calling out transphobia in fandom is super important, but arguing over pronouns for fictional characters =/= calling out transphobia.

there are nonbinary and trans people who use non-standard pronouns are real - you can sit down and ask these people what their pronouns are. you can't do that with a fictional character.

this is especially true wrt Japanese language canons, where the idea of the 一人称 /first person pronoun (watashi/boku/etc) doesn't map 1:1 to the English speaking concept of pronouns (he/she/ze/etc)

which is just a long way to say: fans who treat queer characters poorly IS an issue. But that's not the same as "this fan doesn't use the pronouns i think they should"

Again: you can't sit down and ask the character in question how they identify or what pronouns they use

so functionally everything is fine as long as there's respect. and pronouns of a fictional character absolutely doesn't take precedent over how you treat real people in fandom, who are frequently queer ppl

For me, as a japanese transgender person, it's very hard to feel good about where these arguments crop up because a lot of characters that get argued over get coded as okama/onee -- basically sort of the Japanese equivalent of the "lispy queer" or "sassy gay friend" stereotype

So while it's completely valid to headcanon these characters as trans and enjoy that, I think for a lot of Japanese people it... doesn't feel good as "good representation"

There are a lot of queer Japanese artists and writers that create stories about explicitly transgender people, and I strongly encourage people to support those creators instead of pretending your internet argument is the same as representation for a marginalized group