>>54012781The suggestion was made by Tomiyasu, who most definitely is a shotacon that enjoys crossdressing. So yeah, that was more him just lusting for Gou than it representing his character. Anyway though, yeah, I see a lot of artists often ignore the fact that Gou is meant to be smug (although he usually uses it as a cover up when he's insecure or flustered). The fact that he keeps wanting to be independent is also a big part of him that I rarely see portrayed in fanart. The last few episodes butchered that kind of, with him suddenly supposedly having been too dependent on Ash all this time, but the last couple episodes have tons of writing issues anyway. I get why they wanted to separate the two for MPM, but they didn't properly build it up. Which is why I personally think it sounded like Gou had a sudden change of heart and a fit over basically nothing. So those last few character-assassinating episodes aside, Gou had always been shown to be a quite independent and capable person who had his goals laid out clearly and who has the smarts to tackle it. What he just lacked and learned throughout the show was how to deal with interpersonal relationships and to let himself rely on others sometimes. Since his trust issues prevented him from that.
In short, especially by Pokémon anime standards he is a very well written character, but a lot of fans, both haters and fans, unfortunately ignore those nuances.