More in the next Film Theory video.
NEVER!
If that's a MattPat Game/Film Theory reference, I hate that guy and nearly all of his content.
The discussion about it is the representation, y'know, "the closest thing to actual representation" as Casual Shinji put it. The audiovisual representation of her character is female and if somebody wants to add some fan theory in there they are free to do so as long as they understand that dismissing it entirely is not an attack against them.
I do find it ironic, that there are those who are trans who see Gwen as a trans allegory, or resonate with them, yet their are actual positive depictions of trans characters in video games now. That aren't just supposed allegories/interpretations and are the actual up front and center about it. Shit, games have an advantage of this over mainstream Hollywood in this department to an extent. You have Poison
(Street Fighter/Final Fight), Bridgette
(Guilty Gear). and Catalyst
(Apex Legends). Now obviously, none of these are as mainstream as Spider-Man, but even the most casual gamer or fighting game fan knows who Poison is at this point, and has been for a long while know. Poison did start off as a negative depiction of a trans character, but that changed around the late 90s and mid-late 2000s. At the time, Capcom tried to make her gender ambiguous, but by the 2010s most fighting game fans and
SF fans in general accepted her as trans. The only difference being according to Capcom: she is pre-op in Japan, and post-op in the West.
Bridgette started off as a boy who cross-dressed, but became trans by the time of Strive. Though according to Arc System, they had always planned for him to develop as trans, and was not a spur of the moment thing/trend jumping bandwagon. A majority of
GG fans received her positively, with not much complaints.
There's
Celeste too, as Madeline is implied and outright confirmed to be MTF trans as well. That is more from the indie scene, but Celeste might as well be mainstream at this point with all of the acclaim the game has gotten.
The developers have yet to confirm the online fan speculation.
www.dailydot.com
Well, yeah, of course she is.
maddythorson.medium.com
In fact, a lot of indie games tend to have positive or mature views/depictions of trans people, than anything put together in Hollywood and mainstream gaming combined. That are not just allegories or fanons coming from peoples minds. I can't name all of them off the top of my head, sadly, but I do know Stephanie Sterling was involved with one of them.