[DC] I need the big reveal explained like I'm 5. ****Spoilers inside****
So I came to this show because bluesky was flooded with "Jax is trans" memes and comments. That's how I discovered the show (apparently I was living under a rock), so on some level I was waiting for that reveal the entire time.
I binged the show over the past few days, and there was never a big "look Jax is a woman now" reveal that I noticed. Sure there was the french maid outfit, but that felt like a gag to me.
Can someone hold my hand and explain what apparently went over my head about Jax being trans? I'm not arguing it didn't happen, I'm saying I was apparently oblivious to it.
I think the closest it really gets is the moment in the finale when Ribbit puts the bow on his(?) head and says "your secret's safe with me" and he blushes for a few seconds, and he said something "personal" to his mum that she didn't take well just beforehand. Nothing's really stated out loud, and I thought there was just as much of a chance he was just into cross-dressing until Gooseworx said it out loud on Bluesky.
Thank you!
Jax is closeted (I think that term applies to being trans as well) and dies before he is able to come to terms with it or come out.
There's a lot of subtext, such as him being uncomfortable in female clothing, toxic masculinity, having a wierdly accurate understanding of Zooble's issues and his death having a specific song behind it.
His arc isn't the same as a lot of other lgbti+ representation, where everyone gets accepted and has a happy ending. It's a more realistic, tragic story where he had a bad coming out experience which caused him to spiral into suicide.
Thank you!
The maid outfit itself can be seen as just a gag, a troll by Gangle, but Jax's reaction is the important part: "I have never seen you this upset about something." That was one of the big things that had people suggesting Jax was either transmasc or closeted transfem. Not yet a guarantee, of course, but certainly a "🤨"
Another big "if you know, you know" moment was Jax's crashout in episode 6. Specifically: "I'm just a misunderstood little chicken feats in an egg that needs to be cracked open." As @[email protected] demonstrated, "egg" is a term in trans communities for someone who isn't aware or out yet1 (although importantly, forcibly "cracking" someone else's egg is frowned upon; a chick will not survive if their egg is cracked from the outside, they have to be incubated and protected until they are ready to hatch on their own terms). This is also mirrored in the episode 8 torture sequence, where Jax's skin gets forcefully peeled away, exposing the "yolk" while being laughed at
Footnotes
Wiktionary entry: noun sense 3.4 ↩
Thanks for the explanation!
For the episodes leading up to the last, Jax's hidden issue read to these ones as being trans and deeply unhappy about it. These ones have known that person.
In the last, Jax doesn't name the thing that made their mom go off, but "trans" was the most consonant with the available evidence, and then Ribbit put the bow on Jax, a classical icon of fem. Jax let it happen, sat with it, and seemed to be happy - until being outed seemed to be on the table.
A lot of people crack their eggs around outfits that they have affordance to wear - halloween helps a lot of people this way.
Then there's the dysphoria hoodie and growing-out hair on Jax's outer self.
Thanks very much for the explanation!