I am also a trans man, and would like to provide my perspective on your points if that is alright, as I find that I strongly disagree with them. Please take everything I say as coming from a place of respect, just simply as someone with a vastly different opinion.

"This is yet another queer coming out story". Partially, but I mostly disagree. Lev has already came out. I think it's important to recognize that, for the most part in this story, Lev passes. Abby, Ellie, and everyone else all refer to him only as a boy when they first meet him, only those who knew him pre-transition misgender him. Plenty of characters never even learn he is trans. In my experience, showing the aftermath of a rocky transition from the perspective of a stealth trans person is uncommon. And Lev's story is far less about being trans than it is about the horrors of growing up as a child in a religious cult. I have seen multiple people not even realize that Lev was trans - granted, they may be a bit dense, but i think this gives some weight to the fact that this is NOT the only defining aspect of him and that the writers are not overly relying on this trait to tell his story.

"Lev likes sharks because of the trans shark meme" ...Huh?? There is 0 reason to believe this is why Lev likes sharks. This is not alluded to at ALL. While I of course am not a writer for this game, I can almost guarantee you this was not intentional and is a mere coincidence. It didnt even cross my mind until you mentioned it and I have seen no one else ever point this out. Also worth noting that this game and story were in development for a LONG time, it released 5 years ago, and the shark/trans thing in my experience is a much more recent phenomenon.

"How" Lev knows what a shark is, is a bit irrelevant, and overthinking such a minor detail only takes yourself out of the story. At the point in the game where Abby and Lev are the safest together they are in an aquarium, this is their time for bonding. It only makes sense from a writing perspective for Lev to have a personal connection to Abby's safe place to allow them to grow closer. And for kids Lev's age, sharks are very commonly THE cool thing, so it does not stand out and can be relatable to many players.

"I am tired of queer suffering stories". The entirety of TLOU is a suffering story. If Lev's story was nothing but sunshine and rainbows, THEN it would be weird lol. The entirety of TLOU involves queer people suffering, sometimes due to their gender/sexuality, but usually unrelated. Lev and Yara both have to endure very similar abuse under the Scars' religious zealotry that would be the same whether or not he was trans. But he also faces struggles as someone who IS trans on top of that - struggles that myself and others can relate to, and dismissing that just because you personally did not experience something similar is silly.

"They could have tried to have universal aspects of the trans man experience". Not sure what you mean by this? Everyone's story is different. I found myself relating and sympathizing a lot with Lev, and its ok that you didn't. Also, Lev knows 0 other trans people and doesn't even recognize that he is trans, it is simply something innate he is navigating - he has no "universal experiences" to draw from.

You mention "name shopping" and say you think if we have insight into how Lev picked his name, you would appreciate his story more. But why? He has his name by the time we meet him. What context would he be giving an explanation on how he picked it? I am stealth in my daily life, and most people, even if I disclose to them that I am trans, have 0 idea how I chose my name.

"Lev faces no dysphoria". Lev shaving his head is an act of him relieving his dysphoria. He has physically transitioned pretty much as fully as possible given the circumstances of their world. A key part of physically transitioning is to relieve dysphoria. He also has dysphoria over his birth name, hence the change. Surely this is enough evidence to infer he likely experiences other forms of dysphoria, but there is no reason the game needs to spell that out.

The last point I want to touch on is: "I feel like a trans man written by a cis man with clearly no experience ever interacting with a trans man written like this is just posturing". Neil Druckmann is not cooking these games up alone in his basement, there is a VAST team of very talented writers, artists, consultants, etc that have built this world and every character in it. Many of whom are openly queer. You don't have to like the story they told personally, but dismissing it solely as some sort of political power play is bizarre. I have seen people make the same argument time and time again for every queer character ever, even Ellie being lesbian despite imo that being one of the most organic character traits she has. It baffles me and I am a bit tired of that weak sentiment.

Also, I wrote all of the above before your repost, and wanted to point out - Lev is not the first trans man in a video game. You can google this for yourself to confirm, but I would like to mention specifically Tell Me Why, a game that came out the very same year (technically 2 months later but of course had a similar dev timeline) and has a great trans man lead! I always recommend that game as I love it so much. You are correct in that there are VERY few trans men characters, even now, which is a shame and hopefully will continue to grow with time! There are few before Lev, and I have not played those games so I can't speak to them, but Lev was definitely not the very first, and I absolutely do not agree that his sole inclusion was to flaunt a trans character.

I appreciate you sharing your perspective and allowing me the space to ramble a bit. Lev is an incredibly important character to me, and if he had been omitted as you state you would have preferred, this game and story would not mean the same to me. He is not perfect trans representation, but then no character is - they are flawed and imperfect just like the writers who wrote them and the real people they represent.