Tanjiro: So You Are Blind.

Tanjiro: So you are blind.

*Waves his finger near Gyomei’s face

Gyomei: I can see you doing that. I see everything you see. Except I don’t see like you do. I use a super sonic wave from my mouth. Gahhhh

Tanjiro, Zenitsu and Inosuke: 🤯

*the scream was so loud that it abrupt the slayers’ training and somehow reached to the Demon’s base.

Akaza: Did you hear something?

Gyomei: Gahhhhhh!!! There I got a pretty good look at you.

Muzan: I came out here to attack people and I'm honestly having such a good time right now.

if Akaza doesn't attack women, does that apply to trans women? I understand that trans people were accepted before the arrival of the USA in Japan. Would Akaza fight trans men? trans right?

It wound up making a lot of sense to explain the general historical awareness and acceptance of trans people in Japan in this post, including how the way this was understood wouldn't translate exactly into modern day language, and vis versa. The modern LGBT community in Japan uses largely the same terminology as you hear in the worldwide community (including トランズジェンダー, which is the word "transgender" exactly, just pronounced in Japanese phonetics). However, this a recent shift in vocabulary; most studies of historical figures use the terms "men in women's clothing" or "women in men's clothing." Even if these people were accepted for living how they chose (or how their parents chose, in some cases), it's not the preferred definition by modern standards.

That means if we try to keep KnY grounded in historical context, this would likely be Akaza's understanding.

Since the historical background is described more in slightly more detail on the previous post (again, please read that first!), I'd like to focus this more on the question of Akaza himself. This gets more to the meat of why he doesn't fight women, and while I don't think it's expressly stated anywhere, my sense is that Koyuki became his primary reference point of what femininity is, and Koyuki's influence on him was so strong that he didn't have it in him do anything to harm what reminded him of Koyuki. (For the sake of simplicity, we're going to assume Koyuki is cisgender, and that Hakuji might have only had limited exposure to trans people, i.e., an average level of awareness of them for his times.)

We don't actually know what became of Hakuji's mother, whether she died or left. In either case, it doesn't seem he has enough recollection of her to have left any impact on him. In his childhood, his life was centered around his father, and with all the trouble he was always in, parents probably told their daughters to stay away from him. Even though he'd have had female acquaintances, it doesn't seem he particularly cared about them or had any nice aunties in the neighborhood showing concern for that demon baby born with teeth.

This makes Koyuki the first person of the feminine persuasion whom he's ever spent much time with. That's already weird enough in the first place for Hakuji to have a close and caring relationship with anyone, but unlike the vast majority of people he's had any physical closeness with (people who he has beaten or who have beaten him up), Koyuki is frail. It's not as if he's inexperienced with frailty what with having taken care of his father, but she's already an anomaly in so many ways in his experience, which makes her traditionally feminine traits stick out a lot. Given a lack of other familiar examples and close experience (as I'm guessing he has never had encounters with tough women, given his lack of social ties in the first place), it's not surprising that the impression he got from Koyuki would color his impression of what women are.

As Akaza he may not remember Koyuki, but he remembers the impression she left him with. Similar to how the impression her snowflake motif left on him became a symbol of his Blood Technique, the impression her feminine qualities left on him probably gave him the overall impression that...

...whatever this feeling is, this is precious, no harm must come to it...

or to justify the weirdness to himself, '...this is delicate, not worth a fight.'

The wording in the second fanbook implies that his isn't a rule he's ever declared (he's not Zenitsu), he just... can't bring himself to kill women. (Note the wording was "kill" as opposed to "fight" though in Akaza's case fighting someone besides a demon typically means killing them.) Encountering them gives him discomfort that he can't face, and he just leaves that discomfort alone.

To be clear, we're looking at the supposed delicacy as a feminine trait which is neutral--not an aspiration, and on the flip side, not a pathetic loser trait. Tanjiro, for example, that's a weakling loser we use as a measure. Tanjiro is very much so a boy, and can't really make a convincing display of femininity even when he's doing his best impression; Akaza wouldn't look at him and think (n his gut, not his head), "this is delicate and worthy of respect and protection." This is just some guy who would probably do better poisoning his neighbors than facing them head-on, you know, like weaklings do.

But, if Akaza were to encounter someone who identifies with feminine traits in a way more core to their being, whether or not they've got the parts associated, this may give him pause. It might confuse him and make him question his discomfort even if he recognizes the person has male parts, but I don't think he'd be inclined to fight her/them. However, on the flip side, if Akaza were to be engaged in battle with a trans man and part way through realize something was physically different than he thought, I think this would also give him enough discomfort to choose to leave the fight, perhaps to the consternation of his opponent. After all, Akaza has lived when the general understanding of this as "women in men's clothing."

That said, if demons lived to modern day and Akaza had more awareness of the LGBT community and other vocabulary at his disposal, then he might very well say, "alright, so the dude's got a boob, bet he won't mind if I punch this clear off, let's keep going." At least with Muzan as their leader in his many forms, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find transphobia among the demons. Douma might be kind of disappointed part-way through a meal, but hey, it's not as if he's got a rule about only eating food with wombs.

Maybe in a softer time...

Lil’ Kocho doodle

my favorite brothers