guiding-light:

dignifiedrice:

The Tiffany Aching books are so important. 

They’re about a girl, in a professional hierarchy created by women, growing into her own power, and growing as a person. At the end of each book, her good work is validated by the most powerful witches. For Tiffany’s success, she’s rewarded in an almost Mary-Sue like fashion (and I use that term in the most positive way). Granny Weatherwax bows to her. Granny Weatherwax takes off her hat to her. This lifts Tiffany’s spirits and reassures her that she’s on the right track, and it’s treated as SO IMPORTANT, and, like – how many other books do that? 

The prizes at the end of the story – Tiffany becomes a better person, she protects people, she gains the respect of her superiors (who are also women). 

Can you imagine that in another novel? The joyful moment of heartwarming, the cherry on the ice cream sundae of the adventure, the heroine’s crowning glory, is that some old women bow to her in respect. 

The books are so positive towards women, it’s unreal. Sure, the witches don’t always get along (they’re witches, they’ll always argue), and Tiffany has to deal with some petty one-up-man-ship, but it’s so fucking mature, how it’s handled. Tiffany winds up helping her enemy, Annagramma, who slowly learns to become a decent human being, and is revealed to have her own problems. She also becomes friends with the woman her childhood crush marries, even though they were initially antagonistic towards each other. It would have been SO EASY for these women to be one-note villains, the “bitches” for Tiffany to triumph over, but they’re not, and that’s fantastic. Pratchett does not go for the low-hanging fruit, and tear other women down to build Tiffany up. 

I once had the incredible privilege to speak to Terry Pratchett in person at the Edinburgh Fringe. I thanked him for the Tiffany Aching novels, which had helped me and my husband bond during our year of long distance. And I asked him how he, as a male author, was able to write such well-rounded women. 

“Well, my mother was a woman,” he said, and the audience laughed, but basically he said that his life had been filled with just as many interesting women as interesting men, and it felt natural to reflect that in his novels. 

The Tiffany Aching series is a gift for girls. It’s a gift for just about anyone who reads them, but girls in particular NEED stories like this, stories about a world of women helping and challenging each other. Stories where they get to be powerful. 

The books are so important to me

clothing-references:

alolancharmander:

mikstapes:

billnihilism:

disembodied-doll:

billnihilism:

We really have harmed a whole generation of trans and gnc children by failing to communicate how serious a decision binding actually is, how there’s no ACTUALLY safe way to bind, how it permeneantly damages the body, how it can make top surgery more difficult in the future. I don’t think we should be keeping trans kids from binding (we let kids do all sorts of things they’re really not old enough to understand the potential consequences of) but we owe them the ability to make informed decisions at LEAST

So this is definitely an important conversation to have, but can you point me at some reading about “permanent damage”? I might just be lucky, but I had zero lasting effects from binding. I’d like to at least read up on it so I can have this conversation and be more specific than “be careful.”

Of course! I can’t easily source right now but I am more than happy to provide further info when I am not at work and on mobile. Unfortunately, like a lot of trans healthcare, a lot of what we know about binding is anecdotal and word of mouth. BUT permeneant damage can include:

-Musculoskeletal damage. Binders are indiscriminate compression tools; they can’t flatten the chest without applying pressure every other anatomical structure underneath including the spine, ribs, lungs and heart. Many people who bind experience chronic back pain, shoulder pain, sharp stabbing chest pains, permeneantly decreased lung capacity, literal spine deformation, etc etc.

-A continuation of the above but the ribs are actually jointed bones. Their ability to flex is absolutely vital to their ability to withstand trauma and protect your vital organs. Imagine the damage that would be done to your elbow if your bent your arm to full flexion and then tightly bound it closed like that, for six, eight, twelve hours per day, every day, for weeks or months or years. And you don’t NEED a functioning arm to live!

-Tissue atrophy. Forcing chest tissue to lay in an unnatural way can and will change the way that tissue looks, even to risk of atrophy. Some people who bind and only moderately dislike the way their chest looks find that they HATE the way it looks after binding for a period of time. Tissue atrophy can also make top surgery more difficult in the future, and increase the risk of complications like nerve damage.

-Worsened dysphoria. Once someone starts binding and becomes accustomed to seeing themselves with a flat chest, it can be much more difficult to see yourself without one, and dysphoria that much more intolerable. You can imagine the psychological feedback loop of binding more in response.

The typical safety measures passed around about binding are harm REDUCTION measures and should not be advertised as making binding “safe.” Binding is not safe. It is a very serious health decision with long term consequences and should be treated as such. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong decision, but it should not be considered the DEFAULT decision for chest dysphoria which is frankly how it’s currently treated.

gonna drop some links to read more:

Health impact of chest binding among transgender adults: a community-engaged, cross-sectional study

Inside the Landmark, Long Overdue Study on Chest Binding  

Binding FAQ

Health Consequences of Chest Binding

@pooflyperfectprincess

Holy shit