Queer Erasure Through Localization

[@blackphoenix77]

Another Sailor Moon example: two male characters, Zoicite and Malachite, were in a relationship. The dub changed Zoicite, a ridiculously pretty boy with long hair, into a woman. I had no idea Zoicite was actually a man for decades after seeing the dub.

[@marocat4749]

That is, why, it also is very weird given that quartet he is part of, are a parallel to the sailor quartett with moon.

[@TaraBryn]

Lol i came here to say this

[@saphcal]

yeah i grew up with the show and never knew he was a guy until, literally a few years ago.

[@EmeralBookwise]

Zoicite is tricky point for me. When it comes to Uranus/Neptune I absolutely prefer them as lesbians because it was so obvious that localization couldn't erase it, and the alternative was so ridiculous. With Zoicite though, younger me never questioned the presentation of the character as female, and I sort of even prefer the diversity it added to the villains. For my own personal tastes I think I've taken to considering the character of Zoicite as trans. It might not be true to the original presentation, but at least it replaces one kind of queerness with another and so isn't quite an erasure either

[@saphcal]

@@EmeralBookwise Trans Zoicite is valid headcanon imo.

[@Grovyle10]

From my experience as a German, the German language doesn't really have a widely known gender-neutral pronoun (except for "it") so most of the German non-binary people I know use the German equivalents of she/her or he/him, but still identify as non-binary. I don't think translating a non-binary character's they/them pronouns into German by picking between the ones that are commonly used in the language isn't necessarily erasure, but can simply be a translation of a non-binary identity into another culture/language that handles pronouns differently, especially since we must not forget that not even all English speaking non-binary people use they/them pronouns. But it's also tricky because if the pronouns *do* get translated into a language without widely known gender-neutral options, and the non-binary identity of the character isn't directly stated or addressed, it can also easily be missed by the audience.

[@cawareyoudoin7379]

I'm Polish, and our language has a similar issue. I just said fuck it and am using it/its. Neopronouns too complicated and hard to introduce.

[@meander112]

IIRC, when Steven Universe was localized (I think for Middle East countries) they used a male voice Ruby & a female voice for Sapphire, despite Ruby being (like all gems, I think) female. This led to Rebecca Sugar's decision to have them wear outfits for their wedding that made that characterization a lie.

[@halu959986]

Not even middle east. Various scenes involving Ruby and Sapphire were cut from the UK release (and some of the more saphic scenes with Pearl and Rose) it's moronic.. (thank god for VPN's otherwise I'd be stuck with that awful version...)

[@gracjanlekston134]

In some languages gender neutral pronouns don't exist or are used exclusively for objects not people (like Polish), male pronouns are simultaneously male and gender neutral pronouns in those languages. So localisation of non-binary characters in some languages is very difficult, especially if it's just a background detail like Hange from AoT.

[@SpedeVesku]

In Finnish, there are no gendered pronouns at all. You say "hän", no matter who you are talking about.

[@thebreeoche]

most non-binary people who speak those languages use neopronouns. im french and non-binary, where im from "iel" is the big one and some shows have even used it. i think if the original character is explicitly non-binary then it's still erasure, because all they needed to do was do a single second of research into how non-binary people navigate the world.

[@sun-dari]

Sometimes there are no workarounds to the grammatical gender, no matter what pronouns you choose. For example, in Russian, singular "they" already has a different meaning, and with any verb in the past tense you either have to gender someone as male/female or refer to them as an object, the equivalent of calling someone "it" in English. And sure, there are people who might choose that for themselves but for the most part it is still used as an insult

[@davidthedeaf]

In ASL there are no gender pronouns. It/He/She is pointing, They is flat hand. In English prior to the feminist movement of the late 20th century many things male were also neutral. Man, mankind…meant human and humankind. He/him/his…meant either him or her, everyone included. With women entering more jobs in the the workforce they demanded specific words no longer say “man” such as mailman, fireman, freshman…had to say at first things like fire woman and police woman which was long and awkward so later it became totally neutered to police officer or police person, fire fighter, mail delivery person or postal carrier. I dislike the change from freshman to First Year Student…good heavens that is long, but women were offended so it went. So now when you read OLD writing, such as letters, laws, books from before 1970 you need to keep in mind every time you see male things written it may or may not refer only to men, it may mean all genders, and translations need to be careful to keep that in mind as well.

[@davidthedeaf]

@@sun-dari true that “it” is considered in general a great insult, erasing their human rights and existence. That would be another type of erasure to avoid.

[@GiantButterKnife]

Spanish is just not equipped for non-binary characters without a decent amount of effort being put in by the translators. A strict translation of (singular) “they went to the store to get eggs” would be “Ellos fueron a la tienda a conseguir huevos” which looks like the subject just got assigned a gender or put in a group. There’s also the issue where if you have a group of 200 women and 1 man, the group is collectively referred to by the masculine group pronouns (ellos, todos, etc.). Any production to break from these linguistic principles would make waves, and I don’t think anyone wants to go first.

[@cedar7560]

Yeah. I know in Spanish there's the neopronoun 'elle', [ex. Elle es mi amige.] but as you said at the end. There definitely would be big waves if they tried that.

[@Tim85-y2q]

TBH I've met many people who have a problem understanding the use of they/them pronouns applied to an individual even in English.

[@HotDogTimeMachine385]

Sailor moon is hilarious how they didn't remove the romantic scenes, but ONLY ADDED them being cousins. They changed them from lesbians to incest lesbians??... which is somehow better??? wtf america There's a French-Japanese anime from 2006 called Ōban Star-Racers which had a pair of space alien biker vampire lesbians. The creator and artwork call them lovers but the dub calls them sisters. ughh

[@marocat4749]

And how they made the sailor starlights trans. Guess it wasnt anime enough, had to have incest.

[@hilariousbenjamin5614]

But why go for cousins and sisters when gals being pals exists is what I don't understand (in the Italian dub Sailor Uranus and Neptune were "best friends", which is still erasure, but at least it doesn't read as incest.......) Edit: meanwhile the Sailor Starlights had...twin sisters...they would magically summon from thin air and that somehow would never appear in the same room as their "twin brothers"...hmm🤔

[@Merilirem]

@@hilariousbenjamin5614 Because friends ain't that close, i guess. Its very strange in the heads of people who do this stuff.

[@hilariousbenjamin5614]

@@Merilirem very strange indeed

[@nekusakura6748]

@@christopherb501 I love it Personally and aside from that issue with the Couple becoming sisters, The Dub for that Show is Really well done.

[@cristinaacosta8938]

So, as a Mexican, who is also agender, this is a very complicated topic, since I don't believe that the change with Raine was done in bad faith. Let me explain with how I've been dealing with my own pronouns. Because it is a point of contention whether we adopt "elle" as a neutral pronoun or not, I myself simply don't use, since I don't wanna create unnecessary tension for something that is still VERY controversial, even more so than on English, where I do prefer the pronouns they/them because they feel right. So, for my native language, I'm still working on having people refer to me with masculine pronouns "él" to see how that flies. Returning to the topic of this video, Raine sounds fine in the Spanish version, the voice actor gave them a very neutral voice in my opinion, but it actually shows that it's difficult to maintain at times and I believe they went the route I myself did because there is just too much controversy, like nobody's business. So I hope it was helpful, it really is a complicated situation, I do think there is improvement to be made since they gave Raine a masculine full name but, aside from that I do believe that the company is not making that decision in bad faith.

[@davidthedeaf]

Since you are Mexican, I wanted to ask you about your thoughts related to saying LatinX or Latin@ or Latina/o. Like the el/la “the” thing you bring up and controversy of changing the language as well, I read there is a case with Mexicans saying Latinx goes against the rules of Spanish word endings so it cannot be accepted, that X is inclusive of nonbinary, and that it is an American white idea not a Mexican idea so it is racist/colonizing. Yet, Latinx is exactly what my university taught all of us in social work to use! I had previously been using Latin@, and people in WA state are claiming that is new, but it isn’t, and that it is more inclusive, but it is a symbol not a letter at the end. Do you have anything more to think about on that?

[@cristinaacosta8938]

@@davidthedeaf So, I'm not on board with the LatinX thing the States are trying to pull up. For one, phonetically, the way you say it in English is very different to how it would sound in Spanish. While you can wrap it up nicely when giving it a "English" accent, the whole word is kind of a paint to say in Spanish. Also, it's fairly uncommon to use a termination in "x" to establish neutrality. Being far more harsh than I would like to be, some say it's stupid. So, I've done something similar, with various words, to what you do with the word Latin@ or the a/o termination. Here's the thing though, I never use it formally. As in, when I write something more formal I definitely don't do that. Again, this is more due to the whole rules of Spanish as a language and how we are taught to write, so I'm not saying that you can't, it's just not that common. As for the whole colonization thing, that's just taking it too far. To my understanding, the word LatinX was coined by actual Latino people living in the States, if not more so people who haven't put a foot outside of the country, so Latinos born and raised up there. I could be wrong of course, and I will say that I don't think that I have all of the answers of what we should and shouldn't do. Still, the point stands that, even though you should listen to Latinos that live in your country, with this type of things, you should also pay more attention to the people that this terminology is trying to being forced to use it, which also include non binary people living in Latin America as well. I hope this is comprehensive and it at least cleared up some of your questions. Many thanks for your time 💜

[@charlottem7758]

​@@cristinaacosta8938 my understanding is the "E" and "X" suffix are basically competing proposals of how to handle this (Amige or Amigx) is this correct? I'm cis and have no connection to the language (just learning it) so not for me to say how this should be handled, but I do see that it's more complicated than in English. In English, I do think the argument of, "it doesn't change the language, they/them has always been able to be used as a singular" is a very compelling argument. While in Spanish, it is actually a fundamental change to the language - inanimate objects are gendered and the way to handle neutral is to use the masculine pronouns (Group of women - Ellas, group of men - Ellos, group of men and women - Ellos). This isn't to say that it shouldn't change, and again, I know I don't get a vote in this

[@Caterfree10]

Spanish is, afaik, incredibly gendered as a language, so it’s hard to find a good way to have gender neutral anything.

[@fnjesusfreak]

@@cristinaacosta8938 I've generally heard that "Latinx" came from outside the community as a result of "white knights".

[@theshadowdirector]

Thankfully, there is now an uncut English version of Sailor Mob with everything intact. Wish they'd release it outside the US!

[@ikarikid]

Erm…it has been? My sister has the DVDs?

[@theshadowdirector]

@@ikarikid sorry, misspoke. Maybe in some places, but not over here in the UK Never even been streamed.

[@TheBohrokLord]

Inversely, I have a few examples of dubs changing a character's gender... which became accidental queer representation when said character entered a relationship with the "same" gender. You can thank Japanese Beast Wars for the first canonically gay Transformers... all because they made Airazor male and didn't think about the long term consequences

[@alicec1533]

Wow, that's amazing! Never knew about that.

[@Merilirem]

Man i LOVE that stuff. Its just so poetic.

[@ribon-ichigo]

I remember Steven Universe was getting censored all over the place in a lot of countries for a lot of the show, but especially any interactions with Ruby and Sapphire. Ruby was "turned into a guy" for some countries. Rebecca Sugar references that as the reason Ruby wears the dress and Sapphire wears the tux in the wedding ceremony, to fight censoring. But then those countries just completely cut the two part episode from the show. It left many viewers from those countries confused about the ending of the show, because of how much progression of the story was fit into the wedding. Steven goes from leisuring around Beach City to suddenly at Homeworld taking on the diamonds. It then led to those viewers seeking out online spaces to find the entire show in another language so they can understand what happened.

[@TTRPGSarvis]

In "Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains", The character Ai, an AI in a male avatar tells the main male character Yusaku "I love you." in the japanese release. In the English dub, the line became "You were pretty good, for a meatbag."

[@BlueSparxLPs]

(this is a slightly edited copy of my other reply to the video. Replying with it here too because it's applicable) There was another big example of similar changes many years back with the character of Yubel in Yu-Gi-Oh GX. This is a character that is supposed to represent both the male and female genders--going as far as having a body that is evenly split between typical features of the two, using all gender pronouns interchangeably, and even having multiple voice actors of both genders. The English dub, however, changed their entire body to give them a more feminine look on both sides and then used female pronouns and a female voice actor exclusively (and that's before getting into all of the changes to their motivation, personality, romantic love toward the main character, etc. that the dub made, but I digress). It's one of those changes I've always been extremely disappointed by because Yubel is a fantastic character done super dirty by the localization.

[@GiantButterKnife]

This reminds me of how the reverse happened at the end of FFX: Yuna’s “thank you” became “I love you” in English.

[@nekusakura6748]

@@GiantButterKnifeAt least that change worked in the Context of the Scene and made the ending of FFX sadder (for me at least).

[@GiantButterKnife]

@@nekusakura6748 I think there's a good amount of pros and cons for either version of that scene. I don't have a strong take on which one was strictly better or worse and my thoughts on it are mixed at best (rambling at worst), but I'm glad it worked so well for you.

[@radkowski91]

As an English to Brazilian Portuguese translator who just finished working on a series with a NB character (unfortunately I can't disclose it yet), I can say that it is a very complicated and delicate matter, because, like in Spanish and other romance languages, basically everything is gendered and the neutral gender is non existent in the common language. Some people have already suggested new words that could serve as gender neutral pronouns and new forms of neutral adjectives and nouns, of course, but they are very niche and still unknown by the vast majority of the population, so most viewers would just assume you pronounced the words wrongly and meant something else. That said, I can confirm that at least some companies indeed really care about this topic, my client even sent me a special guide on how to deal with NB characters so as to not misrepresent them. At the end of the day, the more "democratic" solution for Brazilian Portuguese is still to omit the pronouns altogether and refer to the character only by name or using a neutralizing noun such as "person", which, despite being a feminine noun in Portuguese, can refer to anyone and basically leaves the gender of the subject up in the air. So "they are beautiful" becomes " é uma pessoa bonita" ( is a beautiful person). I think that's a good compromise for now, showing that yes, localization CAN preserve queer representation across different languages and cultures when you make an effort. Anyway, I would like to add that the Raine situation in Spanish sounds like a company that just didn't want to put in the work to preserve representation, maybe because it's a minor character or for some other reason, and I'm glad it's being addressed!

[@agnetebutk]

Yeah, I don't think it's fair to judge translations for basically erasing a NB character when the language does not allow it. A translator cannot come up with all new grammar. They themself cannot make these lingual changes to accommodate a NB character. The change needs to happen at a national (or in languages like Portuguese and Spanish) level. My native language is Lithuanian which also uses gender for everything and only has two genders. To make NB identities well represented the National Commission of Lithuanian Language needs to decide on new official grammar. To basically change the language entirely. Because a simple sentence like "I am happy" tells your own gender. And they are not gonna do anything to change that because they don't care about being gender neutral (actually, if you don't know the gender of the person you're talking about (meaning, you haven't met them, if you have met them you just assume) you just use the masculine gender as gender-neutral. patriarchy who?)

[@davidthedeaf]

You did a good job of explaining your point. I watched but wasn’t sure what localization erasure meant. Since you mentioned to give you my thoughts and examples, I am a member of the Deaf Community. We get furious with poor representation in movies and tv shows. Nearly always the directors will create a tokenizing idea of what we are, not actually knowing us, for making profits for self…none going to our people or causes. Sometimes they hire for the Deaf part a person who does not know ASL and are fully hearing with no clue what Deaf culture is. One time it was the director’s wife, of course. Sometimes they hire a real Deaf ASL user to teach the person some signs just before doing the scene, but that is due to the person needing money or being a sell out, not due to us as a community supporting the idea that our way of life is stolen and portrayed by a hearie. However, one person got a role in an action adventure, and they are queer and mixed race as well as ASL using Deaf person. In a queer publication they were called a POC Queer nonbinary person. Their Deafhood was erased! The Deaf person said how important being Deaf is, a major part of their identity! And yet the Queer magazine purified them, made them appear fully hearing, acceptable. They had the core of who they were erased! In other cases, since only Gay and Black are the special tokens right now, there are other means of erasure of the Deaf you have no clue about. One of them was a man I knew personally, a really bad man. The Deaf knew he was a liar after a series of ASL videos he did regarding what turned out him demanding a deaf discount on fast food, editing things to make it seem he was discriminated against when really he was an embarrassment. Charlton LaChase is a Deaf Latino, family immigrated to the US, and his mom enabled him. I met him at DeafProtest 2015 when we had a rally at the capitol to complain of deaf children denied access to ASL and not obtaining a first language fluency, students being passed and graduating with inferior education so unable to read or write well and unable to go to college or get a job, and job discrimination the ADA has no teeth to stop. After that, he stole art from other Deaf to sell and begged for money to travel to get a wife. Then he did worse videos where he clearly was telling us he wanted us to follow him as The Deaf Leader and start setting fires and hating on hearing people. His hate for the hearing went so far as to threaten his hearing sister’s life by text, which she reported to 911. He told them he joined ISIS, and was put into prison, upon getting out, he texted again he joined ISIS, and was put right back in prison. The newspapers did mention this man as an American who twice declared hatered and joining ISIS, but…the news left out that he hated hearing, and claimed he hated Americans and Christians…untrue! They also left out…that he is Deaf!! The ONLY motivation he had was murdering hearing people, and getting us to rise up against you all in violence. The ONLY thing about him at his core was being Deaf, and the audism he believed was used to oppress him! All of this..erased. When what is your distinction, your people, your culture, your identity, something you cherish and is so innate in you that it would be impossible to remove and still exist…is removed and erased BY the oppressor community….it feels like a declaration of war and eugenics. That is my thoughts and addition to what you explained. Thanks for telling us your thoughts.

[@JackieTheCatfox]

I am a Spanish audiovisual translator. I work with translation and localization of audiovisual products as a living. I also happen to be queer and have done quite a bit of research on LGBTQ+ translation. This is a very interesting and well put together video. Congratulations.

[@matt0044]

I think there’s the case of “accidental” queer erasure. That is, a character without a fixed gender in the original is given one. This has been rectified as more people generally recognize that the gender binary is not a strict rule book. Though some cases are weird with Soul Eater’s Crona being gendered as male yet having Maxey Whitehead give a very gender-noncomforming performance.

[@marocat4749]

She seems to care about th original character. As i dont think crona is there ever gendered.

[@SebastianSeanCrow]

I thought Crona was a girl the whole time lol

[@saphcal]

the author was asked if Crona was a boy or a girl and the author said "it is a mystery"

[@keegszzz8356]

I only knew about Crona’s gender because of fan discussions. I watched the series on Netflix and had to read the wiki to see what the deal was.

[@matt0044]

@@SebastianSeanCrow Though the dub refer to them as "he."

[@MewDenise]

I was so mad when Sweden messed up lines in Steven Universe. They translated Lapis saying "They are flirting" to "They are goofing around". And Saphire saying "I just wanna look at you" to "I have a hard time concentrating." Sweden did this! SWEDEN!! Must have been a christian sitting at the translation table.

[@TiraAnarhin]

Ironically, the opposite happened in Supernatural. In the Spanish version, Dean actually replies to Castiel's love confession (which gets him dragged into super hell) with 'I love you too'. Which does absolutly not happen in the original English version ...

[@Wurmze]

I was wondering if anyone would bring this up aha

[@ImpulsiveCreativity]

China will cut out any explicitly queer content, but it's interesting how in 2019, the most popular show in China was The Untamed (it's on netflix btw), which is based on a novel (The Grandmater of Demonic Cultivation) with 2 queer main characters (who by the end of the novel get married and even have a son). The show obviously couldn't include then kissing or getting married, and in the tv version they changed a line of one character calling the other his 'soulmate' to 'confidant' but in an alternate cut version only released online, they used the soulmate line. So the censorship laws are pretty strange when it comes to TV vs online. Also the fact that more damnei (China's version of BL) novels are being adapted into shows and trying to be as gay as possible within the laws.

[@ms0kitty448]

Thank you for bringing up the point about us not necessarily having the right (and power) to pass judgement and try to dictate rep in other cultures. I've seen a lot of English-speaking enbies punch down at entire romance languages cultures, essentially calling the entire culture bigoted because it has gender as part of its grammar. I could get into how that isn't correct but suffice to say, maybe let the enbies of those cultures determine how the language is going to move forward? Just because your language had gender neutral pronouns for referring to people pre-built into its structure, doesn't mean it's better. Languages are all just different. (I'm very intrigued about that Spanish translation example you gave, because there is no clear-cut solution on the pronoun front in Spanish yet, and will be doing research on Spanish-speaking enbies' thoughts 👀)

[@TheTakerFoxx]

Just FYI: all of the available Owl House episodes are up on Disney+ now.

[@nelanequin]

In Germany we have a lot of examples of trans characters getting removed. Recently we have had She-Ra, where Double Trouble got turned into a dude in the German Dub. But there is also really old stuff. One thing that stuck with me, because due to the translation I did not quite get it originally ... In Angel Sanctuary there are several trans characters ... Who are explicitly trans in the text. However the German translation misgenders ALL of them. Even the binary trans characters.

[@adamantinesnowflake4860]

I remember this only because I was a big fan of digimon back in the day and I remember they took Renamon and made her a him. Which gets really complicated when you see her Megaform which is explicitly female. But I think it was also because for some reason Digimon had Renamon and her tamer have very "Romantic" style to their interactions and so it just got weird because she is a digital anthropomorphized fox and Rika is a like 12-14 year old girl but Germany gave Renamon a male voice which to me felt like a lean into the romance angle.

[@cawareyoudoin7379]

Some of it can be excused with language, but definitely not all.

[@abavendarlocke5455]

It really baffles me when I think about the re-translation of Evangellion. Not only was the manga way more explict about that relationship, but even in the anime, that relationship was seen to be okay IN THE 90'S! Why the hell is it not okay to have in today's day and age? It makes me so bloody annoyed.

[@SebastianSeanCrow]

I totally forgot about the manga adaptation lol but yeah the changing of the lines in the newer screening was frustrating

[@shenanigans8353]

Mind you it's worth noting the Japanese rights owners in house translator was directly involved in the scripting of the netflix dub, so any issue one may have with how shinji and kaoru's relationship is portrayed is probably closer to the source than other cases

[@keegszzz8356]

Yep, I only know about the gay statements like the “I love you” being changed because of the controversy.

[@nancyjay790]

One of the painful things about the Eva Netflix translation was that Kaoru's declaration of love to Shinji was the first time anyone said those words to Shinji, which he affirms in the following episode. It's also more interesting given that in the original show, "Fly Me to the Moon" was the end credits song, a song which emphasizes someone telling someone else, "I love you," a thing just about nobody does in the show. Shinji, in the original translation and for most of the Netflix translation, never comes close, and in the Netflix translation, he is the only one that comes close. But everything about Shinji and Kaoru's body language and facial cues suggest physical attraction and emotional connection. Losing that stinks.

[@gingganggoolie]

A lot of this is driven in part by hetero and cis normativity. When Yuri on Ice was first broadcasting, episode 4 has Victor ask Yuri, another man, if he has any current or ex lovers but the subtitles translated it to "girlfriend" I guess because it sounds more natural in English. Fans kicked up a fuss, because Victor is clearly attempting to flirt, and when the dub came out a few weeks later, fan pressure worked, and Victor asks Yuri about his lovers and ex lovers, as he does in the original

[@Lexichi22]

This is kinda interesting. I get why "lovers" would be used in other languages, but I feel like in English, "lovers" sounds almost too proper, or too dramatic. There can be great localization that gets the exact same point across by using vocabulary that sounds more organic to the language that it's being adapted to. For example, if the original wording is "do you have any current or ex lovers," it could be localized to Viktor asking if Yuri has a girlfriend *or* if he has a boyfriend, since a lover and an ex lover are two separate subjects, so are a girlfriend and a boyfriend. Or if it's gender neutrality you're going for, he could ask if he has any *partners* as opposed to "lovers." It's less weirdly formal and dramatic for an American audience. (Unless of course that's Viktor's whole character and it would be perfectly on point for him to be super flowery and say "lovers," in which case, all of the above can be ignored.) Either way, nothing makes it less gay, since it's a man asking another man if he's single.

[@gingganggoolie]

@@Lexichi22 I love questions like this, because there's a lot of different ways to translate it. Victor is definitely the type to use language like "lover" in English, but like you say it could also be "partner" or "are you in a relationship?" What about in the past?" "Girlfriend or boyfriend" feels a bit clunky to me, since it makes sexuality a part of the question, and it might then be odd for a character not to respond to it

In reference to the Spanish translation: I don’t know enough about Spanish language, but I can give an example of my native language, Slovenian - “they/them” does not exist as a gender neutral single person pronoun. About 100 years ago, they/them would have been a pronoun one would use with their grandparents out of respect, so this has never translated to the contemporary concept of non-binarity. What non-binary people tend to do in Slovenia (at least the few I know) is ask for people to randomize their use of pronouns when referring to them (=sometimes calling them he and sometimes she). And the lgbtq+ scene isn’t that big here, so I can totally see how a generic translator would go for that solution. Not excusable obviously, as any good translator should have gotten in touch with relevant people and educate themselves to make sure the translation fits with the language/society.

[@n3v3rm0r3]

For what I've seen the LGBTQ+ community tend to go with elle instead of ella or el. I don't know if it has spread out side the community it's also how Spanish speaking people go with latine instead of Latinx because it makes more sense with in the language (Spanish is my first language)

[@grinnylein]

@@n3v3rm0r3 How do they deal with advectives? If I remember what I learned about Spanish right, then those are gendered as well to fit the gender, while words like ella/el are often left out completely?

[@Rmlohner]

One that I remember a huge stink about, despite not being much into the video game community anymore, is the trans female character Lena from Deadly Premonition 2. Because the Japanese language doesn't have personal pronouns, it was left completely in the hands of the various localization teams which ones to use, and at least some of them went with "he/him." This got especially awkward when the game's hero makes a big speech shaming the town for how they treated her for being trans, while himself frequently deadnaming and misgendering her. The developer very quickly issued an apology, despite it not really being his fault at all, and said he'd see these scenes were rewritten.

[@Caterfree10]

Voltron Legendary Defender did the straightwashing thing in some dubs with Shiro’s ex boyfriend, but that was also made easy by not having him in much (not counting Keith’s love confession, which was dubbed romantically and then promptly ignored the rest of the series /salty). Steven Universe frequently had this happen with Ruby and Sapphire. Ruby was masculine enough to be dubbed by male VAs in several other languages; this is why when Rebecca Sugar (the showrunner) finally got the green light for a Ruby/Sapphire wedding, she put Ruby in the wedding dress and Sapphire in the suit, AND made the episode plot vital. I think the series ended up cancelled in several countries bc of it though, but she stuck by her convictions to get that sapphic wedding.

[@citrinedragonfly]

Sailor Moon has hilarious localizations in other languages as well. The original Italian dub of the 5th season had the Sailor Starlights (who were male-bodied when not transformed in the anime, but female-bodied when they were Sailor Guardians) as two separate characters each - the guardian and a "male identical twin" who just so happened to disappear when the Starlights were around. I know people have mentioned Zoisite and Fish Eye already. The manga for Wish, by CLAMP, also had issues. All of the characters used male pronouns in the original, but the angel who was the love interest of the very masculine male protagonist was given female pronouns. And all the queerness was pulled from Card Captor Sakura (Tomoyo's crush on Sakura, Touya and Yukito's not-exactly ambiguous friendship), among many, many other issues the localization had. Things like that make me glad that Revolutionary Girl Utena didn't get a broadcast release, because the sexual politics of that anime are all over the place, and I shudder to think what the sensors would have done.

[@theforgetfulalchemist]

the owl house fandom is up in arms about Raine being misgendered in subtitles and dubs and I am here for it

[@ZipplyZane]

The one thing I'm wondering is how Spanish handles gender-neutral pronouns and such. I know that I've been told by some foreign language speakers that there really isn't an equivalent in their language. I know that a lot of time, the reason they added gender to translations from Japanese because at the time, there wasn't an acceptable non-binary pronoun that wouldn't be very stilted and odd. I believe that's why Watt in Paper Mario got a pronoun. She was only referred to as female once, and the English translators missed this. The rest of the time she was referred to like a baby, and English doesn't have pronouns specifically for babies. And since, unlike another partner, Watt had no obvious female coding, the translators assumed male and got it wrong.

[@sunriselg]

German does not have an established set of gender-neutral pronouns. I don't know how the German versions of Owl House and She-ra handle it. The German wikipedia article does not use pronouns for Double Trouble at all. The German voice actor is not non-binary but a gay man. The German wikipedia article does not mention Raine at all.

[@hilariousbenjamin5614]

Yeah, Romance languages like Spanish are not only gendered, but lack a neutral gender too. The masculine form is generally used to indicate neutrality, especially in plural collective words, but they're still masculine in form. There's a huge debate going on at the moment in Spanish speaking countries and Italy (probably also in the other Romance-speaking countries) on the need for a more inclusive language, but there's still a lot of work to be done. So I can see how a non-binary character could unfortunately be forced in the binary with no malice intended...it's the language itself that isn't yet equipped to do them justice.

[@kinocrone7275]

As a native spanish speaker, I wanted to comment on this. There is no they/them equivalent in spanish. There is an attempt to implement non-binary pronouns into the vernacular, but they are new words, and to many people that is just not how language works, and it clashes, so it causes a lot of resistance even to those who are lgbtq (and language nerds). They/them as singular pronouns has always been a thing in english. In spanish, neutral usually defaults to masculine. I'm not sure where I stand on this yet. I'm glad it's a conversation we're having though. I just think the reason behind the original translation was probably completely innocent. Especially considering that we've been consuming anime in the mainstream for quite a bit longer than the US and we've not had as much queer erasure as the US in that regard

[@jhon4379]

Portuguese doesn't have gender neutral pronouns, or articles, etc as in Spanish Like "they were friends" could b "eles são amigos" ou "elas são amigas" Queer people are trying to add a 3rd option "Elus são amigues" It is a little bit harder, but usualy people ask to be use to them, so ain't that big of a deal

[@sunriselg]

It's important to note though, that while it's true that many languages don't have an established gender-neutral set of pronouns, non-binary people still exist in those countries. So translating their existence out of media isn't helpful. And I know that at least for German, Spanish and French, there have been efforts to create gender-neutral pronouns.

[@mettetc]

I didn't understand the use of "they" for a single person before (english isn't my first language). But now I realize that there isn't a gender-neutral term for one self in danish. We have han/hun (he/she) or den/det which refers to genderneutral objects - so that dosn't work. We recently adopted the new swedish terms "hen", but it is not widely used. I just read op on the new terminology, and it seems like "de" (they) is now becoming the preferred genderneutral term. I have to smile a bit at that, because "De" (singular) is an old term showing respect for someone older/richer than yourself. Today it is primarily used for a member of the royal family...

[@modmaker7617]

Yeah in my native language Polish is the same but worse due to actually not having any officially. "They" in Polish is "oni" which is plural masculine or "one" which is plural non-masculine meaning a group without males. There is the neuter "one" but it's considered de-humanising being the English equivalent "it" being for objects. There is zero official non-binary pronouns there are newly made-up words that aren't widely agreed apon.

[@davidthedeaf]

@@modmaker7617 in America some nonbinary told us they go by Zie or Ze or Xie, and Zem or Xem. They insisted everyone in the room say and practice it. That was awkward. The pronouncing of them and spelling of these words go against English, so I do not foresee them becoming integrated and accepted by general society. They/Them is acceptable, because when you do not know a person’s gender you will say “then they said to me” automatically, not a new thing. While conservatives will resist, it will be far more accepted to use They/Them.

[@modmaker7617]

@@davidthedeaf Yeah those z/x pronouns definitely look difficult to pronounce. I always thought they/them was the most accepted nonbinary/gender-neutral pronouns in English.

[@davidthedeaf]

@@modmaker7617 yes and some of us who went to that meeting were d/Deaf and hard of hearing, so the terp had to finger spell XIE, ZEY, ZHEM or whatever, each and every time said. This person was adamant they were going to force all of us, from many DC region colleges, to say it and use it. That set the whole meeting off on wrong foot. For the next 30 min to hour, I forget, it felt like we were ultra quiet and careful, walking on eggshells. I have no clue if the person who looked to be in 20s realized it, but they likely made a lot of us decide on the spot to never use those “words” again due to the method of preaching it at us in that manner. I have a bestie who told me they are nonbinary but slightly female side of it, and they said they realize it is very unlikely to get Xie/Ze, so they are not getting their heart set on it. Either They or She is okay by her…so I usually use she/her, and so does her entire family now. I think that my friend is glad her mom doesn’t use male pronouns anymore.

[@modmaker7617]

@@davidthedeaf When creating new words they need to be able to pronounce, spell & fit within their language like; Pokémon, Pikachu, Dathomir, Tatooine, Mandalorian etc. (I can only give these nouns for fictional concepts due being only made-up words I use frequently being a fan of those fictional IPs.) Those z/x pronouns just don't fit English. They look like Chinese transliteration into the Latin Alphabet.

[@MrDarthT]

I remember when Steven Universe was airing. In Russia they would change Ruby to be male, by adding a moustache. In "retaliation", the map of Earth in "Steven Universe" notably has a missing spot of land in the exact shape and location of Russia.

[@gozerthegozarian9500]

Sailor Uranus fun fact: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, 19th century gay rights pioneer, coined the term "Urning" for a homosexual person like himself inspired by Greek goddess Aphrodite Urania. In the greek myth Aphrodite is born after the severed testicles of the titan Uranus fall into the sea - Neptune is the Roman name of Poseidon, the god of the sea. The sailor girls' very names denote their gayness!

[@JeronisLeror]

Amazing as usual! Well done! Thank you! Genshin Impact, with all its problems, localized the Chinese gay trope of "bound brothers," (a gay euphemism in China since westernization of the country,) i to English as "adopted brothers." Sorry that it took me a bit to finish this. I took the opportunity of calling in sick to do homework, and other things I was behind on.

[@Rhubarb120]

9:40 The same thing happened years ago with the manga/anime Soul Eater, down to the creator saying the same thing about not revealing the character's gender (although unfortunately they didn't get to fix it in other regions). My favorite character, Crona, was designed to be neither male or female, but the english translated versions gave them a gender (male in the anime, female in the manga), which detracts from the character. Like your example of Vivian from Thousand Year Door, even if you are not looking at it through the lens of representation, it doesn't work as well from a narrative perspective. They were designed to be kind of an enigma. They don't adhere to the normal rules of the series' power system, and are difficult to get a read on at first. The lack of gender adds another element to the utter confusion that Crona inflicts upon the rest of the cast, and makes it all the more triumphant when they find a group who accepts them being different. A lot of shows would make jokes about the crew trying to pry into their gender, but they don't. It's been years since I've read it, but I think there is only ONE time where someone questions Crona's gender, and it isn't a jab at them, but a way of showing the audience that particular character is easily distracted by unimportant things in dangerous situations.

[@MoreThanALoser8107]

Like many other languages already mentioned in this comment section, my native language german also has no they/them. This is especially weird for me as someone who has a more neutral gender identity than probably the average person. Of course some people use newer/"less official" pronouns like f.e. er_sie (literally he_she which does not fit for me because I don't identify as "he" in any shape or form) but I would love to have such widely known genderneutral pronouns like they/them in my native language. Due to these language issues it gets extremely difficult to translate non-binary characters for the german language or even write about many non-binary people. I think almost every german Wikipedia article about a non-binary person who uses they/them mentions how that term can't be translated into german. If I want to talk in german about f.e. a KZbinr that uses they/them I can only really resort to refering to them as "person" or by their name and due to that non-binary people as a group have a difficult time being visible in german society. If I had not started delving into the english language internet as a teenager I probably would have never really realized that non-binary people exist and would have never considered that as potential option for my own gender identity.

[@grinnylein]

I know this problem, not for myself, but for how to address people around me. Because even if you avoid the direct pronouns, I often stumble over the indirect ones (ihr/sein, ihres/seins) and sadly you just can't use they/their to substitute it, because you just miss grammatical clauses... I felt terrible when I had to ask a friend for a German equivalent for 'they/their' (they are German themselves), because it doesn't integrate into spoken German very well

[@timecrayon]

From what I understand, sir/sire (as a mix of sie and er) and dey/deren (deren already existed for groups of people and dey is taken from english) are the most popular ones at the moment (although I don't know a single enby who uses them, they usually go with their assigned pronouns). Usually when talking about nonbinary folks I mumble as much as possible when I need to use pronouns, especially if I don't know if they're out yet.

[@cawareyoudoin7379]

As a Polish person who uses our equivalent of it/its, I wonder if "es" is also used by German enbies?

[@laurie7487]

I don't know if someone already said this one, but Castiel's "I love you" was translated as "ti voglio bene" which only has a friendly/familial connotation. Also on the same broadcasting company (a sort of Italian BBC), a sex scene between two guys in How to get away with murder was censored.

[@ninreck5121]

an enby friend of mine pointed out that Double Trouble in She-Ra is also he/him in german even though they're canonically non-binary

[@BlueSparxLPs]

While much more niche, especially on this channel, there was a big example of this many years back with the character of Yubel in Yu-Gi-Oh GX. This is a character that is supposed to represent both the male and female genders--going as far as having a body that is evenly split between typical features of the two, using all gender pronouns interchangeably, and even having multiple voice actors of both genders. The English dub, however, changed their entire body to give them a more feminine look on both sides and then used female pronouns and a female voice actor exclusively (and that's before getting into all of the changes to their motivation, personality, romantic love toward the main character, etc. that the dub made, but I digress). It's one of those changes I've always been extremely disappointed by because Yubel is a fantastic character done super dirty by the localization.

[@etherealsky7078]

I bet that if Judai was a girl, America would have “edited” Yubel to be a boy. I feel like the Yu-Gi-Oh series in general have quite a lot of gay (unfortunately under-)tones* in them, and from what I see they are often erased by the american localizations, although one could argue they don’t do it consciously. *unfortunately not overt gay rep, but to be fair YGO doesn’t really address straight relationships either lol

[@saphcal]

yes Yubel is amazing (the real, original Yubel).

[@Alias_Anybody]

The interesting thing about the Sailor Moon "cousins" was that the original English dub didn't actually remove all of the lesbian (sub)text in the dialogue. No idea if that was the idea of the translators or VAs themselves and if it was done to spite the higher-ups for the censorship or just for fun, but the end result was that it was kind of incest-y at times, which is both sad and hillarious at the same time. Edit: Oh, you actually mentioned it, yeah, that's awkward.

[@mk-aka-morgan8386]

Watching this 3 years later and disappointed this is still common 😢

[@ladyorapma]

Good video. Some of the examples of the video are clear erasure done on purpose (Bohemian Rhapsody, Sailor Moon...) but I have to say that when talking about languages sometimes is not in bad faith is just that languages can be really complicated. The problem with translating they/them pronouns (as singular and gender neutral) to spanish is that... they don't exist :( English has it very easy, but a lot of other languages are more gendered and with no neutral pronouns (in spanish even objects are gendered, things like chair, table, bed use gendered pronouns, "THE chair" for example uses female pronouns "LA silla"). Lately people have been trying to create some, the most popular neutral pronoun I seen is elle (in place of él/ella) (there were other previous attempts like the use of X but that only works in written language) but is something very recent and spanish is a very gendered language so this change is a lot more work than just add a new pronoum (every gendered word needs to be changed to adapt to someone non binary, like amigo/amiga should be amigue or something similar), there isn't even a consensus in the comunity yet, it's not equally talk about in all spanish speaking countries and is something that still mostly unkown to most people that are not in the LGTB community and/or not use the internet often. Basically what I want to say is that that particular problem is a lot more complex than others because a new form of language needs to be created to be able to fix it. I'm not familiar with The Owl House or with Raine as a character so I have no idea if the use of gendered pronouns here was just a case of the translators not knowing how else to translate it (since the intent of creating a gender neutral option is very new and I haven't seen it used in media yet) or if it was really a case of trying to erase the character identity. Hange from Attack on Titan I think was given female pronouns in the spanish translation of the manga (I haven't read it in ages but I think I remember them having female pronouns) probably with no bad intentions, while the translation of The Owl House is recent this translation is older and then I don't think there was the talk about gender pronouns and the use of "elle" as an alternative that there is today so the translators would have had no idea how to translate gender neutral pronouns in a way that stayed neutral. Languages can really be a mess sometimes and translating isn't easy. Even if this change in language (the use of elle and gender neutral words and all that) feels very weird for most spanish speakers I hope it ends working to be able to translate things properly, and to be able to refer to non binary spanish people in a way the feel more comfortable, but right now it's still something very new and controversial and probably it will still take time. I think the same kind of discussion is also happening with other romance languages that like spanish are very gendered.

[@Sephirajo]

the woman who was in charge of the DiC dub is famous for running through her office's halls screaming WE CANT SHOW THIS

[@emb3863]

oh man... Spanish... So I'm Mexican and the thing with non binary or unspecified gender characters is that we do not have gender neutral pronouns and we have grammatical gender, nouns and adjectives/descriptors are gendered, not just people... And there's been a push in recent years by nonbinary folks to make gender neutral language happen but it's usually met with ridicule and hate to an overwhelming degree, even in a lot of LGBT spaces, so yeah... it's complicated, like, i myself am nonbinary and at this point ive just accepted ill go by she/her probably forever cuz i just can't deal with all the shit that embracing neutral pronouns would bring to my life, i just can't do it

[@drkenata5807]

Thank you for bring up issues in Internationalization. I think this is a good introduction to a huge issue which has plagued our societies for a very long time. Many concepts are very difficult to translate, and poor translations can be very harmful. This is a major problem in the translations of philosophical concepts. Even small translation mistakes can change the meaning of a statement drastically. For instance, one would likely translate the Hindi word “masi” to be “aunt”, however this translation removes information since a closer translation would be mother’s sister.

[@karabearcomics]

My regular example, which I at least mentally go to when thinking about LGBT erasure through localization, is the Thai superhero film Mercury Man. In it, the titular character has a sister (Grace) played by Nong Toom. Dialogue in the original makes it clear that she, just like her voice actress is a trans woman. The dub, meanwhile, changes it to make it seem like she's cisgender. Two scenes I can specifically think of (maybe they're the only two referencing her being trans): In her introductory scene in the original, Mercury Man's coworker deadnames her before she corrects him, and she shows off photos she has had done of her dressed as a boy for a fireman-themed shoot. However, in the English dub, the coworker just calls her another female name, and the photos are referenced as her taking pictures of firefighters. Later, during the climactic setpiece of the movie, her character is confronted by a female villain, who is brandishing knives. In the original, the villain says, "I'm going to castrate you", before being knocked out by Grace, who says "Sorry, my doctor already did that for me." Meanwhile, the villain's line in the dub is instead, "I'm going to fix your face", which while calling back to a previous scene where she held a knife against Grace's face (in both versions, Grace's response is, "You know how much this face cost?"), still is doing a poor job of accurately conveying what they were going for with her character. Luckily, though, the DVD I have contains not only the dub, but the subtitled version, as well (the only way I even knew what they were saying in the Thai version--also, holy crap those dub actors really could have been better; at least I have no real frame of reference to know if the Thai line deliveries were bad). Maybe it's the only DVD version, so it sidesteps the issue a bit (though I have a feeling most English speakers might ignore the subs and only watch the dub). Still, it's been my mental example ever since I first saw both versions as to why I should always prioritize subs over dubs.

[@cynzix]

For a moment I thought the video was going to be about the band Erasure and the fact that they are (very) queer 😅

[@nanananananananananananana9430]

"Summer Camp Island" has a very similar example to "The Owl House". There's a character who is a non binary alien dating the king of their planet and what they did in the Spanish translation is to call them a she/her. Not only did it erase the fact that they're non binary but they also changed it to a gender in which there is not even a hint for a non-straight relationship.

[@Seal0626]

I think the oldest incidence of this that I know of, I heard from a Swedish Sherlock Holmes fan. The standard Swedish translations of the Holmes canon straightens out ambiguously queer vocabulary - "Two men of intimate acquaintance" became something more like "Two men who had known each other a long time". I'm no expert, but apparently it could have been translated pretty much directly. Sorry if this is a really dense question, but how come this video's unlisted? EDIT: Okay, less stupid question... how did I get early access?

[@Elwaves2925]

You don't say but if you're referring to a translation of the original Conan Doyle texts, then I agree, it could have been directly translated. At the time of writing "Two men of intimate acquaintance" wouldn't be ambiguously queer vocabulary, it would have meant exactly what Holmes and Watson were, two very close friends who shared lodgings. In more modern times it could be seen as ambiguous but obviously that's not when they were written. :-) As for your last part....a bit of luck through YT glitches?

[@spoonietimelordy]

@@Elwaves2925 I will disagree her, there was a lot of queer subtext in ACD Sherlock Holmes, he also knew quite a few gay men so it was probably voluntary

[@Elwaves2925]

@@spoonietimelordy I was only referring to the line given and to Holmes and Watson themselves. ACD appeared to be supportive of gays and was a friend of Oscar Wilde, so I don't deny there isn't subtext towards that in his work. If I remember correctly, he even vaguely referenced Wilde's trial being attended by Holmes and Watson. However, in regards to that line and to the two main characters, there is no ambiguity or subtext IMO. ACD's writing clearly shows that they care very deeply for each other but they are just very close friends, seeing as Watson is portrayed as heterosexual and Holmes as asexual. :-)

[@jessali_]

They do that in German translations, too. In the case of nonbinary characters with neutral gender pronouns I'm guessing it's ignorance. German is a highly gendered language, people can only be referred to by either male or female official pronouns and the whole grammar revolves around it. From what I've witnessed, German nonbinary people use individualized neopronouns and glottal stops for gendered inflections. But this is not common knowledge at all, not even among queer people. Plus, nonbinarity as a concept is not something many non-queer people know about in the first place of course. What does that tell us? Representation in media is absolutely paramount! But since German translations suck at representing nonbinary people due to ignorance, representation doesn't occur. Representation doesn't exist, so ignorance prevails. It's a vicious cycle. And it doesn't just happen with nonbinary characters. I've seen examples of shows and movies from 10+ years ago that erased gay and bi characters in their German translations. I haven't seen recent examples of this though, thank goodness. But back then German media was homophobic in the sense of: "Being gay is fine, I don't give a flying f*, just don't shove it in my face" - resulting in some very explicit non-mentions. Fortunately, this mentality has somewhat shifted in recent years. Disclaimer: This is what I've read on Twitter and on queer German news sites. I personally never consume German-translated media if the OG language is English because I'm fluent in English.

[@nanamitoamata2406]

I second that notion. Given how highly gendered german is and the current very very slow changes in politics and culturally to slowly actually talk about queer topics it will take time and more effort for all of us. But then given how notoriously bad the german dubs can be as well not only in direct translation but also in the choice of who will do the voices. Most german speakers i know (myself included) will choose rather to take the OG languages than having to deal with the german translation which is another cycle of only people who can't understand the original will have to fall back to the translation and thus not getting exposed to other concepts that get taken out by said translation and then we're sadly back at the beginning of the argument above.

[@RubyPrice]

Excited for this video! Such an interesting topic and I’m looking forward to hearing your takes

[@ninreck5121]

for queer rep in video games: in the newest version of Life is Strange, True Colors, one of the love interests wears a black ring on his middle finger so I've decided to headcanon him as ace in case anyone wants to hop onto that fandom train with me, I'm already working on the first ff with that in it so search for the tag Asexual Ryan Lucan on ao3

[@Leena79]

My native language doesn't have gendered pronouns, so I've often started to read a book, and only figured out somewhere a few pages in that the main character is of a specific gender. I'm not an anime watcher, and if possible, I watch foreign films with their original audio and subtitles, so this is not an issue I've stumbled upon - but as some of the other commentors have mentioned, sometimes the problem is in how language deals with genders. I realize in some countries the intention is to erase lgbtq characters, but when the language lacks the established ways to express someone is non-binary, there are complications. I can't imagine how my native language would specify a character is non-binary, unless there was actual dialogue, where they'd say they don't identify as a woman or a man. I asked my Spanish teacher once, what pronouns non-binary people use in Spanish, and they couldn't give me an answer. I'm sure the non-binary community has their own words they use, but until the words are commonly recognized by at least the majority of people, it might be difficult to put them into a film or a tv series. The English they never had this problem, since it has always been used as a pronoun. Sorry for rambling. Differences in languages fascinate me, and I can't seem to pause when I get into lecture mode.

[@mettetc]

Leena, I find the idea of reading a book not knowing the gender of the protagonist intriguing. Enough so that I have been toying with the idea of writing such a story. It would be difficult in my language, unless I incorporate the non-official gender-neutral terms. I wonder if it is even okay/allowed to use a genderneutral pronoun for a character who isn't necessarily non-binary, but just unknown gender?

[@davidthedeaf]

“The English they never had this problem, since it has always been used as a pronoun.” You mean England has always had a neutral nonbinary pronoun everyone agreed with and never had a problem with? Because in the US we have arguments that “they” means more than one person, and that “they” is a common term for when you talk about someone. “It” however is not to be used, those who say “it” are the hateful people putting someone down. Are one of those two words what you refer to?

[@Leena79]

@@davidthedeaf No, but they has been used for a very long time as a singular pronoun when the gender of a person hasn't been specified. The use as a pronoun for non-binary people is new, but the word is not. In many languages, there is no pronoun like this. In Spanish, if the gender isn't known, the standard is to use the male pronoun. Same with many other languages. There may be neo-pronouns, which the non-binary people are trying to popularize, but unless they are included in the language, those words will remain unknown to the masses, and only familiar to a niche group, mostly lgbtq people. The English they has always been used as a singular pronoun (not for non-binary people, since that use is quite recent), and although there are those who claim not to understand it for ideological reasons, the majority of people are capable of understanding the word. A movie character can be referred to as "they", and the viewers will still understand that. I don't know, if any of the neo-pronouns like ze have been used in a film setting, yet, but I'm pretty sure they would not be as easy to understand by a conservative cis/het viewer without an added explanation. It's a whole new level to get the cis/het conservatives to accept non-binary people - but if at least we can introduce them in films, maybe the awareness will increase acceptance.

[@davidthedeaf]

@@Leena79 the issue with Ze/or Xie is it goes against English rules like Latinx does for the last letter, so people will resist it strongly. In addition it is hard to say, or people are unsure how to say it. Creations of new words by a minority group is unlikely to become the norm and accepted. They is the best bet.

[@Leena79]

@@davidthedeaf Yes, that I fully agree with. My point was that in other languages, a pronoun similar to they doesn't exist, and in translations, to keep the non-binary characters non-binary, the translators would need to use a neo-pronoun, and for the majority, they may be unfamiliar. In many (if not all) Roman languages, the standard is, if the gender of a person is unknown, they are called by male pronouns. And in my language, everyone is just the same, equivalent of the singular they, a person, until specified with other words. It would be ideal to have characters be queer if they were intended as such, in all translations, but sometimes, language makes it tricky. (And sometimes, it's politics.) A non-binary character, which would be a "they" in the English version, is most likely "él" in Spanish, and most viewers assume they're male, and in Finnish, they'd be "hän", and people would base their assumptions on their appearance, mannerisms, name, and other secondary things - unless they specifically implied they are non-binary. Either way, the queerness of the character gets muddled, which is a shame.

[@mcruzdiaz]

"Elle" is the more accepted way of writing non-binary gender pronouns in Spanish right now, even if there is pushback by "language purists" (really homophobes with a newly found obsession with how things are written) and other conservative institutions. An example would be the Royal Academy of Spanish in Spain, which is notorious for its reactionary attitudes towards the evolution of language. Still, there are new mechanisms available to Spanish-speakers that would sidestep erasure, so the language barrier excuse is simply that. It isn't really a cultural issue either, as cultural norms have evolved considerably in most of the Spanish-speaking world. Again, it's also a generational issue.

[@spoonietimelordy]

Yeah exact same problem in france with "iel", so annoying

[@MADKapo]

No se si sea tan asi xD conozco a muchas personas trans y non binary que prefieren no usar esos terminos, optando mejor por los ponombres they/them en ingles y por el o ella en español dependiendo de la situación. Simplemente decir que todos a los que no les gusta son puristas y homofomos me parece generalizar bastante.

[@Salsmachev]

@@spoonietimelordy Ooh is iel the common neutral French pronoun? I was trying to look it up a while back and found reference to l'academie hating neopronouns (no surprise there) but couldn't find what people actually use.

[@cristinaacosta8938]

@@MADKapo Concuerdo contigo, siendo yo mismo una persona agénero (neta que odio como no sé escribirlo en mi propio idioma 😂) la verdad es que he encontrado muy difícil el tratar de acomodar "elle" para que las personas que conozco o yo mismo se refieran a mí, por lo que estoy acomodando poco a poco el pronombre masculino para ver si eso me da más tranquilidad

[@spoonietimelordy]

@@Salsmachev yeah it's the one used by a lot of nonbinary people

[@ryankramer8779]

Great video overall. The only thing of note that I feel the need to address would be what you had to say about how Raine was handled in the Spanish version of The Owl House. Unfortunately, I don't think it can be nearly simplified to the translators not acknowledging their identity, but more the Spanish language itself. One of the first things that I learned about when learning Spanish as an English speaker with Chilean roots is that it is a much more gendered language than English and that what we know as the gender neutral in English is scarcely a thing in Spanish. The majority of nouns in Spanish are considered to be of the male or female gender (even objects like "(el) diario" ((the) diary) and "(la) computadora" ((the) computer)) and adjectives will usually bend to that noun's gender. In Spanish, when something is "gender neutral," it tends to default to the masculine or male. When using pronouns to refer to a single person in the third-person, your main choices are "él" (he/him; not to be confused with "el" without the accent (the)) or "ella" (she/her; pronounced like "eiya"). Spanish does have "ellos" or "ellas" (both become they/them), but "ellos" is only used when the subject/object of a sentence is plural and, unlike English, has never been used (to my knowledge) to refer to singular subjects. As of recently, I have learned about a pronoun that was created by young Spanish speakers as a gender neutral pronoun for singular subjects like the singular they/them known as "elle" and though this is a rather nice step to adapt the Spanish language around the existence of people who don't conform to the gender binary, the main problem with the term is that it doesn't seem to be acknowledged and accepted as an official pronoun by all Spanish-speaking circles along with other newer terms to create an actual set of gender neutral nouns and adjectives. So with the workings of the Spanish language and what is still considered official Spanish: if you were to translate they/them (singular) in Spanish, it would translate by default to the pronoun "él" (he/him). So unfortunately, the most likely main reason for Spanish Owl House to use male pronouns with Raine is because Spanish lacks the official equivalent to the singular they/them. With that long-winded explanation of the way, I would like to conclude by inserting the opinion of mine that I hope that "elle" and other gender neutral Spanish terms become more widely adopted and accepted so that situations like the Raine Conundrum can stop happening.

[@Lucifer-Riding]

Literally last month SPN fandom all over again. Misha Collins at least did a better job responding to it this time, reassuring Italian fans who were looking forward to hearing 'ti amo' and got 'no homo' instead.

[@NichtcrawlerX]

This video really makes me want to suggest you Revolutionary Girl Utena/Shojou Kakumei Utena. Mainly because it is not very recent recent (1997), it does deal very heavily in LGBTQ+ themes, in an interesting but in my opinion ultimately respectful way. I have also read that there might have been some queer erasure in the US dub at first, but only because the translators missed it until it became less subtle. (and then they used the preview lines to chastise themselves over it)

[@Vicky_1995_]

Might have already been sited but Steven universe creator found out in some country's Ruby was refereed to as He/him even knowing she is She/Her. So in response When Ruby and Sapphire got married in at the end of one of the seasons. She drew Sapphire in a Tux and Ruby in the dress to combat it.

[@Tim85-y2q]

One of the big problems is that, in an age where a lot of media increasingly has to play globally to justify it's investment, it often comes down (in purely commercial terms) to a choice of this type of localization or removing/not featuring the content all together. It's not always a strict moral judgement issue either, as there are plenty of cases where something simply can't be released in a given territory with its content intact. It's a huge catch 22.

[@ArielVHarloff]

In German the sailor moon example is also interesting. I don't know exactly how it works in Japanese but in German they're still a couple and additionally sailor Uranus is pretty explicitly gender queer.

[@IceNixie0102]

You have such a smooth, melodic voice. So nice to just listen to. Sorry, was thinking that I like how you pronounced "erazed" instead of "erased", and it led me down a weird mental trail.

[@joeyjose727]

The trans representation discussion in gaming was so excellent, I’m really looking forward to more content, especially if it’s about games! Love lgbt discourse when it’s fun

[@Stephen-Fox]

I'm going to put some parallel thoughts to your sentiment at the end (Short story is I fully agree with those sentiments, though) - A couple of examples of things getting changed with the edit that I know off the top of my head that isn't queer related that aren't part of the localization process, just to illustrate how... You can cut explicit subplots with the edit without butchering the work. Just to show how bad the excuse that Disney _has_ to provide weak representation because China is. Jason and Kimberley in the 2017 Power Rangers movie - There's a kiss scene between the two that was cut, which changes the interplay in the latter part of the film from inferring a relationship to... Nothing (and one slightly weird shot in the climax) specifically because _no one_ in the test audience liked the kiss (and... I think it's the only time I recall a heterosexual romantic subplot in a work got cut?) According to the Final Destination 2 DVD director's commentary, an entire subplot about 'only new life can defeat death' is just... Cut completely... from the film, no hint, no indication, and with it... The Ending's completely changed. (there might have been a small reshoot involved in that for the ending, but... If you know a major foreign market is going to have an issue with an aspect of a film you can plan around it while making the film rather than needing to pick up a reshoot following an aspect bombing with test audiences in order to better facilitate the cuts you're anticipating having to make. I'd discourage that being done, but businesses are going to business.) And a minor example - Doctor Who cut a comedy beheading scene in Robots of Shearwood which I think changes some of the implications of the ending of that, due to... The week it was going to transmit would have been a really bad time for a comedy beheading scene in a family show. Not having real representation in Disney films and television shows (40% of the US film industry - this has gone from being an annoyance to a major problem with their Fox acquisition) isn't about being worried about foreign markets, it's about Disney not wanting to provide queer representation to their domestic market.

[@nekusakura6748]

"They're GIRLS and COUSINS Too!"

[@allyssaswain2394]

All of the owl house that's out so far is on Disney+. It's currently on mid-season hiatus. I leave it playing on my phone all day to support the show.

[@PadraigG8]

For a rare reverse example, see Airazor in the Japanese dub of Beast Wars.

[@natsmith303]

I'd be curious to see the edited version of But I'm A Cheerleader or Brokeback Mountain. One's just a story about a bunch of guys and gals who like to talk about how straight they are, and the other is about two former coworkers who are just miserable for no particular reason, oh and they never see each other after that summer.

[@nehalleniabrethilnun788]

Thank you for highlighting these issues!

[@spoonietimelordy]

*look at most nonbinary characters being misgendered in french because neutral pronouns aren't recognised as official words in france*

[@enchantedlight]

I was just listing to a interview/discussion about Spanish, and how binary of a language it is. Nearly everything in it is gendered. The discussion specifically revolved around a a collection of poems that was mostly gender neutral in English and how trying to find a way to translate that into Spanish - where the language isn't really built for that - can be difficult. There has been some progression in that, were they have started to end words with an 'e' rather than an 'o' or 'a', but that fundamental changes how words are written and pronounced. The author of the poems (who is Cuban, and bilingual) even stated that now the poems sound like they are in Portuguese sometimes. For the record, I don't think that necessarily excuses what was done with the translation of Owl House regarding the changes to the pronouns of a character, but it might be a reason why it never came up before it was pointed out on by the voice actor. Which is why things like this need some sort of sensitivity readers or something similar, not just straight translators. If you are making that choice, you should realize and know that it is a choice you are actively making, rather than some sort of mistake due to language or general ignorance. Actively misgendering and mistakenly misgender are two different things -- both bad, but the way you deal with/react with them are two different things.

[@mentonerodominicano]

I agree a lot with what you reiterated at the end. Studios and producers shouldn't censor or limit themselves because X and Y countries are being silly and prejudiced. Make the movie you want to make, send it to them uncut and they can cut whatever their bigotry motivates them to cut, but don't get involved in their cut process at all. Insist that your creation is fine exactly the way you made it and that their objections are their problems not yours and not of the characters/stories you depicted.

[@kittyprydekissme]

I'm not sure if this is completely accurate-- I don't remember for sure where I read it-- but in the late '80s I read an article that mentioned a bootleg Russian dub of Rambo, in which his name was Rainbow and had a female voice. I don't speak Russian and I've never seen a Rambo movie, but I'd love to see that version if it really exists.

[@gamer40000]

This reminds of how Funimation translated some lines from Kobiyashi's Maid Dragon Line kinda made it seem like the main character Kobiyashi is straight, despite if you read the manga, she reads as asexual. See before she met Tohru, her closest friend was male, and the narrative goes out of its way to make it clear, he's just a friend.

[@saphcal]

yeah im imagining the train wreck their dub is gonna be of S2 if they do it...

[@gregcourtney751]

Her having a male friend doesn't. That implies if she was straight she would have to be attracted to him, which isn't necessary. Being gay, straight, but, or all the other sexualities does not mean you can't have platonic relationships with the group you are attracted to. Also the "I'm not gay" line to tohru was to me at least ambiguous enough to read kobayashi as repressed lesibean or bisexual. That could lead into the lesyay between her and tohru. Also Kobayashi is clearly someone who had little life outside of work. That would include not showing interest in romance since it's not really a concern given her being overworked. Frankly it comes down to what the show decides to do in the future. Like, with her new dragon friends she is finally opening up and getting a social life. Whether we get more romantic stuff with her now would clarify whether it was just her being asexual or not.

[@saphcal]

@@gregcourtney751 season 2s ending is (imo) not ambiguous at all about her and her feelings personally. idk if youve seen it (i watch it subbed)

[@gregcourtney751]

@@saphcal I watch it dub so I have not seen it yet.

[@gamer40000]

@@gregcourtney751 slight manga spoiler Kobayoshi is actually starting to fall for Tohru

[@KagetoraHikaru]

Sailor Moon on its own has bunch of examples... the gay couple from first season as already mentioned in comments, also baddie from later season, Fish Eye, who got dubbed into a woman in US, though he is a gay man that tends to crossdress. I love Hange from Attack on Titan. Perfect chaos of a human

[@saphcal]

Fish Eye is also complicated because, well, "he" can also be read as a trans woman. And people will often go "well japan says x is a gay man not a trans woman" or w/e but thats often because japan doesnt handle trans stuff well to begin with so its very prudent to death of the author in some cases and be like "no this character is clearly trans regardless of what japan says" (not necessarily suggesting fish eye is such a case, at least obvious one, but its definitely a valid [imo as a trans woman] interpretation of the character).

[@KagetoraHikaru]

Yeah, that's another issue then, that even when there are certain kinds of representation that do pop up, it's not all the groups one would hope for, so people will still be looking for ways to find themselves. My personal problem with changes done during localization is mainly that I don't like translations to "lie" to me, because if I am going to like or dislike something, I would rather like/dislike it for the author's choices, not because of the way someone messed it up or improved it in translation, because that way at least I know who to be mad at :D.

[@CirianAlani]

Everyone mentions Uranus and Neptune, but just as many of them seem to forget Zoicite and Kunzite.

[@robinmiller5437]

Saw this title, came prepared to pour one out for my fave Sailor Uranus. Word of god, she's genderfluid, appeared as a Tuxedo Mask once and wore the boy's school uniform. Sailor Moon was way ahead of its time.

[@grahamhaddock3537]

I recently started playing Persona 2 Eternal Punishment for the first time. Of course, Innocent Sin didn't get brought over initially, potentially for a variety of reasons not just having a queer protag, love interest and a few other character. But Eternal Punishment has a lesbian love interest for one of the lesbian characters from innocent sin. In the translated version they did a sailor moon and made them sisters. Except didn't change their names to match. And translated most the dialogue accurately. So we still have a load of NPCs that are hinting that she has a crush on her now sister. I did reload my save to check if wasn't "they're like sisters"; the game says they're actual sisters. Truly a masterclass of censorship.

[@ArielVHarloff]

Your lipstick and top look so great together and great on you 💕

[@JFEvant]

When you brought up Raine, I started to wonder if Spanish even had non-binary pronouns. I'm not a native speaker (I'm Norwegian), but have studied the language, so please correct me if I'm being inaccurate. Adjectives in Spanish have to agree with the grammatical gender of the word they're describing, but there's really only masculine and feminine forms of the words (for example lindo/linda). The neutral form is identical to the masculine one (lindo). I'm very glad you showed Avi Roque's tweet in the video, because that thaught me the pronoun "elle", which I wasn't aware of! I wonder how adjectives are formed with elle - with an -e ending maybe? "Elle es linde"? I'd love to learn more about non-binary language in Spanish, and other languages as well.

[@requiscat0in0pace48]

You are actually very correct. I'm a Spanish native speaker and this is how the language works, adjectives are gendered (with few excepctions) bc every noun in gendered, regardless of it being a person, an animal, a table or a wall. The language doesn't offer enby options to refer to something or someone, and while Elle is getting more and more attention, it is still very unknown and a point of polemics in a lot of Hispanic countries, so it's understandable that big media companies wouldn't go there to avoid the backlass or the confusion of an average viewer that wouldn't be in with all the inclusivity discussion bc it is a niche subject.

[@llllila]

Regarding the Spanish example. Unfortunately in some languages it's hard to find a gender neutral. Not as commonly shared and used as they/them. That's why it's so hard for people (ex. Me) to be non binary and accept that I'm still comfortable and using she/her. Because in my language the alternative just doesn't exist.

[@otakubullfrog1665]

One trend I've noticed in the anime community (moreso fans and critics than localizers) is the desire to apply specific western labels to any character that defies gender norms in any way even though the creators often prefer to let the character's actions and mannerisms speak for themselves. I've always thought this limits who is being represented and that it's not fair to criticize a writer for not doing something well if that's not what they were going for in the first place.

[@TimothyMorigeau]

Another Sailor Moon example are the Sailor Starlights. I can’t confirm this but I think they didn’t dub the last season, Sailor Stars, because it has trans characters and they know no amount of dubbing could hide the trans characters. I think it was eventually dubbed for the DVD version but it wasn’t aired on TV.

[@David-id6jw]

I would borrow from the Finnish and Swedish non-gendered pronouns, han and hen. Han is Finnish (the Swedish han is 'he'), while hen is the somewhat recently created Swedish pronoun that has been getting lots of traction in the last decade. In particular, there are two meaningful uses for non-gendered pronouns: Either you don't know what the gender is (a mysterious cloaked figure enters the room), or you _do_ know that the gender should be neither male nor female (ie: typical non-binary, but also robotic or alien intelligences that have no meaningful gender). It is significantly meaningful to distinguish between those two forms, for the same reason that it is mandatory to be able to distinguish between singular and plural. I go with 'han' for the unknown gender, and 'hen' for the non-binary gender. You can do possessive and reflexive versions (hans/hens, hanself/henself), but unfortunately no distinction between subjective and objective (the equivalent of she/he vs her/him), because making up new words is hard. (Which is why people fall back on the abomination of singular 'they/them', though I'll grant that it's not entirely unreasonable when faced with the many problematic fabricated pronouns that people have come up with over the centuries.) How is this relevant to the video? Well, you talk as if there's queer erasure when translating from English to some foreign languages when there's even less ability to express non-genderedness in those languages than in English, and English isn't even very good at it. Japanese is decent at it because it doesn't actually have to say the words in order to convey information in a sentence, so you can implicitly present something equivalent to 'han' (ie: don't identify the gender of the referenced individual). It's not actually non-gendered; it's 'absent'-gendered. There's still plenty in the language that pretty strongly suggests gender (see many of the forms of 'I').

[@Vio818]

The Evangelion translation is very interesting because it isn't explicit in the original because nothing in the show is. It is a very physiological show where everything is largely meant to be abstract and dialogue that allows the audience to go on the experience rather than get hard and fast answers. SO how do you translate that when the show is in another language because you have two options, 1: translate literally, translate the phrases and written to English and so if the sentence is an expression like "tired as a dog", you translate it literally to "tried as dog" in the other language. or 2: translate with metaphorical translation that work in your language. so "tired as dog", gets translated to "dead on my feet". And BOTH have merits because sometimes words or phrases just dont work or you would need 2 or three sentences to translate a word or short phrase in another language. So with Eva they choose to do a literally translation which is really REALLY not what they should have done because the literally translation meant that they were referring to each other as brothers and friends. BUT that is sort of like if you literally translated the word Boyfriend as Male Friend. You lose the context. Also the purple pros that were filed with double meaning and subtle illusions gets lost. BUT translating double meanings is even more difficult because most of the time double meanings are very regionally specific. e.g. "To Eat a Peach" in English being a metaphor for a certain sexual act. How do you translated someone talking about Peaches which holding a Peach into another language where that metaphor isn't a thing. Obviously this doesn't mean that all erasure is just translation issues but it is always something to keep in mind.

[@PirateQueen1720]

This seems to be getting better for English localizations of anime, but there still some odd choices regarding subtitle choices (and presumably dubs, but it is harder to catch). For instance: - In the obviously VERY gay 'Yuri on Ice', lines in early episodes that got translated as "Do you have a girlfriend?" and "My first girlfriend..." should have used a word like "sweetheart", because the Japanese term used is gender neutral - which could have clued some viewers into where the story was going a little earlier. There's also a "be my coach until I retire" that probably should have been "be MINE until I retire" because the word "coach" doesn't seem to be in that sentence! (Granted, that phrasing raises some questions about why the time limit would exist, so maybe that's why they changed it...) - In 'Seraph of the End', which has some pretty distinct q. coding even in the anime, and where at the current point in the manga the male leads have both said some version of "I love you" to the other*, pointing out in the subs or dubs that Mika ALWAYS calls Yu "Yu-chan" (a cutesy title that you could translate to something like "Yuey" or "Yu-honey", although that would get annoying because he says it SO MUCH) would have made it harder for some stubborn viewers to insist that these two don't have feelings for each other!^^ - In the recent Netflix anime 'Heaven Official's Blessing', based on a Chinese web novel of the same name, ALL the flirting between the male leads is left in. That bodes well, though I wonder how they're going to handle the later kissing scenes for the Chinese market...but for some reason the English subtitles don't indicate that one has already developed a pet name for the other: "Gege" (which can mean "elder brother", but is also used between lovers) gets replaced with the character's name or nothing. This gets REALLY silly in the last episode of the first season, when Hua Cheng leaves a ring (containing his ashes, the end of the book reveals - a huge gesture of trust on the part of a ghost) with Xie Lian, who has a flashback of almost all the times Hua Cheng gently says "gege"...which makes it really obvious that he's NOT just saying Xie Lian's name! * - Well, Mika says "I love you" (as he sacrifices himself for Yu for the SECOND TIME! But don't worry too much, he's a vampire) shortly after Yu had MERELY declared that Mika is his reason for living. ^^ - Incidentally, I'm not sure where this is going to go, but there is a demon living in Yu's sword that I'm pretty sure most readers initially assume is female based on how they are drawn and dressed. Then (in the manga) a vampire character starts referring to this demon as their brother, and we see them in flashbacks looking more like a boy...but the vampire hasn't talked to her sibling in like 1000 years, so she might be misinformed. The interesting point is that I don't think the demon has ever referred to themself in a gendered way, and if Yu (who chats with his demon all the time) has ever used pronouns for them it is rare enough that I don't remember. If that continues...that's kinda neat, and a localization win rather than a fail!

[@shaneross739]

One interesting thing is that in China they may only cut out kiss scenes for a Yuri anime(or sometimes they just don't get over the censorship )

[@NeroAlexander28]

Same happened to a character in Inuyasha, he was a villain part of the band of 7 and in the Spanish dub change it to a woman instead of a gay man infatuated with Inuyasha (protagonist) another male character, which makes no sense whatsoever because in one of the battles Inuyasha damages his armor and half of his chest is exposed and you can clearly see that hi is a man 😑

[@LightHalcyon]

Omg you brought up the donuts. This is why I keep coming back 😁

[@ck_cal]

i have to say that as an Italian it becomes a lot harder to handle gender being nonbinary myself there is literally *no way* i can refer to myself the only thing i can do is change sentences so that most gendered words are gone, but the way my language is structured there is no way to change the desinences of words to make them neutral and still make them sound italian it's kind of hell here basically and i have no idea what translators could do either to repsect those identities it's just, a very very complex topic raine is quite literally untranslatable for us i wish they weren't, but i am too, so i do know that companies are what they are, but i also see the struggles that can arise

[@AshKittenn]

I still consider Birdo trans, idc what Nintendo says lol

[@justaregularhumanbeing6871]

A lot of people have already explained that a neutral pronoun is not always a possibility, so I'm just going to add that we have the same problem in italian, but as far as I am aware some non-binary people just get around it by switching between masculine and feminine so... yeah. That might have been a better solution to the problem, but I can also understand how that could get confusing.

[@requiscat0in0pace48]

The thing with Spanish tho, is that there aren't gender neutral pronouns. Things, ppl, animals, whatever are either a "he" or a "she" regardless of them having an actual gender. A table is a she (la mesa), the car is a he (el auto). There are discussions going around about introducing gender neutral pronouns as a way of inclusivity, but they would have to be pretty much made up, and the more accepted alternatives are nowhere near as mainstream as for your average tv consumer to know what they are refering to if a cartoon character referred to themselves with those pronouns. So while it IS a pity that that part of a character was erased in the dub, in the particular case of Spanish, it's much trickier than ppl just opposing representation, the language itself is a barrier.

[@thea6158]

What an incredibly interesting and complex issue, thank you so much for talking about this. Do you think that is why Loki's confirmation of bisexuality was only touched on in a single conversation and never again brought up or relevant to the story? I long for more positive bisexual representation on screen, especially in Marvel, but I wish they could integrate more cleanly. I love fanfiction, but it isn't hitting the spot anymore.

[@ArielVHarloff]

I think the owl house example like the recent nonbinary representation in star trek are just super difficult to execute in languages that don't have commonly used nonbinary pronouns. I don't know how you'd deal with the owl house character in German but in star trek they had the character explain that they're nonbinary but then continued to use she/her pronouns for them.

[@agostoangosto9442]

And then there's supernatural, where the Spanish dub is the only one in which castiel's confession is reciprocated, 😂

[@TigeriPlaysGames]

i mean, there is no gender-neutral pronoun in the spanish language, so there's not anything else they could've done but refer to the character as "el"

[@Ayelet_BringThemHome]

The same happened with Raine in the Israeli dub. Their pronouns was changed into he/him. It's possible it's because the translators didn't know how to pronounce the popular equivalent to singular they/them in Hebrew, but they could have asked someone. I wrote complaints about it.

[@fnjesusfreak]

Thing about Spanish is gender neutrality is impossible in that language, so they had to make the character one or the other or such things as adjectives would be completely unusable.

[@JenniferFuss]

I do fully agree, that aspects like relationships and sexualities should and can be translated to reflect the original. I don't see how they can facilitate it with forgein languages which don't offer an equivalent. I am a native speaker of German and do understand other languages to a certain degree (Dutch, Spanish, French). In German there is no option within the language, to refer to a person with other pronouns than the binary ones. The pronouns in German does form a grammatical gender, which influences a lot of other words. Thus one would not only have to replace "he/she" and "his/hers" but as well "the", "a", all the grammatical cases and more. With French and more so Spanish being even more intense on stuff that gets gendered like adjectives. One might suggest to a German, to just use the equivalent to "they", as the majestic plural, yet that would results in effectively using female pronouns and gramma. Thus, as a German, when talking German, I wouldn't know how to properly address a person with they/them pronouns, when using those. [Something suggested by people with they/them pronouns is to ... just use English. Which kinda works, yet is somewhat alien, and might not be understood / might be confusing, to German speakers who don't met a certain skill requirement in English] I don't see how the German translation of either Owl House or the new She-Ra series, could keep the pronoun. [Hence why I watch them in English]

[@gunlovingliberal1706]

Perpetual cosplay: For some heaven, for others hell. Your main point about localization (i.e. translation) of an artwork changing the gender of a person is well taken. This is about identity and should not be messed with. Only in Orwellian countries like China is this considered acceptable.

[@Arexion5293]

Translating Finnish into most other languages must be fun because the Finnish third person is gender neutral. Good luck figuring out when a character isn't supposed to give away the person's gender in a sentence and how to make a sentence sound natural when the gender isn't meant to be said despite the speaking person not trying to intentionally hide it.

[@NoiseDay]

I read a lot of BL translated from Japanese ro English, where a man refers to his secret boyfriend by saying "that person." It comes off very awkwardly. He could say "they," but that would still be suspicious in a homophobic English-speaking country which doesn't use "they" for a person whose gender you know. Or he could outright lie and say "she," given the context is often someone asking the man about his mysterious girlfriend they never get to meet.

[@zitagirl1]

Same with Hungarian, but alas, that language might as well be Martian.