Tonks is Trans
The author is dead. Therefore, we are able to examine the characters of a story without reference to the cliff notes of the author, merely looking at the context of the work in itself. I would like you to know that Tonks is trans. We will not be examining the “canonical” Mobile Game in which Tonks is a primary character, and instead we will be only examining the texts from the book. If a mobile game update gets pushed out to state plainly that Tonks is AFAB, please disregard it. Her Assigned Gender at Birth cannot matter within the cannon of the novels. Let us examine the magic of transformation within the context of the Harry Potter series, and then examine how we as readers can know for certain that Tonks is a trans woman.
The mechanics of transfiguration are never explained adequately. Self Transfiguration is difficult but not impossible. Animagi are rare, and seem to have taken an animal form into their very being to transfigure into whenever desired without body dysphoria. We know for certain that the Polyjuice Potion allows characters to assume different forms. When Harry and Ron become Crabbe and Goyle in the second book, there is no hesitation from body dysphoria, even though they describe the physical discomfort of being in shoes too small and the strangeness of their deep and gravelly voices. There seems to be a sort of Dysphoria Buffer, but not so much that Hermione is ignorant of her transformation into a Cat Person. She is crying and frightened by seeing how she’s changed. When Hermione Granger and Fleur Delacour take the Polyjuice to appear like Harry Potter in book 7, they don’t quake and tremble, further evidence of a dysphoria buffer. A dysphoric trans character could potentially take a Polyjuice Potion of themselves and alleviate their own dysphoria. However, this buffer is utilitarian and not medicinal, since the wizards, like JK Rowling, are Transphobic.
Tonks’ power as a Metamorphmagus means that she can change her shape with a thought. We know for a fact that her son can change his hair color from birth. Her ability to change shape is innate and not the result of a magical spell or potion. Tonks doesn’t dye her hair, or her ability to change the hair’s color wouldn’t work, and her shape doesn’t slip or revert when she’s focusing on something else, unconscious, or dead. Therefore, after metamorphosis occurs, it is permanent.
How would a transphobic society approach an infant who could change their sex at will? The discovery of the changing identity of the infant would be almost immediate. Did they change the child’s name to Nymphadora when she began presenting as feminine, or was the ability to change apparent from the instant of birth? Did the baby’s skin change texture as they nursed? Did they attempt early sex ed to try to convince a toddler to stop changing their genitals? Were there other, stranger changes?
Tonks hates the name Nymphadora. Perhaps the name “Nymphadora” was an attempt from her mother to convince Tonks to be a girl. And though Tonks loved running around in dresses, she didn’t hold the form of a girl. Did her parents ask? Did they check?
When young, trans Tonks went to Hogwarts, what did the staircase to the girl’s dorm do? The gendered bedrooms of the students boot boys from the girls’ dormitory. Is it a gender detector? Perhaps. If so, Tonks would be able to enter just fine. Is it a Dick Detector? I can imagine a young trans Tonks crying at the bottom of the stairs, confused as all her new friends stare at her.
What happened then? Did Tonks have to stay in the boys dorm? Did she sleep on the couch in front of the fire? Did Dumbledore change the wards for Tonks, or did he try to make her change her body?
Let’s briefly examine Remus Lupin (click through for an essay about how gay he is). The impression that Lupin is gay* for Sirius Black is supposedly dispelled by an abrupt marriage to Tonks. However, he is clearly attracted to Tonks and her feminine dick, which is not exactly rare among cis gays.
Some naysayers may suggest that because Tonks became pregnant, then she was certainly AFAB. I would suggest that this is nonsense, especially in a magical world. Tonks remains a shapeshifter, and as someone who has been capable of that her entire life, she would have learned about the bodily mechanics of a womb.**
Some people may be asking themselves, if Tonks can change her body, wouldn’t she prefer to have a vagina? Maybe she does, some days. But not every trans person feels dysphoria every day, and some trans people are affirmed by their trans-ness. There is room in our fiction for trans characters in an oppressive, very gendered society. A society where “witches” and “wizards” are just words for “people” might heighten social dysphoria. Tonks might feel like she is a witch and not a wizard, because wizards all have long beards like Dumbledore. The heightened gender division, a society with no word for “gender-neutral-magic-user” would be a society which creates more trans people, not fewer.
*Gay in the modern sense of queer love, not gay in the sense of strict gold star homosexuality
*What I am suggesting is that Lupin fucked Tonks’ ass until she got pregnant.
(For context, JK Rowling wrote a transphobic tweet this morning.)
