people like us don't get to live normal lives
[spoilers for spider-man: brand new day]
i can’t call myself an x-men fan, necessarily. i would be stealing valour from those who are more invested in these characters, these stories, to a degree i admit i am not as of yet. but, surprising no one, the x-men and mutants as a concept mean a lot to me as a trans woman.
i wasn’t expecting spider-man: brand new day of all movies to put this thought back in my head, as it lingers somewhere in the recesses at all times. there’s always been something of a link between spider-man and mutants (and not just the debate over whether he counts as one or not (he doesn’t)). both are hated for what they are despite, usually, doing their best to use their powers for the good of others. spider-man saves new york and beyond countless times, yet comes home to overdue bills, constant citywide libel against him, and frayed connections with friends and family due to his double life. he didn’t choose to be bitten by a radioactive spider — he just had to deal with the consequences. the x-men are born with gifts and curses, a genetic lottery that to some degree draws out a life path at birth, and have to try to find a way to use them to help people. some, like one child whose gift is ‘kill everyone in a large radius by accident', lose this lottery. they don’t get a choice. they just have to make the best of it. no one chooses how they’re born, we just have to face the music — often, that music is the sound of slurs, bigotry, legislation and genocide against us for being born wrong.
spider-man: brand new day pairs peter with jean grey, the first ‘new’ mutant of the mcu. jean, alongside her sister sara, discover their telepathic abilities in their teens. not long after, sara is captured by secret police, experimented on, tortured and left to die in a cell. for having gifts she never asked for. for being different. jean, understandably, builds a shell around herself and lashes out at anyone who seems a threat — which, at this point, could be anyone. she’s alone. when peter comes across her, already viewing her as a threat since that’s what the secret police told him, he tries to reason with her, but she’s not having it. he’s just like the others, trying to kill her for how she was born. their gifts and curses run in parallel: peter faced consequences for becoming spider-man, lost loved ones, but he’s trying his best to build a life out of it; jean never had the chance. she ends the movie making up with peter after they find common ground in their lost family, seemingly realising that lashing out will only make things worse.
there’s a thread to pull on here, though. the film posits the idea that jean is seen as a threat because of her actions mind-jumping across new york, taking citizens for ride, removing their agency entirely (effectively assaulting them!) and moving on without a moment of remorse. these are immoral actions. she does some awful shit in this story. enough for peter to figure out how to make a universal inhibitor for any enhanced individuals, just in case any more of these freaks show up down the line. i’m sure that will only be used for good.
but the thing is, jean isn’t a threat because she’s done bad things with her gifts. she’s a threat because she has them at all. she and sara were marked for death at birth. they couldn’t be allowed to exist, the evil choices they would make with their powers predetermined by those who view them as a threat to the status quo. they were never allowed to have a life, because someone in power said they weren’t allowed to. she says it herself: "people like us don't get to live normal lives."
you can imagine why i feel something about this story. being trans feels like losing the genetic lottery. you’re hated for existing regardless of the choices you make, with astroturfed libel against you and your kind plastered across every news source for years at a time. you’re gradually banned from public life in small ways until they, beneath most people’s noses, remove you entirely. you’re accused of sins you’d never commit, just because you look like you might, apparently. the healthcare you need to live is taken away from you, if you ever had it in the first place, leaving you to grey market solutions or nothing at all. without it, you’ll die. they don’t care. a genocide is acceptable if it's quiet. human rights don’t apply to you if you’re regarded as subhuman.
but i don’t have powers. i can’t defend myself with webbing, telepathy, or optic blasts. we don’t get to defend ourselves. our only option is to lay down and die when we’re decided as the enemy to be captured and killed. it doesn’t make a difference whether we throw a punch or cry out to stop being killed, please. we’re terrorists regardless. we’re abominations to be stamped out. we were born different, born special, and that means we need to die. we can’t get healthcare. we’re dead if we go to prison for any reason. we’re not citizens. the state wants us dead, and it seems quite a lot of people who aren’t us, who see us only through the lens of propaganda and have not once considered us people, are perfectly happy with that happening before their eyes. we’re far past the tipping point.
maybe we’re not gifted. maybe we’re just cursed.