<
https://freedium.cfd/https://medium.com/counterarts/princess-as-gender-allegory-in-dealing-with-dragons-b8a453a41e9a>
"
Dealing With Dragons is a cozy middle grade fantasy novel from 1990. When I
read Princess Cimorene's cozy adventure as a ten-year-old, I felt understood
for the first time. But it's so much more than just a cozy. In
Dealing With
Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede discusses the right of children assigned female at
birth to define their gender for themselves. Wrede never uses the words
"agender" or "gender dysphoria," but she describes the struggles of children
raised to be female but internally questioning with tender and sympathetic
accuracy.
Wrede discusses "femaleness" through the use of princesses. The "princesses" in
Dealing With Dragons stand in for the idealized female identity in Western
countries, particularly America, because Patricia C. Wrede is American. This
makes sense, as by 1990 the Disneyfication of the princess was already part of
pop culture.
While I don't think Wrede necessarily intends for Cimorene to be interpreted as
agender, her characterization has a lot in common with my agender experiences.
Not knowing why the label of being a "girl" kept sliding off of me like
frosting on a hot cupcake was really tough for me as a child. In a time of
great distress, and on the cusp of the frightening force of chaos that is
puberty,
Dealing With Dragons provided psychological comfort at an important
time in my life."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
