To no one’s surprise, fans are currently on a roll with praising manga-Haruka as trans representation and bashing the shit out of the 90’s anime for having “censored” it, when in reality, this scene is really just further proof of Naoko’s extremely heteronormative idea of what lesbians are.
Let’s not forget this is the woman gave this explanation to why she decided to write Haruka and Michiru as a couple:
“Yes,
they are lovers. The reason why is because they fit together. Neptune
is very girlish and feminine while Uranus is kind of boyish and has the
heart of a guy. And at that age, girls have a lot of emotion. (She
pauses) And compared to all the other five, they have the most free
time. (laughs).”
So basically, Haruka is the “man” of the relationship, while Michiru is the “woman”. And the “girls have a lot of emotion at that age” part highly implies it’s just a phase they’re going through. Which is, you know, pretty fucking awful. Oh, and let’s not forget that 99,9% of the reason why Naoko made Haruka a lesbian to begin with was purely to have that subplot of Usagi being attracted to Haruka with the “exotic” mystery of not knowing whether she’s a man or a woman, and once that was done and over with, we barely saw a trace of butch Haruka ever again.
So, you know, all I’m saying is: let’s not confuse straight people’s homophobic, fetishized ideas of what gay people are like with trans representation.
The Yuri Side 