The new REM (reseau express metropolitain) has improved my ability to get around the island of Montreal.
The new elevated track rail service allows for quick movement across the city and provides access to areas that were not necessarily well served by public transit.
My transit card now covers me for bus, metro, train and REM and I couldn't be happier as a person who doesn't own a car.
Kyle was sitting on the sidewalk and greets me as I walk past. I stop and we begin to chat briefly.
He is disheveled and is likely considerably younger than he looks. A scruffy beard and shabby clothes disguise a kind soul who just wants to be acknowledged by a passerby who might also soare some change. I tell him I have none.
"I just need to make my $30 or $40 per day and I'm all right" he tells me with resignation "life is expensive and I don't know how people do it these days with expensive rent and utilities"
He points to a place nearby asking $2,300 per month and I tell him that is one of the reasons my 28 year old lives with me.
"What's your name?" He asks looking up at me.
"I'm Joanna, nice to meet you Kyle"
Then I'm off again with a little more appreciation for the life I have.
Dan and I hadn't spoken for years and so when I saw his name on my cell phone as an incoming call I was a bit surprised.
We have known each other since university days but lost touch over the years as our lives got increasingly busy.
As we speak I discover that his call was prompted by news that he had better talk to me about my life changing. He was told by common friends that this was something better explained directly by me.
When I told him about my social gender transition he wasn't phased or perturbed but mostly curious. He took the news perfectly in stride and felt bad for me for having had to keep this bottled up and secret for decades.
It was once again confirmation that we are our worst enemies in underestimating what people are capable of. It was, in the end, no big deal.
He is also retired and we agreed that once he returns from his upcoming vacation we will be getting together to catch up.
I had dinner with my daughter yesterday in an Indian restaurant located on a pedestrian-only street in my hood. It is this way every summer until the late fall when car traffic is once again permitted.
I was facing the window and could see all types of people walking by with their different clothing choices and body shapes. Needless to say that there was gender blurring with some of them.
Had I been sitting there in the 1940's there would have been much more uniformity with the absence of colour being the most notable. In 1910 it would have been an even more stark sea of black, grey, brown and white.
People are much more accustomed to diversity today. It is to the point where nothing shocks anyone especially if one carries themselves with confidence and panache.
A panache that announces you know who you are.
The reflecting pool fiasco has become emblematic of the Trump regime's incompetence and deception.
It would be almost comical were it not for the millions of Americans suffering under the current affordability crisis. A woman dying of cancer lives in her car as she contemplates how she got to this situation.
The empire is over and Trump is Nero playing the violin as Rome burns.
This has all been coming for decades and the people least deserving of the tragedy will bear the brunt of the excesses of the oligarchy class.
This is a global problem but nowhere is it more exaggerated than in a nation that believes failure is a personal sin. If you don't make it here it's because you weren't hard working enough. Never mind that most of the wealth in the country was inherited.
I have learned more about the intricacies of human nature over the last ten years than during the previous twenty. This was largely due to getting a closeup and personal view of the combined gullibility, stupidity, grace and dignity of people.
It all exposed itself under the watchful eye of a technology that never sleeps. We witnessed all of the minute details in real time as they unfolded.
Youth will sometimes use the expression trans joy to describe their euphoria as they arrive at new echelons in their gender exploration.
However it's interesting to note that most people don't find joy in their gender identity. It simply is and at most they might tell you that they are very comfortable with it.
Their joy comes from other things and even that euphoria is often transient.
If you ask someone who transitioned 25 years ago if they feel trans joy they will say no. What they might tell you is that they feel right in their skin regarding their gender identity.
They will tell you that they feel just like anyone else.
It's the Fete Nationale du Quebec today and I left the house wearing a dress which is something I don't do very often. It's usually jeans or a skirt.
The lady at the metro station ticket counter wishes me a lovely day and I do the same.
My routine on Wednesdays is that I make my way to the public market to have 7:00 am coffee with fellow retiree Sylvie and after that it is with my friend Sonia at 9:00 at Jean Talon market.
Being retired means having a lot of time on your hands which I try to fill without urgency or obligation. It means having plenty of opportunity to think.
I have changed dramatically since I stopped working because I had left much more introspection incomplete than I had estimated; something you don't realize until you are faced with the full capability to do so.
As people, we are in constant development mode.
I have made a resolution to be kinder to people and lower my indignation towards them after having developed life weapons which includes, if need be, an acidic tongue. It's easier to be dismissive when you determine someone is rude or stupid (both of which are plentiful in this world) but my job isn't to judge anyone else.
My job now is to be peaceful.
At the same time I can be very protective of my dignity and my self-respect.
Birth rates are dropping like a stone everywhere in the world such that the global population will begin slowly to decline.
Marriage rates have tanked as has the concept of dating. More people than ever in our history are living alone and not everyone by choice.
It seems that our social skills have taken a hit along with gender role expectations that kept our society humming, albeit imperfectly, for millennia.
Many women have rejected the idea of domestic life in favor of developing themselves personally. Their traditional role of home organizer and child rearer is less appealing particularly when they see some of the shortfalls within the framework of their career path.
Both sexes have had to rethink what each brings to the table in a fast-moving world of economic uncertainty and high dependability on a technology which has atrophied their social skills.
This has left less genetically favorable people to fend for themselves thanks to hypergamy which isn't helping matters.
Both platonic and romantic relationships have taken a hit with no simple reparation in sight.
Technically speaking, gender dysphoria could be considered an illness or a condition. It tells your brain that something is wrong with your gender identity or role and it must be tended to.
This is not meant to denigrate being transgender only that it forms part of the profile. The person feels somehow stuck between two poles until something is done to address the incongruence.
Every response will and should be different.
For me it was about attaining as much authenticity as possible while at the same time avoiding medical transition which was ill-advised as per my endocrinologist. Also I wasn't entirely convinced that this approach would take care of everything.
I took note that many people who transition continue to suffer with bouts of dysphoria even years after transition.
Splitting myself into two halves for years was less than ideal but worked because it felt mandatory and I was busy enough with work and kids to navigate the psychology.
My life became an exercise in dysphoria management.
However dysphoria seems to worsen with age which forces you to ramp up your game. The psychology must be worked on constantly particularly when life distractions are mostly removed.
I have watched plenty of regret videos which have shown me that despite being a small percent of transitioners, there are cases where complications have soured their experience. They don't necessarily revert but end up in a limbo state where they must come to resignation.
Because dysphoria is graded it presents different levels of challenge for people. The most severe forms seem to be destined for medical means but even there some have chosen a hybrid approach. For example, they may have opted for FFS and HRT but no other interventions.
People who are older have the most trouble converting their psychology because their indoctrination around gender was so pervasive. They feel stuck because life decisions made to escape their feelings now end up as large obstacles as they come to understand themselves with age.
Some may have gone through a "crossdresser" phase (forgive the older term) only to realize that the roots went far deeper. Regretably life works like peeling an onion where discoveries are made slowly over time.
The way dysphoria is dealt with today avoids years of silent suffering but risks putting trans youth on a path they may later realize wasn't for them. Fortunately we seem to have developed enough safeguards to largely prevent irreversible changes.
The gender critical movement paints all this as a zero sum game where regret cases are pointed to as examples of all transgender people. This is of course false because there are a myriad of success stories however the difficulty still exists in finding a customized solution for each person.
In the best of cases, a solution is found which is free from comparison and full of personal confidence through avoiding the worst of the societal poison every transgender person is almost always exposed to.
My youngest sister is returning from a trip to St John's Newfoundland where she noted a sizeable presence of LGBTQ people. She tells me she saw many gay and lesbian couples as well as transgender people living openly and going about their business.
I looked it up and sure enough the statistics don't lie. Apparently it has to do with the tight community roots as well as the strong advocacy movement in the province.
This does seem to fly in the face of the idea that only very large urban centers offer support to LGBTQ people. Of course I won't surprise you by saying that the province of Alberta (our Texas) represents a sharp contrast to Newfoundland.
I have been to Newfoundland once for work and found the people there to be charming and folksy. The reality that they can be so accepting of diversity flies in the face of the idea that small places always contain ignorant populations.
When we educate people, we can succeed anywhere.
The new REM (reseau express metropolitain) has improved my ability to get around the island of Montreal. The new elevated track rail servic...
