Pride Month Post: Anode and Lug

[sharpasabowlingball]

The only thing more wonderful than giant robot lesbians? Transgender giant robot lesbians who are dating



Scans are taken from Lost Light issues 7, 8, 9 and 24













'Till All Are One

Comments

[leahandillyana]

Why did robots develop genders, were they programmed into their society by their creators? O.o

[shakalooloo]

Cybertronians are mechanoids with full personalities and 'souls', receiving no programming upon creation. Likes, dislikes, emotions and all that baggage - why not gender as well?

[leahandillyana]

I assume they do not reproduce sexually, and given from what I got from fandom osmosis (that they can freely assume various forms), on Watsonian level I don't understand why they would need the concept of gender.

[icon_uk]

You are right, they don't reproduce sexually.

Spark's are spontaneously created (usually) out of the matter of the planet Cybertron, and are regared as semi-mystical constructs. Some identify as male and some as female, though the various continuities have made this VERY confusing.

Transformers lore expert Chris McFeely has a summary of how the issue of gender amongst Transformers were introduced into the series in various continuities, cartoon and comics. This one on Arcee, the first female Transformer introduced.

Before watching that one, be warned that some of the discussion in this is about some very poor handling of the subject. Simon Furman actually managed it twice, in different ways, which is almost impressive.

1) He added Arcee into the UK comics strip with the Watsonian reason of "Because Women's Liberations groups were kicking up a fuss" and yes, it was bad as it sounds) and

2) In the IDW comics he had Arceee be the only female Transformer on Cynertron because a mad scientist submitted a random nominally male Autobot into a forced sex reassignment to see if gender could be a thing, and yes that was WORSE than is sounds.

As the video also notes, IDW later backed away from this after some understandable backlash, and after other, better writers had introduced many more female characters into the series (Cybertron turned out to be the only place which had no females, the various colony worlds had always done so) they retconned Arcee as being a genuinely transgender character. Created in a male body and assumed by others to be male, but always knowing that she was female, and allowing the scientist to try and give her the body that matched her true nature.

There's also this additional video, on the topic of female Transformers in general

Transformers also pair bond as many sentient species do, and the gender is irrelevant.

The first such pairing we saw in IDW was Chromedome and Rewind (both identifying as male) who formed a Conjunx Endura, defined as partnership of soulmates based on mutual love and devotion.

Long term best friends (and Transformers can live MILLIONS of years) can also recognised as being in a "Amica Endura" relationship.

For variety, the Cyberverse cartoon had some confusion over the character Acid Storm. They toy packaging used male pronouns, and some of the cartoon episodes used a male voice actor, but other episodes used a slightly different design and a female voice actor.

Rather than assign it to a production error (which it likely was), the creators decided to roll with it and said "It's just something Acid Storm likes to do", giving us our first gender fluid/non binary Transformer, maybe by accident, but acknowledged as being the case from then on.

The Earthspark cartoon and toyline have also, deliberately, introduced us to Nightshade, a Transformer who does not find either male or female pronouns as feeling right for them, and uses "they/them"

[beyondthefringe]

I appreciate the incongruity of non-binary robotic life forms. :)

[deh_tommy]

Depending on the continuity it’s implied they might have some degree of sexual reproduction. Beast Wars had a few dirty jokes, Rattrap has a choice line about his great aunt Arcee and groin shots are shown and implied to hurt in both the original Beast Wars and Neo, Animated had new life created from the Allspark but bots still got their tongues tied up with Blackarachnia looking and acting all flirty, there was whatever the heck was going on in Kiss Players, but the biggest culprit is the Michael Bay movies: Ratchet is aware of pheromones and mating, a Decepticon Pretender seduces Sam, Wheelie spontaneously humps Mikaela’s leg and special attention is especially drawn to Devastator’s gigantic wrecking ballsack.

I still find it kind of amusing that pre-Thrilling 30 IDW rightfully had no problem with Transformers being gay, but they drew the line at (gasp) a FEMALE!?

[shakalooloo]

Gender and sex aren't the same thing. One robot can be 'feminine' in personailty and another 'masculine'.

Mod Note - Ban

[icon_uk]

It is quite clear that you are a former, and recently banned, member of this community, returning under another name, and not for the first time.

This is not permitted under Community rules, and you are therefor banned again.

Please do not attempt this approach again.