Sinfest is for TERFS
Do you think Sinfest will explore transgender issues? I know there’s a “trans state” but so far no actual stated transgender characters have showed as far as i know.
Ha! No!
This is a comic with a gay dude who exists for homophobic jokes and where “men do unmasculine things” is used for comedy value (Vainglorious is entirely gendered comedy about a man who cares about fashion and art haha how hilarious).
And when you have a character who’s entire character is “gay” and his purpose in life is “gay jokes” in a comic entirely about gender politics, then strips like this
Become kind of uncomfortable, what with that offhand “my hetero days” implying that Francis wasn’t gay before and then changed to being gay.
”Ha ha”, says Tats, “look at this bad guy who likes My Little Pony what a queer!”
So Tat’s opinion of LGBT issues is…rather poor. Anyway, trans issues kind of fall under the banner of third-wave feminism (with its “intersectionality” themes), and we all know what Tats thinks of that:
Tatsuya Ishida’s feminism is 1970s-style radfem, not modern feminism or even modern Tumblr-style feminism. He’s a homophobe and almost certainly a TERF. His feminism is gender existentialist in a way that modern feminism isn’t, and he has no room in his worldview for anyone who’s not cisgender.
Reading the newest arc… You called it.
=( So sad… I really liked that comic.
Yours is the most articulate, granular and concise analysis I’ve found, of the artistic tragedy that is Sinfest. I’ve been thinking heavily on it for quite a while, as the whole trans-exclusionary aspect of it crept in slowly, and I honestly had never heard of terfs before I began trying to sort out what the hell Ishida was trying to say. When it turned out that he’d decided to dedicate his life-long quest of daily webcomic publishing to… attacking trans people to excite his fan base, I was baffled. So much talent to waste on such an obviously faulty, hateful idea. I am coming around to pitying the poor man, as it seems that the hermit lifestyle he’s cultivated leaves him oblivious to the ongoing evolution of deeper human understanding. Anyhow- thank you for your thoughtful and interesting analysis.