Robby Hoffman on gender dysphoria

Explaining what should be obvious but confuses so many people. The bridges and intersections of sex, gender expression and identity have never been neat and tidy.

Well worth the watch...

Characters

Humans can be at once both deeply complex and deceptively simple beings. I am a keen observer of not only others but of my own behaviour. 

Some people seem to be themselves more readily than others with the risk that their frankness spills over into the blunt and distasteful. 

Conversely, some are so steeped in affectation that they give off an inauthentic air. 

After dealing with so many people over the years, I learned to recognize patterns and could sometimes even see hints of the wounded child we all have underneath. 

For example, the person who constantly dabbles in one upmanship gives away that they are insecure and perhaps weren't listened to as a child. 

The hardest thing about my career wasn't the work itself but instead dealing with the cast of characters and their psychologies as well as my own.

  Coffee house which used to be bank in 1910

Monologue

Studies show that 30 to 50% of people have an inner monologue running through their heads while the rest do not. Instead, the remainder use imagery or concepts they can turn to when they need to access higher cognition. 

Once again we are shown about the neurodiversity that exists in people and how each of us processes thoughts and ideas differently. 

I used to think everyone had a running monologue which has led me to think "lucky for those who don't" because I can't seem to shut mine up :)

Me, myself and I

If we all thought more in terms of "I am myself" we would be better off. 

Regretably, most of us measure ourselves through comparison which means we always fall short of some standard. This happens in every area of human affairs we can think of and is universal. 

Comparison is almost inevitable since we are taught, virtually from birth, how to assimilate. We must then spend decades unlearning this programming so we can become fully ourselves. 

Human insecurity is what drives this thirst to measure up; that and the fear of being alone. We want to be accepted for who we are but are also afraid to stray too far from acceptability of the herd.

In other words, we just can't win.

Par for the course

White Christian nationalism is currently the most dangerous movement in America. It is the US version of the Taliban and if given the chance it would set the country back at least a century. 

Every bit of progress made since the US Civil War would be wiped out. 

Eliminating the right of women to vote is only one of the draconian aims of these people who are capitalizing on end of empire woes to gain converts. 

This is yet another clear sign we are headed for a painful end of cycle to the post WW2 era. As usual, with human idiocy at the forefront. 

Every 80 to 100 years we do something astronomically stupid and then start another cycle of relative prosperity which keeps stupid people quiet and distracted for a while. 

As the US empire continues its inevitable decline, strange things will continue to happen and this one is just par for the course.

The fascinating thing about humanity is that the biggest victims for its sins are usually the ones who least deserve to be.

Collective unconcious

Carl Jung describes the collective unconscious as the whole of inherent universal traits that form part of the human experience.

They are so engrained that we cannot explain them. They simply exist during every era and every culture almost as an archetypal baseline. 

It's as if this unconscious forms part of our DNA. 

Our job is then to distinguish between and arrive at some understanding between personal consciousness and this baked-in portion such that we can arrive at life balance.

Enemies

The more we disarm the better. 

Over my life I learned I needed weapons to survive but I am slowly laying them down just enough. I can still possess a bite but I only need just enough for self-protection. 

I see young transgender people almost daily (at least the ones I can detect) with loose and carefree energy which makes complete sense. They've had a less steep hill to climb; something I am extremely glad about. It means that the world has radically changed since I was their age. 

Thus I have slowly realized that advocacy for transgender people need not contain venom I slowly fomented over decades.

I need to drop indignation which just ends up harming only myself. In my deep dive exploration over the years I allowed anger to seep into the process. Yes, I was gaining confidence but at the same time letting some negativity in. 

The world isn't ever going to be completely repairable, but that doesn't mean we should allow our hope or empathy to be affected. 

We can even feel sympathy for people we were certain should be our enemies; especially when we realize they are just as flawed as everyone else if not more.

Progress

Life can often be uncertain and so we tread carefully looking for steady ground where we can find it. Knowing how to proceed isn't always obvious and our choices often unclear. 

However one thing stands out for me in that if we feel we wouldn't go back to a previous stage, we have done the right thing. Even if we aren't perfectly comfortable where we are right now, we are satisfied with the progress made. 

If we can say that about our lives then that iterative process has paid off. 

We may have been a little scared at each step, but we never felt completely stuck because we kept searching for answers and slowly progressed.

Islamic Japan

Idiot...

Time spoken for

The people I know who are not retired operate on a different frequency than mine. Their time is spoken for in advance and many tell me I am fortunate. 

I always say to be careful what they wish for. 

Retirement is not easy if you have been accustomed to action for decades. Suddenly you need to define what your life means outside of all that tumult plus potentially deal with any unresolved personal issues. 

When you get here you permit yourself to be in retrospective mode. You look back on your life and marvel at how you were able to get through all that. 

It's a testament to human perseverance. 

Many people can't wait to get where I am only to realize it's not what they expected. Like everything else, one gets used to it and the novelty eventually wears off. 

Am I aching to return to career? like I need a hole in the head.

However when we stop, meaning and purpose are placed on the table and examined which is why I tell people to think about their change of life in advance.

Ebullient

"How are you darling!" 

She approaches me with a fierce confidence and energy as I stood aimlessly for a moment in the Sephora downtown branch. 

This transgender woman isn't even 30 which helps explain that ebullient attitude. She isn't small as when we are face to face, we are of similar height. 

"Don't mess with my colour" I joke recalling how she helped me find a new shade when their product line had changed. 

"Haha don't you worry" she says as she breezes by me briefly resting a hand on my shoulder.

Then she is off to another customer.