I strongly suspect that the foreshadowing was intentional.

But, short of our beloved author-artist plainly telling us, we will never be sure.

Just imagine that, say, your dentist's receptionist is trans, and not vocal about it while at work. What would you know or see that would let you know this? Approximately nothing. It doesn't matter if they are (a) in self-denial, (b) in the closet, (c) "passing" and maybe in the processes of reassignment surgeries, or (d) completely through those surgeries, the answer is the same.

Genderfluid people who are "out" at least show, over time, something recognizable. Which is one reason I'm writing a genderfluid minor character, not a trans character. (Not being trans myself, in fact pretty close to the emotional opposite - agender - I don't feel that I'm the person to write about being trans. So if any of my characters are trans, even I probably won't know it.)

from what i know, technically genderfluid is trans. it falls under the trans umbrella, as well as the nonbinary umbrella, which itself falls under the trans umbrella as well. genderfluid is just a highly specific term for a certain kind of transness. (source: i am genderfluid and this is what i learned about it, some people will disagree though and that's fine :3)

Like Absentia, I am also genderfluid and nonbinary and I consider myself (and nonbinary, genderfluid, and agender identities in general) to be under the "trans" umbrella. It's fine if people disagree or someone identifies as nonbinary but dislikes the label trans for themself! But transgender just means not being the gender that was assigned to you at birth - it's more than only binary trans.

Sorry, I'm not sure what the second half of your reply is referring to. Nor do I really understand your point. I'm not angry or anything! I'm just confused as to what you're trying to say.

I've heard some people say that "trans" covers all gender identities that are different from your "assigned at birth" one.

So that includes nonbinary genders, like genderfluid, agender, demigender, etc. All those would count as trans.

I think that's what Absentia is talking about here?

If I remember correctly the comment about having met trans people before was made by Fara. In the light of subsequent events I assumed it was a reference to Vincent. Rain met Vincent before his transition, in comic 481 - Lady (434 in the archive numbering)

That was Jessica in https://rain.thecomicseries.com/comics/362/ . I'm pretty sure that she didn't knew that Rain and Vincent already met, so she hadn't a specific persion in mind.

@Athena

You say that, but it's probably way more common than you think. I know at least one trans parent/child combo in my offline life. And a fair few more online.

What you're willing to believe is up to you, but I assure you, you might be surprised. :)

Jocelyn wrote:

« I know at least one trans parent/child combo in my offline life. And a fair few more online. »

Trans parent with trans kid here. I'm a trans woman and my oldest child is non-binary. They came out to me (at age 25) shortly after I got back from the Phila. Trans-Health Conference in 2015[*]. They were the person that gave me the shove to actually make an appointment to start HRT.

There's a family in Ottawa where one parent is a trans woman and they have a trans girl. The cis-mom wrote a book about the experience: _Love Lives Here_.

[*] I reacted by saying that if they had come out a month or two earlier, I could have taken them along with me.

Funnily enough, the "cis" mom came out as non-binary earlier this year. So it's a trans kid with two trans parents.

I'll chime in with a slightly different case

I'm a Trans woman and my biological niece is also trans

Trans woman with trans parent here! (hehe, transparent.) It happens! We exist :)

Not a parent/child combo, but I figure it's worthwhile to chime in here. My bio brother and I are both trans.

This hits hard. As I come to realize that Dad's 'protection' of me has hurt me my entire life, I look back on things and see also that Mom (divorced him when I was a kid) has been pressured by society to see herself as unable to take care of herself and to be a doormat. As we've grown closer in recent months she's admitted regret at not standing up for me to Dad more.

She recently told me she has dysphoria symptoms, though she didn't seem to know they were such...

No matter what happens, we're both working towards a brighter future now...

It's honestly really not as unlikely as you may think.

Being transgender isn't a purely random thing. While we don't entirely understand the causes of having a divergent gender, there are plenty of cases of families with multiple trans people, suggesting that there are inheritable elements that contribute to dysphoria. Transgender identical twins happen at a rate hundreds of times higher than randomness would predict, and you can find many examples of a parent coming out with or after their kid does, simply because they realize that those feelings of dysphoria they had are not just your typical intrusive thoughts that everyone has, and there's a way to fix things.

If anything, this actually helps explain *why* Rain had dysphoria strong enough that she was able to identify what was wrong at such a young age. For many trans people, the dysphoria is just this unsettling feeling that something is *wrong*, and only later manage to figure out the cause.

My mom has had feelings of being a boy for many many years and my sibling is non-binary, I am trans myself don’t tell me this is impossible, I suspect genetics make things more likely in families

Did your mother ever get to transition?

not parent/child, but i'm genderfluid and i have a nonbinary sibling. so it does exist within immediate families lines. honestly, parent/child seems like one of the most believable ones because the parent might be able to recognize what their child is feeling early on and help them through it.

Hi, trans woman whose mother identifies as gender-nonconforming:

Imma just chime in along with the chorus and say that this "doesn't seem likely" thing is entirely because our cultures were forced into acting entirely cishet, suppressing any hint of queerness into the back of the closet, for so long it massively distorted our sense of what the actual odds are and how they're distributed.

Another trans parent with a trans child here. I knew from a very young age I felt different, but it wasn't until puberty that I really realized I'm a man. I later discovered I'm also intersex, so there's that too. I gave birth to a child while still figuring myself out and one of the first things my child said, "I'm a girl". I supported her, and still do, to be herself. She's 9 now and getting ready to go on puberty blockers. She had a name change at 6 and lives fully as the girl she is with the whole family knowing.

So you may not believe it, but it happens more often than you think.

While I disagree that its impossible to happen. I can kind of see where you might be coming from in a story perspective. It kinda makes sense Liriel is trans but I dont think it was something a lot of us thought would actually happen.

every single time someone comes out theres always a comment thats like "well thats the breaking point for me" its like clockwork

Your name comes from a character who literally bursed out of her father's head, and this is where your suspension of disbelief breaks?

I'm a cis man, but after I discovered myself ace, my mom also started questioning if she also would fit the label. Talking to her and comparing experiences and feelings, I believe she do, but she don't seem too worried about finding out. She is happy just being a single old lady for the rest of her life.

Sometimes parents also learn and get encouraged to question rock solid foundations from their children. It's a two-way road in open-talk families.

I'm acespec and after learning about it, I think it's likely my mom is as well, though I haven't discussed it with her. We have shared the same general inability to comprehend why people might have casual sex :D

Have you considered that there might be a genetic component?

Even if there isn't a genetic component...

Something like 1% of people are sufficiently trans to risk the society backlash against trans people. Considering people get killed for this, that's pretty trans. There's probably a lot more who weren't out enough to admit to whomever did that now fairly ancient survey.

There are over seven billion people in the world. That's 7,000,000,000. If 1% of those people are trans, then there's over 70,000,000 trans people in the world. As much pressure as there has been historically to keep trans people in the closet, as long as most trans people stay closetted before they come out, as many trans people as there are who don't feel the need for surgery or even hormones, as recent as surgical options have existed, and as many options for being a parent even despite surgery, those people of age to have children aren't that much less likely to have had children. So we're looking at somewhere near 700,000 trans parents with trans kids.

There are enough more of them than that to consider the possibility that there is some factor that tends to put them together. People on the autism spectrum have a greater likelihood of being trans, and that is definitely genetic. But there's enough more trans parents who have trans children than that would explain to suspect there's something more.

If that something more isn't genetic, there's still other possibilities:

- Being trans is *far* more common than people realize, and trans people from families with at least one other trans person in it are more likely to come out. This one resonates with me.

- If x religion is correct, the deity or deities of x religion could guide trans people to families that would be more supportive of them.

- If reincarnation really happens and any of those people get to choose who they come back as, it would make sense that anyone opting to come back as someone of a different gender or species would choose to do so in a family that already has someone who has done so.

Since you mention reincarnation: I’m working with a healer/shaman, and our work is deeply rooted in reincarnation – to heal a part of us or someone else (😉) we’re looking for the original trauma, and that’s often many incarnations back. (My healer friend is very clearvoyant in that regard; myself I “see” so far only if I’m connected with her, but in the rare case of known persons I like to research and check if our visions fit the historical facts.)
I don’t expect you to believe that, but it’s an important part of my life.

In this context we met only one trans person so far (maybe we met others, but it didn’t matter): a 3yo apparently trans “boy”, who didn’t know about genders but expressed strongly “female” (the family accepted the behaviour at home, but lived in a Catholic rural area and was quite careful to “stay within society” while every member had some “magical” abilities – e.g. the eldest daughter had such a strong aura that I could see her with eyes closed, while I usually don’t see auras or the like). Anyway, my friend asked the little’s soul and got an answer like “I’m female, this body is wrong”. (I don’t know how this developed, they were just clients of my friend, and there was no reason for me to keep contact.)

We (probably) all had incarnations in different genders, but every soul seems to have a preference – most of my incarnations were male, most of my friend’s were female. But I can remember at least one female incarnation in 18th century (actually, maybe “she” was trans, I need to check that – I know she was quite nonconforming, but I don’t think she felt as a man, and she had no words for other genders), and I seriously questioned my gender for a while, when a part of a “female” soul within me came to the surface (in this case it was a foreign part that we exchanged during a ritual many incarnations ago; I could give it back to the owner and feel more like myself since then, but I can recall the feeling to be a girl).

Now, incarnation isn’t a carefully directed process – it looks like the more experience a soul has with a type of body (human or whatever), the more it can control their incarnation. Otherwise, mistakes happen – we say “they took the wrong turn” – so that you accidentally incarnate as a dog or in a human body that you (the soul) didn’t want.
OTOH the soul choses ”challenges“ to be able to heal past traumas, and while this is intentional in a spiritual sense, it’s usually not in the worldly interest of the person/incarnation. I.e. I (my soul) might have chosen to be a criminal or a victim or to be handicapped or genderqueer or whatever, because “I” “want” this experience to be able to heal a past trauma or just for the variety of experiences. (“God” split into many beings to be able to make experiences, wrote N. D. Walsch.)

So, why should any queerness accumulate in one family? Yes, probably genetics. But we (our souls) also tend to incarnate “nearby” – often within the same family. And I guess the proximity of other queer persons makes sense for the soul to have a chance of healing.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to say that any queerness is “sick”. But if it’s something that makes you suffer, there is a chance for healing. (There is a lot that we can’t bodily heal in this life, but I’m sure we can avoid to repeat the same problem in the upcoming incarnations.) My/our intention is to free people from suffering and let them live happily (with their queerness).

(This happens if an analytical mind stumbles into a spiritual world: I want to understand what’s going on, thus I challenge my clearvoyant friend to answer questions that she doesn’t need answered just to heal someone, until I can construct a world view that makes sense to me.)

Sorry for the rant. But I’d like to discuss with some of you if your feelings fit our limited experience.

i want to know everything about your beliefs and practices....

Really? Or is this ironical? (I’ll delete my rant, it’s too much...)

i am entirely serious. i love hearing about other people's belief systems, especially ones that are relatively uncommon.

You mean like father like daughter now

Like father like daughter, I think you mean :)

gods i wish. but that kind of thing only happens in comics and fictional stories

Plot twist; Liriel has been Frank the whole time!

I know this is a serious page but your comment Sessy made me giggle.

Pretty certain that Gavin and his parents would have realized that. And I don't think Simone would have been fooled into thinking Rain's last name is Bryer as easily.

Their ages also don't match up, I just thought it was a funny idea playing off what Oz said. Glad I could make you laugh bgb ^^

Liriel is a proponent of public transport. Buses are ok, trains are great, but what he likes most of all are trams. He is a trams guy.

Sorry, I couldn't help but make a pun out of that typo

@Vessyra

There's no real official wording in the comic at this moment, but I think it would be appropriate to say he/him going forward when referring to Liriel. :)

Should we also refer to him as her Dad or still as her Mom? (I know some trans folks prefer to keep their original title, regardless of pronouns and "Mom" is the only title Rain has ever known about. Canonically, Liriel never came out to her or -- as far as we know -- anyone else.)

Also ouch. That gives a whoooole 'nother layer to Liriel's feelings regarding Vincent and Fara...

Thank you for letting us know this!

I always feel uncomfortable seeing people immediately assign other-gender pronouns and other-gender nouns (son, etc) when there's a reveal that a deceased historical person might have been secretly non-cis.

I get that it's trying to be respectful, yes. But one is still assigning pronouns without consent. And also making a decision for someone who never got a chance to explore beyond "there are 2 gender boxes and the one I'm in feels like the wrong one."

(Of course with fictional characters it's a bit easier because the author knows what's really up. ;) )

Thanks for the clear response Jocelyn. I feel very similar to Leah. It's sad for Liriel that he never really got a chance to try different gender expressions and forms of address to see what fits - I know many trans people don't need to try things, they just know what's right for them since always, like you, but I sure needed to! and I'm not the only one. So it's handy for Liriel that he's a fictional character with an author who can say what he might have learned about himself, even if he never got the chance to. <3

Was wondering this too. Only time will tell…

Since the letter was for Rain, and she doesn't really care for Kellen anymore, would she actually tell her about it?

Rain is under no obligation to share that letter with Kellen. If she ever does, I expect it would only be if Kellen went backsliding into her earlier hostility, and Rain needed something to shock Kellen shitless. I don't expect that, though. What I do expect is that Fara will pass along the gist of the letter to Kellen to help her reconcile with Rain.

Now, if you're looking for plot twists, Page 3 of the letter could be where Mom confesses to killing Dad, hiding his body in a swamp, and claiming he left them.

I can't help but wonder that Kellen already knew..... and that was the crux of why she went so far overboard with her reaction to Rain...., and this was also the thing that Vincent was trying to get Kellen to face and deal with in the counseling session.

That would explain SO much about her intense and destructive transphobic reaction to Rain's transition. After a parent dies those hurts can never be fully addressed, explained, explored or forgiven. Even now there are things I would ask both my parents that I was not brave enough to ask while they were alive. I would start with the lacerating comment my father made about my gender identity when I was seven or eight, which drove me to closet until it was too late to even consider transition...

...and that is if I'd even known what transition WAS at the time.

Anyway, thank you for catching that.

Jocelyn said to refer to Liriel by he and him from now on :)

So she did, thank you. I didn't use "he" above as deciding someone's pronouns without hearing from them felt... wrong. Transgressive, and not even the fun kind of transgressive.

@oinkymoo

The only thing Rain can see are the actual words in the letter. All the panels and dialogue within them are simply the magic of fiction. I wouldn't worry too much about it.