#it really is 2 am when I'm typing this

[iamthezip]

So I have more thoughts! Once again, its a ramble. I'm not editing this cause its 2 am. Enjoy! TW: We're talking about grief due to death of a loved one.

Okay, I have to come back to this. Because I looked at Edwin, Charles, and Crystal dealing with the grief of losing Niko. But then I was thinking about Niko's grief. Because Niko is still grieving when we meet her. She's grieving the death of her father, being sent away by her mother, the loss of all other connection. Niko is as cut off as the others - the boys via their deaths, Crystal via her amnesia. She's no less alone and grieving. Her's is just not from some supernatural involvement. But more than just the idea that Niko is grieving is that the grief we see almost flips the grief we see the others go through as a result of her death. 

Edwin freezes in grief, running into a mountain, but I think he'd eventually process the grief and does come to accept the loss at least a little in the bedroom scene - "she has moved on to her afterlife". On the other hand, Niko does try to move on. And the timeline isn't really clear. When I watched the show, I assumed Niko's trip to the dandelion shrine was AFTER her father's death as I don't imagine she was infected when she was home for his funeral. So my analysis assumes that Niko tried seeking courage, not just to attend the boarding school across the ocean but to grieve and be without her father in her life. Niko tries to move beyond the mountain, but ends up being halted, not by her own choice but by others. We'll come back to that.

For Charles, I looked at the idea of grief taking things that are familiar and making them foreign and the continuance of his habit of hiding behind a smile and placing his needs and wants aside for others. Niko is quite literally thrust into the foreign. She is sent away. For her, there is no familiar after her father's passing. She left the familiar, again not really by her own choice/action, but "the sadness came too". That grief, that loss is the most familiar thing she has when the others meet her. She also doesn't hide it and she doesn't set it aside for anyone. She is open about her loss and her grief, open about her sorrow, and about how it has impacted her. She lives with her grief in the open, even if she doesn't quite process it or address it fully. 

Finally, Niko isolates where Crystal connects. When we meet Niko, she's a shut in and she's refusing to read her mother's letters. She dropped out of school. She doesn't reach out to the only family she has left. She doesn't have an friends. And we know later that she was probably pretty social at school or at least had social connections - she knew Brad and Hunter, she knew the rumors about them, she knows the football chants and cheers and happily sings them, even doing the hand gesture. Niko had connections. She lost them when she withdrew and isolated. Now, this is how some people respond to grief. Maybe the loss is too heavy and they get buried under the mountain. Maybe it's fear of losing others so better to cut ties now. Maybe its not being able to look at anyone without wondering if they're gonna die too. But for Niko, this lack of connection, this withdrawal isn't actually due to her own actions, but the intervention of others. 

And I think this is a huge part of grief that the show helps explore. Niko's first loss of connection is her loss of home and her loss of family - her mother sends her away. Her mother may have meant well. She writes Niko and Niko says that her mother tried to "send her away from the sadness". Though, her mother may have sent her away because she is one of the people that responded to grief by withdrawing and therefore forcing the same response on to Niko. Her second loss is her school and her eventual shut-in status, which results from the Dandelion Sprites. Niko says that she left school because everyone kept staring. And its so easy, when your grieving, to perceive people staring as a result of grief. I definitely felt that - this idea that people looked at me and only saw my grief or talked to me and only heard my grief. People would ask me "how are you" always with this tone of assumption, this weird sympathy, borderline pity thing. Like I was glass or needed to be handled with kids gloves. And if I said I was fine or doing okay, they'd get this look on their face like "awe, look at her being brave". And yeah, part of my perception was colored by some initial interactions. Most likely, only some people made that face or had that tone, but I got to seeing it and hearing it in almost every interaction. And I hated it. I wanted for my grief to be left alone. Now imagine that except people won't stop looking. The Dandelion Sprites made people look at Niko, not in pity. Not even at her grief, but at her. Except, she couldn't tell that. All she knew was that her father died and she went to school and everyone kept staring at her - staring at the girl who lost her father, staring at the girl who's mother sent her away, staring and staring and staring. So she fled. That progress she was making with her courage to climb that mountain grief threw at her - the progress came to a shuddering halt and she cut her connections and she isolated. 

But Niko's journey with grief doesn't end there. Because there's a third intervention - the Agency. And not just in regards to the Sprites. They do resolve that for her, which removes that driving force of her isolation. But they also offer connection and support. Niko eventually reads her mother's letter and sends her own because of seeing how much Crystal misses her own mother and wishes for that connection. Niko talks to the others about her loss and her grief on more than one occasion, not just a single one off of "this happened" and nothing else. She even has a bit of "wait, can this new supernatural world help me and bring my father back" but she accepts the answer of "no, you wouldn't want him back that way." Niko doesn't just form connections with the Agency, but due to the Agency's support, she reforms connections with others - her mother, Jenny, the wider community. She even finds new purpose in helping the Agency solve cases and helps the others process their emotions, especially Edwin. She starts moving past that mountain grief created. And its through the support of others.

This is how we compare the grief journey's we see. Niko didn't have anyone. She didn't receive support from her mother. She didn't receive it from her friends or school (again, supernatural involvement, but this mirrors common real world scenarios with grief). People don't always know how to handle someone grieving. They worry about saying or doing he wrong thing, so they do nothing or they do end up doing the wrong thing. We don't often teach how to handle grief - our own grief, let alone the grief of others. So its hard. And for Niko, this inability of others to support her in her grief led to her isolating and being buried under a mountain. And the later support from Crystal and Edwin and Charles helped her move forward and form connections again. And this support is something we see immediately with the others - especially Crystal. She tentatively asks to join the Agency in that scene in Niko's room. Edwin could hold his usual line of "we don't need Crystal" but he doesn't. He accepts her. Charles does to. They are there for each other from the beginning of their journey through grief. They have what Niko didn't.

Dead Boy Detectives - Grief

Spoilers ahead for in series character death.

I received this NGL

I have a lot of thoughts about grief and Dead Boy Detectives. The show touches on grief a bit and there were some things in the show that immediately connected with my own experience with grief. So this question and answer was a bit of an emotional exploration for me. In my usual manner, I ended up with quite the ramble. Firstly, trigger warnings for mention of terminal illness and parental death.

I think Edwin, Charles, and Crystal, in the very small glimpse that we see, show three different aspects of grief and grieving. I'd be fascinated to see how each react long-term, but all we have so far is the scene in Esther's house and the next in Niko's room. 

Grief is a difficult thing to predict. Edwin and Charles have a rather close relationship with lower-case "d" death - they have both lived through their own deaths, spend their afterlife constantly helping others deal with their death in a way, and have capital "D" Death hanging over them at all times, in the form of fleeing from her. Death isn't new to them, and I don't think grief really is either. They both have probably grieved their own deaths. Charles grieves the life he can't live. Edwin probably grieves not just his death but his time away - he didn't get to say goodbye, he didn't get to see what happened to his family. He didn't just die - he had his world ripped away. And we don't what's better - Edwin who suddenly is in a world not his own or Charles who has watched his slowly change and fade away and move on without him. But these are both losses that a person may grieve.

Edwin, with Niko, there is the added layer of connection. Edwin seems pretty determined not to form connections, by choice or false belief in his own inability to do so. He calls the living messy, even saying he'd welcome Crystal if she had died. He also seems aghast at the idea of having a living client in Becky Aspen. Charles is pretty open to befriending Crystal and Niko, so I think he's probably had a few living friends over the years. Meaning, he's probably lost some living friends over the years, either by death or them moving on from the perpetual-16-year-old.

Anyway, drawing it back to the moment of Niko's death and grief in that moment. I feel like grief hits you no matter how prepared you are, no matter how used to death you are. Because grief means you loved something or loved the hope of something or...its loss. Even if its loss you are used to or are prepared for. I see a lot of my own grief in Edwin and Charles.

To explain a little, I grew up with a mother with a terminal illness. She was given year to live when I was born and made it 28 years. She was fucking stubborn. Me and a couple of my siblings have had near death experiences. One of us even being declared clinically dead for a bit. And my father was a soldier, regularly deployed to war zones. Us kids were very aware of the fact that each goodbye when he deployed could be the last. So I grew up with death as a constant potential. It was always there, lurking nearby. And people used to tell me that at least, when someone I cared about passed away, I'd be used to the thought of it.

I wasn't. I don't think you can be, because you don't know the form that loss will take. What things in your day-to-day life it will color and which ones you won't.

I got used to the idea of death much the same way I think the boys have. But I wasn't ready when my mom passed away. And I don't think Edwin was when Niko passed away. That initial loss is like a mountain that's just dropped in front of you, that seems so insurmountable and also makes it impossible to see what's beyond, what life looks like afterwards. In the scene when Edwin, Crystal, and Charles are around Niko's body, it's Charles that grabs the other two, Charles that says they need to leave. This is the first time that is NOT Edwin inciting the flee from Death. Charles's death, the WW1 ghost, the Devlin house, the two Dragons. Each time, Edwin is the one that reminds Charles of the urgency to leave. Edwin initiate it. With Niko, Edwin can't. He's frozen. Not physically, but emotionally. He can't leave Niko. Until Charles makes him. I think this is a perfect example of the effect and weight of grief. Edwin has spent 30+ years running. He is constantly aware of the need to flee Death, the risk to himself and Charles if he doesn't, if he stops for even just a moment. But here, the grief over Niko overrides that decades built survival instinct. Edwin doesn't move. Edwin let himself befriend someone who could die, and even though he knew that people die and is so intimately familiar with death, that actual loss hits and it hits hard. On top of this, we know that Edwin doesn't always process his emotions. He has multiple comments about things being "too much emotion for one day" and again "messy" - grief is TOO MUCH emotion and is way messy. Edwin has started to explore his emotions and feelings, with his love for Charles, but I don't know if he ever actually fully explored grief. And I think he will this time. I think because it's Niko he will. Because Niko helped him explore love and open up and encouraged him in that journey, I think he'd feel he'd owe it to her to explore his grief properly. Do I think he'd do it immediately? Do I think he'd do it openly or well? No. But I think he will, eventually.

Grief also has a way of turning the familiar foreign. Charles and Edwin have been in each others space for 30+ years, and they have their roles. Its established immediately - "He's the brain. I'm the brawn." But its established in other ways, Charles being the smiley ones who charms the clients while Edwin is the fact-gatherer. Edwin again keeps them from Death's reach while Charles acts as the protector. Them moving around each other is familiar. Charles taking care of Edwin is familiar. Charles having to pull Edwin from death is foreign. Charles having to watch his friend lose someone is probably also foreign. When my mother passed away, my brother handled most things - funeral arrangements, phone calls to family and friends, reservations, flowers, everything. I supported him, keeping track of the to do list and making sure he stopped for food and water. My brother being the leader was familiar. Me being his second-in-command was familiar. Him thanking me for making sure he ate food was foreign. Him having to take 10 minutes outside the flower shop before he could drive was foreign. He was always the strong one, the one that couldn't be stopped. And while I was always his second, we never gave that words. We never talked about it. We just did it. And suddenly, these familiar things were foreign. I think this is Charles in that moment in Esther's house, and I think it'll be him moving forward. Charles takes the role that Edwin drops. Its an extension of his normal role, protector, but its still something that is solidly Edwin's job in their partnership. As for long term, Charles hides his emotions behind a smile. And yeah, him and Edwin had a moment in ep 5 about it and Crystal has called him out on it, but Charles hasn't changed in that regard. He hides his negative emotions behind a smile and he sets his own needs aside for others. I don't think grief is new to Charles. Imagine the dozen little griefs he experienced when he was alive - the grief of not having a loving father (he saw it with other kids), the grief of not having a mother who would protect him, the grief of not having any adult step in, the grief of his friends' betrayal. Charles was as used to sorrow as he was to rage and just as used to hiding it behind a smile. I think he does this here as well. I think he'll put his own grief aside, slap on a smile, and do everything he can to care for Edwin and Crystal. I think Charles will lean into the familiarity Edwin and even Crystal offer, definitely dive into solving cases - "all I need is my best mate and a case to solve".

Crystal for me is a third aspect of response to grief - connection. Some people, in grief, withdraw and isolate. When my mother passed, my family became closer. I definitely ignored some relationships, tangential friendships, but I clung closer to family. Crystal I think goes this route. This feels right to me given lack of connection and new connection is such a huge part of her storyline and arc. Crystal is ready to leave, reluctantly, but ready at the beginning of ep 8. She doesn't want to hurt Niko or the boys by staying and potentially being who she used to be, but she also wants to rebuild those connections she lost with her amnesia and with her past behavior. She's seeking connection, and she's seeking it, I think, where she feels she's meant to - her family, her parents. But her parents are the connection she needs, nor the one I think she reaches for after Niko dies. I think she'll still probably try to reconnect with them. After all, she helped convince Niko to reach out to hers and there is that drive there - Niko can't ever talk to her mother again. Edwin's family is gone. Charles can only watch his family in a mirror. Crystal is the ONLY one who can still see her family, so I think she does. But I think, with the grief of Niko, Crystal is also driven back to the boys. At the end of ep 8, Crystal doesn't try to leave again, instead, in Niko's room, she asks "what about us?". Charles offers her the out, bringing up what she previously said about returning to London alone, and Crystal rebuffs the offer, asking to be part of the Agency, to remain with the boys. There are probably multiple things that factor into this, especially considering Crystal very evidently didn't want to leave before but seemed to be doing so out of feeling like she could hurt them. Crystal seeks out connection here, holding on to the familiar bonds she's started to form, and strengthening them by asking to stay and asking to be a part of them. She admits how good they've been for her and her desire to keep that. 

For the second part of this question - how'd they get to Niko's room. I'm assuming this isn't like "practically how'd they get there." Like, did the police show up. Was there an investigation into the explosion at the butcher shop and now a dead teenager also so soon after a missing child and an attempted murder turned accidental death? I assume we mean, "how'd they get to the point of standing in Niko's room and planning what comes next." And really, it makes sense to me and seems like the perfect follow-up to the previous scene. Grief and loss change a lot, but the shocking amount of things that stay business as normal is... a lot. Like I mentioned earlier, some people process by handling logistics and just making sure to get from a to b to c accordingly and keep everything moving and on track. Some people use future plans to help them move forward, to believe there's something beyond the grief and see past that mountain. Charles takes care of the others. Crystal clings to connection. Edwin sets his emotions aside until he can process them. So they move on, in little ways, in that moment - what do they (and Jenny) need to do for Niko. What's next for them. The agency is still running. Crystal still needs to go "home". They are still "alive" and business continues as normal even when its so clearly not. When I went through multiple death in a row, people seemed so confused that I was still going to work, still hanging out with friends, still going about my day. I was shocked too, at times, how a day would go by like nothing had changed. This scene sort of shows that for me - the idea that things keep moving. And we move with them. Hope this made some sort of sense.

[gameringgungke]

edit 2: leak is FAKE everyone, go home

so of course i'm keeping up with the pokemon leaks and

I KNEW IT

I FUCKING KNEW IT

I SAID THE KANTO FAVORITISM STARTED BECAUSE OF BW'S BACKLASH AND WAS GOING TO MAJORLY STAGNANTETHE SERIES FOR YEARS AND NOBODY BELIEVED ME

update 113 notes later: might be fake, idk

[icewindandboringhorror]

What would you choose? :0c

(note: original image is from HERE (link) - but I edited it to add a wider variety of options.. also added $3 extra to the total, even though I know that makes it more uneven lol, I thought if you're adding 10 whole extra items, the money to spend should at least be increased slightly, if that makes sense..)

[nguyenfinity]

She’d stay with them while visiting I think

Bonus:

[sublux]

i'm so mad i don't have private insurance through an employer so i could get any kind of therapy or medication or anything. tags are a rambling rant

[daz4i]

i feel like. a lot of people talking about horror miss the true horror factor in many stories and esp in body horror. the horrifying part is what's happening to the characters, yes, but when you sit down and think about it... the implications, if that's the right word, are scarier

take smth like a werewolf transformation. it has to be painful, even if you get used to it eventually, the unnatural changes to your body have got to hurt, and you don't recognize yourself by the end of it

the horror isn't the mere transformation, but the physical pain, and the psychological aspect

now take stories like i have no mouth and i must scream, or long dream, or the jaunt. yes, they all have their own horrifying aspects, but also elements that others might not consider horrifying - in particular, a long life, or even immortality. some people truly strive for that. yet, here they are presented as horrifying. and i think that's for the same reason

i think. the true horror in most horror media. isn't the monster itself or the killer or the machine etc. it's consciousness

think about it. why does a slow death sound horrifying? it's your awareness of the pain you're going through, as well as the knowledge that you're about to cease to exist. the actual death is normally considered a mercy in these situations, because your suffering stops. your suffering stops once your consciousness stops.

and! this idea is true about both in-universe and on a meta level. a lot of horror relies on keeping things juuuust out of sight to get your mind going and scare itself better than any sfx or verbal descriptions ever could. your own brain working against you, the same way it works against the characters in the story.

the common thread between any horror that i, at least, find scary, is the human brain itself

and it's scarier, bc this is real. this is smth you experience every day. you wake up and think thoughts and are generally aware of what's going on for most of the day, for better or worse. this same level of awareness can be applied to the most horrific situations, and so, bam you've got yourself quality horror. and you're always just one accident or one mistake away from it, too. you just try not to think about it, because, well, your own brain is scarier than any monster it can conjure.

[heartbeetz]

did you see that tony grayson posted a video of somebody dressed up as anton riding a mechanical bull on twitter. incredible things are happening in the world around us every day

Woah........

[immortalsins]

everything is falling apart but i'm kept alive rn by the thought of getting to organise jewellery tonight

[heartshattering]

Stomach pain hours 🙃

[ourceliumnetwork]

tomorrow pakige

[sugaroto]

Well. Long story short uni-friend said she doesn't support the lgbtq community and I felt really awkward

"Δεν το υποστηρίζω, μακριά από εμένα. Είναι έναντια στην θρησκεία" I don't support it, should be far away from me. It's against religion

And dude??? Like I know a bunch of religious people... the only thing they hate about the gays is that they can't marry that hot 40 years older than them actor from Hollywood cause he's married to a man (or at least that was the mindset when they were 12)

And most of my friends are kind of atheists

It just came of as a surprise?? Cause a lot of people we've talked to are gay and any time they mentioned stuff like "I want a masc woman" she said stuff like "oh I don't know what that means... I don't know much about lgbt" and we were like "haha we're teaching you now" and laughed about it

I mean I thought it was bc "there were no lgbtq people in her village" but I didn't thought she was actually homophobic?

She didn't say it in a mean way? She is very very shy and her boyfriend is studying to be a priest and she is looking forward to becoming a Presbytera (I just found out there's no English word for it jeez) And like... idk good for her I'm used to the παπαδιά being my grandma but you do you

And anyways she was like "I don't support it" and all and I was kind of like "Well I'm a part of it, I thought you knew"

Like literally another girl made fun of my past hair color choices by saying "she wanted to let us all know that she's gay so she did all the rainbow in her hair" and she was sitting with us? I thought she heard it, I thought she knew

Honestly when [friend] called me gay bc of my hair for a few seconds I kind of froze bc there was another girl there to whom I haven't said I'm gay and it felt like outing me, but fuck it I'm out I don't care I don't need to announce it to anyone, the rest of the girls know cause they literally asked me

And anyways yeah I felt really awkward when religious friend said that, she started apologizing when I told her I'm also gay and that she didn't mean it like that but dude-

How have you befriended so many queer girls and don't support it

You're like the 2nd/3rd? Straight person here? The rest are on the community you don't like and want to stay away from you

[umilily]

i'm back. (and i didn't commit murder, but it was close.)

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent images I suppose ~

[parakeetpark]

I've always stocked up on tissues, because I am King Allergic Reaction and also whenever I'm ill my nose is not like a leaky faucet- it is like a very functional water fountain. A snot fountain.

One year i bought a 12 pack of tissue boxes because value for money, and housemates were astonished and laughed how i couldn't need all those boxes! How wrong they were. Alone i made it through 9 boxes before moving house a year later. Point being that i am so very thankful that I've continued this tradition bc I'm so ill I'm shaking and weak so definitely couldn't leave the house. I am well stocked on tins of soup, and lemon honey and have flu tablets. So even though I'm alone today I should be fine.

[roboticchibitan]

Sometimes you have to be yourself on purpose. What I mean by this is that sometimes we lose touch with ourselves and start coasting and just going through the motions. Which is fine for a while because we get tired and/or depressed and that's fine. Happens to everyone. But eventually it starts to feel bad and you get a specific kind of brainweird that's hard to describe but means that you've lost sight of who you are, what your values are, and what you love.

Leaning really hard into something that makes you go "this is the most me thing ever" helps that specific type of brainweird quite a bit! But maybe you don't know what the most you thing ever is. You are not alone! I get depressed and forget every interest I have. 100% understand that.

When this happens, it helps to remind yourself what you like and enjoy. So what do you do? Well for me, it helps to think about 1. Things I used to enjoy and 2. Things my friends Know Me For.

Like I've been feeling not myself lately and I haven't really knit or created much this month at all. But I'm the Makes Things Guy. I like making things and many of my friends not only know me as someone who makes things but a lot of my friendships specifically come from communities of People Who Make Things.

So I forced myself to pick up an old project, and that helped a bit. But what really helped was coming up with a project that combined my interests (leather jackets, art, and teapots) for me to look forward to and get really into planning for! The most ME I've felt in weeks has been the last hour I've spent planning on painting a famous fine China design on the back of my leather trenchcoat. Because not ONLY am I the Makes Things Guy, I am also The Teapot Guy. I finally feel like myself again.

I wish I had more concrete advice in regards to how you remember your own interests when you get disconnected from them, but a solid place to start is things you used to like and things your friends know you like. If you struggle consider asking a friend what things they know you like. Sometimes friends can see us better than we can see ourselves and it helps to use them as a mirror to see yourself through.

[catboybiologist]

“As a biologist, the terms biological woman and man don’t make any sense to me” okay then you’re an idiot and a terrible biologist. I swear to god, morons like you only become biologists just so you can hold it over others, when in reality, if biology deniers like you can become biologists, then being one really doesn’t mean much anyway. But this probably just gave an autogynophile like you a boner to read, anyway.

Oh fun! Haven't gotten one of these in a while. Disregarding the fact that you somehow think the qualification for being a biologist entirely hinges on defining womanhood, I do need to ask some clarification. I know I'm feeding the trolls here, but here we go: does your definition of "biological woman" mean:

Sociological woman? Eh, context dependent, I'm not fully out of the closet, but oftentimes, I am and present femme. So let's call that one 50/50.

Psychological woman? Because I am one.

Neurological woman? Because I am one [1].

Physical woman? My soft tissue redistribution is handling that well.

Hormonal woman? My blood tests are within cis female ranges.

Transcriptional woman? As a signalling molecule, the downstream effects of estrogen have broad transcriptional effects, completely changing the profile of gene expression and functional genomics of my cells. [2]

Genetic woman? I mean, see my above point- as far as my genes that are actually active, I have all of the same transcripts being produced, controlling which genes are expressed.

Karyotypic woman? I actually have a few signs pre-HRT that might point to a non-XY chromosome pair, but I haven't had a karyotype. We'll put that down as unknown. And hell, even if its XY, there's plenty of cis women who are karyotypically XY, with suppressed sry or complete androgen insensitivity. Interestingly enough, a completely androgen insesitive woman can go her whole life without knowing- and functionally, is very similar to a trans woman, actually. Fancy that. [3]

Reproductive woman? I can't produce an egg cell, but neither can significant fractions of cis women. Also, this is all gonna change soon, which is fun. [4]

There's also a lot of understudied aspects to the biology of HRT and even pre-HRT that are emerging, largely demonstrating widespread cellular and genetic remodeling of trans individuals undergoing hormone therapy. The field is a bit behind due to constant political pressure to revoke funding, but a lot of the results are extremely exciting in both testosterone and estrogen hormone therapies. I'm sure that, as a self professed biology As someone who presumably has a lot of expertise in biology, I'm assuming that you're aware of all of this cutting edge research, and are keeping up with modern papers, including but not limited to these cool findings:

Trans men on HRT exhibit significant genetic and transcriptional changes that make them biochemically male. [5][6]. It's a good hypothesis that the same happens with estrogen treatment, but those studies don't exist yet- I'm sure you're reserving judgment until more publications exist, of course.

Trans men on HRT develop male cell types and tissues. [7]

Trans women experience muscular and blood cell changes that align with cis women moreso than cis men [8]

And many, many more! This is an exciting, underserved, and groundbreaking field of research, and I'm sure you're keeping up with the latest in scientific journals about it.

I'm sure, of course, that you understand that it becomes impossible to draw a distinct line anywhere in here, and that words like "woman" are shorthand for the myriad of traits that invisibly synthesize in our mind and in society to represent a concept? I'm sure you understand that science is fundamentally descriptive, not prescriptive? I'm sure that you understand that these findings, while really cool and interesting, actually don't mean jack shit about what the word "woman" means or not?

As someone who is the ultimate decider in what a biologist is, I'm sure you know that bioessentiallism is a childish mindset that completely ignores and disregards the constantly changing, dynamic nature of biological systems, something that extends well beyond biological sex and its relation to gender.

I'm sure that also, that you understand that beyond just this, that the role of science in society is to advise how to achieve our moral principles, not create moral principles in themselves. And I'm sure that understanding means you know that trans affirming healthcare and supportive societal treatment leads to reduced mortality and increased happiness for everyone, right?

So great to talk to someone who is surely a scientist on this. You are a biologist, if you're talking like this, I assume? I assume you're not going to spit complete misreadings of scientific language from the background sections of these papers that only reveal you've never read a scientific paper in your life if you're thinking this way? I assume you have experience interpreting data like this?

Also, imagining my genitalia while writing this? Ew. Please stop projecting your fetishes into my inbox.

Works cited:

Kurth F, Gaser C, Sánchez FJ, Luders E. Brain Sex in Transgender Women Is Shifted towards Gender Identity. J Clin Med. 2022 Mar 13;11(6):1582. doi: 10.3390/jcm11061582. PMID: 35329908; PMCID: PMC8955456.

Fuentes N, Silveyra P. Estrogen receptor signaling mechanisms. Adv Protein Chem Struct Biol. 2019;116:135-170. doi: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2019.01.001. Epub 2019 Feb 4. PMID: 31036290; PMCID: PMC6533072.

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