Ok, I don’t do this often but after seeing this come up a number of times and after doing some

Ok, I don’t do this often but after seeing this come up a number of times and after doing some research I think I need to say something. I think people need to rethink Identifying Kuvira as transgender. I’m not saying people can’t headcanon stuff but I think promoting her as seen above as transgender is actually kind of harmful to both transgender individuals and people questioning traditional gender roles. If anyone has a different viewpoint I’m happy to hear them but I hope you can understand my concerns based on my points and not assume I’m a troll or anti lgbtq. In fact, I’d love to see a transgender character in an Avatar show or comic, I think this franchise could deliver a powerful story about a transgender person in their world and with the existence of spirits like Mother of Faces it could climax with a seamless transition that would be emotionally satisfying and wish fufillment for Transgender people who are still today limited by our current science and medicine. Now back to my point…First, she never identifies as such or even hints that way so it’s kind of misleading to trans people looking for representation. Additionally, I think doing this also reinforces gender stereotypes and precludes a woman who identifies as a woman being masculine.Now if those were my only worries I wouldn’t have said anything as they are pretty minor and rather obvious so most people would be aware of these issues. I’m now going to talk about the more problematic aspects of this from a historical and character perspective.Ok, remember that each of the Korra villains are stand-ins for real-world political ideologies. Kuvira’s ideology is more detailed and closer to her counterpart than any of the other villains. Where Amon is clearly an Avatarverse version of communism, substituting class conflict for the conflict between benders and non-benders, Kuvira, on the other hand, is an almost exact real world replica of Fascism. This is from the wikipedia article on Fascist views of masculinity and femininity: The fascist regime imparted a carefully controlled, diversely dispersed propaganda which was in the name of delivering the New Italian, or the New Italy. Public media was monitored: newspapers, magazines, as well as lowbrow popular romances and biographies, were rigorously controlled by the regime because they were broadly diffused throughout society, and the implications of the public of Mussolini could be positive or negative depending on the content of such mass media. Also, overt suggestions were made as to the proper conducts of an ideal Roman citizen: exaltation of the virile, dominant, and nationalistic masculine identity. The term ‘virility’ represents a key feature of the fascist vision of the world. The imparting of this hegemonic masculinity had the purpose of allowing fascist leaders to maintain their status quo, aside from the management of their public image. It is for this reason that all forms of 'modern’ masculinity were seen as a direct threat to the stability of the fascist state, and thus were actively rendered obsolete.As an ideology that prefers traditional ways, fascism emphasized a hierarchical relationship between male and female relations, one that was grounded in a patriarchal view of gender dynamics. Arguments were made by the fascist government that the involvement of females in traditionally all-male workplaces would disrupt the power hierarchy that supported society. In addition, arguments were put forth that a mother working in the workplace would be transferring all her maternal responsibilities to that of the husband, which may become exasperated with the aspect of familial caretaking all together, further endangering the integrity and sustenance of the family unit. As per issues involving masculinity, fascist rhetoric advocated for misogynistic, homophobic, and virilistic values in their campaign during the 1920s and made direct references as to the accepted and unaccepted gender codes, as explained in this passage:“The deviant male was above all a bourgeois, egoistic and unpatriotic as well as scarcely virile (because he was unfit or reluctant to repeatedly impregnate the female); the deviant female was the too 'modern’ woman, Americanized, independent and masculinized. The social damages provoked by these two converging deviants were most serious: a widespread and 'excessive loosening of family hierarchical relations, a decline in the main of that robust virility that fascism, with much love and perseverance, pursues in other ways”Yeah so are we starting to see the issue with identifying Kuvira as transgender? Ok, given the Avatarverse has fewer issues with gender roles Kuvira is the leader of the Earth Empire and you can occasionally see that the odd masked Earth Empire soldier has breasts, pretty much every soldier you see without a helmet is a man. This ties into the fascist virtue of masculinity specifically in how it represents strength and this ties into Kuvira’s character. The briefest description of her character is: needs to feel in control and does so through power and personal strength. Kuvira’s desire for strength is directly tied into fascist ideology, in fact, this is a pretty good example of what could be called toxic masculinity.  -- source link

More pics about