Here's the catch: this is actually about trans kids going on hormones that affirm their genders. Well?

Do you think Cinder is or ever has been a slut? I'm curious because a lot of people seem to think she spent her life as a prostitute or something. I'm REALLY of tired of it. I don't know why people think this but they keep depicting her as someone who is loose about sex. She's a child. I doubt this girl has ever been naked in front of anybody given how insecure she is about being seen as weak and fragile.

Yeah, so if anybody read my previous response you can see why I was a bit grated. This is the same person - hi again anon.

I would really recommend that you not come in my inbox and unironically call Cinder Fall a slut. I know what other messages you've sent, and I've ignored them since they're about modern gender politics and women - my blog doesn't discuss that kind of thing and I would really prefer if you kept it to Knightfall alone without making it weird. This is where I talk about my favourite Byronic heroine and healer kissing, not... that stuff. I also should remind you I'm female.

However, as a learning experience I think it's worth mentioning that people typically conflate immorality with women with sex, and represent the moral decay of women through their sex lives. A female villain is naturally going to be perceived as a 'slut', or a 'seductress', especially if she's kind of got that femme fatale thing going on already. 'Looseness' about sex isn't bad unto itself, as well, just to clarify for the record, and your sex life doesn't translate to your moral life (so long as it's adult, consensual, etc. etc. etc.) and what matters is that you have your sense of self - and sex doesn't make you dirty either or irredeemable in any way. I just feel the need to say that lol. And if this is coming from things with a Christian atittude - well, go ask Mary Magdalene about her feelings.

So, whether or not I think these sorts of assumptions are in-character, it's worth considering there can definitely be misogyny rooted in these assumptions about her character - a bad woman is almost always a 'slut', and then you add in her backstory...

(And for the record - it's not shameful or morally shameful at all to be a prostitute, or a sex worker, or whatever term you're comfortable with - sex workers, for some reason, are considered responsible for social moral ills, when they're the last people to blame).

Also, Cinder isn't a child. I think in some ways her powerlessness and reliance on Salem (an evil step-mother) is symbolically child-like, but she is literally an adult - a woman - under a Dark Curse.

But given her actual character which is pained, dramatic, and angsty, and passionate - no, I don't assume sexual experience, and I've already discussed this topic before. That's in part because I really don't like the gross sexualisation of female villainesses, but the majority of the reason is that she would never allow herself to be vulnerable - I mean, just in terms of physical closeness I doubt it. I also heavily doubt that the show itself would ever touch on anything of a sexual nature in Cinder's backstory. It's inappropriate - so please consider the source text.

Of course these things are more up to headcanon than anything, but in terms of consistency of the femme fatale 'mask' vs. the Byronic heroine, I lean towards the latter as 'more her', and the Byronic hero is often untouched.

It's why Dark Fuck Prince Kylo Ren doesn't work, he's a simpering virgin who's never even kissed a girl and I adore him.

Anyway, anon, I don't have competely hard feelings towards you. If you understand where I'm coming from and apologise I'm sure we can sort this out, and for the record, up until this message I was just going to ignore the other ones you sent, and elect to answer the asks I consider to be on-topic for this blog.

And as a conclusion, whilst I consider my blog to be for talking about things I care about, not as a space where I discuss my real-life political opinions, I am happy for people to bring things up with me if I make a mistake or that type of thing, or if there's something I've said that's gone down poorly. On the other hand, I'd like this to be a fun space - not a debate space or anything like that - because I think that's the real beauty of a website like Tumblr.

Most of all I hope to make it a happy space where you can feel comfortable without having to be 'on' for online Internet angry politics. That stuff is exhausting.

So, I want people to be comfortable, and I hope that me answering these asks and touching on this stuff hasn't been distressing. I wouldn't call my blog a 'safe' space, but it is a sensible space, I suppose.

I was going through your discourse shortcut and noticed an issue. In your trans brain section, all the links are about whether sexed brains exist, whether trans brains are different than their natal sex, but your accompanying paragraph is all about proprioception. it's the jump i honestly struggle with most regarding all this. my opinion as of yet isn't really decided. i've noticed all sides make really big assumptions. in this case, it's that the differences in the brain then translate to a dysphoric feeling that can only be solved through transition. but that assumes 1. the differences in the brain are the reasons dysphoria developed rather than dysphoria causing those differences to develop 2. those differences affecting proprioception, despite rarely being in the part of the brain associated with that 3. that these are permanent (that kind of goes with #1— the brain changes w depression, 4 example) 4. that all people with this type of brain develop trans identity and seek medical transition (the sample is taken from trans people rather than from people with ___ brain type, it's a self fulfilling sample) 5. i've also just noticed studies tend to poorly control for hrt and sexuality 6. that all people with this brain type will benefit from transition

i was wondering your reasoning behind making those assumptions because i think they're certainly not insignificant and i think it's what i struggle with most when weighing the degree of this. because those questions all have a great impact on the permanence and absoluteness of this, which is the main thing you (general) use this as evidence of in the first place.

i believe sex affects the brains and all that, that's not what this is about. it's more about the assumptions people interpreting the studies and those doing the studies are making, as well as the methods and whether the sampling is truly representative. i know it's impossible to have a perfect study— i have all these questions because i'm going into a non human biology field and they just drill us on tearing apart this kind of thing all the time, no matter how much evidence there is (like climate change lol).

I'll talk about these as the numbered list followed by the other points, these are all good questions!

1. If the dysphoria causes the differences, I'd have to wonder what causes the dysphoria. In either case, the fact of the matter is that people with gender dysphoria have atypical neurology, and thats important because it shows there is a biological basis to what they're experiencing. We don't have (or really need) all the answers in that case and I've wondered the same myself a number of times.

2. This one is interesting because proprioception isn't centralized to one area of the brain, and mostly has to do with electrical nerve communications. I actually don't posit that the studies in the trans brain section have much to do with that part of the brain, they're more showing that there is a hormonally-influenced difference with the brain as a whole with or without HRT (I'll talk more about that later)

3. I think the kicker here for me is we've observed these neurological traits in young adults, middle aged trans people, and in the brains of deceased trans people. Take that how you will.

4. Oh I agree with you here, that if we only examine people who are trans and not those who solely have gender dysphoria, we haven't isolated gender dysphoria as a factor. But several studies linked in the spreadsheet I reference actually are gender dysphoria-specific and don't require any level of trans identification; just the dysphoria diagnosis. That being said, there are people who have gender dysphoria but choose not to transition for whatever reason and technically speaking (from a medical standpoint) they're trans as they possess the necessary attributes of transsexualism, but socially they aren't and that's their business. Kind of an aside there.

5. Some do, yes, but again I have posts that actually point to specific studies which do control for those things and mirror results of the more ambiguously-controlled ones.

6. See above, I don't think using the word "benefit" alone is enough to explain why transition is often the best method of treating GD. It can be beneficial to the dysphoria, but not the person as a whole due to a slew of other factors. And sometimes the fact that the changes are artificial don't help with the dysphoria in the first place. So I wouldn't say it's always the best option or always beneficial (I don't think I've ever said that but it is a common assumption)

So now on to why I harp on about proprioception so much; it's sort of explained in the shortcut, but I'll clarify specifically.

A big thing with trans people is phantom limb syndrome. Trans women not experiencing it after vaginoplasty, trans men experiencing it before phalloplasty, as the two biggest examples. We know for a fact that the brain often wires itself to expect certain characteristics, as shown with born-amputees still feeling PLS even though they never possessed the limb in the first place. It's a logical conclusion, with this information, that the reason one would feel at odds with their body has to do with the part of their mind that actually has to work with the layout of said body.

I won't lie and say I can prove this with a bunch of studies or anything, but I do believe this because it's what I've been told by neurologists (I've spoken to the people who run trans research personally in the past) and also what they themselves conclude with the information we're given.

I don't personally think it's a huge stretch but I understand the hesitance to share my confidence and I won't criticise or judge you for that.

So why use those studies if I don't even really think they play a role in gender dysphoria, you may wonder, and the truth is I don't really find that it matters. Whether or not we know the how and the why, we do know that for decades and decades trans men and women have consistently had these traits, with or without HRT and/or full transition. My resources more prove that there's no denying the biological nature of being trans, that to pretend it's some new phenomenon coming from ROGD or buying into dysmorphia too hard is ignorant at best. All the proprioceptive stuff is sort of the most likely theory we have but it's not the be-all-end-all for what makes someone trans. I'm excited to see what studies in the future reveal about all this, and as those who love science well know, happy to be proven wrong should it be the case.