A ranking of Gilmore Girls characters by how much transphobia they would show me during an episode where I inexplicably guest star

I’m watching Gilmore Girls straight through, in a race with Netflix de-listing it on June 30, and my brain is gradually melting, so I figured I’d get this out of my brain because it’s sticking in my brain, being immersed in this world that has no place for me.

• 19. Taylor Doosey — Taylor would take one look at me, and call a town meeting on how to deal with the problem of rising transsexualism in Stars Hollow. When pressed on the matter, he would probably reveal weird preconceptions and come up with some compromise that is more transphobic than just banning trans people from town, probably with some weird chasery subtext to it.
• 18. Richard Gilmore – the guy is canonically a personal friend of Scooter Libby. The show takes place in the middle of the early 2000s gay panic.
• 17. Logan Hutzberger – fuck this guy in general, but also, in my headcanon, he’s been shitty to auntie Jenner, behind her back, and there’s no way he’s going to be nicer to an ordinary trans person
• 16. Luke Danes — Sure, Luke would start out not caring that there is a gender nonconforming person in the diner, but it would slowly drive him CRAZY and he couldn’t explain just why it did, but oh, if I didn’t get kicked out of the diner outright, I would certainly get some aggressive mean mugs by the end of the meal.
• 15. Paris Geller – as much as I love Paris as a character, she says horrible shit all of the time, and is hyperjudgemental all of the time. There is a 100% chance she says something transphobic and storms off when presented with a trans woman
• 14. Dean Forester – I doubt there would be outright hostility from Dean, but there would also be a pretty clear expectation that people like me are not normal and that he does not want me around, just based on general vibes I get from him
• 13. Christopher Hayden – he comes off a smarmy and unlikeable to me, but really, his main skill is stringing Lorelai and Rory along and ignoring everyone else, so I’m just going to slander him by putting him this far down the list, and just trust that it could go both ways
• 12. Emily Gilmore – Iḿ making her a wild card, just because I want to plug the absolute insanity that the DAR is trans-inclusive, so let’s make this an excuse to say that maybe she can go both ways if the vehicle of the episode is a trans woman trying to join the Hartford DAR chapter or something. I also expect that, if confronted with my character, she’s too busy being pissed off by manners violations and status shit to actually do any clocking
• 11. Lorelei Gilmore – she isn’t afraid to gossip about the local owner of the Stars Hollow bait and tackle shop sleeping with a transvestite (s6e8), so she will probably smile and nod while I’m around, and then crack some nasty joke about me to Luke or Rory as soon as I’m out of her vicinity
• 10. Michel Gerard – Maybe he makes some shitty comment, but he kind of makes a shitty comment about everyone he ever sees.
• 9. Babbette Dell – shell gossip with the town about that t***y she saw, but she’d never openly say anything.
• 8. Rory Gilmore – Rory stays out of Stars Hollow drama that doesn’t involve her boyfriends, and the worst she would do is play along with her mom’s sass, but probably not even that
• 7. Sookie St. James – I’m not involved with her kitchen, and she spends the least time about town of the main cast. She doesn’t care enough to be transphobic
• 6. Max Medina — also belongs to team “unlikely encounter and woudn’t care anyway”
• 5. Lane Kim – Lane can be traditionalist, but she believes in rock and roll, and therefore probably the most likely permanent Stars Hollow resident to be accepting of someone being weird, but is also unlikely to confront any of the angry adults.
• 4. Kirk Gleason – yeah, he spends the whole episode following me around, and it makes my character creeped out and unsafe, but by the end of the 45 minute episode, we all figure out he was just trying to figure out where my estrogen was stashed so he could skim some off of the top without having to ask anyone for some.
• 3. Gil — I refuse to believe that Gil’s enthusiastic, rocking, accepting spirit is not also a trans-inclusive one
• 2. Miss Patty — her terminology might be old-fashioned, but she probably has some name-droppy story about how she performed with Christine Jorgenson or Candy Darling in an ensemble
• 1. Jess Mariano — having spent a significant amount of time in NYC parks and generally being countercultural, and involved with the art scene in both NYC and Philadelphia, one would presume that Jess is one of the few on this list to have actually interacted with trans people. And despite all of his general bad-boy shenanigans, you don’t hear the casual homophobia coming from him that you do from most of the other characters. Jess would just be himself around a trans woman.

Unranked — I don’t think Lane’s mom would clock me, and I don’t have a read on Zach and Brian, other than I expect them to just follow Lane’s lead, and of course, the thoughts of the town troubadour are forever unknowable