Lady Oscar and Gender

The premise of the Manga/Anime The Rose of Versailles is that an Aristocratic Nobleman in 18th Century France had a daughter but chose to raise her as a son because he wanted a son, that daughter is the character known as Lady Oscar.  And this isn’t a secret in the story, everyone knows Lady Oscar was actually assigned female at birth but just goes along with it.

That is a premise that didn’t and would never actually happen, a society like 19th Century France would not be nearly open minded enough about Gender to tolerate that as much as they do in the story.  That isn’t a criticism, I think it would be very boring to limit fiction to only depicting what could have happened, and trying to make everything else pretty authentic around a random absurdity can be an interesting way to explore ideas, in this case the idea of Gender.

It does mean that Lady Oscar can not be considered an actual authentic 1 to 1 representation of any real unconventional Gender experience, yet her and her story could prove valuable to many.  Lady Oscar is usually discussed either in the context of Yuri or as a potential Trans Masculine character like another character in a different Manga from the same author.  

The value in a Trans Masculine reading of Lady Oscar is largely as a wish fulfillment fantasy, someone assigned female at birth but presenting this masculinely without it being a problem.  And some may see her as aspirational in terms of how she looks as an AFAB person dressing in Masculine attire.

The take I want to share today however is that actually relating to Lady Oscar’s situation and struggle is actually more plausible for Trans Feminine viewers.  She is living this Masculine life not because she chose it but because her father imposed it on her, just as much as if he’d made the more predictable decision to raise her as a daughter or if she’d been assigned male at birth.

The reason why some might have trouble seeing this is because she generally doesn’t seem like she’s uncomfortable with it, she seems to accept it and even kind of enjoy it.  But not all Trans People feel intense dysphoria, for some it’s more muted.  I have for the past few years increasingly come to think of myself as someone who would be happier if I was born a girl or if I could afford to take Estrogen, yet I still live my daily offline life dressing and presenting as a Cis Male and am not actually all that unhappy about it.  And so it’s through that perspective I see the potential Trans Feminine reading of Lady Oscar.

There are occasional hints at Lady Oscar having a Feminine side she wishes she didn’t have to suppress.  The principal manifestation of this is her relationship with Fersen, particularly the time she does wear a dress and doll herself up to dance with him.  I don’t know whether anyone has ever expressed dislike for that part of the story, I haven't really dug that deep into the history of Lady Oscar discourse.  But I can certainly understand why it might bother those fans seeking to interpret her either as a Lesbian or as Trans Masculine.  The Het Romance with Andre is possibly more tolerable because it is much more part of the main plot and because you can imagine it as BL.

But the thing is the Oscar/Fersen dynamic you can also pretend is BL in the context of how the Yaoi tag on the main website I read Hentai Doujins on includes some with characters who are arguably if not explicitly Trans Women or at least involve crossdressing.  Sometimes specifically a wealthy prince like Seme feminizing his Uke.  The Trans Women who are into those Doujins could potentially get the same appeal out of Oscar/Fersen.

I know that some (not all) Trans People will before physically transitioning have no sexual attraction to the gender they were assigned at birth but after at least getting hormone treatment will become more fluid in their sexual orientation.  And that’s where thinking about my own interest in Oscar/Fersen gets me thinking about my own Sexuality.  Right now I have a firmly Gynephilic orientation, I’m attracted to feminine features and characteristics, to women, males who look like women, and various kinds of androgyny where the feminine aspects are arguably more pronounced then the masculine ones.  However, even back when I thought of myself as just a Cishet Male I was, in the context of Anime especially, always more aroused by Shoujo Erotocism then Shonen/Seinen Eroticism.  So my interest in this ship is fairly abstract, it’s something I like to watch but I don’t really project myself onto either of them.  I do have enough of a Masculine side (I currently identify as Fluid in my Twitter Bio) that I can project onto males at least during Erotic scenes, but not Fersen really.

But maybe if I ever did get to take Estrogen in the future, I would become even more fluid and find myself absolutely saying that I want a Handsome Bishounen Prince to call me Oujousama and carry me off to his castle.  Who knows.

Let’s backtrack now to the original point of the Trans Feminine reading of Lady Oscar.  Because 21st Century Anime has had the gender flipped counterpart of Lady Oscar’s premise multiple times.  Assigned male at birth characters being forced to present as women by whoever is raising them or in some other way wielding power over them.  Most notably that was the original premise behind the character of Bridget from the Guilty Gear franchise.

Now among the people who have been upset about or in denial of Bridget definitively identifying as a Girl in the latest Guilty Gear Game I haven't noticed anyone saying it’s because they’re Trans Masculine and so relate to Bridget as a person who had Femininity imposed on them against their will.  If they exist they are firmly drowned out by the people who are just being Reactionary Transphobes and/or Cismale Femboys who liked the original premise of Bridget for some reason.  It seems to me like Cismale Femboys should relate to Trans Women more than a character who actually hates dressing like a girl.

Regardless however, if there was a new Rose of Versailles media that retconned Lady Oscar into a more definitely Trans Masculine character I wouldn’t feel like anything was taken from me, the 70s Anime is still there for me to watch the way I watched it before and her story was completed so I didn’t really need anything more.  So I would be happy for those who get something valuable out of the new take.

But part of the point in bringing this topic up here is that I would like to know if there are any Trans Masculine Anime Fans who’ve related to this type of Anime in that context, in parallel to my reading of Lady Oscar?