I have been noticing an uptick in crossdressing/tranny characters these past few years. I wonder why they have become so mainstream these days.
in the west, ranging from optimistic to not, the manga/ln theirselves is getting shit tier stuff as part of translation contracts or what they pay for, ie getting multiple random niche gay mangas vs getting something with a much more sizable audience, like with how long date a live or high school dxd took to get novels, or they ""diversify"" and make sure they have a odd proportion of niche gay shit instead of straight male/female focused works. or it's just them pushing the general troon agenda/having troons/troon supportsers in places of power that make sure to focus it before anything else.
beyond translations, as a concept gay story/gay elements have been very prevalent throughout a shit ton of their literary history primarily star crossed lovers that have horrible endings, alongside harem wish fulfillment esque stuff, even including back to tale of genji, which was also wrote possibly,(?) difficult to confirm, by a woman around the courts.
Based OP. Someone should feature this.
there's a lot of effort in it but it's very flawed imo. first thing, and to serve as a issue while also in defense of their point, they reach way too much, and some of the stuff they reach for is biased/wrong. in particular flowers of evil and blood on the tracks i wouldn't loop in with troon shit just because the author got retarded, those are both very good works, art wise and also plot wise they're less about a bpd woman and more about nearly everyone being fucked in the head differently. flowers of evil is moreso partially about a guy falling in love with someone mentally ill and being unable to let them go to a point, though i think some of the ending was kind of retarded. it felt more to me like it should have ended with him just going to her and supporting her and having to deal with the mental issues since he couldn't really devote himself to anyone else. and blood on the tracks is about child molestation and love bombing and other heavy shit. i wouldn't put them in this list any more than i'd put Berserk as just being bestiality bait and goon shit, or show someone only one more day and paul and parts of ultimate era spider man and then go "yep spider man is exclusively fucking dog shit"
you really don't have to reach that far either, i'm no animu scholar and i still know that even though i don't know damn near half or more of the sources listed, i don't have to. naruto has tempted troon shit for some time and orochimaru in boruto is explicitly they/them whenever they want type shit. naruto had enough of everything else it wasn't really a factor but boruto in general reeks of modern day shit. fate has fucking astolfo beyond anything else, re zero has at least one they/them from timey wimey stuff and an astolfo clone, jjk has a mainstream widely accepted mtf love interest. nigger i don't need a unknown manga from 1984.
personally though i think beyond that, it's kind of pointless to have troon/femboy shit be the focused factor before what used to be it, the cuck problem. ntr/cuck shit is far, far, faaaaaaar more involved everywhere and supported before troon shit, the ""fantasy"" scenes explicitly detailed and drawn in rent a girlfriend used to still be grounds for franchise destruction upon volume arrival though. but every other manga, years to draw single panels like berserk included, focuses on a too-weak mc almost having their girl/girls raped before saving them in the nick of time or shortly after, or their lifelong love interest suddenly being fully tempted by joe from state farm or some shit, the mc being dominated by some oc anime dude then going after their girl etc. there's a large amount of shit to be said about that, that's difficult to discuss in polite society and be understood, but production quality in products focused heavily directly on cuck shit have *absurd* production values even in niche shit, and even shit that doesn't focus on it explicitly make sure to have a good deal of it, even in mainstreamish franchises like in fate's vns, or muv luv.
there are MANY cuck story products that get enough money for ridiculously good production values. i have no fucking clue just how truly big it is in japan but the taimanin series for one is a explicit gooner cuck game that has at least 3 gacha shit games on steam, and has apparently made moves to rebrand itself into a franchise akin to naruto or some shit, though i hope who i saw talking was just fuckin high and they're not going to have cuck characters being the mc and faces of a pg13 gooner ninja franchise.
but you can tell by the stench of money alone, typically nothing that requires serious art and effort gets by without cuck shit in particular and first. they may feature troons as fetish fuel too, but cuck shit is first and foremost, it's just overlooked or just considered as using rape for drama or plot more akin to how fma did instead of being fetish fuel.
a problem inflating the troon issue is several mainstream authors are sympathizers or trooning themselves, to love rus author went from explicitly male gooner self insert content to making a female mc gooner self insert which was a conscious choice and is likely pozzed, less gooner like boruto is pozzed, jjk is mainstream acceptably pozzed, flowers of evil author as stated is pozzed, goodnight pun pun's author is also someone who made at least a couple good works but is pozzed, and they all got popular enough and have enough fuck you money that there will be new troon shit introduced and troon copycats unless it very quickly all burns, because they chase the money