Months ago, I went to see a 4K remastering of Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995). It was a Saturday night, I wanted to go out, and I was already a big fan of the movie so, why not? Maybe it was the magnitude of the images or the experience of seeing those magnificent cybernetic bodies in such proportions that made Ghost in the Shell stick so much more that time around, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about Motoko “Major” Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka) and the disconnect she experiences toward her cybernetic body and the world she inhabits. The boundaries in that world continuously hold her back, and in her longing for a way to exist without them, she finds understanding as she merges with Project 2501, another being like her. It reminded me, strangely enough, of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine (2007), which ends with its protagonist, Capa (Cillian Murphy), becoming one with the cosmos. In a selfless act, he not only sacrifices himself to save the sun but he merges with it, engulfed in its radiant light. It’s not exactly a death that he experiences but a rebirth, another kind of existence largely incomprehensible to us.
It’s not a stretch to say that these narratives of transformation can be read and understood as trans allegories, even if they weren’t intentionally made to be so. In reading them as such, I saw fragments of myself in Kusanagi and Capa. Their longing to be understood and seen by someone, to find a reflection somewhere and immerse yourself in it, to be accepted in whichever form you might take. To, essentially, create your own destiny. Their stories appealed to me because they leaned into that euphoric feeling, and as I’ve come to accept myself as transgender, I’ve felt so much closer to euphoria than ever before.
Part One: Confinement
“Confinement? Is that why you bargain with a body that will sink like a rock?”
Kusanagi’s body is fully cybernetic. Because of this, she often wonders if her ghost is synthetic as well. This causes her to question her existence: how “real” can she be if her memories are designed and manufactured in the same way her body is? She expresses the confinement this causes, how, because of the way she’s been constructed, she only feels free to express herself within certain boundaries. Section 9, the counter-terrorist public security sector she works for, is perhaps the most oppressive boundary she faces. As managers of her cybernetic body, they have the authority to exterminate her and erase her memories if she acts out of line. This is true not only for her, but for the other cybernetic beings on her team as well, including her close friend and second in command, Batou (Akio Ōtsuka). She tries to confide in him, explaining how restricted she feels in her current state. However, he doesn’t understand; to him, as long as she’s treated as human, there’s nothing to complain about.
Confinement takes shape as Section 9, and Kusanagi finds an escape from it in small moments. In one such case, during their mission to find the cyber-terrorist called “Puppet Master” (Iemasa Kayumi), Kusanagi goes for a swim. Here, she feels free in the open ocean, and though her cybernetic body may betray her, she bargains with it, immersing herself fully, seeing reflections of herself in the clear water. Through diving in, she becomes real to herself, unmistakably so. It’s after this that Puppet Master first comes into contact with her:
“What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face.”
Capa is the physicist for the Icarus II crew, whose members are all tasked with reviving the sun through a process of delivering a payload that essentially sets off a bomb in the star, creating a new one inside; in death of the former self, there is rebirth. Since the beginning of their journey, Capa has been plagued by nightmares. In all of them he falls into the sun, hands reaching out desperately for anyone to catch him. The crew’s existential dread seeps into Capa’s subconscious, and for someone who often thinks of the cosmos logically and feels a connection toward it, Capa begins to feel it suddenly become uncaring and malicious. For Capa, confinement comes in the form of Icarus II. He feels trapped in this spaceship with crew members who — as respectful and committed to their mission as they are — may turn on each other in a split-second when something goes awry. He feels trapped not only by the ship itself but by the claustrophobic environment it creates, the loneliness and anxiety it induces, the nightmares it has induced for him. Capa’s nightmares represent a dysphoric limbo, the feeling that you’re stuck as the person everyone else thinks you are, the dread that comes with the belief that transformation is not possible. This belief, of course, is false.
What keeps Capa from losing himself, from falling into pessimism, is reminding himself of the continuous rebirth of the cosmos:
When a stellar bomb is triggered, very little will happen at first. And then a spark will pop into existence, and it will hang for an instant hovering in space. And then, it will split into two, and those will split again, and again, and again. Detonation beyond all imagining. The big bang on a small scale. A new star born out of a dying one. I think it will be beautiful.
In doing this, he reassures himself that even though the mission will likely lead to his physical life ending, he’ll be reborn amongst the stars. Nothing ever really ends.
Confinement comes in the form of transphobia. It comes in the form of a cisnormative world that thinks that you are unreal, despite your existence. Your own connections and disconnections, the nightmares or daydreams you might have. Despite all the evidence that you exist, transphobia wants to render you false. A glitch, a miscommunication, a mistake in manufacturing or design. I’ve experienced this confinement, the denial of my existence from others. And yet, in the face of their rejection, I am somehow still here. The evidence that I am real, which often comes in the form of my own reflection, my connections to other trans people, and the fragments of myself that I recognize in Kusanagi and Capa, is often questioned by a transphobic world. To them, it is not enough that I am real to myself, there is no use in being curious about gender expression or transitioning — “You’re a woman, get over it.”
What keeps me afloat are these moments of connection and understanding, the knowledge that transformation has always been happening. Rebirth is possible. I can choose my own destiny.
“A new star born out of a dying one. I think it will be beautiful.”
Part Two: Transformation
Like a lot of other trans people who grew up on the internet, I largely experimented with gender expression online. I delved into my own desires by becoming the person I wanted to be through a screen, because really, it wasn’t safe enough for me to experiment in the “real” world. Like Kusanagi and Capa, I found moments of comfort in these nonphysical ways of being. To me, going on forums and playing computer games was an escape, it was a special kind of euphoria I could experience for a few hours. In a way, it was a cybernetic existence — I could dive into a world online where I could express myself. But ultimately, I’d have to log off, and I’d feel that confinement again. My temporary escapism — though it was formative and important to me — was really only that, escapism. In a piece titled “Cyborg.exe,” I wrote about how navigating online spaces and my day-to-day life created a conflict for me, which is best explained here:
“I realize how much of myself I have discovered through typing away on keyboards and staring at screens. Through this I have merged my physical self and the one that exists online into one. They are often at odds with each other. And then, I go out into the physical world and push down my desire and call myself what I’m supposed to be called and I press my lips together and hold my breath. It’s at this moment I realize I don’t want to be a cyborg anymore.”
I wrote the piece a few weeks after I saw Ghost in the Shell in theaters. It was, to put it simply, a breaking point. I came to realize that I couldn’t continue only being my actual self behind screens, I wanted something more. I had to break out of my cybernetic existence and become real. I had to merge.
When Kusanagi and Project 2501 (formerly known as the Puppet Master) finally meet, it’s against Section 9’s orders. From the moment they lay eyes on each other, there is an understanding. Their current forms restrict them, and against Section 9 and Section 6’s authority, they make the decision to become one. An entirely new being untethered to the physical world, immersed into the net. This is what Section 9 was trying to prevent, because now, they have no control over Kusanagi and Project 2501, they can’t dictate their destiny for them. Through the act of “merging,” they’ve created their own future where they have full agency.
This merge, which had been thought of as impossible until now, is almost blasphemous to the world around them. How dare they immerse themselves in their own desires? Batou worries that once Kusanagi “dives” into Project 2501’s, she won’t have a way to get back to him. For a moment Kusanagi hesitates as well, but her desires are too strong. She’s come all this way to learn more about herself, and she sees a reflection in Project 2501’s gaze. They understand each other too well, they both have a longing to transform. The merge is successful, Project 2501 essentially “dies” but is reborn in the offspring Kusanagi sends into the net, and in the new being they inhabit. Free to roam the world without fear of extermination.
Before their merge, Project 2501 speaks to Kusanagi, explaining that in his present form he feels incomplete, and that their merge will help both of them to become more than they could have ever imagined. What he says to Kusanagi about their merge is, in my opinion, what ties Ghost in the Shell and Sunshine together so perfectly:
“But to humans it is like staring at the sun. A blinding brightness that conceals a great source of power…it is time to become part of all things.”
Shortly after this, Kusanagi and Project 2501’s cybernetic bodies are destroyed by Section 9. In a shower of bullets, their old selves are purged. But it’s no matter, they’ve already become one, already part of all things. At the end of his mission, Capa comes face to face with his stellar bomb, he reaches out to it, smiling, knowing that this is not truly a death, but a rebirth. A process of becoming one with the cosmos, a constant renewal. It’s something that the rest of his crew, because of their existential dread and fear, could never understand. But to Capa, it’s special. It’s the only time we see him smile in the entirety of the film, it’s an intimate moment where we see him finally being able to be his true self.
Part Three: Rebirth
There’s this common theme in science fiction where the android/cyborg/robot has to prove its own consciousness somehow. That the only way the cyborg can be “real” is if the human testing it can obtain evidence of their cognizant. To the human, it is not enough that the cyborg is aware of their own existence, it has to match up with the human’s reality, interpretations, and perceptions. In this way, the cyborg can only become real if the human allows it to be. This is similar to the question that plagues Kusanagi, the haunting question that she may not be truly “real.” It’s the question that haunted me as well for so many years, and at times still does. But like Kusanagi, I came to a point that I simply didn’t care anymore, because I found another way to exist. When I finally accepted and understood myself as trans masculine, and really, as a guy, it didn’t matter that my reality didn’t “match” with other people’s perceptions of me. In other words, my awareness of my own cognizance was proof enough of my own reality. Someone else’s inability to comprehend or understand my existence means nothing to me. I still exist, I am still real, even if you refuse to believe so.
The process of discovering this truth about yourself, that you are real, and that you have accepted yourself as such, is a kind of rebirth. It is to me, at least. Whether it’s becoming stardust or immersing yourself into the net, it is all transformation and renewal. The fact that for Capa and Kusanagi these processes don’t have a distinct “look” to them is special to me. Being transgender can look like and mean so many different things to different people, there is no one way to be. At times it may not make sense to a cisnormative world, as Project 2501 says, “To humans, it is like staring at the sun.” But that doesn’t negate its existence, my own relationship to my gender makes sense to me, and ultimately that’s what matters most. To become your true self, to choose your own destiny. For years, I tried to convince myself that I had to continue living as a woman for the sake of other people, even when it was tearing me apart. That woman was never real, and I grew so tired of trying to resurrect her. In coming to terms with being trans, I feel like I’ve been reborn into the person I always was. What a wonderful feeling.
“And where does the newborn go from here?
The net is vast and infinite.”
