Note: a version of this week’s essay first appeared in the Everyone You’ve Ever Met is Beautiful: Essays on James Gunn’s Superman zine.
Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This week we’re going to talk about one of my favorite things in the entire world: Superman. And the quiet, powerful, message that came with his new movie, written and directed by James Gunn. Here comes: SUPERMAN’S TRANS AFFIRMATION.
I’ve been a Superman fan for my entire life, or at least as much of it as I can remember. I’ve lost so many memories due to dissociating my way through life with GENDER DYSPHORIA, I don’t even know how much of my pre-transition life I don’t know, y’know?
But through it all Superman was there, bringing me comfort and hope and joy when little else could. It was likely my dad that spurred my love of Supes, possibly because he had little Tilly convinced he was Superman. And then losing him at the incredibly young age that I did, in the way that I did (a way Superman would’ve been safe from), probably caused my little heart to grab onto the character even more. For a bit more on that, see the essay on PARENTS WHO WILL NEVER KNOW THE REAL YOU (my dad). How does this relate to James Gunn’s Superman, Tilly? I’ll get there, stick with me.
That the character himself has to deal with the loss of his own parents probably just buried him in my heart that much deeper. There’s no rooting him out, he’s there to stay.
As I grew into adulthood, the character became even more important to me because of what he represents. He believes in the goodness of others, he’s kind, he’s a charming dork, and he truly cares about people. That is his greatest superpower. Sure he can fly and carry buildings and is invulnerable and has bzzyew bzzyew laser eyes and freeze breath and x-ray vision and so much more… but even still, his unbreakable belief in hope and compassion and that people can change for the better if they want to? That’s my entire heart on a platter.
That’s the exact same reason I love Star Trek, by the way (see A TRANS RE-WEDDING for more on that), but this essay isn’t about Starfleet and the Federation.
In my essay on THE PAST AND WHY IT HAUNTS US, you can see a little Superman truck that is one of the only surviving pieces of my childhood, a happy little thing I have no bad memories associated with (which given my childhood is something of a miracle). Like my fandom, it’s been with me for my whole life. Okay but Tilly, this still doesn’t relate to James Gunn’s Superman? I’m getting there, just trust me! You need context!
It was only in recording the podcast episode for that essay where my wife Susan hit upon another reason I likely love Superman… his secret identity. Everyone thinks he’s a man but in reality he is not like other people and is treated differently because of it.
How this never occurred to me, especially given how introspective I am, and in all the work I’ve done in writing over two hundred fifty weekly essays for Trans Tuesdays, is fairly astonishing to me. I guess he’d been with me so long, I just never thought to examine him any closer.
Now Supes varies a lot based on who’s writing, drawing, editing, or directing his comics, movies, books, etc. Different eras of the comics have wildly different interpretations. But even if you’re not familiar with Superman comics, just look at his recent mass media appearances on screen… Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (and its follow-ups, a grittier, more grounded “adult” take), the CW show Superman & Lois (a family drama that’s about him as a father and husband as much, or even more, than it’s about superheroes), and James Gunn’s recent reboot, Superman (bright, vibrant, and maybe the most “comic booky” comic book movie ever made). See? I finally mentioned Gunn’s movie! I am getting there!
I’m not going to debate the merits of any of those interpretations, I’m merely trying to illustrate how different the character can be based on who’s telling the story. Each of them has things I love, each of them has things I don’t. No Superman adaptation is ever going to be perfect for me, because I have my own ideas of what that would be. That’s not to say any of them are “bad,” I just have my own preferences for parts of his mythos and how I like to see them portrayed.
I mention all of that only to say that sometimes Supes is looked up to, but he’s also often feared, or vilified, because of who he is. Lex Luthor, a powerful billionaire and Supes’ greatest adversary, does exactly this in Gunn’s film, which sure does draw targeted comparisons to a certain musky billionaire in the real world.
But in nearly every version, Supes has to hide part of who he is from the world. Most often, for the past forty years or so, it’s Clark who’s the real person. Superman is just what he does. When he’s alone with Lois, or his friends, or his parents, that’s the real person. Which is not to say “Superman” is a facade, but it’s a way he’s different that he has to hide from most of the world.
It’s like a trans person going BOYMODE/GIRLMODE so cis bigots will leave us alone. Like a trans person having to stay closeted because their friends and family might not accept them, or might kick them out of their homes, or might react with violence. The parallels are many. See COMING OUT AS TRANS for more on the nuances of all that.
When I saw Gunn’s Superman, it was the first time I was going to experience a new movie about my favorite characters (Clark and Lois, they are a pair for a good reason) as the real me. With every other version, when I was first introduced to them, it was prior to my coming out as trans and living my truth.
I knew how much the character meant to me because of who he is. I knew how tied he was to the pain I will always feel over losing my Dad. And I knew how much I not only identified with the way he leads with kindness and compassion, but how much his having to hide part of himself from the world resonated with me as a trans woman who had to hide her truth and her femininity from the world for most of her life (because whenever even a hint of it displayed, I was punished for it).
All of which brings us to Gunn’s Superman, and the point of this essay. See?! We’re here! I wouldn’t lie to you.
I watched the movie at the official DC Comics screening on the WB lot. Susan and I were invited. For reasons.
I teared up, like I do every time I see the big guy on screen. And it knocked me over like I was hit by a Kryptonian flying at mach 5 when we got to the scene with Clark’s parents, specifically when he’s sitting on the stoop with Jonathan, who says this:
Parents aren’t for telling their children who they’re supposed to be. We are here to give y’all tools to help you make fools of yourselves all on your own. Your choices, Clark. Your actions. That’s what makes you who you are. Tell you something, son… I couldn’t be more proud of you.
Let me just hit you with part of that one more time:
Parents aren’t for telling their children who they’re supposed to be.
As a kid who was trans but didn’t know it, and was constantly told I was a boy, had to be a boy, had to act like a boy, “stop putting that bow in your hair, that’s not what boys do,” that line scooped out my entire heart and showed it to me.
In the comics, Superman has interacted with trans characters multiple times, though I’m not sure he ever has in live action (I can’t remember if he and Dreamer ever met on Supergirl, or during the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths adaptation).
But I’ve never seen, heard, felt that kind of trans affirmation in Superman media directly on screen before. I’m not sure it had ever happened, since the character’s first live-action appearance when Kirk Alyn played him in 1948. That’s a long time to go without, though technically we’re still without because this line wasn’t directly about trans people, was it?
Or was it? Because the entirety of Gunn’s Superman is commenting on the present state of our world without naming names. Just look at this depiction of Lex Luthor, and how there’s a military conflict where white oppressors invade a country of non-white people. We know what both of those things are commenting on, even though the movie doesn’t state it outright. Is it impossible, then, to think that “parents aren’t for telling their kids who they’re supposed to be” is about the way some parents, and most of our society, treats trans people? Trans kids? See TRANS KIDS 1: FACTS AND DANGERS and TRANS KIDS 2: TRANS FLIGHT AND THE INTAKE EXAM for more, if you need it.
That line would mean a ton coming from Superman, but that it came from one of the people that taught him his kindness and compassion? And it was directed at him, thus further strengthening the comparison between this beacon of good and compassion and trans people?
My scooped out heart was now a puddle on the floor. It melted me all over.
Because this is the movie saying, at its core, at the core of Superman himself, is the belief that we discover and decide who we are, and nobody else gets to tell us who we have to be.
Even if they think we’re making “fools of ourselves,” their job is to support us even if they don’t understand, and then they can try to understand. For more on that in a somewhat related fashion, see CIS SPOUSAL AND PARTNER SUPPORT.
Our choices, our actions make us who we are. We’re trans because we discover we are, and choose to tell you. And your job as a cis person who cares about other human beings is to realize how difficult the world makes it for us to do that (even though it shouldn’t have to be difficult at all), and to support us through it.
I can only hope, one day, for more straightforward surface-level trans representation and support from Superman, both from the character and in all his media appearances.
But what we’ve got now, right here in front of us, is Gunn’s Superman being the most trans-affirming superhero movie, possibly ever.
Trans people choose to be our true selves, and we put that choice into action and live authentic lives.
And Superman is telling you, cis folks, that your choices and actions make you who you are, too. You can choose to be like Clark, and treat us with kindness, compassion, and support, or you can choose to give into propaganda and hate and uphold all the systems that oppress us.
Those are your options.
And Superman wants to know: who do you choose to be?
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com