Yet Another Rant About Trans Character Headcanons~

So the following is probably gonna trigger some people and have them accusing me of being transphobic but I can't bring myself to care anymore - someone needs to point out this annoying trend among fanfic writers on AO3.

The trend in question is characters (usually male ones) being written as trans, seemingly regardless of whether there's any indication of that being true.

I can at least understand it when a character is written as trans when they don't conform to traditional gender roles (such as Yuuga Aoyama from MHA for instance) even if that perception is based on an outdated stereotype.

What I really don't get is when traditionally masculine or feminine characters are written as trans. Such examples that I've seen personally are Luigi from Super Mario and Dr. Robotnik from the live action Sonic movies. I mean both of them are so masculine that they have mustaches (and are known for said mustaches) - there's absolutely no evidence for the idea of either of them being trans, especially in Robotnik's case.

My best guess as to why writers do this is that they are either just projecting onto their favorite characters, are trying to shoehorn LGBT representation or both.

It's even more painfully obvious if it's a smutfic involving a same sex couple - might as well be a neon sign pointing to the writer that says ‘I don't know how gay/lesbian sex works, so I'll just genderbend one of the characters instead of educating myself’.

I know that sounds harsh but I'm sick of having to skip fics that I likely would've enjoyed because the writer couldn't keep their nonsensical headcanons to themselves. If authors want to include a trans character in their story so badly, they should just create an OC since being trans changes a character in a way that simply being gay does not.

Being gay doesn't have to be a huge part of a character's identity - it can be; particularly if the story is centered around coming out, self-acceptance or homophobia but otherwise it's usually a bad thing to make a character's identity revolve around their sexuality. On the other hand, being trans is by definition an identity that also implies a certain amount of inner turmoil at the very least (since gender dysphoria isn't exactly a fun thing to deal with).

I just feel like slapping the trans label onto any character who slightly deviates from gender norms cheapens the real world experience of being trans.