Zexion: A Transgender Analysis

So my take on the LGBT challenge (#LGBTHunty) is going to be focusing on a gender identity headcanon I have.

Of course, it won't be as fancy as Nate's awesome Demyx analysis (though it is way longer oops), but I hope that it's at least an interesting read. And it's going to be a bit thick and wordy and so, so long. I'm so sorry.

I'm going to be covering one of my personal favorite Organization XIII , Zexion.

My headcanon-slash-theory is that Zexion is a transman.

Now to give some insight, a person is "transgender" when their gender identity does not match the sex assigned to them at birth.

So a transman would be specifically a person who identifies as male, but was born to a female body or an intersex body assigned as female (aka "biosex female").

Generally this person will experience a condition known as "gender dysphoria" which is a diagnosable psychological disorder where a person experiences distress or significant discomfort with gendered parts of their body that don't align with their identity or expectations of performing the gendered role of their biosex.

There are a lot of common responses to dysphoria, so I'll use that as a jumping off point for why I feel that there's a probability that Zexion may have experienced gender dysphoria and transitioned medically during his time as a Nobody.

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Hair in the Face

So a very common "self-treatment" for gender dysphoria is actually putting your hair in your face. Symbolic more than practical, you're hiding yourself from the world.

It's also very popular in a lot of counter-culture (the sources of the mid-00s jokes about Zexion being emo had to come from somewhere), particularly in gender-nonconforming groups.

But Zexion doesn't display any of the other attributes of more common counter-culture groups, apart from his 15-year-old sassiness which was just being a teenager.

In an extra scene in KH2:FM "The New Headquarters", we see that Zexion frames people he doesn't trust or feel comfortable around by using his covered side with them, as he does with Xigbar. Hiding himself while being able to see them through his hair.

This hairstyle for me reflects the ability to hide his face over him simply wanting to make a statement. We see that he's had this same hairstyle for a very long time, as well, which indicates that it is comfortable for him on a personal level as opposed to a more practical hairstyle for making his work easier.

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Unusually Deep Voice

Now one of the more obvious treatments for gender dysphoria is medical treatment, typically starting with HRT.

HRT is "Hormone Replacement Therapy", where hormones (alongside T-blockers in transwomen) are introduced to the body to offset and work in the opposite direction of the biosex hormones that the body will be producing.

Transmen specifically are generally treated with regular doses of testosterone. The easiest and least expensive way is a weekly or biweekly intramuscular injection of depo-testosterone or another compounded testosterone, but other options such as patches and topical solutions also exist.

One of the primary first and permanent effects, of testosterone is a deepening of the voice.

Usually transmen will end up with deeper voices than what seems proportionate to their size and frame, and in the flashback scene of Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix referenced earlier, we see Zexion at about 15 years old, with an unusually deep voice for his frame and age, but still slightly higher than in Reverse/Rebirth. This would line up with starting HRT pre- or early-puberty, which is the age range he would be in that scene.

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Body Shape

Zexion has a very slight frame. He is one of the shortest of the Organization (excluding Roxas and Xion who are children), matching height very closely with the only adult female in the group, Larxene, who is significantly smaller than her male counterparts.

Transmen tend to be born shorter biosex females, which is an interesting trend. One theory is that gender dysphoria in smaller-framed females will be stronger or present sooner because of the infantilization of "cute small girls", but that's just one potential reason for the trend.

Point being, Zexion is very short for not only his age and apparent gender, but his homeworld (the residents of Radiant Garden are shown to be a generally tall populace).

Zexion's shoulders are small and sloped downward, the way a biosex female's shoulders would be. Male shoulders tend to be squared, and female shoulders pointed down.

While Zexion isn't the only one with downward-pointing shoulders in the Organization, the animations for the other cast are shown to accentuate their poor posture as the reasoning for the slump.

Whereas Zexion's posture does not reflect one that would change the slope of his shoulders. In Birth by Sleep, even, his shoulders were pointed downward. Additionally, he has more feminine wide-set hips, but I'll save you another paragraph of the same.

The last point I want to make is his chest. He has noticeable defined pectoral muscles.

Now you may think this disproves everything up until this point, but it actually further emphasizes the effects of testosterone. Two of the things that HRT does for transmen is fat redistribution and muscle patterning.

As a person on testosterone burns fat and puts on muscle, muscle will be easier to put on (testosterone is technically a steroid), so it will take less work to build muscle.

Zexion is not out in the field often, he's a lab rat. The muscle that he has would be difficult to achieve if he wasn't working fairly hard, but it would be more realistic if he were on testosterone.

Fat redistribution is fairly self-explanatory, when you burn the fat you have and put it back on, it will move to a more male pattern. Facial structure changes slightly, creating more edges on a once softer female face (Zexy is pointy).

Fat moves away from the hips and toward the stomach area. But bone structure does NOT change, meaning that Zexion's wider set hips are his natural bone, as he is unlikely to have significant fat stores there. I guess I lied about not having a paragraph about that.

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Morality

Look at the environment that Zexion's formative years took place in. He had his heart extracted at a young age, being raised by a scientist who had had ethics removed from the game.

I won't go too in-depth for this one, but we have seen Vexen do some insane science, and I don't have a shadow of a doubt that he would be willing to take advantage of the factors at play.

1. Zexion's willingness to comply to experimentation to cure his dysphoria

2. The resilience of a Nobody's body in comparison to a human

Zexion is a scientist himself, and likely would have been an active participant, though consent is a little shaky when you're an emotionally stunted child.

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Science

Do not look up these procedure names.

There are a lot of graphic and disturbing images. It's personally really triggering for me, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But it is an important component of this theory to address, so I'll do so briefly. I will not show any images or links for information on these surgeries.

Ok? Ok.

There are two surgical groups that would generally be performed for a full transition from female to male, consisting of about four named procedures in total.

"Top surgery"

-otherwise known as bilateral mastectomy (or Keyhole surgery on small chests)

"Bottom Surgery"

-which refers to the procedures of hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorecotmy, and phalloplasty are generally under the umbrella of "sex reassignment surgery".

All of these have intense scarring and an extremely long recovery time, which with the resilience of a Nobody body, would likely be cut down drastically.

Transitioning is extremely emotionally taxing, often leading to severe depression and anxiety in response to the hormonal changes. Something that would be not only likely circumvented by performing the procedures on a Nobody, but would be intensely interesting to study.

Alright, moving on before this bullet point gets too sad.

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Age and Gender Identity

Okay, finally, and addressing the elephant in the room. This headcanon is trumped by Birth By Sleep, where Even refers to Ienzo as "boy" and his hair is already in his face. Generally feelings of gender dysphoria are linked with the onset of early puberty.

However, children begin showing gendered actions around age two or three, and a study on dysphoria that was published in the UK just this month (hitting news outlets on February 16th, 2018) has shown that gender dysphoria can begin manifesting in children as young as age five.

While the study was performed on young biosex boys, the children with dysphoria were showing more feminine pronunciation and tone.

Half of which were exhibiting other traits of gender dysphoria (such as preference for feminine clothing, asking to be referred to by a female name), to the point of being given a proper diagnosis.

So as far as the science is concerned, it could be possible for Ienzo to have expressed his discomfort by the 6-8 years old he appeared in Birth By Sleep, and for Even to be aware of this by that point.

Do I think Nomura intended this?

PFFFF no. Birth by Sleep came out before even I knew what transgender was--

Does it make me feel better?

Yes. I'm petty.

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Conclusion

I think that the evidence for this theory is definitely there, even though there is zero chance it will ever be canon.

It's a headcanon I'm... *glances up*... ionate about. I lost the better part of an evening writing just the base portion of this. I'm clearly insane.

I am so sorry for subjecting you all to this, and if you made it to the end oh my god are you okay? If you still have any energy left, go read Nate's SIGNIFICANTLY LESS SCARY analysis on Demyx being demisexual.

Oh, and my happy ending headcanon is that when he's reborn as Ienzo it's in a biosex male body because Ienzo is a pure bean and deserves happiness.

the end.

~vea