woman should NOT come with misogyny. at ANY fuckin point in your journey. following the release of the episode and gooseworx's confirmation, i saw trans women come out of the WOODWORKS relating to jax's abuse of women. sincerely from the BOTTOM of my heart: if that is you you are JUST a misogynist. it is not normal to hurt women because youre in denial. you are JUST a terrible person. jax's primary trait showcasing her supposed transfemininity being the systematic abuse of the women around her was a terrible decision, and it is not only innacurate but actively HARMFUL to all trans women when the dominant alt-right arguments against trans women are that they are abusive to cis women. abuse and being trans has zero correlation. jax should have never been chosen to be the character to portray an identity as hated and as complicated as being transgender if such a pivotal point of her character was going to be her hatred of women. ESPECIALLY SINCE THERE WAS ZOOBLE RIGHT THERE, whose whole CHARACTER was not knowing who they are-but instead, zoobles role was removed so jax could continue to shine as a shitty, bad-written self insert.

SPEAKING of erasure, while outside of transfem jax's fault, lets talk about racism. another argument for transfem jax is the presence of stevie wonder's 'Isn't she lovely?', a song about the birth of his black daughter. it is both reductionist and ignorant to dumb the song about celebrating black life down to "song that plays during shock value scene to hint at character being trans". it is ALSO racist to erase the (gorgeous and perfectly fitting) voice OF said black artist, and replace said vocals with the voice of a man that is not ONLY not black, but a LOLICON!!! someone who is ATTRACTED to SPECIFICALLY young-looking anime girls !!! and who ALSO defended SHADMAN. YEAH, the dude who has drawn REAL LIFE CHILDREN in sexual manners. Along with. a HEINOUS list of other crimes. I, myself, am not black and therefore not directly affected by this, but to quote several amazing creators who ARE: 

- " this song fundamentally does not make sense in this moment whatsoever,,, and so like when i saw this sequence go down, i was like 'what the fuck does this have to do with jax dying???'" (@ghostluvrl0l)

- "this is almost as disrespectful as stranger things using purple rain." (@intothefandom)

also! gooseworx (the creator) and micheal kovak have REPEATEDLY been OPENLY racist. again, this has been beaten into the earth. for them to continue bastardizing the song AFTER their history?? it feels purposeful.

and finally: TRANSFEM JAX ISNT CANON. the post 'canonizing' it was released AFTER THE SHOW'S FINALE. it uses the same logic JK Rowling did calling dumbledore gay after harry potter was done in an attempt to absolve her of the other bigotry in the series. you CANNOT spend most of the series with zero hints to a character's identity, make a shitty stupid tumblr post calling it 'canon' and call that representation. it HURTS to see so many queer fans roll over and show their bellies over "b-b-b-b- but representation matters !!!" when a character ISNT EVEN REPRESENTATION. if you can watch the show and not know at all jax is a trans woman? congratulations, jax ISNT a trans woman! your representation sucks! the QUALITY of representation matters far more than the quantity EVER could, and as ive explained into the ground and more, jax ISNT that !!!! 

lets also talk about how jax's identity was almost immediately dumbed down by the fandom as just a reason to ship her with ribbit and pomni as "oh my god yuri !!!1!1!1!!!!". i am SICK and TIRED of people dumbing down characters just to fetishize them. you people would take a stereotypical gay man and just accept it point blank if it made you feel better about your favourite ship (and frankly, seeing the scary overlaps between the tadc and hazbin hotel/helluva boss fandoms proves it. looking at angel dust here SPECIFICALLY).  and also, NO. it DOESNT fucking matter that goose is a trans woman. she STILL wrote a transphobic character. 

its a problem in it of itself that people excuse queer creator's queerphobia CONSTANTLY in the indie space, but GOD its INFURIATING. 

idk. transfem jax sucks. jax as a character shouldnt be trans. even in headcanons. you have to ignore so much of his story to make him trans, and it ruins his character arc. hes not good rep, and it doesnt matter if we need transfem rep because jax is a stupid, horribly written stereotype written by disgusting people. thats my take. the end.

and again before you throw a fit: 

- i am a fan of the show who has spent years of my life dedicated to these characters. i was here since the teaser dropped. ive grown alongside the show and it still holds a place in my heart. but that doesnt absolve it from criticism.

- i myself am trans (ftm) and have spent years of my life fighting for equal rights for both trans men and women. so no, im not transphobic

- some of my favourite characters in media have been transfem. i think theyre GREAT /gen

- im more than welcome to criticism in the comments but i WILL also respond with my thoughts. i love conversation about media !!