Comic books are all about secret identities, being someone you’re not in day to day life, or giving yourself the freedom to be your true self by wearing a mask . These things can all speak to the feeling of living in a body that seems wrong. Which is a huge part of the transgender experience. A Special Edition NYC panel on Transgender themes in comic books took that idea head on and the subject was far broader than I expected.

The moderator was Charles Battersby, founder of the transgender rights organization, Press XY. He did an excellent job at keeping on topic while still exploring and pushing the boundaries of the subject.

Marguerite Bennett discussed the character of Sera in Angela: Asgard’s Assassin. As a member of the oppressed male minority in Heven, she always knew she wasn’t one of them. She made a pact with Angela to get her out and allow her to be true self and out of that a beautiful relationship was formed.

P. Kristeb Enos, author of Web of Lives, discussed one of the stories in her independently published comic. A young girl named Casey, who is openly gay, hasn’t experienced much oppression or rejection. Her family and friends love and accept her. She meets Jorge, a male transitioning to female, who gets kicked out of her home because her family can’t accept her. Casey’s family takes her in and Casey begins to see that not all the world is welcoming and accepting to those that are different.



Marjorie Liu was there to discuss her work on X-23. As a female clone of Wolverine, X-23 has been depicted as more of thing, a weapon than as a person. She is a copy of Wolverine but has had experiences as a female that he wouldn’t have been faced with. Like sexual assault and having to prostitute herself to survive. Liu decided to look more closely at this perspective when she began writing the character.

The panelists discussed that it is far easier to explore these subjects in Indie titles, rather than books from the big two. While both the Sera and X-23 stories were accepted by Marvel neither has ever been identified as dealing with transgender themes to the media. In the case of Sera that seems particularly odd. Liu brought up the Jessica Drew storyline in Marvel Ultimates where Drew is a female clone of Peter Parker but retains memories of his life. The character had issues coming to grips with being a man in a woman’s body, yet this was never fully explored as a story. In essence Jessica Drew is a transgender man and could seek a medical remedy to her predicament, but the idea of this was never explored or even touched on in the book.

The question was asked why this type of story was more accepted when the character was an alien of some kind. It was said that it is because they are already “othered” so there is less discomfort in playing with these issues since the readers don’t identify with them.

The panelists felt that the comic book form was well suited to telling these stories. The fact that physical depictions of these characters are simpler in art than in film or movies where actors must be cast into the roles means they can be more realistic in their imagery. There is also agreement that while thing like thought bubbles or exposition are simpler to do in comics a good story won’t need them, “silence can tell as much as a full page of prose” said Liu.

This panel did what the absolute best panels do, it made me think. I didn’t apply the idea of transgender themes so broadly in my reading of them but having heard the issues raised in the storylines discussed I see what a far-ranging subject it can be. Especially when done well, with intelligence and sensitivity. The stories aren’t just cut and dried tales of gender transitions but deeper and more varied than that. I left the room with a different perspective on a subject I thought I was familiar with and I thank the excellent panelists and moderator for that gift.