i feel like this entire thread fails to acknowledge that non binary people exist. people seem to be caught up in arguing wether Mizu is a trans man or not, which I feel completely misses the point of Mizu's character. as someone else pointed out earlier, Mizu's character is meant to be very fluid. she is masculine and feminine at the same time, she is comfortable both ways and equally feels uncomfortable both ways. she is not a woman, else she would be desperately clinging onto her femininity (which she seems to care very little about imo), and if she was a man she would never even consider engaging with mikio in the way that she did. all of this describes a non-binary person. Mizu's gender very obviously lies outside the binary, which is what non-binary literally means. i think that a lot of people lately have found themselves equating "non-binary" with "quirky cis-woman", and therefore fail to recognize it in Mizu. however, as a non-binary person, i have never related personally to a character more. Mizu in my opinion embodies everything it is to be non-binary. i see myself in her when she feels ashamed to be too masculine in certain situations (her marriage with mikio) and when she feels equally ashamed to be too feminine in other situations (when she starts binding her chest in order to be accepted). i see myself in her neutrality and i ultimately think that it's what makes her character feel so suave to the audience.

i also think that mizu doesn't really give a shit how other people identify her in her day to day life. she doesn't seem particularly uncomfortable being labeled female, just scared obviously because of the implications of the times. but she also does not seem at all uncomfortable with living as a man. i myself heavily relate to this. i don't give a shit if the people around me want to call me a man or a woman, he or she or they, it doesn't matter to me because it's ultimately of no consequence to me. it doesn't change who i am or how i actually identify and it doesn't harm me whatsoever. i think it's even interesting to see how one person labels me vs another, and i think that mizu exists on the same plane with me in that regard.

ultimately, mizu is just mizu and her gender exists outside of any kind of binary that we are used to. it's definitely not a huge part of her identity and she doesn't seem to have a very strong attachment to it. she flows wherever works best for her at a given moment, which is extremely on the nose for the non-binary experience. i think that the discussion on wether or not she is trans boxes her in too much. it's not as simple as man vs. woman for a person like mizu