When i feel compelled

I sometimes feel called upon to correct people who understand nothing about Ray Blanchard's work in the 1980's but parrot it without having analyzed it. For example, the term AGP is used without any comprehension and simply serves as a synonym for arousal.

Ignorance is hard to repair and so I don't feel compelled to answer all comments which are filled with it. I only address those that might be convincing enough to those who haven't read the material properly and have only watched a bad synopsis on someone else's badly explained video.

Blanchard's simplistic and dismissive two-type male to female transsexual taxonomy is approaching 40 years of age and is full of holes but it's become convenient material for gender criticals and so it lives on in the darkest corners of the net. It harkens back to a time when transgender men need not exist and we hadn't yet properly done enough homework to be able to adequately push back on bad faith actors.

Thankfully, transgender youth and most serious clinicians today completely disregard it, but in its day it accomplished a lot of damage which is why I want to help stamp it out.

Escaping detection

I think that if we are not careful, denial can help build neuroses. Older transgender people who refused to fully accept themselves and avoided looking in the mirror needed methods to cope and usually found them. Dealing with an extra layer of complexity most people do not have, they needed distractions but also mental tricks to keep the inner female at bay. I was one of them and find much affinity with those who built up intricate facades that would escape detection.

That wall has largely come down but I can tell there are little remnants of a guarded past still left. I will be talking with someone and at times wonder why they haven't read through my eyes everything I used to feel obliged to hide. But they don't and seem attracted to a lady with a nice disposition who is friendly to talk to.

If I write about psychology a lot it is because it is all about that. We need to remake much more of it than we thought due to the work that went into building that carefully crafted protective layer.

In that light, clothing is the least of our concerns.

A different time

 

What is life?

 

The spice of life

I happened to be standing next to them on the metro platform and I told them I loved their dresses. They turned and beamed me a smile and thanked me for having noticed. Both were maybe in their early 20's and one of them was even wearing a bow in her hair.

It's not as common today to see young ladies dressed so feminine and clearly on this Sunday morning they were going somewhere special. In general today there is more leaning towards a pragmatic androgynous appearance and yet the outliers are proud and not at all afraid to stand out. It's what I love about this generation for not far away was a young woman you could have mistaken for either gender.

If one looks at videos from decades past the uniformity is almost comical. Clothing was almost a uniform that signaled birth sex but also restrained with a rigidity which was not to be trifled with lest you be ostracized.

All of that is almost over.

Archetype

I was watching an old clip of Jenny Jones and 18 year old Angelina was the picture-perfect beautiful young lady in the guest chair except that she was still a boy named Angel who had not yet begun hormones. Some in the audience were clearly dumbfounded but then this was the early 1990's and transsexual women were still somewhat of a novelty.

We have learned much since then.

Angelina was the classic archetype of the little boy who the parents didn't know what to do with. The walk and the mannerisms were unfixable as was the penchant for dolls. They had tried everything to no avail as her mother who sat beside her attested to. In this guise however, everything now made sense.

She would be about 50 today and someone had left a comment on the video that she was alive and well and long happily transitioned.

The steady boat

The human isn't made to be happy but to find fulfillment in purpose. For example, anyone who has children knows that we are terrified for them and we worry which only adds to our stress and yet they bring us so much pride, joy and satisfaction.

If things are too easy in our lives and there isn't enough challenge we can become bored and the brain deteriorates from a loss of objective. Conversely if there is too much stress we can fall prey to burn outs and other health issues.

Keeping the boat steady requires steadfast vigilance and attention to the psyche and we readjust our objectives as required.

A distribution

If David Reimer's case showed us that John Money was wrong in that gender identity cannot be imposed, then we could argue that gender dysphoria perhaps has genetic roots.

The next question which begs asking involves the predisposition towards gender variance for those with zero problem with birth sex and the ingredients which need to be present. Certainly the binary as it was sold to us wasn't real in the sense that it frowned on the natural inclinations of some people. Contravention was simply discouraged the way left handedness was.

If all children were spared gender rules, we would end up with a natural distribution which would include people who did not fit comfortably in either binary extreme. They would not necessarily want to modify their physical body but would settle for some measure of androgynous appearance and mannerisms. We are in fact seeing this happen slowly in society within a certain faction.

It makes perfect sense that birth genitalia does not govern our behaviour which is more the business of the brain. But there has historically been so much societal, political and religious investment in predictability of gender behavior, that allowing too much variation invariably upset the apple cart.

The Dregs

Fusion par excellence

As earnest as you can

It's amazing how perspective changes with age. We understand much better where priorities lie and what we should disregard as unimportant. A very accepting friend I have known for 40 years and I call these our "what the fuck years" where the filter comes off and you live as earnestly as you can.

Where I am can be explained to a younger person but it must be lived through experience. Nevertheless I do try and convey a message to leave much of what the world considers important by the wayside.

Money, possessions and status bring us nothing but touching upon core identity brings a comfort, joy and confidence that we didn't as readily experience when younger and busy chasing what we were told would make us happy.

The elephant in the room

People who tended to trivialize gender variance used to irritate me somewhat but they no longer do because it eventually sunk in that everyone has a unique experience and their own crosses to bear.

This issue had been the largely unacknowledged elephant in the room since I was very young and so for me it was no laughing matter. Those for whom cross gender expression seemed to be sport or hobby would tend to get under my skin especially considering how much suffering others had experienced where marriages collapsed and even some lives were lost.

Today I have a gentler and more macroscopic view of the subject and try to put myself in the place of a person I may not entirely relate to. Plus the more I got a handle on things and approached my own authenticity, the less what others did mattered. It simply became more material for my thinking on the topic as a whole.

RIP Lynn

RIP Lynn Conway (1838 to 2024) computer scientist and transgender advocate.

Actual stupidity

 

Body shape angst

Eventually I got cured of body shape worries by observing women. They come in every shape and size imaginable: muscular, reed-thin, short, tall, fat, etc. The one thing they have in common? they all know who they are.

Hence the key for us is to know who we are and it will show.

It made all the difference.

Personal style

Most days I wear hoop earrings and when not I typically wear my white pearls.

That is but one example of finding one's style which takes time and certainly morphs over the years. With daily living we develop a routine that works because we don't want to overthink like when we were restricted to the novelty and excitement of outings. If one is retired there is even less reason to dress up so I am always casual but try to add some flair nonetheless.

Living full time didn't change much of anything because I was already well established with what suited my body and what uncomfortable clothing choices do over long periods of time. What little did change was almost entirely psychological.

99 percent psychological.

Cost of being a deep thinker

Plunging into the psyche requires effort and I know people who see a therapist or are into meditation. For others only their religion will do.

But if we are to regulate ourselves internal work is required and a narrative written that has enough flexibility to allow for personal growth.

Although not necessarily a fan of Chris Williamson's podcast I nevertheless found this discussion interesting

"When the KKK murdered my childhood friend"

An important message from Robert Reich...

Alive and well

If Trumpism hasn't convinced you that idiocy is alive and well in the 21st century nothing will.

Come one, come all

For a very long time now I have had an open invitation for AGP true believers to come and state their iron clad and bulletproof case for the validity of the theory. The fact that there have been no takers speaks volumes.

For it turns out that proving motivation requires mind reading skills few of us possess.

Infrastructure

The young today haven't needed to take advantage of an entire underground infrastructure which had been built up around gender variance. So while much of the 20th century consisted of stealth transitions, secret drag balls, dressing clubs for heterosexual married men and makeover studios, these have started to disappear as gender expression began to go more mainstream.

It's understandable that those things were put into place when in many places gender variance merited being arrested by police, but now the need for secrecy is largely gone even as some stigma remains particularly for those who are older.

I contrast the difference from when I was in my twenties to today and it is stark. LGBTQ youth express themselves openly in public (right wingers would say brazenly) which ultimately aided me in taking my final steps towards becoming fully myself.

My meetings a few months ago with transitioning youth in their twenties also showed me how being more free of childhood trauma can do wonders for both your confidence and your self-esteem.

The problem with umbrellas

Quite a long while ago I stopped thinking in terms of gender variance umbrellas and focused more on the dichotomy of expression and identity from which we can then try and determine motivation and degree of investment. 

Gender expression does not necessarily lead to conflict but a question of gender identity can which could produce a very different life experience. Gender dysphoria is an internal incongruence which asks a person for a response while someone without it may only need to worry about acceptance of their expression from society or a partner.

For the longest time I favored the Benjamin scale as the best model but realized that no measurement scale is going to perfectly capture the individual journey of each person during which their own understanding of self may morph over time.

But what makes an umbrella concept even weaker is that while it might be a nice to have for inclusivity, it doesn't do anything to advance our understanding of the subject. Therefore, if we want to reflect just in terms of inclusion, we might as well think about the entire human race and all of its variability.

For in that sense we are all equal and under the same umbrella.

Looking up and around

When you begin to solve the challenge of a lifetime you can look up and appreciate others more. Over lunch with my sister on Monday she recalled how in her view it seemed I was always frustrated.

She wasn't wrong because keeping it all together was my primary goal and took much energy. I had disciplined myself into having things work they way they were supposed to which is why unwelcome surprises brought me so much angst. In addition, the weight of a religious upbringing made managing my gender dysphoria all the more difficult.

The world looks very different now because having arrived at a workable baseline, it allowed me to look up and do away with a self-conciounness which magnified the severity of my situation. I am also older and more mature which provides me with greater perspective.

Everyone has challenges and once we learn to manage them or at least break them into more digestible morsels, it tends to lift a great weight from the psyche.

The appearence of truth

A long time ago Rupert Murdoch figured out that the world is not exactly chock full of critical thinkers. His FOX News, New York Post and Wall Street Journal (to name just some) make sure there is heavily biased messaging to the point of even omitting information or conveniently presenting video cleverly edited to bolster their ideological leanings.

Therefore when Joe Biden appears to feeble-mindedly wander off the stage, they make sure to omit the fact that he had been going over to greet some fire fighters. Meanwhile, a clearly imbecilic Trump slurs his way through disjointed speeches about batteries, sharks and water pressure with nary a comment.

Truth is not important in this world but selling its appearance certainly is.

To summarize

I can almost summarize all my years of reflection and research on gender variance into one post.

Firstly, the perfect binary does not exist and never did. Human beings are subject to the same variability that nature is which means that there are permutations which organically and predictably occur without fail at both psychological and physical levels.

Secondly, people tend to want to please by concensus. They don't want to be singled out and be ridiculed and so they go with the flow or fashion secret lives so they can get a taste of their natural proclivities.

Thirdly, people are afraid and insecure and living an honest life is difficult but should be highly desirable. The only way often involves abandoning convention which means the sooner we do away with concern for what the masses think, the more honest our existence will be.

Ideally, at a certain point in life we decide to forge our own path and become ourselves because we are fed up with being sheeple.

Poverty

 

Baboons

I am walking behind someone who is sharply and defiantly disobeying gender norms and after he passes some little insecure people turn as if they have seen an apparition.

It just fortifies my opinion that baboons have considerably more intellect than many humans.

Recompense

A partner does not make us happy. In fact we have now doubled our odds of being unhappy because when they are dissatisfied they will typically drag us down with them.

The only recompense is that the mutual love is strong enough as recompense for the additional suffering.

Afterthoughts

There's a heat dome over Montreal until Thursday. Temperatures will climb to 45C with the humidex which is just part of what is increasingly the new normal. We are shattering records across the globe but we only seem to learn by getting to the brink and inviting disaster because we are selfish and limited creatures.

I wore a light summer dress this morning and made sure my purse contained the Spanish fan which is now a staple during what over the years has become my least favorite season. At the tail end of the lunch with my sister the sweltering heat had already begun.

Yesterday I reflected on our meeting and realized I was well past any trepidation regarding my identity. I know who I am and she accepted it without reservation almost as if my feminine appearance had always been there. Her only comments were that she was happy I wore flats and how well my voice sounded as she had never heard it at that register before.

It once again confirmed that we spend far too much time navel gazing and stressing about something most people don't care anything about.

They just want to see us happy and she told me I looked it. There was no need to go into the science.

Wiz

Eldar Djangirov is such a clean technical player and yet still very musical. A mix between Peterson, Tatum, Corea and Lyle Mays...

Midnight Cruiser

A very well executed cover From "Can't Buy a Thrill" 

Check the box

The lunch with my sister more than met expectation. We both agreed it was long overdue.

I can now put a check mark next to her name:)

Kickstart

At this age I am a not so little chatterbox.

The barista at this quaint little café on Bernard Street was from France and only a year older than my daughter. As she made my coffee we bantered about life after I had signaled that I was in no rush plus thus far for her it was quiet morning.

She is another GenZ (those born roughly between 1996 and 2010) looking to kickstart her life with a combination of schooling and work experience that is more about dabbling than it was during my time. She asks me what branch of engineering I studied and whether I liked it which is something we less considered when I made my choice.

I understand this generation better for having talked with them and heard their aspirations and their fears. The world is a less certain place and the structures we counted on have been greatly weakened. It is why I refrain from quick judgement as I reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of my own generation and the priorities we were instructed to favor.

Validation

I think the reason that fear dissipates greatly once we have touched identity is that we realize how much of an accomplishment its been to get to get there. By comparison, concern for public scrutiny and opinion is a pittance. Many human beings lead repressed lives on many fronts which is one of the reasons for so much frustration in the world.

Lack of fear doesn't mean being careless with safety but instead stopping to give weight to things that have very little significance. Today's lunch with my sister (assuming it's not postponed) will be another indicator of where I am. For certain it would have seemed much more daunting to me even a few years ago because more seemed to be riding on it. I still looked for validation from outside when today I know viscerally in my bones it is something you provide for yourself 

Time for a reset

Dignity and self-respect were once treasured commodities. People may not have had a lot of money but they placed importance on their civility, discretion and showcased their best behaviour because it was important. Even our architecture, our cars and electronics were crafted for longevity and quality. They reflected what we were striving for which was not always just expediency and getting to the bottom line.

We have lost much in our societies even as I laud the increasing freedom of people to be who they are.

We feel far less shame in showing our ignorance in this age of social media because there is always someone out there who shares our biases and our ignorance. We don't need to know anything when stupidity is free and for some even admirable. In our technological fervor we ended up losing some of the humanity we once treasured and our discretion in public has gone with it. The manners my parents were raised under now appear antiquated.

That we are headed for a reset and justifiably so is beyond question.

Treatment

Am I treated differently now? Yes overall I am and I would say more pleasantly. Women are certainly friendlier towards me perhaps because I am on their team. But I also realize I am outside the confines of the work environment.

I think about whether this treatment also involves my having become more relaxed and more myself even as I recognize that there are often gender dynamics at play during interactions. However I would like to think that those have relaxed over the decades and that the current youth is largely dismantling the old conventions.

I think I am treated respectfully in part because I carry myself a certain way. I am polite and courteous even as I have the benefit of experience to tell me when to stand up for myself. Women in society need to stand up and make their voices heard.

Gender variance varies

Observed on a Saturday morning.

He is tall, bearded and a man bun adorns the head. On the ears are large hoop earrings, on the body a wrap dress and on the feet feminine golden sandals. If he is over thirty, by my estimation, it's not by much.

He looks confident and carries a happy smile which is all that counts.

Man yells at clouds

I used to enjoy watching Bill Maher but now he grates against my nerves. His smugness used to be forgivable because at least his stance on so many issues seemed to be in the right place.

He doesn't think he has changed but insists that the left abandoned him. His proud self-labelling of classic liberal seems to be reinforced by his attacking what he calls the "Woke left" and in the  process he picks up thick-headed right wing sympathizers who want to showcase him as a converted leftist who has seen the light.

All I can see now is "old man yells at clouds" with his stance on Israel and LGBTQ issues (he calls them boutique) as signs that he is not evolving. Just because you are over 60 does not mean that you stop reflecting and progressing and despite the fact that he is not claiming equivalency between far left and right political factions, I find myself disagreeing with him more than I ever have.

No, he doesn't get everything wrong but even if we still see eye to eye on some issues, the smugness only exacerbates things for me.

Junction

I am at a junction in life I never imagined was even possible and so I never strove for it. Even knowing from a very young age that I was different, did not encourage me to consider any other possible scenario than the one set for me early on.

We cannot help who we are and yet here we ponder the question of whether we should honor or suppress it. For a very long time I chose the latter even as I weighed whether I had planted the seed in my own psyche or it was set for me from the outset. That this turned out to be a moot point it is because I clashed so dramatically against the grain of convention. This is how a minimalist management approach was adopted as mitigation.

When we stop fighting we then ponder whether we should celebrate or simply grudgingly accept the way one does their brown eyes. The old narrative of gender dysphoria eliminating the choice of inaction while simultaneously allowing the celebrating of identity seemed to be at first contradictory. That is until one considers that rejoicing in something which has provided so much angst and, for many, great rejection perfectly encapsulates the juxtaposition and the tug of war going on inside many if not most transgender people; most especially older ones.

No one asks to be transgender but one can choose how to react to it which is our most fundamental consideration of all.

Out of the blue

Just out of the blue one of the sisters I had partly written off suddenly contacts me and says she wants to have lunch. It will be this Monday.

Well what do you know :)

Boiling the frog

I can see now how it happens. Back in 2016 the bar was still somewhat high for the tolerance of caustic discourse and flaunting of civil behaviour. Fast forward to 2024 and that Access Hollywood tape wouldn't even register with the public.

The same parallel can be drawn with the appetite for authoritarian rule which is spoken about daily by both those who fear it and those who welcome it. I can see how Germany might have moved slowly from Weimar Republic to Nazi rule within the space of a decade.

Political expediency and appetite for power helps uncover moral weakness and many of Trump's enablers might know better but chose to look the other way because going against the tide means their positions are at stake. The tape of their denouncing Trump is on the record but that need not matter in the age of the 20 second sound bite where people have the mental retention of field mice.

You raise the temperature on the frog until a terminal point is passed and then it's cooked.

If the US glides slowly into authoritarian rule it can't say it didn't see the signs coming. It just means that enough people chose to ignore them.

Inescapable

Becoming fully ourselves not only removes the need for comparison to others but also frees the mind from the idea that we are trying to somehow fool the public. I do not like the concept of "passing" because it implies subterfuge and being someone you aren't. You may or may not have had any surgeries and yet the idea that you are always yourself is inescapable.

The concept of the self is sourced entirely in the mind and is independent of what our body looks like which is why our psychology is so primordial in developing identity. The more I became rooted in that thinking the better I blended because people evaluate us by the confidence we exude which shows them we know exactly who we are.

What we wear then becomes almost completely irrelevant.

Antonio

 

Love this generation

Not 20 minutes ago I encountered a GenZ transgender woman on Montréal's busiest thoroughfare so sure of herself in her own skin and so oblivious to the public that I couldn't help but note it here.

I love them to bits.

Reflection

If wearing female clothing has ever given you a buzz, well that should disappear with a daily routine that helps you determine who you are. I reflect on this evolution of mindset where you comprehend that for you there is no going backwards even as you confirm that the novelty has long ago dissipated.

I remember my gender therapist back in 2007 noting that after our sessions I would often look for my reflection in the window which by evening served as a murky mirror. It was my way of making sure it confirmed I was presentable enough to the world even as I then struggled with how to rid myself of the feelings.

With the years the decline in self-conciousness has paralleled an increase in both self-acceptance and confidence such that the insecure check in the mirror was no longer required

Making sense of it

The more we strip away the artificial intricacies of this life, the more it can start to make less sense to us. We are born, we distract ourselves for a few decades and then our time is up. No one asked in advance if we wanted to participate.

Philosophers and religions have wrestled for millennia with the meaning of life and how navigate it. As we become older we might lose faith because we see through much of the futility of trying to change the reprehensible and yet there is much comfort in understanding what merits our attention; what is truly important and how to prioritize it. This is how we can reinvigorate our lives.

The Christian saying of "help me to understand what I can change, what I cannot and the wisdom to know the difference" really applies and we come to appreciate it at its most visceral and pragmatic level which eluded us in our youth because we lacked the experience to see it.

Yesterday I had a call with a young engineer and, after dealing with the issue at hand, we spoke about his life. After having offered some counsel on a few areas where I had already tread he told me how much he appreciated it.

It gave me the greatest pleasure.

Brain rot

 

Andreja

Andrej Pejic was one of the first models to break gender boundaries. Before he ultimately transitioned to Andreja there was a period where he fascinated the public with an ethereal and at times androgynous beauty and a confidence that said "I know who I am". There was no hiding from anyone and the self-assured nature came out on the runway as well as during interviews which is what I most admired.

The journey of all gender variant people takes place principally in the mind which is where identity and confidence are sourced and what I liked most was that nothing seemed to faze Andrej. He took all comments regarding his career completely off the shoulder as if they held no value because they didn't.

Andreja is a woman now having undergone the full transformation with the same sense of self one has when comfortable in their own skin. Perhaps it was always there.

What will the neighbors think? Who the hell cares she says.

A night in Tunisia

 

So glad we met

Angele and I have really hit it off. An introspective introvert, she measures her words carefully before she speaks. Like me, she has a limited battery life for socializing and likes crowds about as much as I do.

When I see her at the Cote de Neiges café we both frequent, we sit together and catch up on life and pepper our commentary with where we are philosophically. At 70 she is at the same place and is weary of societal obligation and the pomp that often accompanies it. I love that about her and the repartee we share is filled with nods of agreement.

I am so very glad we met.

Another small step

Yesterday I emailed HR and explained that I wanted only the initial of my first name to appear on email or MS Teams for example. Many former close colleagues in my former company know I am transgender but I told her that this was my best compromise without doing a global coming out and still honor my identity. Not everyone needs to know.

However, since I am still consulting sporadically I wanted to reflect where I am in my journey.

I was expecting red tape pushback but got none and she responded very favorably as their policy on diversity is always being trumpeted. There is even a young transgender woman working full time in my former office which is something I thought I would never see. She snuck in just after I retired.

Social dynamics

Once we understand social dynamics it can become a kind of game. We learn to recognize archetypes and their behaviour and can predict it.

For example, I derive great satisfaction  from ignoring someone who wants to get my attention or I will give an indiscreet woman a once over once I realize by her expression that I am too tall for her liking. Years of practice teaches you things about people.

The most important thing is to hold your ground and your demeanor which seems to make them lose interest in you. The more certain of yourself you are, the more these dynamics become obvious to you and you can pick out the best people while disregarding the worst.

You relax, stop being self-concious and in the process become yourself.

Wakeup call

The disconnect is hard for us outside the US to swallow even as many of us understand the process that got us here. There is huge dissatisfaction among the people who have been manipulated by both parties and are now sharpening their pitchforks readying for the revolt.

While the GOP was working on their strawman culture war strategy, the Dems had been counting on the belief that failed ideas inherent in Neoliberalism would save them. Free trade policies which go back to the early 1990's were to save America but instead only lined the pockets of a tiny group while the rest were left with job insecurity and increasing costs. Bailing out huge greedy corporations during the 2008 crisis only made the problem worse.

In that sense, Trumpism is the inevitable result of the same things we saw in Spain, Italy and Germany in the 1930's. People who were losing ground became willing disciples of autocracy because they were so desperate for someone to save them. As witnessed by the interviews I have seen, people today don't understand what got them here any better than those in the early 20th century but they are looking for satisfaction and need someone to pin the blame on. In that sense they can be easily manipulated.

If Trump wins in November it will be a far scarier world than if Biden does. However even if the Dems squeak out a victory, the core problems will still need addressing because the country is living the inevitable consequences of late stage capitalism which is sinking them.

The only saving grace will be to bring some semblance of fairness and balance back. But in this environment of divisiveness and hatred I fear that only a collapse will bring the wakeup call that is needed.

Neuroplasticity is a thing

I am very aware of the brain rewiring which is taking place since the pandemic and even more so during this early phase of retirement. It's the last steps in the exercise I needed to complete regarding who I am proving that neuroplasticity is indeed a thing.

Transgender people (particularly older ones) need to build up a strong backbone and sense of self if they are to live openly in the world. It does not matter how well you blend in because your biggest enemy is going to be yourself as most people could care less about you once they notice you are confident in your skin. Identity comes from inside.

The last piece of the puzzle involves building a final narrative where you explain your nature to yourself and how it fits into daily living in society. Everyone has a story they tell themselves and some are caustic and self-destructive because not all behaviour we adopt is beneficial to the psyche. But people need narratives so they can feel better about themselves.

However if our introspection is honest, it should result in increased self-esteem and contentment.

Iceberg

She lives on only $1,800 a month and is now looking for a tiny studio apartment she can afford after having lost her flatmate who went back to living with his family. I used to see her sometimes and we would always chat and I would give her money when I had it.

She slurs because she has no teeth and this morning it was she who saw me. I felt terrible that I didn't have any cash but at least we overlapped for a few minutes and I listened to how she manages. Last night she found a cozy spot outside and managed to sleep. She also told me that the Quebec government wiped away $2,800 of debt that she had.

At least there's that.

I have zero to complain about and I cherish reminders like this one plus once again I have confirmation that we are headed in the wrong direction because she is just the tip of a growing iceberg.

MAGA morons

 

Gender and men

David Pakman interviews Scott Galloway...

Butterfly

N in so many ways was perfect for me. She was tall, beautiful and highly intelligent. It was a match made in heaven for someone who thought they had won the lottery. The idea that I had matched with someone who did not wretch at my being so different was, at the time, a notion beyond my wildest dreams.

It's funny how life works however because my being transgender didn't break us up even as I would at times have very candid discussions when I was still weighing the potential I might one day medically transition.

The reality is that relationships are volatile and I was then still an undecided and somewhat angry person and she was the bohemian butterfly who butted heads with my regimented and surgical approach to life. 

We were just not meant to be.

On life support

I never go to malls anymore but today it's raining and I decided to go the Carrefour Laval which is just north of the city. Getting there by metro requires a zone B pass whereas I only have a zone A which covers just Montréal island. However I have my little cheat.

I reserve a Communauto at the last metro station on the island and then drive the short 15 minutes to my destination. Once there I ditched my white sneakers in favor of my black patent block heel pumps et voila I'm a dignified lady again although not one who is overdressed by any means.

Yes, malls can be dull (especially since most are on life support) however a little window shopping never hurt anyone and it had been a long time since I visited here since I tend to mostly run around Montréal.

Interestingly, this mall plus the one in the west end of Montréal have largely survived thanks to being beacons for suburbanites aching to get out of the house. Therefore I don't think either is going anywhere anytime soon.

Thou doth think too much

Overthinking is such a common problem. I know I have it and would masticate things over in mind until I had exhausted myself. I know I am not the only one.

Then there are those who act more reflexively and rely on instinct and feeling who I have never really understood and I ask myself whether this is something which comes baked in with the DNA when it comes to either predisposition.

Today I know that the correct balance is to think and to feel in almost equal measure. Feeling allows for spontaneity and looseness while thinking introduces logic and reason which keeps us on solid ground.

Hall of presidents

 

Apples

Stella shares my frustrations with the sheer amount of stupidity out there. But for my own benefit, I am working on letting it go...

Grilled

With 20/20 hindsight it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback. In the US disgruntled conservatives are demonizing Anthony Fauci for what they say is going by the seat of his pants on closures, masks and social distancing during the pandemic but then what do you do when millions around the world are dying?

My first thought is that caution is the better part of valor and you do what makes sense in an environment where the stupidest among us were saying we ignore the "China virus" and go about our business.

You have an airborne contagion the world has never seen before and you adjust day to day with the best tactics your training has given you. I can imagine the raging volcano inside Dr. Fauci as he was being grilled by the terminally stupid Marjorie Taylor Greene who gets her science on Facebook. This kind of brain dead isn't at all fixable particularly when you are too dense to realize your own shortcomings and you are a poster child for Dunning-Kruger.

Then you have the likes of retired nurse John Campbell who cherry picks all the worst outcomes from the vaccines (which were tiny by proportion) as proof that we should have thought twice about administering them. Never mind his credentials in immunology are scarce to none. But at least his channel got huge numbers from the conspiracy faithful.

Good grief.

Trappings

Her comment stayed with me. The woman had ended up getting a recommendation for a video created by a transgender person whose title was "I enjoy being a girl"

She bemoaned that any emphasis on false eyelashes, shoes and clothing were just trappings of womanhood and did not represent what being a woman truly is and of course she was right. These are just superficial indicators of gender and an equivalency would be like saying that being a man is all about Nascar, bulking up at the gym and watching football.

What is interesting is that many people (whether gender variant or not) buy into this narrative and ostensibly become walking gender stereotypes I suspect as cover for what may be missing inside. Therefore this woman was only partly right but taking a shot at this older transgender woman whose content is mostly not about appearance was simply too tempting. In fact in her videos, this content creator is always very casual and often presents without a stitch of makeup.

Many people (transgender or otherwise) do in fact focus more on internals and there are those who transition from male to female and perennially live in T-shirts and jeans whilst some genetic women obsess on always dressing to the nines.

It's a big world.

All the same

This blog has become mostly irrelevant and yet every time I think I will take long pauses between posts I don't. It's become more personal journal than the therapy and gender theory exploration that it used to be. Writing is habit.

Humanity is an expansive mosaic of diverse ideas, cultures, beliefs and behaviour that sometimes defy categorization. Against that reality is a constant push towards herding us into predictable camps by authorities who most benefit from uniformity. We learn slowly over time that much of societal structure isn't based on rationality or fairness but instead what the prevailing power structures can get away with.

Within the power structures are people looking to do the right thing despite the resistance.

We humans are governed more by emotion than anything else which is what drives conflict. Thus we see the same patterns everywhere because deep down we are all the same less than secure creatures.

Maple Leaf Rag

I may not agree but...

The reason I don't defend all of the actions, ideas and behaviour of gender variant people is because I don't necessarily agree or relate to all of them (no doubt some don't like mine). In that sense I don't care if a person is gender variant or not. We are not all cut from the same cloth.

On the other hand, I abhor all discrimination and as long as someone isn't harming anyone else they should be able to live any way they please and I will vociferously defend it.

For the most part people are nice

This morning I ran into Guylaine walking her dogs. She is so very pleasant and always stops to talk to me. She tells me her job is slow at the hospital where she works as a program administrator for mental health. That surprises me a bit given what I had thought were the heavy demands.

Then on the bus I asked a woman I often see why she always wears such a warm jacket given that it's so pleasant out in the early morning. Later in with the humidex it will feel like 34C which too much for me. She told me she is one of those people who is always cold. I am in a short sleeved dress this morning and already feeling the heat. Everyone has a different set point but am constantly astounded by how much they vary.

Later I dropped my bracelet going into the metro and a young woman handed it back to me with a lovely smile. Most people really are quite nice and are helping me to work back my cynicism.

Remaking our Psychology

By far and away the most important element in the life of a transgender person is their psychology. The older you are right now the more likely it was that you were dissuaded from being who you are and working that back is no easy task.

Retirement forced me into a more profound examination of my psyche because the distractions were now all removed. Therefore I have needed to build a new structure and narrative to accomodate this change of life.

People who are happy with their part-time structure won't perhaps relate to me and if that's you then I encourage you to just be happy with your current formula. However those of us who have been on the cusp of needing to transition and resisted, have always benefited from having as many distractions as possible. Once they are removed a new baseline must be established to fit where you are.

This is why I am so jubilant when I see transgender youth so devoid of trauma and repression living their lives. They may face their own unique challenges, but at least their psychology won't need as much repairing.

For me, there's still some fine tuning yet to complete and thankfully with a renewed level of calm and patience.

Larry David kills me

 

Sticky

Once again, main shopping and resto thoroughfares in this beautiful city are being turned pedestrian-only for the summer. It's so wonderful even as I was reminded how sticky and humid this place can become.

On another note, just this morning alone I crossed paths with three young transgender people living their lives. All easily under 30.

How great is that.

Rely on the self

I learned self-sufficiency quite young from disciplined parents and so rely on myself. It's not that I completely mistrust people, it is that I have noted that we are largely unreliable and volatile as a species. Therefore, depending on someone else whether it be for happiness or anything else is asking for a mixed and uneven bag of results.

I even had to become my own psychologist after my initial gender identity clinic treatment and worked hard to come up with a carefully measured and researched response to lifelong gender dysphoria I had not asked for. As a result, along the way I became a steady problem solver for myself and as well as others and never left solutions I sought at the hands of someone else. Maybe it's the engineer in me.

The downside is that at this age and armed with greater knowledge of how people function, I can see them coming a mile away. That can build a fatigue of predictability which hampers trust and the joy of surprise. Being young you are sometimes blindsided but at least that feeling of novelty is still there and the cynicism is yet to be developed.

For you haven't yet been sufficiently burned by haphazardness of existence.

Loudermilk

Loudermilk is an addictive show. It's about an abrasive ex-music critic who runs an alcoholics support group. He's got plenty of personal problems, a complete lack of filter and yet he is relatable as the everyman struggling through the challenges of life.

Peter Farelly writes the show and arms the cast with plenty of one liners and biting dialogue which still manages to tug at the heart strings when it wants to. It can also indulge in a little off color humor but then it's the Farellys.

On Netflix and recommended

The price of war

 

Depressing thought

Intelligent and secure people aren't the enemy of transgender people. Those tend to be the fearful and insecure ones, so now imagine being afraid of what someone who you wouldn't befriend thinks of you; especially if they are likely less intelligent. Would you let them influence how you conduct your life?

I hope not.

Assuaging our angst

Existential angst is a permanent fixture of the human condition because we do not understand our purpose. We are thrown into existence and left to figure out how to navigate a largely confusing playing field full of mostly artificial rules; a reality  we begin to understand when we are well into adulthood.

For those of us who want certainty there is always religious fervor. It assuages the psyche and allows them to sleep even as deep down we should conclude that we will never understand our creation and purpose while we are on this planet.

In that sense human hubris fascinates me because it is so unfounded. We manage to put rogether little fragments of understanding based on theories and our heads inflate with confidence when in truth we know so very little.

A different type of patient

Caustic theories (such as Ray Blanchard's) stating that transgender people couldn't help but transition due to a type of compulsion were likely derived from their own testimonies. Many of us who are older went to gender identity clinics having resisted our identities due to having been indoctrinated against them from a very early age. Thus a clinician would have more than likely seen someone who was conflicted rather than certain. For example, at my first meeting, I asked the Montréal General Hospital Gender Identity Clinic to cure me.

Young people who have grown up in this more open environment are far less likely to resist who they are and some may even overshoot to the point of physically transitioning and regretting. Thus theories developed in the past were based on a different type of patient who no longer exists because today they far more likely to be knowledgeable and confident.

It turns out that much earlier access to information and far less programming were both pivotal.

Coffee

My drug of choice :)

This is how you do it

 

A Jesus moment

Steve Shives is a "Trekkie" who every so often spouts off quite eloquently on conservatives and their tactics which is why I posted his video yesterday. Some conservatives can be cured but they would need their own "Jesus moment" and realize that constant fear of change is irrational.

They have always been with us and always will and every generation sees them look foolish once you look back. If we listened to them we would still have segregation and women wouldn't be able to vote. So we put up with their mongering and scare tactics until the dust settles on every new acquired bit of social progress meant to elevate everyone.

I tend not to argue with the ones who are too orthodox because they often fashion their own logic and their own alternative "facts". Bad faith arguments seem to be a staple of their tactics and more often than not they are caught red-handed in their fabrications.

However someone open-minded can in theory be saved and they are the ones I will engage with.

Soon to be a relic

One of things I love about today is the openly lived gender variance (in different combinations of identity and expression) of the GenZ generation. They aren't hiding who they are, but instead they are showing it to you every day in the street or on public transit. No double lives are necessary or desired and no one gives them a second look because they are so remarkably confident.

Near the end I despised living a double life because it was slowly draining away my spirit. It was also bolstering the idea that who I am is something to be kept from view and to be ashamed of. Today I live but one life.

Soon there will be no such thing and people will look back in their history books (virtual or otherwise) as something people once did to live in a society where they feared for their safety or were embarrassed that people would know about. We are almost there with youth leading the way.

Without a doubt, stopping living a double life is the best gift I have ever given myself.

I talk to people

This morning Linda saw me on the walking path and gave me a hug. We hadn't seen each other for a long time and we exchanged numbers. I used to see her often in the early morning during the pandemic.

Yesterday an older lady started talking with me at the bus stop and we ended riding part of the way together. She told me a bit about her life and she was so lovely.

The day before that, I met Andree on the bus who is 60 and works as a hairdresser in Old Montreal. She has children a few years older than mine and has been alone for quite a number of years. She is reflecting on slowing down before retirement.

Where I live is walkable and friendly but also I am in a good place and people notice it. Even Linda told me it looked like I had taken off years.

Turns out that living with stress is not a good thing.

Times change, conservatives don't

 

How much choice do I have?

If you've read my writing for some time you know I talk a lot about choice. For example, a fox doesn't have any choice but be a fox and can do nothing to change it.

So when I reflect on the axis of identity and expression I am always thinking in terms of choice and how much is being exercised. In principle, the more one is entrenched in identity, the less choice one should have in trying to reject it.

I have met many people over my life who seemed to be exercising different levels of choice. The more they spoke in terms of identity the less choice they felt they had. The problem for older people is that their childhood programming did not readily permit them to think in terms of identity and they may have confused their desire for cross gender expression as compulsion rather than affirming who they were.

If we accept that there is a biological component involved in creating transgender people, then this would be an element which removes choice. Therefore when we reflect on who we are, we should think in terms of how much choice we feel we are exercising.

Criteria

As a transgender person here is the type of questioning I have gone through regarding extended family:

1) Do I want the best for them? Yes
2) Would we be friends if we were not related? For the most part no
3) Are we obliged by virtue of blood to develop a connection? No
4) Have they done enough to come my way in 16 years? No
5) Have I effectively communicated the struggle that transgender people go through? Yes
5) Do I miss them when I don't see them? Not really
6) Would their absence leave a gaping hole in my life? No

This type of exercise is useful because it helps develop our contingency plan when family detracts from uplifting your identity. If you feel a strong sense of obligation you ask yourself why which does not mean I wouldn't help them if they need it. 

My mother and my kids are a different story and they have come through.

There isn't malevolence involved with extended family only that being obtuse is not an admirable quality and the vapid conversations when we have been all together only reinforces a stance which was largely honed over the pandemic.

"The Outfit"

"The Outfit" plays out in only one location; in fact it could be a stage play. An English cutter of fine suits practices his trade in 1950's Chicago with consumate detail and tries desperately to mind his own business despite the indiscretions of his dangerous clientele. There are a myriad of wrinkles here which force his obvious cleverness to the forefront signaling he is more complex than we first surmise.

There is nothing telegraphed in advance here and I was immediately entrenched in the story and as details slowly reveal themselves, the feeling of foreboding increases in parallel. There is clearly a tip of the hat here to classic film noire even as the style does morph near the story's conclusion.

Highly recommended 

Vocal Fry

 

Madman

A beautiful tribute to one of my favorite albums including Paul Buckmaster's wonderful string arrangement...

"We don"t like happy endings"

My friend and ex-colleague Luc had a daughter born in 1998 who is now his son. Three months younger than my daughter, this young man is as happy and well-adjusted as he could be after having gone through a very careful process with the same hospital program I dealt with in 2007.

First step was coming out as a lesbian and second step was coming out as transgender man.

The gender criticals don't like these types of happy endings at all as they tend to derail an agenda.

Bully

10 year old Sammy Teusch took his own life by asphyxiation in early May. A victim of harassment and bullying, the family had tried to have the problem addressed with the school but nothing seemed to work. Pictures of Sammy show a sweet kid with a mouthful of crooked teeth and horn-rim glasses; a combination which has invited derision as long as I've been alive and undoubtedly well before.

I wept as I watched the video.

Something feels different now. We seem to have invited too much information to flow and provided easier access to intimidate in an era of social media pablum which seems to have dulled our brains.

At 10 I was a hopelessly shy and skinny kid with a secret. Unfortunately it takes time to grow into the self, learn how life works and develop the confidence to disregard the brain dead among us.

Sunday walker

Be who you are

Supporting fascism

Robert Reich explains how so many fall for fascism...

I just want to pee

You can understand how poor conservatives can get edgy. Years ago, transsexuals transitioned, changed their names and disappeared into the background while part-timers had clubs or carefully planned outings hoping to stay under the radar.

Now with increasingly open expression of gender variance by younger people they are in full panic mode. Thus there is a cocktail of religious dogma combined with the power dynamics inherent in gender such that women's spaces suddenly become an issue of both concern and fear mongering

Never mind that you cannot easily or perfectly police everyone. I mean yes, a burly man in a beard in a tutu is conspicuous enough but they are not typically the ones trying to use the women's bathroom. Instead it is most often a transgender person with varying degrees of blending ability trying to pee and get out. Thus, taller or more masculine appearing genetic women have been singled out by transphobes for being men but that is the price you pay for naturally-occurring stupidity. 

I recently saw a snipet of a video by a conservative barbie bemoaning single sex public bathrooms with stalls with doors that go to the floor. It seems nothing makes these people happy because it is not about that. It is about finding reasons for eradication.

Fear in some people is baked in through limited education and lower than average IQs so the only thing to be done is to shame their behaviour by having it be deemed aberrant by a majority which has already begun to happen.

Brandenburg no 6

The power and majesty of Bach...

The older I became..

The older I became the more authenticity began to gain in importance over being with a partner. I look back and realize that living in pieces wasn't working for me although I tried as hard as I could for many years.

A partner compliments who we are but does not suffocate it. So as I became more entrenched in who I am the choice became easier to the point where today I have openness to the universe but that is all.

I clearly see in my mind's eye what life partnership is meant to be and, while it's not about perfection, it's certainly not about denial of the self where as unique individuals our essence becomes lost.

Otherwise why be with someone at all.