Originally Posted by FatalityPitt
I think it was determined that Tigatron scanned a female tiger form in the BW cartoon, so each time he transformed, he would essentially change physical genders each time.
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I think it was determined that Tigatron scanned a female tiger form in the BW cartoon, so each time he transformed, he would essentially change physical genders each time.
A male robot that transforms into an organic-looking female tiger.. That creates extra layer to the "Robot in Disguise" element.
The problem is though, if it's intentional, which continuity's Cybertronian biology are we working with?
If it's the G1 Cartoon "robot butlers/maids" continuity, the G2 Comic "I've learned to turn my offspring into X/Y Gender based on observing carbon based life forms" continuity or the Beast Wars/Machines "I'm a specific gender because I have a specific DNA" continuity then it works. But which continuity does the gender explanation work with and I have yet to see a sound scientific explanation as to where and which continuities are compatible with the existences of gender dysphoria.
I realise this is probably asking too much, but it would be nice to get some competent universe building when a concept is introduced for once in recent years.
That isn't necessarily the case. Just because a tiger penis isn't shown, doesn't mean that the tiger is necessarily female. It's worth remembering that where nudity is concerned, seeing a penis on north American TV is very much taboo - kind of like the old animated violence rules of the 1970s where if the villain attempted to kill the heroes with a deadly snake for example, there had to be a rock in place so that the villain wasn't actually attempting to murder the heroes, but rather the snake "discovers" the heroes after moving around the rock. This particularly seems to hold true where children's animation and penises are concerned.
As such, it could just as readily have been a case of it being a male tiger, just made "children's animation friendly".
EDIT: I just checked a screenshot of Snowstalker (who was clearly identified as male) and Tigatron and neither were animated with a penis, while both were so similar that they were confused for one another. Ergo the 'determination' strikes me as a fan theory which is myopically using a visible penis to determine the gender of the tiger mode.
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^ There are other differences between male and female creatures than just reproductive organs such as size and body composition.
That does present an interesting situation. Given that the maximal programming blocks were broken, did that in fact make Tigatron a transgender male?
It has interesting possibilities, especially depending on where you take the origin of Beast Wars from. There's an argument for it being based on the Marvel G2 comic (eg the Vok/Swarm), but then Beast Machines is clearly based on the G1 Cartoon.
If that is the case, then Tigatron is a very interesting case and one where transgender could work. You'd have a situation where you have a male Autobot (ie 'futuristic robo-butler') where the scanning system would ideally have gone with a male animal to maximise (no pun intended) psychological stability by preventing identity issues. Yes the Maximal programming suppressed the animal side, but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't have been designed with a redundancy in place.
Then Tigatron of course has a malfunctioning pod, where his stasis pod scans a female tiger in addition to the other identity malfunctions. Suddenly you have a transgender male Autobot - a male Autobot with a female animal form and female Maximal shell program.
It's definitely fascinating. I'm not sure whether it was accidental, but if it's deliberate, it's incredibly well executed.
And yet sex (and therefore gender by way of gender being a person's sex identity) does come down to reproduction. The reason we have male and female as we do is our reproduction. Asexually reproducing individuals would have a completely different sex than us precisely because their sex organs would be different. That is just a scientific fact and ultimately the only reason LGBTIQ individuals exist in society, much like heterosexual individuals, is precisely because of the nature of our sexual reproduction as a species.
With the exception of post-Furman IDW (and Bayformers which I despise so I'm not going there), every series has understood that - either being technorganic and therefore partly biological, or a deliberate fascimile of a sexually reproducing species of some kind.
With the G1 Cartoon, they themselves didn't sexually reproduce, but the clientele the Autobots were marketed to were. In that continuity gendered Autobots make as much sense as robot butlers, robot maids and even sexbots. Conversely, gendered Decepticons don't - a military generally doesn't care what gender a piece of military hardware is - just as long as it does a heap of damage while having a heap of endurance.
The post-Marvel G2 Comic likewise, took things a step further, establishing that the Cybertronian Empire had the ability to shape their offspring and that female Cybertronian Empire members existed because their parents copied what they observed of gender in carbon based life forms. The same story then has Hot rod giving birth to Arcee.
Beast Wars of course, you have Maximals and Predacons (in what I have heard suggested is an evolution of Pretender Technology) took on the DNA of various animals in their exo-skeletons and their psychology in shell programs, creating essentially a souped up Mega Pretender where the inner robot never leaves - to draw a crude analogy - and where at the very least, a Maximal or Predacon is gendered because their animal has a sex.
Beast Machines takes it further where you have an organic fusion of organic and technological - I'd assert that BM Maximals have a sex in every sense of the term and sexually reproduce. Of course that raises an interesting question where the sparks of the offspring are concerned.
Furman era IDW again, had Arcee being created by being mutilated by a twisted science experiment and much like Monstructor, is best thought of as being like one of the victims of Dr Moreau. Again, this experiment was the result of a twisted inspiration from what had been observed in carbon based life forms.
In all of these cases, gender as sex identity, absolutely tied back to sexual reproduction. Whether you're talking about the Quintesson version of True Companion (arguably all the Autobots), being spliced with alien life forms for protection and exploration purposes, being a seamless blend of animal and machine, designer children or unethical science experiments, all of it ties back to sexual reproduction (and yes I skipped over Masterforce, but considering Godmaster Transectors were glorified mecha, it's kind of redundant - besides it's a continuation of the G1 Cartoon).
In fact the only one which seems to get it wrong (with the exception of Bayformers which I wont even go into), which is more concerned with identity politics than universe building, is post Furman-IDW, where it's clear that the planet asexually reproduces the Transformers (who themselves don't reproduce, yet we have Transformers with sex identities and pseudo-sexual pairings which simply make no sense for the universe).
In short, while there are certainly different characteristics to sex (and by extension sex-identity aka gender) than merely physical size and genitalia, it is those reproductive organs which are the defining trait of sex.
Last edited by bowspearer; 9th July 2018 at 09:38 AM.
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I knew I’d read the idea of Hot Rod giving birth to Arcee before, but I had to dig into the archives to find the summary of UK FanFic I first read online 20 years ago.
I don't know if I'd necessarily call it fanfic. The problem is that if you're going to call it fanfic, do you also call the Collectors Club and Botcon stories fanfic (particularly the early Botcon days)?
After all, last I checked, this actually came out of Transmasters, to my knowledge, the first ever international TF fan club to exist. I actually wish I'd taken up the opportunity to join it mid-90s when I was sent an invite in the wake of having my letter published, because apparently the comics produced are almost impossible to get hold of now.
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I just watch the Transformers episode of The Toys That Made Us. I couldn't stop smiling, at least till they got to the part where one of the interviewees decided to kill the 84 cast.
That was great to watch. And I learned that not all Transformers from the 80s were made by Takara. Now I have to do some research to find out when Hasbro took over design production from Takara.
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I wish HasTak would dig the Universe 2.0 Sideswipe and RTS Tracks moulds out of storage and do a CHUG Tigertrack and Road Rage.
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