So.
At this point I'm almost certain Bugs Bunny was the first one to plant the trans lesbian seed in my brain. I'm just gonna kinda go off on one here
...
I fucking idolized Bugs Bunny in my early childhood. He was such a compelling character to me. In a television-animation landscape of early 90s edu-tainment only just starting to escape the confines of only ever being Toy Commercials With A Lesson At The End, Bugs Bunny was this antithetical relic thrown at me because Cartoon Network was only as old as I was and still desperate to fill 24 hours worth of Exclusively Animated content which had never been done before in the US to my knowledge.
Has anyone talked about what a specific period of time that was? I dunno how often the early theatrical shorts aired on TV before, but to have Basically 24/7 access to multiple eras of old animation, without having to physically own them, we wouldnt have Jellystone! on HBO MAX rn I'll tell you that much. Everyone embraced the streaming convenience of instant availability, but they sacrificed CURATION.
ANYWAY.
Bugs was my first Mary Sue. Batman being a very close 2nd. They're pretty much holding hands. I just liked how in-control Bugs always was. No matter who was at his door to start shit or make him look or feel weak or stupid or threatened, he Simply Refused to Give A Shit and that was always half the battle. Bugs Bunny, much like a JoJo, deciding they've already won and predict your every move like they're leading you in a dance that ends with you being twirled off a cliff. He wasnt even necessarily full of himself all the time. Classic Bugs is literally Just A Guy desperately attempting to live functionally like a hobbit, but he just happens to have the fucking Emperor Haki from One Piece so no one can fuck with him.
He was just a silly bitch, he was almost androgynous at least in terms of not really presenting super masculine Or feminine? He wasnt presented as an ideal man but i dont know if he was necessarily queer coded at least with intention. And like yeah regardless of how you wanna interpret Bugs consistently disguising himself as a hot lady as a jokey way to clown on dudes, it certainly gave me the foundational knowledge: "Men" can and do present as "women," and they can do so successfully.
Because honestly yall I dont wanna pretend im some special perfect angel, but I cannot tell you a moment in my life I was ever confused with transness. It just Always made sense to me. All the queer shit. So its Gotta be some early shit like that. Random stars aligning, my family unknowlingly letting it happen because I wasnt much of a talker and they were never ones to speak up first, so I just had to piece together how the world worked from how it seemed to me, and it always seemed Complicated and it always seemed like Things never were really as easy or simple as we'd like them to be, and it always seemed to me like people always have their own shit going on just like me so its probably nobodys fault but it hurts too much and we lash out because of Course we do, of Course we do, of Course we do...
...ANYWAY.
It also always seemed to me that people were people and gender was something we Wore, which logically implies it can be removed and replaced at will, and its importance to us is more or less contextual and unique to every individual. That was never a conscious thought obviously, I was still pissing my sheets, but even tho a lot of information on queer culture and history was kept far far away, they at least raised me well enough to give a shit about other people even before I knew I was other people.
And maybe Bugs Bunny helped with that! Maybe Bugs Bunny made me a lesbian. I did end up basically falling for the character type of: Annoyingly Cocky and Overconfident but Can Back It Up So They Get Away With It. And really thats just...a whole damn gender goal.
That's All Folks!
