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.
The Dryad and similar creatures appear in legends originating all over the place, and have become popular species in various roleplaying games. While there are some local variations in behaviour, tree species and appearance, the common features seem to be these:
Bound to their tree, but can ambulate away from it quite some distance
Kind of pretty, kind of tree-y, mostly feminine appearance
Associated with freshwater
Appreciate sacrifices, originally meaty ones, and subsequently monetary ones.
The whole ‘half animal half plant’ concept is fascinating, but also a challenge because I’m very much on the ‘animal’ side of the science side of tumblr, but why not? Creatures that exist part way along the animal-plant spectrum exist in nature, we can tweak the features we see in such hybrids to develop a biologically plausible dryad. I’m sure this isn’t the only way to do it, but it’s the direction I’d take.
But to do so, I need to borrow some ideas from the carnivorous plants, orchids, lichen and redwoods.
Now, to start with, the most consistent feature of Dryad mythology, and the most interesting, is their complete dependence up on their home tree. If the tree dies, the dryad dies. If the dryad strays too far from its tree, it also dies. This would suggest to me that it’s not the dryad walking around which is the primary organism, but the tree itself. After all, I haven’t come across any tales of the tree dying if the dryad is slain.
So if the dryad is the accessory organism, then what, really, are they?
if thanos wanted to kill off half of the population because there weren’t enough resources……..but then snapped half of the vegetation and animals (according to the russos)……..then isn’t he back at square one……………and there aren’t enough resources for the population……………
what about……..all of the empty and abandoned planets……..he couldn’t have restributed populations there? or like………..what about endangered species they’re pretty much gone now thanks to T Hanos…………..he really didn’t think this through………….
this is deadass what part 4 is gonna be. like he’s gonna realize “huh…. maybe this wasn’t a good idea” and reverse time.
Or he literally could have just doubled the resources
Maybe I’m wrong but all he would need is the Space Stone to teleport and redistribute resources + life. But I guess killing half of all life made more sense.
Or he could’ve just created more planets and teleported the halfs but a bitch is too dumb
He can throw a moon for a fight but teleporting some resources is too much work?
He can change reality but he uses it to fake his death and do a power point presentation?
He has the time stone, in which he could literally go back in time and save his home planet ….not by killing half of them …but by using these new powers?
T Hanos a stupid mf and needs his ass beat asap
Thanos’ plan made way more sense when it was to try and bone a skeleton.
Or he could have made everyone altruistic and doubled the average intelligence, that’d have everybody fixing their own problems.
By the way, Thanos, if you remove half a population the other half either collapses entirely or spirals out of control and then collapses. Congrats! You doomed all of reality to ecological chaos!
If you just wanna kill half the people, just say so.
BettSplendens Tumblr Evac 