Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26174543-20181006151501/@comment-26174543-20181006191630

First of all, my original point was misinterpreted.

I did not present the comment in question as being representative of the wikia's view, I presented it in the context that not backing up michaela's gender identity is giving hateful people room to misinterpret her character and interactions that have happened with her character.

I also did not call the treatment of the wikia's handling alarming, I called the comment alarming. or rather, the realisation that bigots were already using the wikia as an excuse to upload their views

but point blank michaela is the only character that's getting this treatment. lich's article refers to him with male pronouns during the portion where he is a forest spirit. gumillia's article refers to her with female pronouns during the portion where she is a forest spirit.

the characters that have a consistent gender identity between the second and third periods are allowed to keep said gender identity as spirits as far as our articles are concerned. add to it the fact that michaela's article explicitely says that elluka told her to imagine a woman when she chose a body to reincarnate into and you have plenty of evidence that she doesn't really identify as a woman based on our articles.

and michaela continues to identify as a woman after she gets all of her memories as michael, which happened after her death. lich even says as much in the heavenly novel

it's stated outright the nemesis, upon regaining her memories, is a mixture of her previous identities, because they are at odds with each other. she can't be nemesis, elluka, or levia separately anymore, because they're parts of her.

but michaela is still michaela. michaela has had centuries to decide whether she still identifies as michael, and she does not. her ideal form is michaela.

see also: - lich being given male pronouns in that king was born from mud both by mothy and in the wikia despite still actively being a forest spirit - lich and eater are still forest spirits in their mud bodies, their souls have just been transported to a new body of lich's design. you can say that there's evidence that at least lich has memories from his previous life, which there is, but in that case michaela recovering her memories as michael should have an effect on her gender identity if simply not remembering was enough to skew it before, but it didn't. - irina's magic could not work when she actively chose to use a male host, and levia subconsiously rejected a male host while she was in ma. but michaela's magic worked just fine in a lady's body. magic reincarnation or not, that should not be possible if michaela's soul was unaltered. and her memories wouldn't play a role in this, it's a fundamental law of the world.

literally, the only thing mothy did not do is outright say the words "michaela is trans" which, there's nothing to say that the characters would even know what that word is? lich is talking to allen, a kid who was alive in what is essentially revolutionary france, why would he use such a modern term when confirming michaela's gender identity in the first place? would lich, as a being from a simulation, even necessarily know what that word is?

and that's just it, there is no shortage of in universe material that tells us michaela's situation isn't normal. whether or not it's possible doesn't matter, it's not possible for someone to get hereditary evil raiser syndrom but we still acknowledge that some people experience DID as a symptom. but when michaela's gender identity changes we do everything we can to get out of acknowledging that she's trans?

we don't have to assume that michael identified as a trans woman, but michaela most certainly is