I don't get that argument that Mulan is somehow genderqueer or transexual. She doesn't seem to take any pleasure out of the act of dressing as a male in the movie and in fact acts as though she is incredibly uncomfortable trying to fit into her male role. While she thinks she's different than other girls she never says that she wishes she wasn't female or even hints that she'd rather be male. Dressing as a male is purely practical and self-sacrificial or you could perceive it as a selfish desire to get out of her village and find something new. There's nothing about those scenes that imply that she truly desires masculinity. Mulan is incredibly uncomfortable around the others in camp, describes them as gross, and just wants to do her job and go back home having done a good one. The only time she's comfortable around the males is when she's finally able to show her skill and truly able to handle herself in the field. She's just as comfortable dressed as a female at the end as she is when dressed as a male, having no issue with being both feminine and able to help. She only shows disinterest in femininity when she's forced to dress in an over-the-top fashion for her bridal evaluation. It makes no sense to me. There's really no indication of anything other than a female who has to do what she has to do for her time period.
I also take issue with the idea of perceiving these semi-human characters as transgender. There's nothing indicating any trangender messages underlying it and it simply feels as though people take the easy way out by choosing to gender non-human or semi-human characters however they wish in order to justify some sort of representation that doesn't exist. Feels kind of silly.
All of this is pretty silly in my opinion. If not outright stupid. I can understand a LGBTQ person identifying with a particular type of character or maybe seeing themselves in someone but that doesn't mean that character is inherently the same as the person looking at them. You can admire a character but you don't need to CHANGE a character to meet a standard that isn't intentional or even lightly implied.
