You know who’s a trans girl?

Michelangelo from Nickelodeon’s new computer-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.

I only got a minor buzz on my sonar regarding Michelangelo in any other incarnation (to be fair, almost everyone buzzes my trans sonar a little), but with the turtles acting like gasp teenagers in their newest incarnation, Michelangeo has been tripping all my major warning lights. She’s so obviously a pre-everything, scared-to-come-out trans girl.

Let’s look at the evidence:

Adopting a funny mask or role is a common coping mechanism for trans girls, especially trans girls suffering from depression and who can’t “butch up” to hide, and Mikey’s brother really aren’t ever going to let her butch up.

A messy living space is a common symptom of depression.

Stress-eating is a common symptom of depression.

Shallow social interactions are a common symptom of depression, or of someone afraid to engage with their deeper self.

Mikey is by far the most social turtle, and the most eager to find friends outside her brothers. I don’t bring this up because of BS “girls are more social” stereotypes, but because it demonstrates that Mikey has a vested interest (I would say need) to find people outside her immediate family to confide in.

Mikey is the most interested in human culture and identity, and seems to be looking for some level of “normalcy” her brothers aren’t.

Mikey is a natural caretaker, cooking for her brothers and bonding easily with Leatherhead and Ice Cream Kitty. Again, I say this not because of any BS gender stereotypes, but because it’s a role I see trans girls slip into frequently when they can’t hide by “butching up”.

Perhaps most convincingly, in season two, Mikey experiments with mutagen to change her body! Sure, she gives the explanation of wanting to be bigger and stronger, which you can either at face value (lots of trans girls try to be physically imposing when in denial), or that could just be the BS excuse she told her brothers because she couldn’t bring herself to say “I hate my body and wanted to change it.”

So, here’s my understanding: Mikey is a girl, but she’s terrified to come out because her family is literally all she has in the whole world, so she just wants to make them happy and make them laugh and feel useful, because right now she needs their love more than she needs to love herself. Obviously, meeting April has changed that, and she knows she can make human friends; she even tried early in season 1 (with really bad results, admittedly), but the status quo is still upset enough that she can’t keep burying her feelings. After her run-in with the squirrelanoids (which scarred her a lot deeper than she wants to admit, as we see in “Fungus Humungous”), she can’t keep it bottled up forever, and started experimenting with Donnie’s mutagen (and, I’m betting, April’s hair) to try and make her body into something she could live with. In the meantime, she’s just trying to figure out what it means to be a girl when she doesn’t really have a society or even clothes.

A big part of Mikey wants to talk to April about it, because April is the only other girl she’s ever talked to, but she’s scared of what will happen if April freaks out. Which is why I think she’s going to end up friends with Irma instead, who will be able to help her through the worst parts of transition.

Obviously Master Splinter already knows, and still loves his daughter, but won’t bring it up until Mikey is strong enough to approach this for herself. In the meantime, all he can do is make sure Mikey feels safe and supported.

Pretty obvious, when you think about it. The very special episode where she comes out is going to be a tear-jerker.