#which really strains hamlet's relationship with gertrude because she stays with him (possibly not by choice)

[withasideofshakespeare]

(I am supposed to be studying but instead, I’m going to write a post about my trans Hamlet headcanons.)

Transmasc Hamlet who never gets a chance to come out to his dad before he dies. Hamlet, who named himself after his father out of love and veneration never gets the chance to come out because he’s away at college and can’t work up the courage to visit his family to tell them the truth. Imagine the euphoria, then, when he meets his father’s ghost, who calls him “Hamlet” and asks his son to avenge him. 

And Claudius! Claudius’s comments about Hamlet’s “unmanly grief” are beyond dickish, they’re invalidating. He goes just far enough to hurt Hamlet, not quite far enough to let anyone else to pick up on what he’s saying. Claudius feels empowered to take the throne because he refuses to see Hamlet as a man worthy of the crown. (He is a masterful asshole who deserves what’s coming to him and I will die on this hill.)

Oh, and Horatio! His constant use of “my lord” is not some unnecessary sign of respect, it’s a reminder that Hamlet is no “lady.” Maybe these are the first gender-affirming words Hamlet ever heard. Maybe it’s habitual, almost a petname between them, an inside joke from the days before Hamlet was fully out.

And Hamlet’s treatment of Ophelia? Perhaps a projection of the toxic femininity he was raised on. Purity culture, misogyny, repression, all targeted at a woman who is probably also queer (she/they genderqueer Ophelia, my beloved), Ophelia, who does see him as a man, but whose femininity he struggles to accept as a creation of Ophelia’s own design and not a projection of what he was expected to be.

#listen i just love transmasc hamlet okay??? #projecting onto made up danish people is my hobby #ophelia likes flowers? i like flowers? we have the same gender. #i really like the idea that gertrude genuinely supports her son and claudius is a dick about it #which really strains hamlet's relationship with gertrude because she stays with him (possibly not by choice) #yeah shakespeare caused my gender crisis #what about it? #hamlet #shakespeare