I hate to say it, but I think a lot of you are being naive about transness in media.
I wish I could say you were right about "ciswashing," but I know you aren't. Here are the reasons why:
- Clocking a trans person is a big no-no. This is a holdover from when the popular stance was "When a trans person gets reminded of their birth gender, they fall into suicidal dysphoria!" which evolved into "deadnaming a transperson is telling them to kill themselves." I'd even argue that this is where "being rude online is literal violence" came from. If ND really wanted to do this, his options are limited.
- ND would have had to write a bigoted character who hates transwomen. In the prologue, ND makes it very clear that he doesn't think this type of character is worth writing about. (Ellie dismisses a sweet old man as a bigot even though he made her and her girlfriend "bigot sandwiches." This man is never seen again.)
- ND would have had to somehow weasel Abby's HRT regimen into the narrative. Not only would this have derailed a game that already has a tenuous sense of pacing, it would have taken time that Naughty Dog's crunch schedule wouldn't allow. If there's any hope for a smoking gun, I'd expect it to turn up in the environment design. Any estrogen bottles lying around? Soylent?
- Abby's model is flat out hideous. This is more important than people give it credit for. She isn't real. There is no reason for her to be ugly except that it evokes a certain feeling upon looking at her. In ND's self-aggrandizing little mind, I'm sure he wants you, as a player with eyes, to confront that feeling. He turned her into a bigotry litmus test. If you dare point out that she looks trans, you are bigoted. If you ignore the obvious, you are a Good Person. It's queer baiting, but nobody wins by talking about it. If they had any intention of confirming that she is trans, they wouldn't have had to make it so obvious. She never had to be ugly.
Just take a look at the Instagram bodybuilder Abby is supposedly modeled after:
Yes, she's muscular, and her attractiveness will obviously come down to taste, but she is by no means as hideous or unfeminine as Abby.
I want to believe that a smoking gun is hiding in some uncompleted datamine, but I won't hold my breath.
The only other way to determine ND's authorial intent is to look at whether or not the idea of transness is baked into any other parts of the game. I'm not going through the game with a fine-toothed come, but I did some evidence of exactly that:
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When Ellie infiltrates the Wolf den, she has to duck inside this bookstore. Not only is there a rainbow road leading to the door, there's an LGBT pride flag and a Trans flag (circled red) hung outside. It sure looks like someone hung them up recently. I think the center flag is an American flag, but it's in significantly worse repair than the the other two.
Another Trans flag hangs on a bookshelf inside. It's definitely the same as the one outside.
Conclusively, this game uses the visual iconography of transness.
I hear you already: "It's set in Seattle, of course they have the flags!" I think the fact that the flags are looking brighter and in better shape than the American flag is extremely evocative, but sure. I see the point.
But when the idea of sex characteristic dysphoria pops up in notes, it's harder for me to dismiss.
Sure, maybe we've all doodled a page that looks like this, but I'd like you to take in the imagery of a dick blasting off together with the imagery of dicks stretching, ballooning, becoming breasts, as well as the the words "Still no Scars four more hours on this shift fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuk" The Scars in question are later revealed to be a rival group, but I posit that ND had a very different interpretation in mind when he decided that THIS should be the first mention of the Scars.
Lastly, the group Abby belongs to is a bunch of furry antifa awoos who took over a portion of Seattle from a government-sanctioned enforcement group. They literally call themselves "wolves." I think everyone who's visited the CHAZ/CHOP thread knows what the gender identity demographics of that group look like.
In short, ND has played us all and he'll be laughing all the way to the awards.
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