Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-25951143-20150101110046/@comment-26939936-20150831034713

MartialManiac wrote:

Gosh, how I hate to butt in here again, but I NEED to give you a rational answer. We understand your point of sex and gender being two different things, but it doesn't matter if one side would gain more from being right. I mean, this is exactly what I meant when I said that calling Killua gay would be beneficial to the homosexual community, but it is not what we should do. Yes, but the difference here is that you don't list sexualities anyways, so it isn't like you're listing Killua as 'straight' when it's 'up for debate.'

Since there are hints in every possible direction regarding Alluka, we should just list all the possibilities: Alluka is most certainly (biologically) a male, Alluka may or may not think of himself/herself as a girl, Alluka might be male and Nanika female (as I always say, Killua calls Alluka a girl only when he refers to Nanika's powers: he might do so to convince others that Nanika is human, too). Even the time he directly stated, 'Alluka is a girl'?

Being feminine or being gay does not mean you are transexual, too, so let's keep this in mind anyway. This is a jar of worms I'm not comfortable opening, but unfair hatred/dismissal towards the trans community for being 'stereotypical' has always been an issue. There are plenty of people far more eloquent than me that talk about these things, so if you're interested, I encourage you to read about it! Sexual orientation is separate from gender identity, so I don't really understand how 'being gay' would ever imply being trans. Sorry, I'm not sure I get what you mean.

Genderless pronouns are the most appropriate, for the moment. We have seen Togashi's new illustration: the manga might restart soon. Let's wait for a while and see what happens. OK, if that's what you're willing to concede. I can't imagine me discussing this further would change anyone's mind at this point, but I can try.

And yes, it is uncommon for a Shounen manga to have transgender characters, and many of them resort to the most unthinkable excuses to protect the "orthosexuality" of their characters, it's the same with Killua, again. Besides, we do not necessarily consider them cisgender or leave out the possibility that they will not be cisgender in the future: simply, if no hint is given in that direction, there is no need to write it. I don't think you read "it's a straight boy/girl" anywhere on any page. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice if Alluka was a first in this sense: simply, unless we include all possibilities, everything we add to his page now is mere speculation. Just as a side-note, Miyuki (a minor character from YYH) is explicitly stated to be trans, so this would not be a first in Togashi's works. Though she wasn't a...great character, this fact still stands.

I'm very tired at this point in time, but I want to add one more thing before I take my leave. Where in the actual text of HxH has it been stated that Alluka is a boy? "Little brother" and "little sister" have both been used (as I've mentioned previously, Killua only ever used 'little brother' to refer to Alluka when he was withholding as much information as possible), but it was never said, "Alluka is a boy!" like "Alluka is a girl!" was. So I don't understand why 'male' seems to be the 'default until proven otherwise' here. Why is that statement being overlooked? Is it not enough that one of the two people closest to Alluka directly referred to her, in front of her, to several people who knew them personally, as a girl?

Sorry for being so long-winded. See ya around.