Scrutiny

Over my blogging history I know I managed to somehow alienate people who thought I was questioning their legitimacy. My exploration was ruffling feathers and they came away thinking I was being dismissive. 

This was never my intent. 

The interesting thing about personal identity is that it is defined by us and not by popular concensus or committee. We don't take polls to determine whether we are worthy of self respect. 

This is one of the reasons I remained community phobic for the longest time until I had done my homework. Arms length objectivity was best.

Who we are is highly personal and should not be so fragile as to be shaken through fear of rejection by others.

Otherwise it's not much of an identity.

If it is solid it should withstand scrutiny most especially and firstly from ourselves.

Once tested there, what others think becomes completely irrelevant.

Saying no to the dress

The graph below will surprise no one who has been paying attention. In the US, since the mid 20th century, marriage rates have been steadily falling off a cliff. 

We can extend that to the global population as well. 

The generation of my children (GenZ) is even more relationship phobic for numerous good reasons. One of the primary reasons is that marriages are no longer considered an economic necessity or a social obligation the way they were once seen. 

Women, who have attained financial independence to the largest degree in our history, now have been set free to decide whether they will enter into such a contract. 

Both sexes have also witnessed how their parents' failed marriages have impacted the social fabric of families. Hence the removal of automatic instinct to copy a formula with promise of limited success. Even those who stayed together offered less than ideal models of bliss.

Hypergamy eventually took over in that the majority of women chased the minority of men; namely those who fit both their financial and biological preferences. Those elite men decided that playing the field was to their advantage rather than settling down too quickly. 

The rest of the men began to resent their rejection and many have given up to feed the MGTOW movement (men go their own way). 

Youtube is full of content by disgruntled men enjoying the panic of women bemoaning that they are no longer being chased. Some have biological clocks ticking or are single Millennial divorced parents looking for a second chance at love. 

Thanks to our unstable economic times GenZ considers relationships a low priority until they get their own house in order. It has fallen in their list of priorities to a point that it will impact population demographics particularly in the West for years to come. 

I can't help but see some positive here in that the copy and paste formula of my generation and older has fallen by the wayside. People should do what they want without being questioned.

Playbook

Uncertainty breeds fear which then breeds aggression. This is where we are today in a deeply divisive era which pits groups against each other. 

When times are good people are generally satisfied even if there are always social issues to grapple with. However when your entire social order is put into question, it sparks a type of dread that stays lodged in the belly. 

This is where are right now. 

Assuaging fear requires victims which the ruling class will gladly offer you to distract from their sins. This means offering the easiest targets as blame for what ails you. 

Small and vulnerable minorities will do just fine. 

This is a playbook as old as humanity itself and plays into an exchange I had with Jack Molay recently about evil. It justifies itself through many means with the aggressor assuring themselves that it is for the sake of a greater good.

Beef

Korean writer and director Lee Sung Jin has done it again. His season 2 of the Netflix show Beef is as nuanced and interesting as the first. He once again explores human complexity in a way that makes us examine our own options were we placed in the same circumstances. We question what we might do when trapped into difficult corners. 

Jin drops people into moral dilemmas and lets them unravel and then rebuild themselves in their own unique ways. 

Each season is distinct with characters actors and different situations. Both present us with complex and fleshed out characters who are conflicted and who wrestle with decisions in ways which makes them relatable.

I love shows where I am asked to think and where the plot isn't telegraphed to me in advance. 

Highly recommended.

Teenage phase

Our early gender exploration as transgender people almost always includes a teenage phase. We haven't passed through the same rite of passage when going from childhood into adolescence as others, and so the experimentation happens until we reach maturity. 

The louder makeup and the slightly over the top dressing happens until we come to an equilibrium that feels right. The body and the mind unite into some sort of imperfect harmony. 

Until that happens the psychology remains not much further advanced than during those early childhood forays into our mother's closet. This is because that identity still needs to be properly fleshed out.

All is contingent on where we want and need to go of course.

After much trial and error, we then hopefully arrive at whatever our state of daily normalcy is going to be.

It takes time. The older you are when you start this process, the more time will be required.

I wasn't exempt.

Enough is enough

Big coffee chains and fast food restaurants are losing money. It's a sign of the times 

People can't afford $6 coffees and $17 burritos because groceries, gas, rent and utilities occupies the bulk of their expenses. Never mind the health care insurance payments which have largely become optional.

Times have changed and the affordability crisis is here to stay for the foreseeable future. 

There is a youtube channel I sometimes watch where the creator drives around small American towns hit by abandoned industries. The median income is around $30,000 as is the average value of a home. Poverty rates run around 50 to 60%. 

Middle America has been hollowed out. 

This is a global crisis but nowhere is it felt more than in a nation where the wealth disparity leaves you shaking your head. 

The current regime is so criminal that Pete Buttigeg recently filled a stadium in deep red Oklahoma where the people were seething mad. They know something is deeply wrong and they know where the blame lies. Trumpism only poured fuel on an existing blaze.

It proves to you that not everyone is so easily bamboozled.

Even in the redest of the red.

Pointless

Judith Butler says we perform gender and she isn't wrong. Back when gender behaviour was strictly enforced within the binary, people who didn't fit in hid their proclivities as much as they could. 

This was separate from stage productions where gender could be mocked, emulated or exhalted; something which was tolerated and even praised provided it remained there. 

Masculine and feminine behaviour has always extended well beyond the sex binary but outlaws risked ridicule or shunning. So an underground culture was created consisting of drag balls, married "crossdresser" clubs or stealth transitions by transsexuals longing to live authentically. 

We castigated divergences as if it were a crime. 

Today expression and identity in the west have been freed to a point where hiding has become unnecessary and many even consider dysfunctional because it's become pointless. It also hurts us more than it does others.

Most people just don't care.

No rush

In retirement your biorhythmic patterns change. After all, you have removed a large object in career which occupied much physical and mental space and now it needs replacing. 

Once the novelty of vacation mode wears off, you need to get on with a new life. 

Adapting will be even more challenging for older transgender people who may have put off authenticity due to life icebergs. 

It takes time to let the dust settle and so patience is required. With all that free time to think we make small mental changes which bring us closer to comfort and balance. 

It's like adapting to a new skin. 

There are no shortcuts required here because we are in no rush to get to any place special.

Forward guidance

 

Punching down

Punching down is easy. We assess that someone is weaker than us and we degrade them to make ourselves feel better somehow; no matter how briefly. 

Dave Chapelle has seen the writing on the wall and is trying to back away slowly from his right wing cheerleaders; the ones who rejoiced in the litany of transgender jokes he now says were meant differently. He sees MAGA disintegrating and the backlash coming and he wants off lest the stench remain attached to him. 

We're supposed to be sympathetic. 

His pronouncement that he is a proud member of team TERF wasn't intended how it sounded he tells us. It wasn't punching down as much as people thought. After all he had one transgender woman friend the way some whites say they have a black friend while letting their racism slip here and there. 

Bringing renowned transphobe Elon Musk on stage wasn't helpful either.

It's too late for Dave and many others who made a decision while the going was good. A brain dead Lauren Boebert gleefully wanting his autograph in large part because of his barrage of anti-trans humor will remain on the public record.

But also, people have memories.

Never over

A transition is never truly over. It is instead a constant process of becoming. We are moving fluidly through a series of mental changes which lead to a version of ourselves that radiates from the best of our lived experience. 

It encompasses much more than just gender and is overwhelmingly guided and governed by our psychology. 

Nothing matters more.