ruka from steins gate is still the most confusing character i have ever seen

I do see Ruka as being trans, but I'm not sure how justified I am in thinking that. I don't really watch a lot of anime and I don't know a lot about Japanese culture, so I might be missing a lot of context.

In my opinion the most important thing is that there doesn't seem to be any difference in Ruka's self expression after the "vegetables" D-Mail is sent, which kind of implies that their identity is the same as well. In-universe, it could just that any deviation of Ruka's personality could cause the world line to split off, but I'd still say that it's something to support them being trans.

I guess all fictional characters are based on their author's interpretations of the world. Even if Ruka was just intended to be a trap, they still might have been based off of a person who's trans in reality. It kind of puts them in a weird position where even the way the author sees them is vague.

With all that said, the only thing that really matters is how you see the character. The way you see them might go against the original interpretation of them, but art is supposed to be subjective and different perceptions of it kind of validate it in a way.

So she is totally trans!

 

Ruka is 1 of 2 main things that bothered me about Steins Gate (the other being Moeka because she's fucking annoying) because she is obviously meant to be a Transgirl but if that was the intention then it was executed carelessly and with ignorance. I'm gonna get into spoilers here so even though this show came out years ago I'll tag them cause i'm nice

Spoiler

1st of all the notion that the gender of your kid depends on the amount of vegetables you eat is laughable. 2nd it's implied that Transitioning has a direct effect on Ruka's sexuality (wat) when Female Ruka gets revealed to have a crush on Okabe but Male Ruka in the original world line never mentions or hints at these feelings afterwards. (probably because that would be GAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY and we just cant have that now can we) So the story treats returning to her male body as the solution to this (which is the dumbest thing ever) and leaves us to make our own assumptions about Ruka's sexuality and if/how it changes with the different world lines which I won't even bother doing because 3rd her entire character exists purely for comic relief and the writers were too busy squandering her potential with insensitive jokes like that stupid dating episode to put any thought into it. They had the chance to tell an awesome and groundbreaking story about this transgirl struggling with her identity, fulfilling her dreams of living in the right body, then ultimately sacrificing her own happiness and comfort to save her friend's life in the end. I think that's the character Ruka is meant to be, but they didn't commit to that, probably because they didn't want to risk it. Instead we got: "LOL at this boy who wants to be a girl, people like that are hilaaaaaarious!?!? right?!?"

So yeah that was a glaring problem in an otherwise engaging and thought provoking show for me. No way is Ruka, a feminine male bodied person who internally feels female, wishes to be female and later makes a conscious effort to transition, supposed to be anything but a transgender female. Given that, I can't excuse the writers failure to properly acknowledge Transgenderism or the effect of transgender issues on her character. It's a real waste of a sub plot that could have been powerful and meaningful if it were handled with any amount of competence and tact.

 

I just started watching Steins Gate, and am on the episode with The vegetables. I totally think Ruka is trams because she says so. I do think she is trans without knowing what trans is though.