Can't get it out of my head

 

Friends with the devil

I love Lauren's very introspective framing here. I always talk about psychology being so pivotal in order to settle into your core identity and she nails it with this analysis on gender dysphoria...

Hope

 Fluid and masterful....

Religion and outliers

Most organized religions don't know what to make of outliers. For the most part they tend to be orthodox in their ideas and anything which doesn't fit ends up as a wildcard which is normally rejected.

Since religion does very well among people who are comfortable with black and white thinking and being told what to believe, it is unsurprising that people who don't fit would not be particularly welcome unless they conform. It's only been over the last few decades that the reality of human diversity forced them to adjust albeit grudgingly. There was often too much contrast between church teaching and the people wanting to remain within its walls which then saw conflict between members as well as clergy themselves.

Religions are not made to be very malleable although they should be. The essential message should transcend the small differences between humans beings and focus on how to strengthen their internal lives and spirituality.

Reliance

Life experience has taught me that the only person you can 100% rely on is yourself. The rest of the people around you will be reliable to varying degrees (including spouses) because they are dealing with their own issues and their own traumas. This is entirely normal.

In essence what we want is self-reliance with the possibility to augment our lives with human connection with people who we know at times will disappoint us.

I don't understand why so many people look outside of themselves to have their deficiencies filled by someone else. They want someone to complete them when only they can do that.

Besides love is a two-way street where as much is given as is received. Today this seems entirely forgotten.

Vive La Difference

I don't need to agree with what all gender variant people do to defend their right to live as they choose and this is what bothers me about those who insist on pointing out hierarchies like Blaire White or The Offensive Tranny (see their YouTube channel).

Yes, admittedly it annoys me a little when I see gender variant people act in bizarre, immature or overtly sexual ways but that is their business and not mine. There are lots of people who aren't in any way gender variant who do things which we might find even more objectionable and yet we would say "Vive la difference" if they are not hurting anyone else.

The true reason for some of the in-fighting is that when people are scared and insecure they lash out to make sure they are never compared to the object of their derision. They want to distance themselves and in so doing denigrate when there is no just cause to do so.

If you know who you are, that should be good enough for you.

When you put your thumb on the scale

Fabricated models trying to sell gender variance as dysfunction tended to work backwards. They knew the answer they were looking for and proceeded to gather evidence to support the hypothesis. The reason was simple: gender variance wasn't a desirable thing for society and they needed to discourage it since it didn't fit the desired script.

Therefore the unhappiness of transgender people and their higher than average suicide rates were explained away as suffering because of their nature rather than the suffering caused to transgender people through society's rejection. This was one way of manipulating statistics to sell a different version of what was really happening.

Today there are more transitions than ever and yet the regret rate is still relatively low despite the far greater ease of access (normal plastic surgery has a higher regret rate). Of course there are going to be people who err but that is expected as a result of such an impactful decision if it is not reflected upon sufficiently.

The point is that gender variance in all its forms was seen as unnatural instead of as a naturally-occurring variant of humanity that it has always been; the same way that homosexuality has always been a variant.

But when you work backwards from a flawed premise you end up getting caught with convoluted models and inconvenient facts can be tossed away. When Ray Blanchard ignored female born transsexuals (trans men) in the 1980's, he simply assumed they were not a thing and stuck with his now arcane two-type taxonomy of male to female transsexuals which has aged about as well as yogurt left out in the sun even if right wingers and the hopelessly ignorant still love it.

People have agendas and when we put our thumb on the scale this is what tends to happen.

Balancing energies

One of my personal challenges was trying to find a balance for my masculine and feminine energies which for years were not being well served. Previously I had the masked existence where no feminine energy was expressed and it was instead channeled into outings where the temptation to exaggerate could easily be encouraged. This is because you want to fit it all in during the limited window that you have. In the worst cases you end up with a caricature which is the last thing you want in public.

Contrast that to today where I have a cohesive and balanced existence through social transition where the energies ebb and flow as they are supposed to. I am not a masculine being who dabbles in femininity from time to time; something which for many years was slowly eating away at my soul.

Your own formula should ideally strive for this balance as much as possible because the more stark the contrast and the more compartmentalized the existence, the more the psyche must work hard to rationalize it.

I understand very well why some people need to maintain this existence (some might even favor it), but it can be improved through more blending of the two energies such that the dysphoria (assuming you have it) is less inclined to build to a crescendo and then need to be dealt with.

Even with transsexuals, the most successful transitions tend to be those where the person is able to marry the past with the present to create a complete human being where nothing of value to them is thrown away.

Life is about balance.

Bubble

We can only understand where we were in life after we are somewhere else. In other words, when we are enclosed in a current reality we cannot appreciate what it would be like to exist outside of it. This is universal.

It is unfortunate because many of us end up in situations which do not benefit us. Fear, economic reality or perhaps our sense of loyalty keep us glued and often without examining properly how we got lost. Our perspective has been skewed by virtue of being in our bubble.

A sizeable chunk of my life was like that and I know that I am in excellent company. But I would argue that it is almost impossible to avoid since we begin life with little ability to question what we are embroiled in. We simply assume it is correct because we are told it is.

Much of life involves gaining the ability to discern what is worthwhile for us to focus on and where our priorities should lie. By then there is less runway left.

What is at stake

It's more than a bit frustrating for many of us watching this coming US election from outside and seeing the imbalance from the media. As Trump incoherently babbles about sharks, batteries and windmills, Kamala Harris is being put to a higher standard simply because she is far more capable. Yes she is answering questions about her current administration but the lack of policy coming from Republicans is astounding since it is nothing but grievance and lies. Their feet are not being put to the fire sufficiently over this.

Even many Republicans understand that Trump is a dangerous imbecile and still maintain that they will vote for him to avoid a far-left communist regime which is nothing but embarrassing hyperbole beyond any common sense. It does however partly help explain why 40% of the country is going to still vote GOP.

If Harris does not win this election it will be hard to avoid saying that one gets the government they deserve and I say this while knowing full well that the electoral college only makes it more difficult for the Democrats.

But how the polls are this close is mind boggling given the obvious choice to be made and what is at stake especially with the radical project 2025 agenda waiting in the wings.

Let go the line

 

Puppet master

Whoever is controlling my puppet strings is very wise. In retrospect I can see that now because you cannot have issues this big in your life and not deal with them head on.

I avoided, delayed and sought refuge in relationships all in the name of forcing a conventional life that didn't quite fit me. Thankfully, my stubborn ways had my children end up in the picture.

But dealing with something this big required much alone time which the last 8 years provided me. In there the pandemic gave me a huge boost with my retirement serving as the last important piece of the puzzle.

I am transsexual which is inescapable and burying it in the sand wasn't going to provide me with the internal peace I craved. I needed a very carefully crafted plan which is now in the last 10% of refinement.

But the puppetmaster helped me in a way I didn't understand back then. Except that with the benefit of hindsight, I very much now do.

I'd also like to think that my father has been lending a hand all along.

Lower the temperature

My temptation to slap someone at least once a day never goes away but I work on it. Entitlement syndrome invades some people to their core and, at almost 62, both my patience for offensive people and my filter are largely gone.

What helps me is that I have 2 or 3 daily interactions which save everything. The other day was with a sweet 18 year old student sitting next to me eating ice cream and this morning with a barista who is going home to India for 3 months and was in a jubilant mood. "Have a wonderful day ma'am" which I returned in kind.

I also see people who have so little that they lower my temperature right down.

Your own map

In theory authenticity should greatly remove our self-conciousness. In other words, the more we approach our core identity, the better we should feel in our own skin and be able to disregard opinion.

This is a test we can try for ourselves to determine who we are and once we get past fear and stigma, find a resting baseline which becomes our normal. We get over the temptation for comparison and find our identity within the vacuum of our own introspection.

The hardest part is to detach ourselves from a script we bought into very early in life. The older we currently are, the more it seeped into every pore of our being. To escape we should see authenticity as being synonymous with uniqueness which is why I never worry about definitions and use them loosely. 

'Trans" means very little to me at this point other than as a rough guideline as it offers no map of where to go or what to do.

The severity of the sin

The reason I tend to have a blunt outlook on gender variance in general is that so many people suffer over it. Bucking the most fundamental building block of society (even in small ways) is not going to go unnoticed especially when so much architecture has been built around it over the centuries.

No matter where people reside on the continuum there is some aspect which has given them grief. If it isn't the paralyzing fear to come out, it is some other reason. There is always a minefield ahead which must be judiciously navigated to avoid an explosion which could perturb a delicately built life.

Some people are happy to be left alone in their expression while others stretch the definition of womanhood by testing the courts when access to women only spaces is closed off to them. This time it was Roxanne Tickle who did just that in Australia and raised the ire of the criticals like JK Rowling by winning access to the social media app Giggle. Apparently it is a great offense.

In reality there shouldn't be so much weight given to sex and gender but you cannot undo centuries of precedent and expect no pushback most especially from those whose sense of perspective and critical thinking has been heavily compromised.

While I always seem to find actors on both sides I disagree with, I find much more fault with those who are so greatly perturbed by the existence of others. Something as innocuous as a website shouldn't invite so much vitriol until we realize that bad faith actors are looking for every bit of ammunition to put people back into closets.

My personal experience with the solid people I know is that reasonable people are the ones endowed with the most common sense. When you reflect on the severity of the sin you realize there are much bigger things to worry about in this world.

$1.2 million was spent making sure that Roxanne was kept out.

Love song to a vampire

 

Cultivating confidence

 

It was time to go

Beatrice called me this morning from her car to vent as she was on her way to a construction site meeting. Like everyone else these days she is stressed and the company keeps giving the employees useless platitudes and plenty of hypocrisy.

They send out emails about work life balance while bleeding them all dry. Things weren't always like this.

I retired just in time as my filter was gone and profanity never far from my lips; for I was too old and savvy to be lied to. The EPCM world is now about profits and throwing the youth into battle before they are ready. It's shoddy and irresponsible and near the end I could no longer see photos of management smiling at ribbon cuttings.

I knew it was time to go.

Be happy

People are drawn to two things in us: confidence and happiness.

Do both 

Being human

As we continue to amass life experience there is more of the past to go over in our minds. We will periodically review it and try to make sense of who we were back then. The decisions made and actions taken are weighed against a current mentality we possess.

Being human is not easy and we will live with regret, heartache, depression  anxiety and a whole host of other things which dampen our spirits and yet it is all worth for the joy of being alive in this fascinating place. We grow and develop into new versions of ourselves all the time and find redemption when we didn't expect to get it.

Everyone has challenges and we need to face them head on. We don't back down and we defend ourselves against those in the world who would find glee in our failure. The older we get the more we understand the multi-layered complexity of society while striving to simplify it in our minds by ignoring all of its fabricated artificially; it's invented games which have no purpose.

Looking inward

Lauren discovered what I needed to do as well which was to answer who I was outside of what the world thought about this topic. To look inward and understand what my core was telling me. Very slowly and often without firm answers...

Relationship famine

 

Guide

In a recent video, detransitioner Ray Williams (formerly Rachel) tells you to love yourself as a male which perhaps he didn't but does now. However transgender people don't hate themselves, they just don't want their identity and expression mandated to them according to their birth sex.

Use increasing happiness, peace and contentment as your guide and proceed accordingly.

Boundary line

Whenever I read comments on sites where people on slightly different rungs of the gender continuum converge and share their opinions, I am fascinated when the boundary lines between them are approached over certain issues. For example, those are in some form of social transition will note something that a part-time person has stated which does not work for them and the contrast cannot be avoided although it can be deftly navigated around politely.

Often it is because the part time person may have little issue with their male identity whereas the person who is in the process of transition has moved to a different interpretation of their core.

Use of public bathrooms is one such topic but there are others 

Fairness

We readily throw around the phrase that "life isn't fair" but then I think about it and it's not so clear cut. For there are people who the world considers fortunate, have money and fame but when we scratch the surface things are not so ideal for them.

Conversely there are those who seem constantly embroiled in hardships and yet have a quietness of spirit and appreciation for the smallest things who leave their impact on us much more than those who seem to have it all.

In any event the world does not know how to properly assess value and many chase the wrong things; the things they are told have real value which they discover later left them empty.

Fairness is subjective but I would argue that those who most cherish the best things life has to offer come out the winners. The value is in human connection and experiences which enrich us and make us grow as human beings.

The rest is only so much flotsam.

How to sleep more soundly

One of the great things about being my age is that you get to a place where you don't care about what anyone thinks of you. You leave behind all needless opinions from people who know nothing about you and you find your center as a person.

By now we know all too well that the world is full of idiots and if you are affected in any way by their pronouncements, we know we need to work on our internal fortitude.

People have all kinds of ideas about how others should live but I propose to you that only you know what is best for you and no one else. If you are looking for internal joy, peace and contentment then you should strive for the things that get you there which includes blocking out advice which counters that goal.

Many people in this world are deeply fearful and insecure and live via comparison and outside validation. This is a hideous mistake plus many do not educate themselves on subjects before they announce their opinions on them which is unfortunate.

Where I am now in life is a place where I have distanced myself from expending needless energy on things that don't matter which includes people that don't matter. If we choose a path that improves our well being then that is what is important because we will not only benefit ourselves but so will others we interact with.

At this age we also tend to recognize much more quickly which people bring value, richness and kindness into our lives and it is they we should strive to hold onto the most.

After all, this is the age of the social media idiot and if we always keep that in mind we will sleep far more soundly at night.

A different approach

 

Appassionata

 

Elevating

Some people end up stunting their gender variance without even knowing it. It becomes a secret activity which takes on mythic proportions in their mind when they would be best served by trying to elevate it and blending it into their lives in more cohesive ways.

How do I know this? Because I used to live that way until my early forties. It was mentally and physically taxing and looking for holes to fit outings took on obsessive energy which was best put elsewhere. My dysphoria simply got worse year after year until I could no longer cope on outings alone. My life disintegrated and I had to start over.

Fear was the main culprit here of course. My fear of rejection was paralyzing me and it was entirely unwarranted but I had no way to know as a child of strict binary education.

Over the years I met people who were best described as euphorics and were able to balance a double life comfortably. Unfortunately I wasn't one of them and I was in good company with many people my age who straddled well into the realm of transsexualism but could do very little because of life choices.

But no matter where you are on the continuum it will do your psyche a great service to elevate your gender variance to a higher plain.

People just don't give a shit and those who do don't matter.

He was right

How do we know that Harry Benjamin was correct? Simple.

Even today with its far more open environment and available options, people are behaving exactly as expected as per his scale concept. From no dysphoria to the most extreme levels, most gender variant people are adopting responses which are customized and meet their individual needs. From sporadic expression through to full medical transition for both natal sexes. It is elegant and fits perfectly with the human mosaic idea.

All those with toxic and convoluted theories about gender variance can shove them where the sun don't shine.

Grenade

As the variety inherent in human behaviour becomes more transparent over time we are having more difficulty categorizing it. Before, within gender variance, it was simpler to just use terms like transvestite and transsexual because the full spectrum was mostly hidden underground. It was clinicians like Harry Benjamin who were privy to it in their offices but the real world saw little of it. Even transsexuals disappeared into society where they could be left alone if they were lucky. Today there are still many older people in particular who are largely in hiding mainly due to stigma.

Today we throw terms around like gender fluid, non-binary, gender queer, gender non-conforming and have trouble distinguishing them to the point of confusing ourselves. It's interesting to see what happens when you throw a grenade into the room.

Unsurprisingly we have seen that within this large mosaic are people who are uniquely bizarre which only adds more wrinkles in our attempts to understand and categorize. They typically become the low hanging fruit for the criticals.

The point is that people are all over the place and the mosaic far more varied than we thought before the flood gates were opened. We now see some gender variant people try to re-establish a pecking order to determine who is more authentic because as a human race we are so highly predictable in some areas.

Daily wear

I like costume stuff for daily wear and both of these cost $5 at a thrift store I sometimes go to...

Tents

There are more and more tents popping up around my city. This used to be unheard of in Montréal but now it is something people are getting used to. They aren't directly on the street like in some cities like Los Angeles but strategically hidden next to bushes in parks trying to avoid the police who have more than their hands full as it is.

The social fabric is broken most everywhere in the world (save a few countries) and that video I posted this morning on Appalachia shows how you can hollow out by devastating its economics. The only surviving industry is coal and much of it is exported to China. Many are on opioides.

We have a climate crisis but long before that a social justice one especially in places where the very poorest are left to fend mostly for themselves. While some people think about what color their yacht is going to be, others consider what things they will do with less of this month.

Will they be cutting back on food or halving their medications?

How "passing" becomes irrelevant

If transgender people are all about identity then the term "passing" becomes entirely irrelevant for it implies you are trying to be someone else.

You are always yourself.

Compensation

To varying degrees, we all have life coping schemas that we develop. Some examples are martyr complex, co-dependency, people pleaser, problem solver, etc. These are methods of getting us through life and are often developed as compensation for childhood issues. For example, if we are looking for love we may develop the people pleaser profile to get the affection we didn't get during our formative years.

The problem with many of these schemas is that they mask an underlying problem which hasn't been addressed. In order to heal the psyche we need to realize that we are using compensation techniques and address the core blockage which impedes our development into optimum versions of ourselves.

I was the problem solver. Everybody else's except my own.

As transgender people (especially older ones) we likely made choices filtered through these schemas. We may even have chosen life partners that feed and sustain them and we are unwittingly helping to propagate them.

Heartland

 

Stop being inauthentic

Absolutely phenomenal advice...

Height

Within the last 2 weeks I've been waiting for buses with young women who were easily 6'5".

Anyone worried about height can relax. They're getting bigger:)

Trust

I recently came out to a group of three women when I didn't need to but it felt so good. The girls at the public market cafe I frequent had talked about a Sunday breakfast in September. I have become a bit of a mother figure to them as they are ages 46, 28 and 19. They are all so sweet and genuine and I felt they would be very receptive if I shared this important aspect of myself.

Sure enough, they were extremely touched and they confirmed that my trust had been well placed. People care about who we are on the inside much more than anything else and they were so grateful that I trusted them with this information.

I used to be so worried about rejection that if people assumed I was a genetic female I considered it a great blessing. Of course I don't walk around with a badge on my forehead announcing I am transgender, but if someone should ask I would readily admit it. It feels rather cathartic to be so open and it is my way of increasing visibility.

So far my trust in people has been very much rewarded.

Ghouls

When Gus Walz had his spontaneous show of emotion as his father spoke on stage of his love for his children, some ghouls on the right got their knives out. The insults about the young man, who has some neurological issues, began to fly on social media. Some of them were cruel to a point that made you question the basic humanity of the author.

If this is the way Trumpism has its swan song, it will be a fitting one for it perfectly encapsulates the movement as "cruelty is the point" to which I would only add massive stupidity as a footnote. Trump is a disgraceful excuse for a human being who 40% of the country might yet still vote for, but there are thankfully more people with grace and dignity who will not.

His followers will not disappear but at least they will be more relegated to the darker corners of the internet once their imbecilic mouthpiece slowly fades into the dust bin of history.

Love of self

Loving yourself can sound like you are being conceited but it is important to learn to do it. Our confidence is tied to love and respect for the self and getting there makes us see the world so differently.

Once I had fully embraced my identity the ingredients were all there for love of self. I had the life experience and the knowledge and that final step was what I needed to grow into the best version of myself.

There are still things I want to improve of course but no longer hiding any aspect of myself and being fully transparent has transformed me and made me more mentally mature. The honesty has been like a breath of fresh air with friends only gaining in their respect of me.

We move forward in confidence and learn to love who we are.

Linger

Some people linger on your face on transit and you will catch their eye. If you deem they have a friendly face, smile at them. They will smile back.

Works almost every time.

Pre-filter

Most transgender people (especially older ones) will first pre-filter their psychology through how others perceive them. In other words, they will ask themselves how their ideas and actions are weighed within the confines of the coordinate system of people who aren't like them; which turns out is the vast majority of society.

The first thing this filtering will potentially do is introduce negativity and fear since we know most people won't understand us and will at best empathize. This has the net effect of reducing our stance to a more apologetic one which ostensibly says "how can I make my existence more palatable to you".

This was my biggest challenge and there are still remnants of it left. We cannot help but go back and compare ourselves to a baseline that most people live within and we ourselves were educated under. However, the more aggressive our dysphoria the more difficult this process of escape could be since more is typically involved to get a new baseline where we feel whole. The further we distance ourselves from the familiar, the scarier it can be.

In essence, to free ourselves we need to avoid comparison which is very difficult to do when your life contrasts so sharply against that of others. Here our worst enemy, as always, is ourselves.

Existential courage

Sage advice...

Instant connectivity

Increasingly on YouTube there is content about people unplugging from social media; this for all ages. It had become a negative distraction which was harming them and they decided to delete their presence. I did this in 2011.

It can become a habit forming drug which drains away our time looking at mindless drivel which we can't seem to look away from. When you belong to a large family as I do, it can only be more tempting to see the trivialities of what people are up to.

Studies have shown that people tend to get more depressed about their own lives when they see others on the beach in Mexico or those pictures of that new bundle of joy. There is too much information too quickly for us to process especially when our own lives may not be in an optimum state. In the past our brains would not be so taxed in this manner.

Social media's danger did not become apparent until after it was well ensconced into the social fabric. The impacts on the collective conciouness were not yet obvious in our giddiness at the thought of instant connectivity.

Boy did we learn.

If it brings you joy

The appetite for pure gender expression is far more expansive than we thought. I see it every day among youth who thumb their nose at convention.

My generation was full of huge hang ups and males in particular ended up in secret societies, late night walks around the block and other such methods. All in the name of escaping detection. Women were marginally better off but also suffered pushback whenever they dared to test social boundaries. If their sins were considered less grave it is because aspiring to be more male was at least more admirable than embarrassing oneself by donning a dress.

Youth are free of that stigma and they could care less what you think about how they present or how they identify. Pure expression is perfectly fine and should be celebrated and, if it brings you joy, it is all that matters. 

If perturbed just be prepared to be a nasty piece of work because most people back down in front of confidence. Thank goodness it's very unlikely to happen because so many people are walking around scared to death themselves.

Disagreement

I completely welcome being disagreed with and receiving other points of view. If I learn something from someone else I am the better for it because putting my head in the sand isn't going to help me improve my knowledge base. I have no vested interest in being right but only in expanding my mind.

The thing I hate most in this world is willful ignorance and people who weigh in on things they know nothing about. When it impacts the lives of others it is even more pertinent to be careful.

We need to have charity and patience and work on removing our blinders. We need to meet people where they are and attempt to understand them before we make a judgment. I had to work on that aspect because I felt I would be judged and did so in return.

Cruelty isn't an intrinsic part of every human but it can be fostered and bred such that the person feels trapped and resentful of the world. But the world is full of people who have fallen victim to the frustrations of others and adopted them as their own.

Trumpism banked on the negativity of grievance and stoked the fires of the worst instincts of a populace. Thankfully it looks like it will not succeed in spreading itself any further into the American conciousness and come November there will be a fresh start.

Know your core

Understanding and accepting that at my core I am female is what finally tipped the scales for my psyche. I wasn't a man expressing femininity but instead my dysphoria was telling me there was much more.

I am one of the least likely people you will meet for beginning cross gender expression electively and out of a sense of exploration or curiousity. Instead for me it was a primordial and intrinsic calling which goes back to earliest memory. Whether that happened in vitro or not I will never know but it no longer matters. I used to wonder if some people mistaking me for a girl was one of the signs.

I ruled out trauma as I had a pretty good childhood with loving but strict parents who I suspect would have given me support had I come out to them. My mother certainly came around.

Today I hold up my femininity with pride and bask in the glow of friendships with people who love me in any form and live an authentic life.

With that and the love and respect of my children, I need nothing else.

Word Salad

Jordan Peterson's views on things he knows nothing about continues to have a fan base with many. His shtick has been mostly based on the optics of sounding intellectual but really saying very little. I have seen him get rattled when his evasive tactics don't work on someone who sees through him and his invariable reliance on word salad.

What he is at his core is the curmudgeon who is having trouble with social change. He is perennially unhappy and sour which is what most conservatives seem to be these days. As example, his hyperbole on Bill C-16 and being forced to use pronouns at gunpoint illustrates how alarmist he and his cohorts can get.

Someone like Peterson brought up under a more restrictive social model, would be more inclined to resist the idea of people exploring their identity. They talk about objective truth as cover to simplify topics which are infinitely more nuanced. But then conservatives don't do nuance or greys very well at all which is why the often ruffled professor fits in so well with his new friends at The Daily Wire where they are experts primarily at outrage...

Dysfunction models

Interestingly, toxic models of gender variance were created and propagated largely by people who were themselves frustrated and repressed people. At this age this has become crystal clear to me but it wasn't when I less understood human psychology.

The more we are hot and bothered by someone else's existence, the more it says about your own frustrations and insecurities.

If you look at many native cultures where there was less repression, people tended to be more accepted for who they were. If they weren't celebrated outright, at least they were not persecuted for being different. Judeo-Christian society had far more trouble with diversity I think in part because of its rigid need to control the population and repent for anything that didn't fit a preordained box..

So for example, Kurt Freund came out of repressive  post war eastern block European culture, emigrated to Canada and proceeded to mentor a man who was himself a victim of repression.

The more constrained we feel the more likely we will try and find people who we deem have no right to free themselves when we can't.

Joy and humor

Having a sense of joy and humor about being transgender is pretty much essential. I was pretty devoid of it growing up but learned to develop one because otherwise life the way we are would be considerable less joyful. Untreated (or even under treated) gender dysphoria is not a fun thing to begin with.

Admittedly this is far easier today and what helped was looking up and realizing how many people with challenges find the positives and even celebrate their situation. There were people in wheelchairs who had a more jovial attitude than I used to at my rock bottom. This represented a complete loss of perspective on my part.

I laugh at myself far more readily and people can easily recognize the lightness I carry which is more often than not steeped in joy.

Normal

I used to ponder the question of what normal is but eventually settled on the fact that it doesn't exist. What does is the general conformance that people have adhered to for centuries under which lay much more varied behaviour which dared not show its face.

I could take a sampling of people and examine their lives in great detail which would give me a far more accurate picture of who they are. Certainly it would be more representative than the one they show the world.

So if we talk normal we can say it represents the statistical band within which the majority of people exist and are afraid to exit lest they be shunned. This public behaviour is not entirely who they are but we can say it is a mask which is comfortable enough to wear over long periods.

If today's normal has been expanded, it is because some people were tired of wearing much heavier and more tedious versions.

When you are unsure where to land

I know why I became so interested in gender variance and its not just because of my natural curiosity. It is because I felt my situation was so complex. I was so heavily programmed against it and yet had feelings that went back to childhood which clashed against my religious and strict upbringing. I would not allow myself to address the core of my dilemma until I had proof that a fine-tuned and customizable approach to this was possible.

I solved the bulk of the issue but the interest remained and, even if my solution was less than perfect, it ticked most of the boxes of what I required.

In that Donahue show from 1989 you had some people happy with their well-timed episodes of expression like Joanne while some were equally so with their identity-driven certainty that medical transition was the right call like Eve (who I more relate to). My being stuck in an uncertain quagmire for a while reminded me how complex sex and gender can become when you already don't readily fit within a certain bandwidth and even then you are unsure of exactly where to land. Doing nothing was definitely not an option.

It's why sometimes the answer can take a while.

By the way, RIP Phil Donahue.

One day

One day it just clicks into place. You aren't wearing women's clothes, you are simply wearing yours.

1989

Yes, this Donahue show is a little dated but the archetypes of gender variance are still very much valid. Here they use the terms transvestites, female impersonators, transsexuals and hermaphrodites. Some of the commentary is rude but reflects the ignorance by the public at that time.

I was 27 then and very much in denial...

Travellers

Friends come and go in life which makes perfect sense. The depth of these relationships varies as they are made at various stages in life often through shared interest or activity such as work. Once that commonality is over the connection may be lost because there was nothing else bolstering it. The coffee we had with colleagues which allowed us to vent over management's obtuseness suddenly loses relevance when we have moved to another phase of life.

I have no illusions or expectations about hanging on to people and realize that I miss some less once the bond of shared experience is gone. I have a small core that I consider life friends and the rest are passing ships that help us to hone our humanity and teach us to appreciate both our differences and our similarities.

We are here as travellers.

Free thought

I've always encouraged people who read my writing to think for themselves and to question everything. The more something is accepted as orthodoxy, the more we should examine it to find out why. After all, the historical precedent is that human beings often get things wrong and thought movements develop which catch popular fire before they are eventually extinguished.

I have done this all my life which may be part predisposition and having an intellectual for a father who extolled the virtues of critical thinking.

We need to figure things out for ourselves and adopt thinking which can be defended. For if we cannot answer why we believe something we won't be very convincing in a debate. The more self-assured someone is the more it invites me to dig deeper into the origin of their ideas. More often than not the people most convinced they are right are the most easily derailed and holes more readily poked into their dogma.

Hospital bathroom incident

I read a comment recently on a video on transvestigating (where Contrapoints was a guest) which stayed with me. The poor woman who wrote it was subjected to the limited intelligence and sense of entitlement of a couple of other women the type of which the world will never be rid of.

I have been using the ladies room for decades without incident except last year a lady asked me if I was a transsexual and admitted after I queried her that it was because of my height. Except that I run into women as tall as me all the time some of whom may now endure the new level of scrutiny under the guise of trans panic.

Here is the comment:

"Today I was kicked out of the woman's bathroom by two other women at a hospital because I was accused of being a man. I am a cis woman but have no hair because of illness. It was so dehumanizing, I couldn't do anything to prove that I was a cis woman in the moment. They were looking me up and down as I told them I am a woman as they were analyzing every part of my body. One of them said to the other "I think he might actually be a woman" and the other said "no he isn't". In the end I just left out of embarrassment and used the disabled bathroom"

This is going to happen more often of course as stupidity is often an unfixable trait of some people.

Ma ville

J'habite ici la grand majorite de ma vie pour bonne raison....

How we miss you Lyle

A young PMG in 1980...

A channel for rage

Trumpism became for a time a convenient channel for rage. Someone was putting into words what the populace secretly felt but was unable to coalesce into mass grievance. Never mind that it was a carnival barker doing it because at least someone got their pain even if it was channeled towards strawmen.

Trump was the dog chasing the car but even worse he was an opportunist who cared little for the suffering of the masses. His own ego was feeding his desire to be president which is why crowd size became so important. The petulant man-child who is now unraveling, much to the unfounded surprise of his cynical helpers, has little more to offer.

If nothing else, this movement not only proved that idiocy is alive and well but (even worse) that many people can be hypocrites to a point beyond almost beyond belief. The same people who one day were on record speaking truth to Trump's unfitness were not long after seen groveling at his boots. Self-respect need not be important if it gets you what you want.

The Harris-Walz ticket doesn't offer perfection but at least it tempts as a respite from negativity and a return to a semblance of joy. An escape from the machinations of people who think voters are idiots to those who will do their best to help as many people as they can without special interest prejudice.

All or nothing

I don't like the "all or nothing" mentality because it can cause some people needless excess suffering. Some will say to themselves "I must completely transition or do nothing" which is not exactly going to reduce their dysphoria. Granted, there are people who will no doubt benefit from a full medical transition but, if for some reason they cannot, bearing the full brunt of dysphoria by doing nothing is not much of a solution.

Today there have never been more options and I have seen all variations adopted. The point is to help the person reduce anxiety and depression which I feel is best undertaken in measured steps. Even gender clinics now adopt this approach.

Given that gender variance is much more widely accepted should help us here because people no longer expect to see only a rigid binary. There are so many people who push the boundaries of expression, that this should help transgender people to adopt more unique formulas which respect where they are in life. Their constraints can be respected while still alleviating their dysphoria even if imperfectly.

Most gender variant people do not end up on the transsexual end of the spectrum but even if they do, consider that transsexuals could do nothing about their situation for the vast majority of human existence.

I consider doing something to be far superior to doing nothing any day of the week.

"Can you please fix me?"

Back in 2007 I asked the Montréal General Hospital gender identity clinic if they could please fix me. A lot has happened since then but it illustrates how much in denial I was and how much I had suppressed since my childhood. Things in society were also not where they are now.

They told me rather politely that they couldn't "repair me" but they would do their best to help me. Nancy Dubois who was a young sexologist at the time with the program was assigned to my case and over 3 months we worked on my situation through 1.5 hour long sessions. It was the beginning stages of unblocking my psyche.

Eventually I was approved to progress into the program but I could ill afford to take a risk with young children and a marriage on the rocks to take any risks and so I abandoned for fear I might transition.

I then took on my own cause (much of which was chronicled in my writing) at my own pace and realized it is more than possible to do so and come to the right place. For I was too bull-headed and skeptical to have it be otherwise. It turned out to be the right call.

Today the young people entering the program (some whom I have met) no longer ask to be fixed for they don't think there is anything wrong with them. They simply come asking for guidance.

James

 

Too old??

Recently I happened upon a video by someone wondering whether they might be too old to still be "crossdressing" which made me think: is this really an intrinsic part of who you are?

The fact that this question was even being asked suggests to me that they might see it more as activity than a way of being. They were my age or older which should have given them plenty of time to ponder over their core identity.

Repeatedly I always seem to go back to the same essential questions regarding gender identity and expression and how they combine in each person which can be complex to say the least.

Sasha

 What a beautiful soul...

Smell the roses

Learning to slow down can be difficult but ultimately extremely beneficial. Today I have nothing but time to smell the roses and I do but for a goal oriented person, it is not easy to adapt to it. For over three decades I worked on challenging projects with tight deadlines and this is hardly conducive to cranking down the temperature on life.

Good thing I have kept some routine which keeps me active and my chatterbox ways has me talking to strangers. This morning it was a couple from New York City who were right behind me in the lineup at café Olimpico. People interest me no end particularly when they are as polite as they were and how talkative and open the wife was with me.

By contrast

Sometimes contrast can help us discover who we are. We can meet different people and at least come to a consensus about who we are not, which can be extremely helpful. For example, someone who expresses themselves happily once a month will contrast sharply against a person who must live authentically daily because it is deeply rooted in identity.

There is no right answer here, only ours and through stages of experimentation we come to understand who we are. As we get closer to a target, our peace of mind and stability increases because we are arriving at our core.

The other sign is that once we are at a certain plateau, not only do we not want to go back but we are physically unable to do so because it would induce suffering.

You will note how I am not using any terminology here because it does not matter.

To be in awe

We don't travel alone, we're just walking each other home...

Energy

My daughter is dating someone new and, as expected for a 26 year old, he could care less that I am transgender. For them it's like saying you prefer Coke to Pepsi. He asked a few questions and that was about it.

They cannot imagine the world those of us who are older grew up in. They understand it intellectually but have no visceral feeling to associate with. They are used seeing and accepting diversity and difference.

The effort it took me to escape the gravitational pull of that world paid off and helped me build much internal strength except that I would hate to call upon on that kind of energy today because I no longer possess it.

Kooks

We have our own right wing kooks in Alberta...

A role you were not trained for

The psychology of full time living requires a huge but gradual adaptation especially when combined with a recent retirement which can unbalance you at times. You go from 34 years in a demanding career, managing gender dysphoria, a stroke, a divorce, raising two children to suddenly no concrete goals and living as a woman in your early 60's.

It derails even as it pleases you greatly for you have entered a role which feels entirely natural to you except you were never really trained for no matter how strong your early instincts.

Living part time does not really prepare you for this because you have now become untethered from an imperfect familiar you were educated under; a place whose safety net you have now left behind and aren't going back to.

Detox

The shtick has gotten really old and Trump's grievances and insults sound like an old man playing a tiny violin. Some Americans say they have PTSD and can no longer listen to the incessant whining, see his stupid face or witness his off the cuff idiocy.

Trump's poll numbers are slipping as more people go through Trumpism detox where they finally realize he's been a sham all along. Those of us who recognized it from day one can only sigh in exasperation.

It's finally dawned on many that their fundamental rights are in play and that a right wing cabal wants to fundamentally transform the country into one with authoritarian leanings. These people have always existed and always will because those twisted instincts are universally present in a segment of the population.

It is, regrettably, incurable.

Weird

Human beings are often very weird (no not Trump weird). We have hang ups, doubts, compulsive behaviors and we top that off with a tendency to be massively self-critical. Small wonder any of us have our sanity intact.

If you have lived long enough you may have noticed that your weirdness fits right in especially in this age of social media where it is celebrated rather than hidden away from public view. In the past it was simply kept behind closed doors but it was very much there.

I have continued to remove much of the stigma I carried for a whole host of things which was only made worse through having received very rigid religious instruction over my youth. Now that I have entered my 60's I have a very lucid and realistic view of how truly nuts the human race is and I mean that in a good way. Many of us have eccentricities that are hardly worth worrying about and yet people tend to be ashamed about them as if they were hurting others with them. The amount of fear and insecurity we carry is often unwarranted and so we remain trapped in the idea that we will be deemed less loveable because of them.

Imagine living our entire lives with fears about things being discovered by people whose opinion is entirely irrelevant.

Kinda depressing.

The mental attic

I noticed in myself that when I was largely in hiding it was helping to create a negative psychology that was working against my optimal mental wellness. When something about you isn't adopted fully and kept marginalized you are potentially creating a pocket of unwellness which can then encourage aberrant behaviour or at least psychology.

If some gender variant people are into infantilized, hyper-sexualized behaviour or being humiliated I think perhaps it is because they have kept their affinity for cross gender expression in a kind of mental attic. In other words, it has been viewed as something secret and dirty when in fact it should never have been. It could have been explored differently but it wasn't; most often through no fault of their own..

Of course not everyone is like this but older people were certainly more prone to develop this psychology because gender variance was considered something so abnormal that they bought into the narrative themselves. They sold themselves the idea of fetish perhaps largely unwittingly.

When I was in my twenties I would sometimes see men dressed as women looking conspicuously like they had just robbed a bank wheras today youth flaunts their cosplay whether they are transgender or not. 

Clearly the latter has an infinitely greater chance of avoiding psychological blockages or trauma.

Great Expectations

It's really amazing. What we now recognize as naturally-occurring diversity existed since the dawn of civilization and yet it was sold as dysfunction when set against a baseline which was considered the only acceptable normal. The vast majority of people simply did as they were instructed; all the more so if they already fit more readily within a band of expectation.

Ostensibly we sold myth as being truth and reality was dismissed as fiction.

The reasons are not very complicated because predictability is far more desirable by the ruling class. If people could be manipulated into conformity, predictable patterns could be established. Hence the clergy and the monarchs conspired to force uniformity where much more variance would have sprouted without coercion.

I talk frequently with young people who have been spared the deeply ingrained programming and they are far more chill about everything. They may have anxiety about economic issues but on the cultural front there is a noticeable absence of societal trauma borne out of expectation.

Why not transition fully?

Why does someone who would have likely benefitted from medical transition not do so?

I came to the conclusion that if I could get to 100% perfect self acceptance I would see then. If I ever got there I would evaluate.

When I finally achieved my goal I realized that I was happy enough with the body, the voice, the mannerisms, the poise, the confidence and the amount of people who accepted me for who I am that I no longer needed to. Many have no idea.

Oopsie

 

Sarah

Wisdom from a young woman who has struggled..

Whole

Men and women are really not all that different and when you allow for individual traits you realize that we are talking about minor divergences. Much of the time we are dealing with issues of socialization instead of the deeply innate.

Living as I do has allowed me to see this up close with one of the more remarkable differences is the way women relate to each other. They tend to be more open but then this has been encouraged in them versus what was discouraged in males. Men of my father's generation, for example,  were encouraged to be more stoic and stiff upper lip to a point where some were deeply lonely.

I am always myself and aside from allowing certain mannerisms to flourish that I had suppressed, I have understood that my essential core was always the same and that I wasn't putting on a costume or a fake persona. It can take time to learn where one resides on the expression and identity axis without sufficient field testing and introspection. For me it became increasingly clear that I wasn't two distinct characters but in fact only one.

My conclusion is that our core is entirely independent of what we wear or what we do to our bodies. While I acknowledge and respect all decisions made by people to improve their chances to blend successfully into the world as who they feel they are, it is that internal journey that will ultimately provide us the answer about what steps to take.

No matter where one resides within the human mosaic, our authenticity is a highly personal one which should mature along with everything else about us into wholeness; very much what I see youth trying to do right now where there is no hidden other life because they don't need one.

Moving on with life

 

Unique creatures

I continue to see youth transforming themselves into unique creatures. Every day on the street or on the metro I witness people who are unafraid to be themselves and carry their own brand of aestheticism. They are not necessarily trying to push an envelope but just say that they don't care what you think about what they wear or how they posture.

They are not interested in fitting into a predetermined model and I must admit that there's a lot to be said for not cowering.

Yes in Canada too

We have our own outrage factory. Steve Boots explains...

In the present

I think that the best approach to life is to have hope but at the same time to lower expectations for if we have too much of the latter we are just asking for disappointment.

Our existence is messy and organic and refuses to be tamed by our will. If I wish I had learned anything sooner it is this. We are best to live with flexibility and expect for plans to fall by the wayside. We will feel better when they do but also be so content when things come to align in our favor.

I no longer fight against the current but navigate within it and still taking side tangents when I am able. It feels much better and allows me to be more aware that I need to live in the present and the flexibility it often demands.

Those who remain

Trump is becoming more unhinged by the day which is saying a lot because his starting point was already at dangerously deranged. it's getting harder for his minions to prop him up and it's starting to look like the movie Weekend at Bernie's with Trump as the corpse.

Elon Musk who seems at times at the tipping point with his own sanity, did his best with a slurring Trump who sounded like his dentures were about to escape the confines of his mouth. Elon did his best to avoid Trump sounding like a grandpa who had forgotten his meds. It didn't work.

At this point one becomes befuddled with those who persist in saying that he is still America's savior. Even if one removes the worst low information voters that still leaves the rest to account for.

Diminishing both

Gender euphoria tends to diminish when you live full time but then so does gender dysphoria and so you end up calmer and better overall. It makes perfect sense since we cannot live on a constant high or a low.

I keep saying that some people might be uncomfortable with too much freedom all of a sudden. It's like the person who retires and doesn't know what to do with themselves and feels lost. They may start to miss the safety rails and the constraints that their job brought them.This should be especially true if we have lived a certain way for decades without much change.

I am in the process of adjusting to two things at once and, to understand it, it must be lived.

10 must do things in Montreal

I've done it all in this video but it will give you a nice taste of Montréal.

My hood is Verdun...

Terminology

If tomorrow all of the language we have used (both in the past and today) to describe gender variance in all its forms were to be jettisoned, how would that affect how you see yourself and what you do?

I hope it would change nothing.

The fragile heart

There are people who exude dignity and goodness and their glow seems to be unhindered by the negativity of the world. I gravitate towards them because even if they aren't necessarily scholarly they possess a common sense that transcends the need for having facts constantly at your fingertips.

I love that they haven't been as jaded as I eventually became and look to them to help bring me back from focusing on the frequent stupidity I see at this age.

What bores me are the vapid things some cling to as bread and butter sustenance. It is one thing to be playful but quite another to be perennially anchored to the trivial. However, that combination of a fragile heart coupled with a basic wisdom which has insight into the world is so utterly appealing and so exceedingly rare.

Escaping

Freeing ourselves is not easy. If it were, instantly tomorrow we would have a much better world with less fear, insecurity and hate. Instead what many of us do is find solace in things which bring us temporary relief from the pressure of the world to conform. We seek outlets where we can taste some freedom in lieu of becoming independent from the irrationality that our societies thrive on.

It's unfortunate that we operate this way because people would be so much more content if they felt less fearful. The vast majority of my life improvement came from undoing programming which was entirely irrational and not based on solid reasoning (I had dysphoria but was too fearful to allow myself the dignity of treating it seriously and so settled for half measures).The world is full of naturally occurring diversity which isn't allowed to thrive. People circumvent the existing system and get occassional breaths of fresh air but then go right back into prison until the next chance at furlow.

We have begun to undo oppressive structures that existed primarily to control the masses through conformity but ultimately this mission is first and foremost a personal one. For even if the jail cell bars are removed some will still be too fearful to escape.

Community

Aren't people interesting? This beautiful and intelligent young woman certainly is and I love her insight..

Sirine

Disarmed

The suppression of transgender people can build up anger, anxiety, frustration as well as depression and those of us who are older were particularly prone. Mine had to be worked on slowly like defusing a time bomb.

Now I save my frustration for the public which is exceedingly rare since most of my encounters are very pleasant ones. Every so often I will give someone a look when I feel I am getting the once over forcing them to look elsewhere. Some men are exceedingly creepy and some women brazen except they learn about me pretty quick because my eyes can talk.

All this to sat that my time bomb has been disarmed.

Cool Café

Just discovered this cool little place this morning on Avenue Laurier :))

The young barista was so nice.

Why religion stopped working for me

Organized religion stopped working for me quite a while back and yet up until the pandemic struck I was still attending Catholic Mass every Sunday. It had become lifelong habit so why stop even if I had reservations about dome of the orthodoxy. There was still something soothing about attending especially within the confines of a beautiful 19th century basilica.

The essential Christian message of love of neighbor and charity is certainly relevant and yet much of the rest ended up being wrapping paper which for me distracted from the essential core. Plus the position on LGBTQ people was very much less than stellar. It amounted to one of barely tolerance as opposed to embracing on an equal footing.

Churches have hierarchy within them in with that comes conflict and difference of opinion. It used to be less marked that there were such things as left and right wing Catholics but in fact there were. Some on the right adopted more intolerant stances which mirrored political positions of the parties they supported. As a free thinker it was not working for me any longer to simply attend a service out of respect for precedent.

I don't know what lies well beyond our limitations as human beings but I prefer to reflect on that outside of a box that increasingly did not provide me with the sustenance I needed but instead increasingly pointed towards our petty failings.

Eviction

Doing a 180

When I say that we should look for our core identity sometimes the answer can come back as "I am a man who enjoys wearing women's clothes" and be happy with it. There isn't a hierarchy that says we should be something more if we are not.

Not everyone has gender dysphoria and as long as we are happy with our lives it is all that counts.

This is what I refer to when I see people with internal conflicts about being trans. As an example, Ray Williams transitioned for 8 years only to realize he shouldn't have because he was too ashamed to simply admit to being a gender variant male. Today he preaches against transitioners for a reason I do not comprehend since everyone is different. He went from transgender philosopher Rachel to swallowing the Blanchard gospel hook line and sinker and doing a full 180 which almost feels like he is saying "if I'm not legit then no one else is".

This is exactly what I mean when I urge that we think for ourselves and ignore a popular script to find our highly personal answers.

Only we can figure out who we are.

Shoehorn

Ideally, everyone wants to be loved and accepted for who they truly are. They also want to be able to care and love others. It is what drives the human animal.

Historically what people tried to do is to fit themselves into a schema such that they could be deemed to be loveable. Even if this meant denying themselves authenticity, they would find ways to bend themselves into pretzels so they could be, if not loved, then at least deemed acceptable by as many people as possible.

Thus many gays and lesbians would enter conventional marriages and transgender people would suppress (or transsexuals with no choice but to transition would disappear into stealth). All in the name of finding a life where one could feel part of something bigger than themselves.

I did exactly the same and tried to shoehorn myself into a workable archetype which ultimately failed because the cracks began to show. It certainly wasn't for lack of trying and if I am happier today it is because authenticity ultimately proved more fruitful than squeezing myself into a shoe that didn't fit. Some people can juggle a life where the compromise works and for that I tip my hat to them.

Today with the youth, I am starting to see a world where no one will have to do that any longer and, assuming I don't drop dead anytime soon, it is easily going to complete its cycle during my lifetime.