Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
2.) Back when Roy put on the belt of gender-swapping, I went to a convention. At that convention, I met a man who told me that he had enjoyed the comic up until recently. I asked him what had changed. He told me that he, himself, was transgendered, and he found the inclusion of the "cursed" magic item offensive, that the idea of gender-swapping should not be used for comedy, and that it had permanently reduced his opinion of the comic.

I was shocked, because it had never occurred to me that anyone would see it as any sort of allegory for real-world transsexuals. It was an overtly magical situation, based on a magic item that already existed in the source material, that was forced on a character with no inclination toward it. In the same way that I would not have expected that one of the characters being paralyzed by a ghoul would be offensive to people who are quadriplegic. But maybe it is. At any rate, the situation surprised me and has, most likely, contributed to my gunshy nature about LGBT issues in the comic.
Hmm, there is a bit of dispute whether or not stuff like drag and such is offensive to trans* people. I personally don't think so because gender expression and gender play, no matter how lighthearted it is is something personal.

However, there's a few reasons for those iffy feelings. Society tends to confuse crossdressing and similar things with transgender folk, which often leads to dismissal of trangender people's identities and such. And there's often a bit of a risk of misogyny and transphobia coming from drag queens themselves. (Not all of them of course.) (I'm not that familiar with drag kings, so I'm not sure if it's true there as well.)

So it's a bit of a mixed thing I guess. Iunno, you can see it from both sides. You could also argue that Roy's desire to undo the effects of the Belt is sympathetic to people who feel bodily dysphoria.