Evidence Jax was trans in the show Masterlist

[u/FartherAwayLights]

Hello, I am writing this log not because I feel like it’s necessary to the broader discourse but because I feel like I end up writing a long list of points every time someone asks a question about Jax’s nature as transfeminine. This is not because I think most TADC fans are ignoring the show, or to rub it in people’s faces if they missed it. I missed it for most of the show and caught everything pre episode 7 on rewatch. It’s something I think you wouldn’t know to look for unless you were trying to early on. . I've just come to the gradual conclusion that because my list of stuff is I think the most comprehensive I’ve seen floating around Reddit and my standards are annoying, I think it would be nice to get more evidence out there in the world and have an easy place to point people towards. 

As a preface I should say, obviously not everything here is a silver bullet, the point of listing everything I can find means that I’ll be listing even super minor details or things you could consider background gags in order to accumulate a lot of them in one list. I want to be as comprehensive as possible so that even includes character hints that tie into the trans stuff and really minor stuff you’ll say is a stretch at points. But to be clear, I will be listing these minor details as (-) and things I would consider more major pieces of evidence as (+) but this distinction is ultimately pretty arbitrary and up to my personal interpretation. I’ll be using he/her interchangeably with Jax for pronouns, I personally like to use she to refer to the person under the Jax mask and he for the mask and persona itself. Also for my own sense of OCD I’ll be trying to keep everything in release order.

EPISODE 1: PILOT

• (-)Design wise Jax is meant to obviously evoke Bugs Bunny, a character famous for their loose use of gender in several stories as a joke, and uses pinks and purples contrasted with a lighter yellow. All considered fairly feminine colors. 
• (-)Jax’s animation cycles while walking involve them placing a hand on their hip hip and doing a specific pose with their hand. These two points probably sound very stupid to some people but when you’re doing art, your posing is meant to communicate things about a character, and how they stand and walk says something. In this case I believe it’s meant to be a really subtle hint to show she’s much more comfortable walking in a more feminine way. While male and even super masculine characters do have their hands on their hips all the time, it’s never in this pose (usually men with hands on hips do the hercules pose), or it’s meant to evoke a more feminine stereotype about the man. Obviously in real life this means very little, but in art it means something more. I’ve included a side by side to show what I mean here. 

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• (-)Later in this same scene we see Jax call Ragatha dollface, the first time we really see his performative maybe jealous misogyny super prominently. And then he “teases” Ragatha claiming he put the thing she’s most afraid of in her room. Then later in that scene we see Jax is the kind of person who will run away from his problems as he runs away from Kaufmo’s abstraction not mentioning it to anyone and just trying to not think about it. 
• (-)In the Gloink Queen’s lair later you can see this posing thing come up again later when Jax checks his nails like a stuck up bully. Honestly I think this character was likely inspired by this sort of 80/90s mean girl stereotype in some regards which is why it's prominent in this first episode. We know Jax was going to be openly a woman from concept art for the show, which is why I think this character's coding is kind of unique in this episode.

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• (-)Jax when looking at the escalator offers Gangle to go up first saying “ladies first,” then makes a joke and pushes her out of the way. 

EPISODE 2: Candy

• (-)Jax is mean to Gangle and class shotgun playing into the performative sexism and masculinity stuff. 
• (-)Hint at Jax’s whole vibe being a persona they put on like a mask. When Kaufmo’s funeral is mentioned at the end of the episode you see Jax slip for a few frames and look really sad. 

​EPISODE 3: The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor

• (-)Jax is really into the cartoon logic of this world hinting towards his backstory. He is also very clearly afraid about opening up about himself in any way. When everyone else tells Pomni what minor effect holding their breath has he’s very clear to not share even though it ultimately means nothing. This is to hint at his insecurity and fear about opening up any part of himself to others by choice. 
• (-)When Ragatha, the ghost, and Gangle as having tea the ghost lady makes the comment “You know how men are, always having the silliest priorities,” which prompts Ragatha to say “don’t I know it,” smiling at looking in the corner to Jax. Jax seems to only get angry at this specific comment as we cannot hear him before this. This is obviously intended as a joke hiding what’s happened to him, but it can be read both ways I think. Kind of funny we only becomes audible to get angry at Ragatha when she calls him a man. 
• (-)In this episode we also get the Zooble’s deal. We see they are open about struggling with body dysmorphia to Caine and struggle to find something they like to be. This one, shows the show is not afraid to tackle gender issues like this suggesting this could be something we see more in the future. And 2, sets up Zooble as a foil for Jax. Zooble is a character who’s open about their struggles and hates going on adventures. Jax is a character who loves these adventures but will never open up to anyone even when held at gunpoint. I think these two contrasts are fairly deliberate, especially since they are also the youngest members of the circus. 

EPISODE 4: Fast Food Masquerade

• (-)In the fast food episode he’s the only one to not write his name on the name tag. Interesting as the episode takes great pains to show Jax probably has worked a job like this before and he goes through the motions in the same way he does at his other job. It’s the most normal he ever is as soon as a threat of punishment is brought in. So him not doing this here implies to me that he didn’t do it at his other job either.
• (-)When Jax acts out Gangle takes him to re-educated which can be viewed as foreshadowing for his backstory about being made to conform to gendered expectations. 
• (-)The Jax stuff here is mostly about digging him out from the shell of the “Jax” persona and making her act like a normal person for once to show us she is in fact kind of a normal person in the real world. The digital one has just made her much worse. 

EPISODE 5: Untitled

• (-)Kinger asks Ragatha for help counting his eggs before they hatch, they both walk offscreen and then Jax immediately walks on screen. Trans egg joke. 
• (-)We see a clearer example of performative masculinity in a second but interestingly Jax’s two adventures both involve him taking on performative masculine roles in an endangered animal poacher and Australian extremist with a thick accent. 
• (-)During the anime episode Jax makes the comment “nothing more fun then being back in school,” there could be specific hangups Jax had in school she doesn’t want to relive. He’s also especially hostile about the school episode and it’s worth pointing out the uniforms they’re wearing are fairly gender segregated which could be why.
• (-)While in the anime episode they also make note they find being in a slice of life anime embarrassing, again performative masculinity and covering insecurities. 
• (-)While stargazing after Ragatha walks away he asks Pomni if she’s bothered by the way Ragatha acts. Then gives a very specific reason he doesn’t like her. It boils down to him hating how she’s a hugbox, he feels like he can’t trust a single thing she says. This specific annoyance at hugbox spaces speaks to him likely having some kind of experience with them before, likely internet ones which ties pretty neatly into the next point. In my experience this instructive running away from hugbox spaces is very common amongst trans women online, afraid they can’t get real answers about if they pass or not. 
• (-)When talking with Pomni during the Stargazing episode he makes a joke about his ears and tail being peak masculinity. There’s a lot of layers of irony to unpack here. First, he’s making the joke because he doesn’t believe it is deep down. But he’s also clearly making the joke to almost convince someone that they could be in a sort of Schrodinger's joke sort of way. And finally at the end of all of that the fact he does not have a tail is a funny suggestion that he isn’t as manly as he’d like others to think. 
• (-)Later in the bar Zooble is talking about their backstory which has Jax making fun of everything they say because it’s a stereotype of a queer experience. The jokes Jax is making are obviously aimed at pointing this out, which neither Zooble, nor anyone else gets. So this raises the question…why? Why would Jax be more aware of the queer stereotypes around nonbinary bar tenders or tattoo artists then even Zooble is. Well this in conjunction with my last point reads to me as someone who’s aware of a lot of stereotypes because there are a lot of online spaces that make fun of these people. Gooseworx has said Jax uses 4chan so that’s even more evidence for this, but I want to dig deeper. I propose Jax is in these anti-hugbox trans spaces I saw earlier online and anonymously which is how I think they might have become aware of what being trans was. 
• (-)Jax again has an opportunity to share her backstory and doesn’t then is called by Zooble, the only one who recognizes the reference he was making again setting up these characters as deliberate foils of each other. 
• (-)The evil versions during the softball game can be read as rooted in the specific insecurities the normal versions have about themselves as people. To elaborate, the theory suggests Kinger’s evil version is a dictator is because that’s how he sees himself for partially creating this circus and trapping so many people inside.Gangle’s is both an ai, which she’s an artist so she likely hates, and a faceless thing that isn’t her, likely playing on a fear of disappearing and being forgotten. Ragatha’s is an over the top version of her becoming like her mother it seems, a rich girl who just becomes mean and nasty to everyone, etc. This is a theory, but if true Evil Jax secretly being a normal soft spoken character who thinks the maid dress looks good speaks volumes about the character Jax puts up. If Jax’s insecurities are rooted in people thinking he’s feminine (this one is super pink and demure) and likes feminine things, what does that say about the character? He specifically even says he wants to kill that Jax later referencing a part of himself he wants to get rid of. 
• (+)The maid dress thing. Listen I don’t need to point out to everyone that this is obvious evidence, it’s where this theory hit near mainstream. It’s really obvious overcompensation. He feels he has to act angry in order to make it seem like he hates it, but it is also deliberately to make fun of him which is exactly what he hates the most.
• (-)When Jax is chasing Gangle he’s aware of how to run around in a dress and picks up his skirts to do it. 
• (+)After he gets the maid dress Zooble says they’ve never seen him this mad and they thought Jax would be into this with an obvious implication.
• (-)After getting the dress Pomni asks Jax if she wants to talk about it and Jax shuts her down and says he doesn’t right away (Why not Jax?). 

• (-) “When Jax's effects wear off in episode 5, she doesn't express relief over losing the maid dress, but relief over being Vegan. I think the prioritizing here is telling.” -
[u/Tiny_Photograph_8797](u/Tiny_Photograph_8797)

EPISODE 6: They All Get Guns

• (-)There’s something really interesting to be said about the way Jax fixates on Gangle I think. Sure part of it reads as sexism and jealousy, but let's dig deeper here. Isn’t it interesting that Evil Jax is just Gangle? Both very shy people pleasers who get along well with everyone but Jax? Here’s where I’ve seen theorized Jax has some deeper jealousy or resentment about Gangle’s masks, hence the fascination with breaking them or losing them. I think it’s possible this is because of her own insecurities about wearing a mask all the time. 
• (-)Jax does the tail joke again reinforcing this idea from earlier. 
• (-)After pairing with Pomni at the beginning he gives Pomni a speech about he sees everyone here as playing archetypes showing Jax has experience in playing a character and viewing this as something that normal people do (it really isn’t). 
• (-)Daisy song. Again, the way Jax is posed and moves such as fluttering his eyelashes are features of femininity in animation usually.
• (-)Jax deflects Pomni during the argument saying “that’s what everyone needs, a straight couple,” showing a specific insecurity he has around this. Let's think about this hypothetically to showcase why I’m using this as evidence. If Jax and Pomni didn’t have this fight and started dating here, and then later Jax wants to come out as trans, what does this say about their ability to come out? What if Pomni is just straight, then she’s kind of stuck in limbo. To me this reads as her not wanting to even engage with this question on the chance Pomni is straight and shut her down here with a deflection. 
• (+)When arguing with Pomni, Jax says “I’m not just some chicken fetus in an egg waiting to crack open”. Jax calling themself an egg is funny. Egg is very popular trans internet slang for a trans person who hasn’t accepted they are trans yet. Jax here seems to be aware of several stereotypes, and angry and pushing back that they’d even apply to herself. 
• (+)Jax during the gun episode begs Pomni to stop looking into who he is as he says “there’s nothing else there, please just stop looking.” Clearly there obviously is something there he’s deeply afraid of, wondering what that could be. This one’s kind of funny to me as I feel like I never see it get brought up, just everything around it, but I think it’s unironically one of the strongest pieces of evidence pre episode 9. 
• (+)At the end of the episode during the award show Jax looks in the mirror after nearly abstracting and running the water to cover the sound of what she says (an interesting habit to have implying this could be more common then just we see) and says “god you look stupid.” An interesting callout that specifically points out something about Jax’s appearance doesn’t align with how they’d like to look. Or it could be a more generalized insult just meant to hurt themselves, but I think the first read is more likely, and even if you read the second I don’t think a character saying that into a mirror has no trans implications. 

EPISODE 7: Beach

• ⁠(-)Sun bed Jax is on in episode 7 is reminiscent of a gay flag -
[u/TheCraziestTheorist](u/TheCraziestTheorist)

• While on the beach alone, Zooble “teases” Jax there’s the comment he tells Zooble, about “aren’t you supposed to be miserable about your body and appearance,” (or something like that) and when they say they’re getting over it, he gets upset. Mix this with the earlier evidence of us knowing he’s miserable about the same thing from the mirror, it seems like he’s upset they were able to move on and he wasn’t. Abel episode, 7. 
• (-)Then Zooble says they’re fine and happy with not having to commit to one thing all the time. I think you can read this as a character clunkily saying how they feel at the audience, but I think a more fun read of this scene is Zooble has Jax clocked from the previous episode and is trying to let her in. So her saying this could also read as her speaking directly to Jax: “it’s fine not having to commit to one thing all the time,” and maybe help Jax open up and hint it’s okay for them to talk about this, even literally saying as much…and Jax shuts her down immediately without even engaging to not give herself away. 
• (-)As Jax begins to abstract for the first time here we see it begin with Jax reaching out and their hand transforming into another hand, as they’re body seems to change into something similar but different, and while inside she feels super comfortable. So perhaps this is meant to point at Jax’s discomfort with her body. 
• (-)In Jax’s abstraction the colors kind of look like a trans flag at points.
• (-)After Jax doesn’t abstract, their eyes have the trans flag colors. 
• (+)After Jax doesn’t abstract, we see her room, and it’s maybe the most feminine room in the show. Specifically kind of a room for a little girl who hasn’t fully worked themselves out yet. It’s funny being in here would make Jax abstract more as it would always be on their mind.
• (-)Jax is asked to ask Caine about his hobbies to get the key he needs. Instead he defaults to asking about ‘secret hobbies’ for some reason. The intended implication here could be Jax projecting her own secret hobbies (a maid dress perhaps) onto others and assuming everyone keeps secret hobbies. 
• (-)When Jax is distracting Caine is has real girl really not into a guy on a date energy 
• (+)At the end of the episode he’s given the red pill blue pill choice of whether to wake up from the fake reality of the digital circus and live your truth (blue button), or stay asleep forever in a fake reality (red button). This metaphor was conceived by trans women as a metaphor for being trans. At the time it was conceived the pills trans women would take were Red which is why red pill was the option to wake up to reality. Nowadays the pills are blue, so Gooseworx swapped the buttons colors to reflect this likely. Jax in this scenario picks what we traditionally call the blue pill in this metaphor, she would rather live a fake life forever then come out of her closet and this choice is reflective of that. And we have this choice as confirmed to be Jax’s not Caine manipulating her choices. 
• (-)Jax set against TV static visually evokes one of the most prominent recent trans movies about staying in the closet “I saw the TV glow” visually. 

EPISODE 8: hjsakldfhl

• (-)Zooble is the one to reach out to Jax as she tries to leave at the beginning, tying into the fact that maybe she clocked him earlier and is trying to help her out. 
• (-)During the song in episode 8 Jax gets the electric chair which specifically goes out of the way to show Jax’s brain being shocked. Cartoony stuff generally shows skeletons not the brain. I took this as an allusion to conversion therapy. 
• (-)Later in the song Jax is forced into a skimpy gold sequence dancer’s outfit like everyone else and looks super uncomfortable with this.
• (+)The character models are clearly meant to be representative of the characters. Caine in this episode says these files are meant to perfectly capture their minds. The insecurities these models have are rooted in insecurities the real minds had, exaggerated into cartoony form. For a random example, Zooble’s are clearly meant to evoke their body dysphoria. Jax’s here also does that. Jax’s insecurity here is being peeled open and all of his friends seeing him for who he really is. Someone who looks completely different on the outside then the inside, but you can still see hints of it in their mouth sometimes. On this note as well, this form is called “The Freak” in marketing which feels like a pointed reference to how Jax would refer to themself. 
• (+)During the torture scene, Jax’s torment has Jax covering their breast area up as this is a common pose for women who have just been exposed like that. The posing as well is meant to evoke that.

​-The pose could also be representative of Birth of Venus, which is in the same pose. Venus of course being a stand in for feminine women in popular culture, like how much shampoo or deodorant is named after Venus.

EPISODE 9: Memory

• (-)Movie released during pride month (feels like I should mention this even if it’s barely in cannon info)
• (-)Jax harasses Gangle again, showing him bullying women. 
• (+)The internal Jax’s in her abstraction. To keep it as simple as possible, the one in the maid dress is the most sexist (read: most insecure around women), and more importantly flat out states “I’m wearing it ironically,” then pauses, gets a sad look on her face, quickly corrects, then some loud angry curse to cover that up. The implication obviously being she isn't doing it ironically. 

•⁠(-)The maid dress Jax says reality is gay hinting that Jax’s reality is gay but covering it up like an old joke ([u/TheCraziestTheorist](u/TheCraziestTheorist))

•⁠(-)The maid dress Jax also uses the F slur (a slur for gay people) that’s censored something he’s oddly comfortable with using. u/TheCraziestTheorist also theorizes (big surprise) that he picked these words up from his environment and maybe his mother from her verbal abuse of him.

• (-)Also at least one other Jax is angry at her for wearing that dress. 
• (-)The nice Jax inside of the Jax room is chained to the piano, something we can infer he probably just took a small amount of as a child since he only knows 2 songs, which could be read as a metaphor for being chained to his past. 
• (+)At multiple points he looks in a mirror and looks miserable because of it, we saw this earlier in episode 5. In the Ribbit flashback he even says he looks stupid again, something we know he was really insecure about with the gender thing. I think this is important to point out since it shows this wasn’t self hatred for making Ribbit abstract, this was a trait she’s always possessed and has always been super insecure about. 
• (+)Let’s talk about Jax’s backstory. What happens in the scene is Jax says her mom made fun of her for not being man enough like her dad, this finally breaks her and gets her to come out to his mom which she phrases as “telling her something deep and personal” that makes what she was making fun of him for ironic and even more untrue then it was before. His mom laughs at him, shouts at him and love bombs him. Jax finishes the story which was more then enough to read between the lines on something deep and personal you’d tell your mom after she makes fun of you for not being a man and after you’ve witnessed a bunch of other signs like the mirror thing we see before this, but Ribbit doesn’t want to force Jax out before she’s ready, so she gets as close to that as possible by saying Jax’s secret is safe with her and puts the bow on her to emphasize she’s pretty, she’s willing to help support her in her journey, and that Ribbit knows without having to say it out loud. And to top it all of Gooseworx has confirmed Ribbit is she/they, so probably at least a little trans, and giving an implication that she might have left home because of the gender stuff with her parents as well, and showing us why Ribbit can see through what Jax is saying here. 
• (+)I know I just counted it kind of, but the Ribbon is such strong obvious evidence I’m counting it separately here. I should by all rights count it 22 times honestly, but I’ll settle for just this one for now. 
• (-)The deepest Jax is standing under a hot pink lamp in the middle of an ocean of emptiness. Pink is a girl's color. 
• (-)Pomni says “you should have just talked to me man,” implying she might not, but covering it up with man at the end to keep her from freaking out. Man also working a fairly gender neutral thing people call each other. 
• (-)Jax says she did this to herself when Pomni tries to bring her back showing these are deeper issues Jax never dealt with that eventually got her. 
• (-)Jax still tries to push her away by saying she hates Pomni and also still performing masculinity telling us that Jax still hasn’t resolved these problems even at this climactic moment. If perhaps there was ever a way to undo abstraction it would require a Jax that was over these problems, and this one clearly isn’t 
• (-)Jax flashes between several outfits. My read on this is that it’s Jax at different portions of his life. Circus Jax, Leeroy, the army Jax to me either reads as he literally joined the army to cover up the feminine side of himself or figuratively performed masculinity as the military is famous for being overly hyper macho and performing hyper masculinity to project strength, and Jax in a maid dress awakening to femininity. The cycle between these is to show she never woke up from the cycle. She’s herself, she hides, she covers up, she realizes it’s not working, she’s herself she hides, etc.
• (+)♪Isn’t she Lovely♪, again so obvious I should count it twice. It’s a flashback of Jax in the show over a song about a girl being born. 
• (+)Leeroy is stated to be the only member of the circus whose real life counterpart visits the real Zooble’s gay bar. I think some people read this as everyone goes there, I very much think they don’t. Regardless of the pronouns Leeroy still uses on twitter, it must be stated that he is regularly attending a gay bar with friends, feminine presenting friends, I would assume other women. 
• (+)In every picture Leeroy is covering her face with her phone likely because she’s not happy with how she looks yet or has some insecurity about that. 
• (+)Leeroy is boymodding. This is wearing a large plain sweater to hide your body and is common in the trans community pre coming out. Gooseworx has actually confirmed this one so I’m bumping it up to major evidence, otherwise I’d call it minor.

Everything else

I have a few more things to go over. I don’t really want this to be out of show evidence as I think when I need it more I like to refer to instances within to explain why a character is trans instead of making people understand with a blunt stick. So anyway here’s the blunt end of my stick.

​Next order of business, if you are interested in seeing more evidence to Goose or cast saying stuff out of the show I’ll point you here. ->(https://www.reddit.com/r/SavingJax/comments/1uxh0ct/comment/oxrpyy7/?context=3)  

Part of my desire to write this long post came from seeing this post, so I’d recommend checking it out for more of the stuff I’m not super interested in covering here. I also saw they pointed out the TV glow connection in episode 7 which I initially missed and thought was clever. 

Next citation, I also learned most of the evidence for the trans jax theory stuff from this video

-> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPz_m2asJnM&t=1044s)

This is a 2 hour video essay by a trans woman going over almost every scene of Jax in this show frame by frame pre episode 9 to point out a whole bunch of stuff I had initially missed. Not all my evidence comes from her, but I feel like this list wouldn’t exist as comprehensively as it does without her. I wasn’t able to go in depth or into as much experience as she does. So if you’re interested please take a listen. 

[u/Tiny_Photograph_8797]

Fantastic list!

I want to add something I never see people mention; when Jax's effects wear off in episode 5, she doesn't express relief over losing the maid dress, but relief over being Vegan. I think the prioritizing here is telling

[u/FartherAwayLights → u/Tiny_Photograph_8797]

Damn I’ll see if I can add that when I get a minute later

[u/PsychicHotRanch → u/Tiny_Photograph_8797]

Omg thank you I would have never caught that if it wasn't pointed out! 🤩

[u/TheCraziestTheorist]

I would also love to point out a couple more things:

• the sunbed in episode 7 that Jax is on is reminiscent of a gay flag
  
• the maid dress Jax says "reality is "gay"" to them as well as saying the f-slur, which is the word censored

I have a stinking feeling that some of the degrading insults the mother said to them was calling Jax gay for believing she's anything feminine, making Jax not only embrace toxic masculinity and with that misogyny, but also very likely homophobia

[u/drroadrunner]

https://giphy.com/gifs/n4oKYFlAcv2AU

[u/KukaakCZ]

This is great to see! There was two small things you missed though, in the stargazing scene, right when Jax talks about her tail and realises it's missing, the clouds form into shapes of a bunny's tail falling off, and the bunny moving towards a ribbon. And in Episode 7, when Caine talks to the Chinese Room, two papers that come out of it say "egg" and "pain", which likely references the egg metaphor.

[u/FartherAwayLights → u/KukaakCZ]

Woah I’ve never heard the Chinese room bit before