Trap (glossary term)

Synonyms:
See also:	Crossdressing, Transphobia in Fandom
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Trap is a slang term used in anime, manga, and visual novel/eroge fandoms to refer to either a cisgender male character crossdressing to appear female, or to a transgender female character. There has been backlash against the term by people who consider it offensive to real-life trans people. At Anime Boston 2015, this was addressed at a panel titled "Gender Identity and Convention Culture":

Sophie explained that the anime community joke of calling a person who looks like a woman but isn’t a “trap” is offensive, especially to transgender women.

The panelists explained that the joke isn’t harmless because it assumes that people who dress as women but have male genitalia are trying to “trick” or “trap” people maliciously. Still, they said there’s nothing wrong with donning your Misty costume with a full beard.

“Although there are trans cosplayers, there are also people who crossdress either as a joke or for fun, and it can be hard to tell what the person’s message is,” she said. “Don’t assume.”

However, some other fans consider "traps" as a distinct fictional trope that has no relation to trans people:

...trap is someone, who for some reason or another pretends to be of different sex than their own and successfully convinces society of their deception. The thing is, the deception is usually for reasons that have almost always has nothing to do with the character's gender identity or sexual characteristics. Rather, they range from infiltrating an all-girl school as a student for dumb reasons, to infiltrating some organization as a spy for even dumber reasons.

The best test of the term "transgender" is whether the person in question willfully desires to BE that sex-opposite gender and not tricked or forced into it (doing it as a sly thrill or tease like straight traps do isn't considered a gender desire).

"Reverse trap" is the term for situations in which a cis female character dresses in a masculine way, or (rarely) for trans male characters.

In 2014, the anime imageboard Danbooru changed all instances of the "trap" tag to "otoko_no_ko" (romanization of the Japanese slang "男の娘"), with admin jxh2154 saying:

Even though it's not used with ill intent by most fans the vast majority of the time, the word itself is nonetheless deeply offensive and transphobic at its roots. I understand why nobody ever really pushes to get it changed, but the opposition usually comes in the form of "Oh come on, you know what I mean, it's not means as an insult" is a rather weak argument.

In late June 2018, Anime News Network banned the use of the term "trap" on their forums, as part of a rules overhaul with a goal that "Posters' contributions should not create an atmosphere that is unwelcome to marginalized peoples."