Calculations

Transgender people have a series of calculations to make. They need to assess how every step they take forward will impact them adversely; how much of the life they lived before gets incorporated or left behind. 

It's not for the faint of heart especially if you are older. 

By far the most important aspect is their own psychology which must be able to withstand potential rejection from others. They must be able to sustain themselves outside the idea that everything will fall into place perfectly which never does in life. 

One thing I realized very concretely is that the worse case scenario you imagine doesn't happen. At the same time, assuming the ideal will occur will be equally far fetched. The truth will be somewhere in between and lean towards more positive than you had assumed. 

Also, some sort of compromise will be the order of the day if we don't entirely want to destroy everything we have built to this point. 

If fear is our main road block we will remain stuck because moving forward into the unknown always involves some level of risk. Hence, we determine whether the regret of not acting becomes more powerful than the dread of moving forward. 

We take baby steps and see how our psychology responds. It's an iterative process. 

We then ask: "Is this what you imagined living authentically would be like and are things now better or worse?"

Categories

We humans love to categorize and label. We look for patterns and sources of commonality so we can apply a name and if we're lucky predictable behaviour. 

It's a bit easier in the animal kingdom but with human beings the archetypes often defy being pegged down. Nevertheless we keep trying so we can feel comfortable in what we think we understand. 

It makes us feel somehow safer. 

The longer I live the more exceptions I find to everything. Yes, there are common threads to humanity but the anomalies abound. We are particular and peculiar which stems from the many variables contained within our brains. 

Thankfully this messiness can be a source of comfort once we reach the Sophia stage of life (in the idiom of Carl Jung). We find solace in our originality and disregard opinion in a way we never have before. We don't seek approval, we don't respond to emotional blackmail and we stop people pleasing because our image of self is fed through internal means. 

We defy categorization.

Distraction

As the US economy continues its self-inflicted downward spiral, Canada has been trying to diversify by increasing its exports to other countries. 

Prime Minister Carney has been quietly, calmly and maturely distancing himself from an incompetent and criminal regime south of the border because we Canadians have no choice. 

The affordability crisis is hitting everyone and nowhere is it more evident than in the US where the combined effect of incomprehensible tariffs, cuts to health care, fuel, grocery and housing costs are crippling the average family. There is little to no safety net to count on. 

Meanwhile Mexico is introducing nationalized medicine for its citizens which is only going to make their northern neighbors look bad by comparison. 

The sins of free market capitalism plus the open corruption are accelerating the demise of an American empire which was already in trouble. The rest of us are getting hit with the shrapnel which is unavoidable. 

Costs for basic goods are only going to increase as the domino effect hits the global supply chain. People already struggling will fall further into despair thanks to a war of choice which ultimately served no purpose other than to deflect from other scandals.

Electing imbeciles to run your country has consequences.

Could've, should've

When the mind doesn't have enough outside distraction it looks for gaps. It looks for could've and should've instead of focusing on what we have. 

This is very human. 

We can get lost in lament sometimes especially as we age because not everything in life worked according to plan. Some hopes and dreams were dashed without knowing whether they would have worked out in the end. 

Life is meant to challenge us and many things don't last. Friendships and marriages sometimes dissolve and we later realize that they brought us value in learning something about ourselves. 

They forced us to face preconceived ideas about who we thought we were or were supposed to be.

Gullible

Why people are gullible doesn’t just have one simple explanation but I believe the answer rests mostly on the idea that many of them want black and white solutions. They want to be led by someone else and told what to do. 

Religious cults wouldn't exist otherwise. 

In the US the Trump base would jump off the nearest cliff if told to by their leader which is frustrating for many of us. They will repeatedly vote against their own intetests because a simple message full of empty promises sounds better to them than reality. 

Democracy is naturally messy as is life and not everyone gets what they want. However, when it works the most people possible gain benefits from its structure. In other words, there is some form of collective winning however imperfect. This means no one gets everything they want but at least most of the basics are covered through some shared discomfort. 

Gullible people very much like simplicity which is why Trumpism was so appealing to them. They heard the grocery list of promises without reflecting on whether all of it was even possible. 

These are grown adults we are talking about. 

It is hard to feel sorry for MAGA voters once they wake from their stupor only after having been personally affected because you just know that they would do it all again in a heartbeat when the next used car salesman comes along.

Argument

Type "the case for transmedicalism" into ChatGPT and you will get a brief synopsis of the argument for gender dysphoria as innate birth condition.

The problem is that, even if technically true, it has sometimes been used as a bludgeon against others. 

My view has always been that gender dysphoria is graded and as it ramps up, choice tends to be removed from a person if they want to lead a peaceful existence. They feel that something must be done to reduce or outright eliminate the dysphoria.

However, gender variance casts a wide net and our best strategy would be to let other people be. In other words, those who don't feel dysphoria but simply want to regale in the best aspects of euphoria should be allowed to without prejudice. 

The problem of course is that gender contains a heavy dose of politics both within and outside the sphere of gender variance. Within the sphere, older people who have struggled and ultimately transitioned in the past haven't always been amused by being associated or compared to those content to adopt a more playful approach to gender expression.

Ultimately it isn't our business what someone else does provided our own house is in order and thankfully today's youth feel less compelled to carry the grudges of their elders. I believe this is in large part for having been spared the much heavier stigma of older people.

Good on them because it shows how far we've come.

We're plastic

Neuroplasticity is the brain's capacity to rewire itself over time as response to lived experience, trauma or injury. It continues to function for as long as we're alive and permits us to restructure our thinking in ways that benefit us. 

In other words, we aren't stuck if we don't want to be but repair can take a long time depending on our situation. 

I remember someone who entered a religious sect at 17 only to finally leave it near age 60. He abandoned religion altogether after the long journey of realization and self discovery. His initial fervor had been whittled away to nothing. 

All of us begin life with some level of indoctrination which must then be assessed and weighed. We must determine how much of it served us and how much turned out to be detrimental and antithetical to our essential natures.

What is my motivation?

I've written many times about motivation but perhaps wasn't very explicit. Motivation is important because without some understanding of what drives us we cannot decide on whether an outcome is beneficial. 

A simple example would be that I have a pain in my foot which then motivates me to go to the doctor. My motivation is to eliminate the pain. Another one would be that I am motivated to exercise because it makes me feel good plus it keeps me healthy. I am depressed and I need to see a therapist is yet another example of motivation. 

In all cases we are moving towards improving life quality. 

Motivation involving more complex psychological drivers can be harder to understand. One can be motivated to gamble without intrinsically understanding what lies beneath the compulsion. Is it the thrill of risk, the potential promise of a payoff? 

We humans behave in ways that aren't always steeped in self comprehension which is why sometimes our behaviour can be self destructive. The woman who is beaten by her husband and keeps going back may think she somehow deserves it because she is not worthy of love. 

She has internalized low sense of self worth. 

Motivation for any complex life decision or action requires analysis which considers risk and benefit. Otherwise we aren't taking into account potential negative outcomes we may not be willing to live with. 

We ask ourselves "is my motivation to do something going to lead to a more positive and healthy version of me or am I helping someone else to improve their life?"

Toolkit

My son gets it. He is intelligent, inquisitive and thoughtful and things I have to explain to other people with more effort flows like water with him. 

He just turned 26 and has that same uncertainty we all do at that age. This era only adding more angst than when I was the same age. 

What I love about GenZ is that they don't care what you do or who you are. They want to know if you are reliable and a nice person. They have much less tendency to come pre-wired with the judgement criteria that we were filled with growing up. 

They weren't subjected to the life is hard and mean warnings which our silent generation parents felt compelled to cram into our brains. They prepared us to deal with the cruel and stupid people which are always plentiful in the world. 

But as society slowly immersed itself into more malleable terrain, the generation of my children saw that there was no danger in diversity of ideas or identities. They learned to fear less which is why less thoughtful boomers sometimes see them as lazy or disinterested. 

They aren't. 

Additionally they have a much harder economic ladder to climb with much less opportunity than we had. 

People don't fundamentally change but circumstances do which is why the best toolkit we can possess is critical thinking bolstered by kindness, discipline and self-respect.

He has them all.

Their problem

How others perceive us is of little importance compared to how we perceive ourselves. If self esteem and self respect depended on public opinion we would be in trouble. 

Most of us wear some sort of mask to get by in the world except that with age it should become thinner as we are increasingly rooted in authenticity. We begin to care much more about respecting our autonomy and preserving our well being than following societal whims. 

How others view this detachment is entirely their problem and not ours. 

Finding this sense of liberation comes at the expense of opinions that are irrelevant; from people who don't know us very well and certainly don't live in our skin. We disregard them while remaining polite and cordial. 

We simply have stopped dancing to the same music that they do.

People like her

He was looking for people to talk to on the metro platform and you knew he wasn't all connected. He stopped in front of me as I sat there and began spouting gibberish and some sexual innuendo. 

I don't know if he knew I was transgender which isn't really relevant anyway. This could have happened to anyone.

I didn't pay him much mind and then the metro came. Suddenly the young black woman who had been sitting closeby ushered me into the car with her. She was beautiful and bold and lamented "no one says anything" 

She told me she was 47 and worked in social work where she could help others. Meanwhile our friend sat at the far end of the car spouting drivel at both of us. 

"Do you feel safe?" She asked and I said yes adding I have enough rage left over in me to do some damage if need be. I am still working on decanting it. 

We both got off at the same stop and told her it was people like her who give me hope. 

I have been riding the metro everyday for years without incident but acknowledge that there is an increasing number of people who are not mentally well and they are lost. 

People like this young woman make me realize how much goodness is out there.