The reason that transitions can sometimes feel dissatisfying is because life in general can feel that way.
We hit speed bumps constantly and may think that treating our dysphoria was going to solve everything else.
Far from it.
Living authentically doesn't fix everything in your life. It just helps you with an unresolved and important piece which was left unattended.
Ben Sasse is a former republican senator who at age 54 is dying of pancreatic cancer. It started in the pancreas but has spread to his entire body and is now at stage 4. He is receiving hospice type care with possibly not more than a few months to live.
I watched an interview with him lately conducted by The New York Times and what struck me was his demeanor and composure. This man had come to terms with his mortality in an impressive way.
There was undeniable peace and acceptance there which cannot be faked.
Sasse had been a moderate who had faced attack from both sides of the aisle. No doubt this makes him even more impressive since it shows conviction carries more weight with him than partisan allegiance.
Unsurprisingly he wasn't MAGA.
He sat there answering questions with sometimes self-effacing humor; the bloodied blotches on his face the result of the harsh medication he takes to reduce the size of his tumors.
We are offered grace and dignity in our most challenging life moments and if we choose to accept it, it can radiate from our very pores; bloodied or otherwise.
Empires crumble largely by their own hand. They overextend themselves with a hubris fed from the fumes of their own self-satisfaction; their own exceptionalism.
The American right wing placed its bets on a man who would help them end wokeism and return the country to some mythical Valhalla where segregated drinking fountains were the order of the day.
It was a massive miscalculation.
The Trump crime family will be looting the treasury on their way out the door and even likely avoid prosecution for their crimes. In their wake will be left millions of disenfranchised Americans whose lives will have been made much worse in the process.
For much of the rest of the world America is now a pariah nation full of stupid people which is difficult to argue with. 77 million voted for a malevolent moron and almost 90 million couldn't be bothered to vote at all.
George Carlin used to joke about thinking of the stupidest person you know and then realize that half of humanity is even stupider than that.
I earnestly wish he had been completely wrong.
The overturning of the Civil rights voting act of 1965 which was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson is a victory for the extreme right.
The proof is that any minority voting districts in the south will immediately be redrawn. Such is the level of giddiness in the deep red parts of the US.
The 6 to 3 decision led by the extremists on the supreme court is another massive blow that Trumpism and project 2025 will have dealt to a country already deeply in trouble and deeply divided.
The impact on the November elections could be significant and yet at the same time public frustration boils as the affordability crisis continues to take victims.
White rage over having lost political power over decades, will only make things worse than they already are.
Trans rage is real and it can be fed through many sources of frustration.
First there is gender dysphoria itself, then social and family rejection, followed closely by discrimination and violence and health care inadequacy.
Internalized transphobia then adds another layer which can lead some people to the tipping point of suicidality.
Recently I watched a documentary on Tubi about the drag performers of the mid 20th century. Teri Noel who medically transitioned long ago was seen being interviewed and when the topic of her decision came up her expression became emotional, a bit sullen and more pensive.
She had ended up married to a man who never knew her past but you could tell her life had been far from easy despite blending in perfectly as a woman.
Those pre-transition glory shots of hers as Terry Noel clad in feathers and boas concealed an internal struggle. Yes, she eventually ended up living largely in stealth but it still occupied a very big chunk of her psychology to make it all work.
Not even close to being easy but then whose life is?
Conservatives think in simple binary terms.
There is black and white, good and evil and the greys between them are willed into non-existence to facilitate their world view.
I can use conjecture by saying that keeping things clean and neat clears their palette of ambiguity. It eliminates the possible guilt of having labeled something incorrectly. The lack of nuance makes it easier to dismiss and discriminate.
No need to complicate further.
Loving another person takes moral courage because long after the pheromones have worn off what we are left with is an imperfect soul struggling through life as much as you are.
After the honeymoon is over, the challenge of what love truly means is left behind like a mission begging us to complete it.
I understand all too well today that the perfect person for us doesn't exist but the one we end up with and keep should be someone we admire; someone who makes us want to be a better person
In that sense, a marriage is less about the fairy tale of movies and more about the daily work of supporting each other through the invariable realities of life.
In other words, our higher values should be aligned never mind the small divergences in habits which can over time cause us increased irritation.
Real love is hard.
By the late 19th century we had created a bourgeoisie portrait of something which for the longest time had been a contract sometimes even by expected obligation: a coupling in which each partner gave up a piece of themselves to support the other.
That idyllic portrait didn't even work for the rich despite what Jane Austen and Lord Byron so eloquently tried to sell us.
I made the mistake of working-in a new pair of pumps last week by walking too far in them. Big mistake because my right foot needs rest.
I will live.
Also my upstairs neighbor left her bathroom sink running and water ended up in my kitchen. Thank God my daughter was home because I was not. It wasn't a flood but enough to leave my ceiling in need of TLC.
So I am mired in insurance claims and contractor bids with a right foot that needs a little mending.
It reminds me how life surprises us and throws monkey wrenches our way for good measure.
It's medicine for someone who, for so many years, so heavily relied on the ability to control things.
I watched a talk recently given by David Brooks. Our politics don't exactly align but his humanist approach very much appeals to me. He has moved more to the center with age.
The talk was about how to fix his broken country and he went through a decade by decade analysis of how the world came to be in an era of despair and negativity.
The term he used most often was humiliation. People feel humiliated he said.
When people feel lost they lose hope. They don't feel that their leaders care about them and the desperation turns to depression and anger.
This is exactly how Trumpism was able to take hold.
Brooks is optimistic we can get our humanity back and I agree with him. However it will take time.
