Frederique

I met frederique this morning in Outremont.  She is 36, works in real estate and her 9 year old English Setter served as starting point for our chat because he was so beautiful. 

Frederique wants neither marriage or children and lives with the idea that she may change careers. She asks me what it was like in engineering and I tell her I did not exactly know what I was getting into only that once inside it was a career which provided well. 

Like other millenials and certainly GenZs their ideas about personal life and work are very different and no doubt colored by the instability they see.

Obstacles

Are people who play with gender making life inadvertently more difficult for those who need to transition? The answer is unfortunately yes. It's not malevolent but the more extreme examples are serving as fodder for gender criticals who plea to a public that does not come close to understanding the subtleties surrounding gender expression and identity. 

Thus in this current environment I would almost counsel transgender youth who need to transition to do so in stealth as much as possible for their own safety. Most of my life is behind me now plus I built up enough venom and frustration with society's stupid. Someone in their twenties typically does not yet have that arsenal in place. 

Neil DeGrasse Tyson was on the Triggernometry podcast and very intelligently explained how to resolve much of the discord around the issue including touching upon same sex spaces which are increasingly disappearing or being made unisex. He also discussed the misleading charge that all biological males are always stronger and more able than all females which is clearly a falsehood. Add some HRT treatment for a few years and the point is further made moot. 

The excerpt I saw had comments which had little to do with common sense problem solving and more to do with concealing deep disdain behind artifical obstacles.

A healthy segment of the population is always unreachable.

No solution

Leaders of parties can be figure heads and none more obvious than Trump who is nothing but a useful idiot for the cabal around him. Think tanks and special interest groups are keen for the GOP to gain power to advance agendas most if which will make the current situation worse. This means more money in the hands of less people and more harm to an already hurting global climate situation. 

The right wing of this world is not scientifically minded nor is it particularly keen on empathy. The "I get mine" mentality permeates every pore while the rest of the world increases in desperation by the day making them all the more susceptible to strawman narratives.

I feel terrible when I see how the world operates but it seems this will always be the way. Our stupidity and greed guides us to excess and then we need to backtrack after everything falls apart.

Imperfection

You cannot unsee what you have already seen. After you've lived a while the imperfection of the world perturbs but you also understand it is not fixable. You need to reframe your vision if you are to retain your optimism. 

The world has always been a mess because there are too many variables at play. If you were to remove some of them people would claim they had lost a free will which Robert Sapolsky says does not even exist. We are enigmas at are our core even to ourselves. 

Examining the topic of gender variance over the years made me realize that it is a microcosm of the inherent chaos and fluidity we live with in every other facet of life. We try to put order and rules in areas that defy our attempts to rest on our laurels.

Addiction?

 

When I talk about transition

When I talk about transition I am referring mostly to a mental journey and not a physical one because the latter is far less important. 

If you are some form of gender variant it should ideally not cause you distress and fit harmoniously within your life such that it elevates its quality. Some are sold cookie cutter formulas that may not work for them based on a diagnosis that they are indeed transgender when only they know for certain what is right for them. 

Gender variance is always going to cause us some degree of grief simply because it runs counter to society. Therefore developing a strong sense of self and confidence will be mandatory if it is going to be elevated and matured along with the rest of our psychology. 

Maybe for you it's a hobby and that's fine but if there is more, no shortcuts exist to finding stability with something which stirs sufficient emotion in some to cause horrible violence.

Exuberant

The exuberance of gender play can contrast sharply against the challenges of the daily lives of transgender people. If you can put the woman away in a trunk without too much distress it's not the same thing and I thought about this as I watched "Will & Harper" on Netflix yesterday. 

Older transgender people would use cross gender expression as a safety relief valve to allow for yet another period at playing normal in front of colleagues, family and friends until one day the pressure to avoid being authentic every day simply becomes too great.

I talked with Deanna about this yesterday who sounded calm and happy much as I am these days.

Will & Harper

"Will & Harper" will hopefully do a lot for visibility and acceptance. Will Ferrell is clearly a very good person and his acceptance of his transitioning friend will show us the true depth of friendship in some people. Harper Steele is 61 like I am and, also like me, has had dysphoria all her life.

Coming out is hard and they both decide to go on a road trip to reconnect since the announcement. There is warmth in places of small town America you wouldn't expect. There are also poisonous tweets full of hatred on X that they read aloud and discuss together. 

Both the light and darkness of humanity are on display here but thankfully the former shines far more than the latter. The people they meet along the way are friendly and surprise with their welcoming attitude. There is a little misgendering here and there but nothing to write home about. Harper also has two accepting daughters and a sister who feels bad about her having suffered for so long. 

Well worth your time most especially if you can relate.

Rejection

When gender variant people are with partners who barely tolerate or outright reject them, it's very unhealthy for the psyche. I know all too well since I lived it. 

I can assure you, it will never happen again.

Tu tombe dans le vide

"Tu tombe dans le vide" I say to people in French to summarize retirement succinctly for them. After many years of running you fall into the void which is not unpleasant in the least only that it takes adjusting to. 

I watch content sometimes about the anxiety of young people starting their lives. Will they find the right job, the right partner, the right apartment. It is a different phase of life with its own worries and anxiety. I went through much the same with much less knowledge than I possess today and managed like everyone else does with varying degrees of success and less confidence in my capabilities than I do today. My children are in those starting blocks now.

But we can surprise ourselves with what we can accomplish when necessity becomes the mother of invention. We then look back and analyze the choices made and how we might have differed in approach today. 

Retirement allows a retrospective and even encourages it. For doing so we can summarize the lessons learned and incorporate them into the years we have left.

False equivalency

The bar of expectation has been set so low for Trump that whenever he doesn't sound like a blithering idiot (which is admittedly rare), the press hails the accomplishment as a conversion to statesman. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has a much higher bar to clear as did Joe Biden. 

The reason for this is that the right wing has a far larger contingent of low information voters who are highly motivated to swallow anything you feed them. These are not exactly college professors in a country currently pushing back on intellectuals as being elitists who are guiding people the wrong way.

The coming election shouldn't even be close but not because the Harris/Walz ticket is so strong. Rather it is because voting for Trump will bring dire consequences his gullible base is almost entirely clueless about.

Existing

Am I sorry I tried to lead a "normal" life? No I am not for it was all I knew. 

Age and experience fixed my fear of society as there is no shortcut for achieving authenticity. The most depressing thing I can think of today is cowering in pretense before those who have no business weighing in on my existence. I would feel weak and pathetic giving away my power to people who know mostly nothing.

Until that irrational fear of what others think is gone, we are not truly living but instead existing.

Get out there

Be happy, be confident and be yourself.

You won't regret it.

Speaking for others

It is disappointing to see detransitioners who try to generalize their experience and apply it to others. 

They may still have cross gender feelings which their transition did not properly address and so they invalidate the results of others. The problem is that motivation can be very varied and each experience is unique. 

Ray Williams has been saying how happy he is having detransitioned but then has been jumping on the gender variance as illness bandwagon. He was clear in his early videos that his motives were primarily sexual in nature and assumes it must be the same for others. He states he didn't want to be seen as a "crossdresser" and thought there would be less stigma going the transition route. Not all transgender people medically transition. 

Ray could have saved himself the trouble by accepting himself as he was and adopted the gender variance formula which works for him while forgetting outdated labels. Some who are happy transitioned have even left comments saying they have zero regrets but are happy for him nonetheless.

Turns out that Ray is uniquely qualified to speak only for himself.

Our psychology versus society

Imagine a young girl growing up in the 1960's who likes tools and playing rough sports. She is dissuaded from doing so by her loving parents who worry about societal rejection. They want the best for her which often means getting through life with the least amount of hardship. Her peers begin to call her a tomboy and make fun of her proclivities. 

Her interest in these things brings her joy but the rules don't care about her psychology. The rules demand adherence and the pushback might produce distress where none would have existed had she been left alone. 

Societies didn't set rules based on logic or common sense but through the lens of power dynamics which benefited them. Roles were predetermined with birth sex often a major deciding element in what was expected of each individual. That this structure didn't allow for the expected and natural variability in humans didn't factor into the equation because most people adhered to rules through fear of ridicule. 

Over the last 50 years we have slowly dismantled the previous rigid model and people who did not fit comfortably within it saw increasing levels of relief except it didn't happen quickly enough for many. They still took a beating because of the gap between what their psychology required and what society demanded. 

Therefore when examining our own psychology we need to ideally do so in a vacuum that disregards the often inconsistent and irrational demands built into our cultures while knowing that disobedience has varying levels of consequence.

The key is to achieve authenticity and contentment while removing distress which requires clean up of any childhood trauma.

Between two points

My daughter has sung recently on my material and here is Romany Gilmour doing the same for her dad...

What we lack

Our world suffers from a lack of perspective. Smaller issues are inflated in importance and leveraged against bigger ones to deflect and for the claiming of false equivalency. The discussion around these smaller issues becomes intense and all sense of proportion is lost. 

I always go back to critical thinking which is in massively short supply in our world. 

The right wing successfully employs the tactic of amplifying some issues as scare tactic. Hords of immigrants are said to be destroying the fabric of a society which then leads to moral panics. To some degree this likely helped many Britons vote for Brexit and some Americans to vote for the odious Trump.

These methods work which is why they are used and always will be.

The political right doesn't have much of a platform because their policies aren't popular but if nothing else they have cultural outrage.

I must adnit

I can get tremendous pleasure sometimes from ignoring people looking at me thinking that they are worth paying attention to. 

It's part of what can make my day because it shows me how far a shy little kid with dysphoria can progress over the years.

The pressure to be authentic

Life management with or without the presence of gender dysphoria can be vastly different. Since it is not a good idea to ignore the latter, either the person suffers greatly from improper management or outright ignoring or the family does from the eventual reveal. There simply is no elegant outcome in the majority of cases particularly for those coming out later in life.

I have no issue with gender variant people without dysphoria and even envy them somewhat. But then without dysphoria there would have never been any reason for my gender variance in the first place; no impetus for its existence.

In the end there was no choice but to side with wellness and peace and many of my transgender friends have moved on to some form of transition whether social or medical. The pressure towards authenticity becomes too great and the reasons to ignore fall one by one by the wayside.

Reactions

I'm only 6'1" and I don't get reactions much any more because there are so many tall women out there which I see every day. I am also very relaxed in public.

But this is how you do it with grace, confidence and ignoring...

Addicted

I'm addicted to my phone but I wish it weren't so. At some point I will need remove the sense of urgency about answering calls or texts; my children are certainly in no rush to as GenZ has little issue with letting a day or two slip before responding. 

Technology has turned our smartphones into powerhouses of information. The world is at our fingertips with access to information a simple Google search away. This was the stuff of science fiction when I was born and now it is routinely taken for granted. Truth mixes liberally with fiction to such a degree that detecting the difference can sometimes be extremely difficult. Small wonder we have made islands of personal reality where we no one enters without permission except our cohorts in ideology.

The fallout of all this will reverberate for a long time to come as we figure out ways to reach people who live in bubbles and refuse to exit; often to their own detriment.

Thumbing their noses

Some older gender variant people are confused by and even disappointed with today's environment. In the past there were basically (and regrettably simplistically) "crossdressers" and transsexuals and the changing landscape has seen some of them thumb their nose at what they currently see. 

I hold the opposite view primarily because the stigma has been removed through the visibility and in your face attitude of youth. Both of the aforementioned older groups were basically in hiding for most of their lives (whether closeted or through stealth transition) which is sadly regeetable but understandable. This has created in some psychological blockages and scars which could remain for an entire lifetime. 

My politics have always been just left of center, so the idea of things staying the same for their own sake does not compute. I take in the current confusion including detransitions and youth rushing into hormones without much reflection preferring it to closeted behavior by a very wide margin. Things will baseline eventually as they always do even if some in the public will never get with the program as stupid isn't fixable in everyone.

I'm simply too old to be in hiding plus these days I wipe my tush with uninformed opinion.

Real life test

My "real life test" has long been completed and then some. If I were to go back to the Montréal General Hospital gender clinic I would be approved for medical transition. That I have stopped the process where I am has a multi-faceted answer but the short answer is that social transition has made me very content.

Woman on fire

In Florida a woman named Betty Jean doused the cashier of a gas station Joie Hellmich with gasoline and lit her on fire. She then fled the scene on foot but one witness was able to provide a very detailed description. 

Someone called 911 and authorities arrived to see a horrific scene where the victim Joie was still concious but was able to communicate with them about the incident which resulted in severe 2nd and 3rd degree burns.

It turns out that Betty Jean had been told by another employee to stop asking customers for money and Joie, just back from lunch and seeing the big lineup, jumped on the second cash register to help. Betty Jean was the first in line with the gasoline canister ready to spray her. 

The police investigation showed a history of aggravated assault, diagnosed but improperly treated schizophrenia and extensive drug use. She lived in relative poverty with her mother who admitted to police that her daughter should never be allowed back into society if released from jail. As Betty Jean explained the incident during her interrogation she went into sporadic fits of laughter and wasn't able to properly explain her actions to police. 

Although not a normal incident by any means, it speaks to societal issues that used to be much less prevalent.

Joie somehow survived.

By choice

My suspicions about the Twitch streamer F1nn5ster were correct. The rabbit hole into hormones had begun entirely by choice. 

He was interviewed on a podcast where he admitted his dressing had started as an online lark to make money and it spiraled from there no doubt bolstered by the adulation. The euphoria takes over and decisions are made during its heady days. Not surprisingly he has been getting some pushback from the "what is a woman" crowd, TERFS and transsexual women who struggled and are not amused. Of course F1nn5ter can do as he pleases and I support him but he has rubbed up against what is for many the rigid and holy infrastructure of sex and gender. 

However, what I am more interested in is what will happen once the novelty of it all wears off over time.

Progress

The longer one is immersed in a gender role other than the one you were raised as the more comfortable it can become. After a while you know whether you need to turn back. Conversely, when it feels right your dysphoria thanks you profusely. 

The sister after me who, years ago, virtually tried to have an exorcism performed on me asked recently whether I could trace back to any childhood event that would have caused my gender dysphoria. I told her I couldn't and added that most of us have drastically different upbringings (some very normal) which works against the trauma narrative. She accepted my answer that this is very likely a birth condition. 

At 60 and 61 respectively, we have both made massive progress and as a compromise she calls me J.

To the bitter end

The problem today is that the battle lines are so firmly drawn in the ideological and political spectrum that you end up with extremism for its own sake. People will defend their tribe to the bitter end. 

It didn't used to be this way before cultural rage took over our landscape. Now intolerance reigns supreme and we argue over every point as if our life depended on it. Family ties and friendships are sometimes damaged or lost over who one votes for. 

Expert opinion also need not apply today nor calm critical thinking which examines issues with the perspective they deserve. Instead we simply pick up our cross defiantly and defend our dogma to the end. We are all experts thanks to the social media reinforcement from our own kind.

Every group has its extremists and wild cards which is unavoidable because we are too eratic and unpredictable a species to expect anything else.

Little Wonders

 

Hanging on for dear life

Transphobes need all the ammunition they can get and so they cling to 1980's pseudoscience because no one else has come to their rescue since then.

The YouTube channel Genspect was the latest to feature a video titled "What is Autogynephilia" which more often than not I see badly explained and mangled despite its already tenuous underpinnings. Yes, fetishes exist but not everyone is motivated into transition by them.

When you require both relevance and credibility nothing will provide it better than someone who once worked as a clinician and is also trying to save some sort of legacy even if it is based on nefarious intent.

That there have been few takers over the years save for eccentric characters who often have axes to grind, speaks volumes to me.

A full portrait

It can take a while to develop the feminine being that you are especially when you weren't raised as a girl despite having the instincts. Poise, confidence, demeanor and sense of style all need to combine so you can be comfortable in the world. Women are going to be your toughest critics as they are more observant than men. 

The women I have befriended and are counted in my circle run in ages from 18 to 90. They are all lovely and have helped me to hone my presentation. How I speak and gesture has been significantly improved thanks to them. 

What one wears is but a small fragment of that full portrait.

20 against 1

This sharp young man more than holds his own and is only 19. Kudos to him for having the patience to put up with stupendous ignorance of Trumpists.

I no longer have the patience in me....

They do their best

At 88 my mother is unfixable. You love her and yet there are moments you want aphyxiate her with a pillow. People of her generation had it tough and they were criticized and simply passed it on which left her with what is at times a cactus-like personality and the demeanor of a bull in a china shop. 

She has come a long way of course and I visited her for the first time as myself today on one of our usual Saturday breakfasts. She had been out with Joanna before a handful of times so it was hardly a shock. 

She has known for 17 years now and has progressed to the point where she understands all too well we don't have much choice. She has seen her fair share of shows where people tell their stories some of which lead to transition. Yet it is still hard for someone born in 1936 so I did my best to be sensitive to that. 

There comes a point however where you stop entirely living for the approval of others.

Dead wood

I want to better understand the differences between what is at first blush two distinct sets of psychology. One says that "I am a man who can wear what he wants and behave as I choose". The other questions the concept of man or male altogether and hence core identity itself. Both are sometimes represented on the same internet sites. 

When we first started using the term transgender it was meant to describe people who felt an identity incongruence with birth sex but unlike transsexuals did not opt for full medical transition. As time went on it was broadened to include expression with increasingly less questioning of core identity. 

No matter the definition however, we are still left with how much expression and identity are blended into each person and what are the motivations for any kind of gender variance they exhibit.

The other day a video popped up on my feed where two people who, at age 40, still identify as "crossdressers" were speaking about their histories. Interestingly one had cross gender feelings by the age of 5 while the other began more stereotypically around the age of puberty. They called themselves the same thing but their stories did not always align perfectly and why would they. Humans are complicated

One of the reasons I stick to gender variance it's because after a while old definitions tend to get weighed down with the dead wood and stigma of the era in which they were adopted and cannot then be easily scrubbed of it. 

They become increasingly meaningless.

Brick wall

This is what you are up against with MAGA...

Lunch

I had lunch with Marcela today who is 10 years my junior. She teaches philosophy at the college level and we met during the pandemic while I was still working in my house. She's going to stay a keeper and eventually I will get around to telling her that I am transgender as she knows pretty much everything else.

One step at a time :)

No going back

If gender dysphoria has biological roots then why is there such a concerted effort in some circles to prevent transgender people from treating it?

The answer is simple: hate and stupidity.

Further confusing the issue are those who play with gender in a way that muddies the water for those for who see sex and gender as sacrosanct. The freeing of constraints on expression has added a wrinkle and invited new eccentric online personalities to become low hanging fruit for gender criticals as well as for other transgender people who don't like their antics.

Of course the mental illness trope is still trotted out occasionally except that many transgender people have very high IQs and otherwise lead very balanced lives. No better example than Lynn Conway.

All this is blood in the water for those looking for material to attack except that, despite their efforts, things won't be going back to how they were no matter how much they might wish it.

Insufferable

The latest episode of "Piers Morgan Uncensored" features Jordan Peterson which I could not watch because at some point I would suffer a brain aneurysm. Two insufferable windbags of this caliber would be too much for my nervous system to bear.

Both of these men are archetypes for what I despise on the right which is smug and dismissive pseudo intellectual clap trap. It is hatred and fear wrapped in half-hearted attempts to appear that you have thoroughly analyzed your subject matter but haven't. It won't shock you both are Trumpists but distinguish themselves from the base by refraining from wearing tin foil hats.

When I saw the video show up in my feed I decided not to watch and simply spew my disdain for them both here. It also won't surprise you that Peterson also has strong opinions on transgender care except he knows as much about that as I know about performing brain surgery. He has been told by his professional governing board to stop attacking people on social media or risk losing his Ontario license but he can't do that because his brain needs to indulge his instincts as a perenially dissatisfied curmudgeon. 

Completely insufferable.

Help me die

Life is difficult for many people. When our health is this compromised it can be brutal...

For good measure

Slowing down a nervous system like mine has been quite a feat but it is working. The oldest born in a deeply religious family who was taught to be dutiful only to then enter a challenging profession is not an easy animal to tame.

Keeping extremely busy is largely how I kept gender dysphoria at bay for all those years.

However when one retires there is nowhere to hide and plenty of time exists to tie up all those loose ends. It is hard enough for someone who isn't transgender to slow down but we end up with a little extra complexity just for good measure.

Results are in

The results are in on my "pragmatic pumps" road test. If I cannot walk in them for at least two hours straight they are of not much use to me as they will just sit unused for weeks at a time.

I did and rather comfortably at that:)

Predictable

People who are intelligent and well-adjusted don't spend any time thinking about transgender people. Imagine focusing energy on the existence of less than 2% of the population and trying to justify it in your mind. From my vantage point it says a lot about them and their personal issues.

My experience with coming out is that I have lost no one who is important to me and, if anything, I have gained more respect from them for doing so. Women in particular have stood out in their support. 

Therefore when I see the likes of Helen Joyce have a bee in their bonnet about transgender people it makes me want to understand what caused them to become this way. Any thinking person understands that transgender people go back to the dawn of humanity and aren't going anywhere.

By now I have enough understanding of human psychology to know that obsessing over another group of people is a sign that would have me discover personal trauma were I to dig deep enough. A good example would be the self-hating gay man who goes out of his way to denigrate those who are like him.

With JK Rowling it is violence at the hands of men in her life which she generalizes and extrapolates to transgender people who she identifies as sexual predators masquerading as women.

With Helen Joyce it will be something else because, at their core, people are often quite predictable.

An unfortunate constant

The current American political climate is an exaggerated version of what is happening elsewhere in the world. The right wing has been radicalized and they are pushing back against cultural change that deeply frightens them. The power structures which existed for decades are being dismantled which brings them a discomfort they cannot bear. It's taken on biblical proportions with the loonies out in full force to show the full potential for human idiocy.

This coming election will be arguably the country's most consequential because it pits two fundamentally different visions against one another. One is trying to move into the future and find solutions to current very challenging problems while the other is trying to stem the tide of cultural change that shakes them to their core hence the efforts to take the world backwards.

Today Lawrence O'Donnell featured a story about a young woman from Georgia named Amber Nicole Therman who died in 2022 two weeks after the state enacted its very stringent abortion ban. The death was entirely preventable but physicians were too afraid to face prosecution and so she died leaving a young son behind who will grow up without a mother. All this because they denied her a simple procedure after she had taken an abortion pill and she was not able to expel all of the fetal matter.

This is not normal but if these movements are allowed to take society backwards, Margaret Atwood's novel of The Handmaid's Tale will not seem all that far fetched.

When I was growing up I felt that we were somehow moving towards enlightenment but I was not as well versed at the time as to the pendulum of history or the capacity for human stupidity and ignorance that was to be a constant in my lifetime and well beyond.

Joan of Arc

 

Well-meaning

A well-meaning friend that I have known for 40 years told me he will stick with me but added:

"Isn't presenting as a woman a lot of work?"

To which I responded

'If you think that's hard you should try gender dysphoria"

I did not hear back:)

The root of the problem

I know what the problem is.

In the past, breaking gender norms was viewed to the point of being criminal offense. You could be arrested for it in many places in the world. Many people ended up taking it underground.

Fast forward to today and with the flood gates open some are confusing expanded expression with issues of identity. This is why some youth are transitioning and changing their minds when they realize it was fine all along to be a lesbian and masculine woman.

The definition of transgender is of course part of the problem here because this greatly expanded tent can tempt some into thinking that falling under it should open the door to certain paths others have taken. Each path is unique and a definition on its own isn't a life action plan.

My generation and older suppressed and had few options open to us. Some people with gender dysphoria (such as myself) married and started families while others transitioned in stealth and married men some of whom did not know their history. Others still, joined secret dressing clubs just to get access to the relief of expanded expression.

So the root of the problem has always been the very restrictive rules around what men and women are supposed to do. Without them in place many would have suffered much less trauma and found healthier and less stressful paths hopefully with support of friends and family. But society is full of obedient and fearful sheep.

Today thankfully we have an open playing field where some are taking very fruitful action while a smaller faction is correcting admitted mistakes which is how the world has always worked. I would much rather have possibility of failure than doors permanently locked.

In general most people (including many gender variant people) are not particularly well versed in this topic. I regularly see theories explained by people who don't understand them because they are still mired against trying to defend against ignorant opinion. Gender criricals are continuing to make our reaching a more equitable and charitable world harder to achieve in part because we have politicized sex and gender to such an excessive degree.

People are generally not clever animals because they are constantly trapped in fear that limits their vision. They will always find reason to hate minorities that scare them and challenge them. Our job as individuals is to do our part to calm the waters and make them realize they are falling for moral panics.

Our unique paths as gender variant people should place an emphasis on what brings us peace and harmony achieved through complete self-acceptance. Without the latter we will not move forward because in our minds we will always be 'less than' which will impact many of our life decisions.

We ignore mass opinion and do what is right for us.

The turn of a friendly card

 

Two things can be true at once

I typically watch detransitioner content to see how some justify their decisions. There are those who say it just wasn't for them and make sure to not say they are trying to deter others from a transition process. However some use their story to generalize even if it was clear they had been led down a path during a point of confusion in their lives. Then in come the gender criticals to turn these cases into moral panics.

I saw a recent detransitioner use a religious conversion as their explanation which then spurs their supporters to generalize about how others need saving as well.

Of course medical transition isn't going to be for everyone and most transgender people don't undergo one. However its unfortunate that cases where the quality of life is improved through transition are ignored by those who have an agenda against transgender people in general.

Two things can be true at once namely that transition can be a life saver but also that it isn't necessarily the right call for everyone.

Part of the game

Being out in the world as a woman, especially if your stand out, has some advantages but some undeniable inconveniences. Being stared at occasionally by creepy men or shameless women sizing you up is part of it.

Good thing I can be a nasty piece of work when I need to be for my eyes speak clearly. Fortunately the vast majority of people keep to themselves or are lovely like the young woman who told me about her painful dentist visit today. Most, when they see a person right in their own skin, move on.

I have noticed that more than ever, people are more likely to ask me for directions or converse with me.

As seen at a bus stop

 We are getting there...

What I wish i had known before

Human psychology is the most fascinating thing I can think of and, as I have gotten older, I look back on my life and at society in general and realize how easily manipulated we can be. Adherence to what we are instructed to do becomes much more powerful than attaining authenticity.

To be who we truly are requires more courage than many of us think we can muster which is why we look up to the souls who can do it. We surmise that they must have some ingredient that we do not possess but the reality is that they only have a better vision of what life could be outside of the gate; how their life could be better.

In retrospect this is obvious to me now but I had too much previous instruction in my brain telling me that escaping would not work and I would need to satisfy myself with whatever crumbs came my way which was completely wrong.

At this age I am letting go of my interest in material possessions and other dead weight which is more than compensated for by the knowledge I have gained about myself and human nature in general.

I feel completely free.

Converted

This woman explains how she was duped and found her way back from Trumpism which is all about stoking fear and hatred in the electorate.

Now we've seen it up close....

No burden to carry

In my opinion one of the sure fire ways to turn something into forbidden fruit is to bestow upon it any kind of secrecy. When we remove secrecy we demystify and lift whatever negative psychological aspects exist.

For me to find balance, removing secrecy became paramount because it helped normalize my nature and helped tremendously to remove any remaining stigma I carried from childhood. I realized that no one gave a shit and loved me just the same and learned that I had ostensibly made a mountain out of a mole hill for nothing.

Older gender variant people are much more prone to have adopted ritualistic and secret behaviour because many never came out; some not even to their spouses which turned their lives into complicated obstacle courses.

Young people today don't need to hide at all which means they can remove stigma and secrecy right from the outset and the psyche can fully mature with their gender variance in tow; all in full transparency. They can also find life partners who see them as they are right from the outset.

There is much less heavy psychological burden to carry. For them their challenge is more about what personal formula to adopt in this era of uniqueness; what to do or not and where do they stop.

Message in a bottle

Still rocking in his 70's...

"Is that you?"

"Is that you?" Asked the lady with the salt and pepper hair.

"Yes it is" I said firmly but with a smile. She had noted there's been a little change as she saw the contrast in my appearance versus that of my ID.

I was voting in a federal by election today and it was the first time ever as Joanna. I expected no issues and there were none for this is 2024.

Someone came up and interrupted her and she said "after I finish with this lady"

While I had been waiting my turn I met a young couple in their mid-twenties and was conversing with them. They were both warm and friendly and told me they were glad to have met me. They were just back from Europe.

The Mexican lady

She told me I could put my purse on the empty chair next to her but I declined telling her I prefer it next to my feet to deter snatchers. That kick started our conversation.

She was from Mexico and I was yet again speaking in Spanish (hers was sweet and melodic) which now happens daily. She tells me she is careful about speaking with strangers but gets a vibe as to who will be open to it and she guessed right.

Her skin tone had been her issue growing up which was fed through discrimination. Her mother would tell her to keep her arms covered and avoid the sun lest she look even darker. The wonderful olive tone only adding to her vivacious expressions. She looked much younger than 79 which her Latin heritage undoubtedly contributed to. The 10 minutes I spent with her are the kinds of interactions I love.

Saving grace

The last thing I would want to be is misanthropic. I like people except I am much more aware of their capacities which keeps me on my toes. I have analyzed everything since young and now that my innocence is long burned off I look for a new formula which avoids me becoming more jaded.

Any comparison with Jordan Peterson who is also of a product of 1962 would have me wince. His conservatism has turned him into perennial critic and malcontent whereas I want to find a way to regain my trust. I can do that by being selective.

Honest people with hearts of gold and good intentions will be my saving grace.

Into the backgroind

The vast majority of people spend very little time thinking about their gender which is what I always wanted for myself. I wanted that brain disconnect gone which I first tried ignoring. That tactic having failed, I then looked for ways to blend my feelings harmoniously into my life.

Being transgender or transsexual isn't a sport or halloween dress up (something I've never done or had any interest in doing). It involves instead a low hum of disconnect which is always there asking that you address it.

Transgender youth don't have the experience of decades of denial and suppressing and so the last 15 years of my life have been spent trying to find harmony and balance with respect to my gender. This is the best place I've ever been with it but it will forever be an iterative process of clean up for someone who grew up traumatized through their rigid mid 20th century social and religious education.

You want gender to move more into the background like it does for everyone else which, with every passing year, I am having more success doing.

Harmony with much less in the way of peaks and valleys.

No analysis

I have heard some people admit to not being particularly introspective which I find odd. After all, how can you improve yourself as a person without reflecting on where you have been and how you need to adjust strategy as a consequence.

Doing without introspection almost guarantees repeat errors and leaps off cliffs which are then looked back upon with great regret. Yes, learning through getting burned a little is often necessary but we shouldn't want to burn down the whole house.

I find impulsive people strange and ask myself why leaping and assuming that things will work is part of their baseline assumption. What might be obvious to them isn't necessarily part of the thinking strategy of someone else so before we leap we need think what happens when our calculation is erroneous.

Life is lived with a series of adjustments based on learned experience but without proper analysis of our traveled path we will always be fumbling around in the dark hitting objects.

A milestone in history

I think about the world I grew up and it was stable; at least from the point of view of social rules. Roles were set which were not very malleable. Yes, they were highly restrictive but at least people knew there was little guessing about what to do. It was fit in or else.

Over time women and minority groups began to perturb the social order and challenge the existing power structures. One could argue that where we are today is the culmination of that effort which is why so many feel lost. Those who are older and fit under the old system are confused by the messiness and are easily manipulated into rejecting it.

Humans will look back at this period as a key milestone of cultural and political change which will transform society in significant ways. The people who most felt constrained by the old rules will see their quality of life increase while others who benefited from the excessive advantages will need to adjust to a new reality.

Newsmax interviews the wrong guy

 

Spotty

The history of theorizing within both the hard and social sciences could be considered to be spotty at best. That is because in general we humans really don't know what is going on but we like to think we do. So we will look back and see a mixed track record full of failures and keep adjusting only to be proven wrong again.

Now that I know this I adjust my thinking and add a big grain of salt to the latest big discovery announcement.

Not getting lost

I was chatting with my daughter yesterday about how things are going with her new boyfriend who I very much like. I don't pry and she shares only what she wants to but i can see she is getting to a stage of assessing how to balance her need for quiet time versus the social demands of being in a couple.

This is not an easy line to walk and knowing how not to get lost inside of a pairing is not remotely obvious. Our partner does not provide our happiness but instead companionship which can be fruitful but also potentially stifle our identity if we are not clued in on the signs.

Those of us who grew up under the old atomic model of the family questioned ourselves less and simply entered the dating arena with plans to join a pre-existing model. Whether it would ultimately work out for us wasn't as well considered as what the impacts of rejecting it would have on our social acceptability.

Only time would tell.

How it shows up

How gender variance shows up in the life of each person and the amount of choice exercised is extremely varied. It is why at this stage I find categorizing almost completely pointless. I keep thinking of this issue in terms of just another piece of what is the human mosaic.

You have some people with very early childhood memories, others who raided their mother's laundry hamper at 13, while others decide to start wearing their wife's underwear at 40. The impetus for each of those scenarios can be unique with the presence or complete absence of gender dysphoria being yet another wildcard.

Some adopt some form of transition while for others it would be the furthest thought from their mind and completely unnecessary.

Hence I go back to the root question of what makes you happy and does not perturb your life in any way. What actions do we need to take to encourage wellness and balance and how does gender variance in any way either impede or uphold that harmony.

Battle of who could care less

 

"Why I didn't transition"

 

You are your own best metric

When I read comments on videos that deal with gender issues, a healthy amount of them are steeped in angst about self-classification. This is because people are either looking for validation that they are legitimate or for confirmation that there is indeed something wrong with them.

The best metric continues to be your personal sense of well-being and mental health. When that increases, you know you are on the right path.

We need to remember that the world is full of insecure people looking to tear others down so looking for outside answers for complex human issues is often a complete waste of time. People who know very little but think they know as lot, make up a healthy proportion of the population.

Plus the world is chock full of agendas.

Transgender joy

It is possible to find transgender joy but I needed it to come from a deeper place than fleeting euphoria and for dysphoria to be much better managed.

It began to come when I was able to plant a foothold in identity and permanently stop seeing Joanna as a compartmentalized character I would trot out for dysphoria relief; for she is me and I am her. I needed to mature my inherent nature to where the rest of my psychology was. It is why I much prefer where I am now by leaps and bounds over where I used to be even just a few short years ago. People can see the difference as much as I feel it.

For my joy is much deeper and more filled with self-assurance even as we will still all have our little life ups and downs. 

It's called life.

They arrived

The pumps I ordered online came and they are super flexible and comfy. I am wearing them out today to break them in a bit more but so far I am saying what a great find especially for the price. 

For me a block heel is an absolute must as I need to be able to walk with stability and no pain ;)

Violence and fear

Lauren faced violence and yet she was insistent that it would not affect her plan because life comes with its inherent risks.

My approach has been that I will not cower from bullies because we all have a right to lead authentic lives....

 

Greener grass

Once we are happy being single is when we are most primed to find the right person which is not at all counterintuitive. The simple act of desiring primes us for a compromise and potentially settling for someone who does not suit us. We are all guilty of this to some degree because society sells the idea of being alone as unnatural and a cause for pity.

The problem is that the inclinations of each natal sex sometimes conspires to make long term relationships untenable. The differences in their psychology weighs down the game of endurance with more difficulties.

Plus we humans have an incurable case of the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

The polar ends

Some people are extremely happy with temporary gender expression often because they simply want sporadic release from the social pressures for their natal sex This is particularly true for those who felt constrained by the cultural rules of their era.

Rather than incorporate feminine traits into everyday life, a woman is fashioned who represents the embodiment of this wish for expression. Once the euphoria is satisfied they go back to their normal life until the next time.

Of course this schema does not work well for everyone and many settle for it as compromise for previous life choices made which misalign with this desire. It is difficult for them to know what their baseline might be if they were to explore further because they cannot.

We used to try and draw firm lines between transvestism and transsexualism when in truth people exist on a continuum (which Harry Benjamin discovered) and it is why residing anywhere in a murky middle ground can be so distressing until we come to understand and accept ourselves.

The people I have met over my life who were the most settled on how to proceed seemed to be those who resided closer to the opposite polar ends of that continuum.

The main driver

Everyone possesses a unique combination of expression and identity where ideally the latter drives the former. In other words, expression is the result of who we feel we are. The opposite could imply that we are deluding ourselves unless of course we simply admit to gender play as our primary motivation.

Understanding this formula within ourselves is key because without an honest appraisal we won't know who we really are and what we need to do or not do. It is not remotely easy for many of us which is why it can take years to resolve the mystery.

However, without this knowledge, labeling oneself is not going to be even remotely helpful especially in this era of very elastic definitions.

Through contraction

The development of the self begins through contraction. We start life as a blank slate full of possibilities and we slowly begin to understand where the battery limits lie by being told what we cannot do. Rules are set and we observe how our peers are behaving and when we veer too far we are proded back into submission.

Ostensibly, everyone who is born into a culture learns to suppress instinct in one manner or another if it does not fit within the boundaries of what is expected. The building of walls within our psyche is how we learn who we are supposed to be.

Authenticity is often in conflict with this way of educating a child but human beings are deeply fearful of being singled out and rejected and parents will often push their child into obeying even as they know their spirit is being choked.

Growing into the self involves learning that much in what we were taught in childhood was convention rather than useful truth. However we were not able to discern until much older and then undertake a journey to remove these walls which was made more difficult because the indoctrination had been so pervasive and scars already formed from the experience of rejection.

To varying degrees, people succeed in becoming truly authentic beings but it requires tenacity and the willingness to sometimes stand out. The alternative is to remain obedient and live an entire life with those walls intact and possibilities unfulfilled.

By the end we know all too well that the people who taught us didn't know much about anything at all but were just obeying orders. They were simply doing to us what was done to them.

Will & Harper

 

When it's not paraphilia

When you don't suffer distress...

Betrayal

When people look up and glance at you on public transit they want to get a sense of your energy. If they see self-assured and right in your skin they typically look elsewhere (unless they are a creepy or weird individual).

When I wasn't quite there yet, I was giving away an energy of discomfort that was very detectable. My facial expression and body language would betray me.

The more I tapped into authenticity the more the problem went away to the point where today I am a chatterbox with nice people.

We realize that we are always ourselves.

The petulant child

Kamala Harris was composed, confident and combatative while Trump was an angry toddler. She had his number all night and goaded him with rally crowd sizes and telling him that 81 million Americans had fired him. This is how you handle a malignant narcissist; with an arrow straight through the ego making his frantic imaginary accordion playing go into overdrive.

They say that debates don't decide elections but then rarely are they this one-sided. All of Trump"s weaknesses as a human being were exposed including his woeful lack of policy knowledge and his penchant for being a complete idiot.

It was like a parent dealing with a petulant child; eye rolls and smirks added for bonus effect.

Now it's up to the electorate.

Courage

Relaxing into the self necessitates that we trust our instincts which I resisted doing for a very long time. I felt that my mind had been playing tricks on me and that I could somehow realign myself with the rest of society even if it meant being less happy.

The content I have shared recently from the transgender woman  who calls herself Lauren Sunshine shows how an introspective, organic and spiritual approach to accepting what our core is telling us is so instrumental. She has taken a one day at a time exploration and allowed change to happen at the speed it needs to. She has shut out the rest of the world and it's opinions to arrive at authenticity even if it rubs against the grain of expectation.

Some people tell me that this takes courage but I insist that we do this to make our life easier. We deal with internal conflict and embrace who we are to see anxiety subside and serenity install itself. It is self help.

Plus, once we no longer care what others think, courage is not so much required.

Blending in as a transgender person

Lauren briefly uses the term "passing" here which I am not a fan of but the advice she gives is both highly intelligent and priceless. The best take on the subject I think I have heard...

Challenged

Lauren once again provides mature and insightful perspective about how to process bring transgender...

Save our kittens!

The latest hoax is that Haitian immigrants are stealing the pets of Americans and eating them. Apparently this is all over social media and being shared by the likes of JD Vance, Elon Musk,Ted Cruz and the detestable arch-villain Stephen Miller. Anything to swing the election.

For the record, this panic started from one isolated incident involving an American with some mental health issues who did indeed consume a pet. Of course the entire story has been turned into a flood of people at the southern border coming for your kittens.

It is both depressing and exhausting to live in this golden age of idiocy where the electorate is assumed to be this stupid and undoubtly one faction of it is. But most Americans should be fed up and vote these right wing lunatics out. Trump and his slurring while playing make believe accordion will not be missed by most.

I for one will be celebrating for a week.

A self-fulfilling spiral

Among the most numerous types of videos on YouTube are ones relating to mental health (anxiety, depression, loneliness) and romantic relationships which makes sense since these two areas make up a huge chunk of human preoccupation. Both issues have been front and center over the last number of years.

We are more lonely than ever as well entering into less relationships than at any point in our history. The transactional component of marriage now wiped away, there is less reason for women to embark if they have careers, money and no need of men to look after them. As a result many men have given up especially if they don't belong to the top 10% that women are chasing thanks to hypergamy.

By age 30 many women start to think biological clock and the ones who don't get one of the top tier men, have little choice but to lower often excessively exacting standards except that some of those lower rank men are now happy and more aware than ever about the perils of divorce. It's a self-fulfilling spiral which will only end when the entire rules of the game change. The reasoning and purpose for matrimony will need to be revamped.

The best field test

Those who haven't tried living full time may not realize that things change substantially when the buzz wears off. Daily life is very different and you are just living as authentically as possible which is true for both social or medical transition.

Daily living is how you will know where you stand because the euphoria and anticipation of the outing is gone. This is the best method I know to help discover your path and why for years gender clinics have insisted on a period of social living before undergoing any procedures.

If you don't have dysphoria then keep doing whatever brings you happiness.

The tariff president

 

Interesting podcast

Some males seem to be trapped into thinking they are AGP (which is really just Blanchard's re-naming of transvestic fetishism which he accused all woman-loving transsexuals of having). Anyway these men sometimes end up in podcasts telling the host that they have an incurable disease which they are anxious about which technically makes them fall into the category of a paraphilia. If you are happy with your gender variance you have nothing to worry about since it is not causing you distress but for these men it is seen as a problem. I think it is because they don't feel they possess a feminine essence but rather an incurable fetish. This is entirely possible.

Now I have covered Blanchard at length many times before and where he goes wrong with his assumptions and so I won't do so here, but in the comments section of the podcast I was watching I found this very interesting if slightly convoluted comment by a genetic female who was trying to understand this whole AGP business:

"As a cis woman who is aroused by her own femaleness, you being aroused at your maleness as with respect to your intimate relationship with your wife as males live their maleness. I do not understand. If a person sees themselves as a woman, and, not only a woman, but an attractive woman how is that wrong? If a woman is born female and grows and develops a sexually attractive social space they are ok? Or that's different? I am really confused how this word is being used against a person who wants to transition and excited by the idea that they will achieve attractiveness. If you were kidnapped and turned into a woman would you feel you were attractive?"

What she describes is that indeed some women are aroused by their own bodies which is not that surprising and what she was trying to do was help this fellow understand that, in her view, his attraction to being female need not be seen as a problem.

Anyway it was very interesting that she showed up to comment.

Understanding our psyches

Some people may not agree with what I have to say or even how I say it but I don't concern myself with it since I never have ill intent. I consider my writing self-reflection and exploration which always tries to get to the bottom of things. Truth is what interests me the most but it can sometimes perturb us with its bluntness.

Once we understand the human condition it's easier to see the mechanics of how people function. Love and fear are what motivate us most and we will find ways to feast on misplaced versions of both; often to our own detriment. Fear of rejection is among our worst concerns which often implies that authenticity be jettisoned.

If we can get to the root of our own psychology which begins to be formed in childhood we can find ways to live more peacefully by treating any underlying issues. Whatever errors our parents made must be forgotten and we must mature into stable people who recognize their own flaws and mental triggers. Obfuscation never does us any favors even if it can feel good for a time not to delve deeply into our psyches.

Humans exist with mythology around many issues. Most of it was acquired during our upbringing and the rest was invented by us to avoid inconvenient truths we don't want to face. However no one is born flawed no matter what anyone says.

Becoming truly ourselves demands we live with much less fear and concern regarding what other people think (this one was my challenge). Once there we can fix the rest of our issues with much more patience and reserve.

Is gender a social construct?

Is gender a social construct? I believe the answer is both yes and no.

The trappings of gender certainly are. What men and women are supposed to wear and do for a living were for eons socially mandated and this has begun to change. Many people play with this more expression side of the equation for their own motivations without any internal core disconnect which is perfectly fine.

The identity side is more complex and I believe has a biological component. It is the same feeling that told David Reimer he was a boy despite his childhood rearing thus proving John Money wrong. This is the hard wired part of gender which is not changeable and is tied to the dysphoria of people whose identity does not match the demands of their birth sex. It is what keeps a great many transgender people up at night weighing what to do.

The answer is both yes and no. It just depends on which component one is considering.

Cutting through the noise

The confusion we see in the world has always been there except it wasn't as public. Today we are exposed to every thought that comes into anyone's head which can be enlightening as it can be distressing. I try to block out the noise and focus on the wisdom which is often lost in the clutter within a world full of misplaced and often brain dead priorities; its preference for the banal.

It can be difficult sometimes to discern what is truly worthwhile as so many profess to have the answers to what troubles us; why we cannot sleep or have anxiety or fix our marriage.

Ultimately we are own best gatekeepers which is why we must learn to think critically and intelligently to cut through all of what we see and get to the grain of truth hidden underneath. In the end we are our own best problem solvers.

This is very common

I was watching an episode of the short run Quebec series "Je Suis Trans" (which you can find on YouTube). One of the featured transgender people who went from female to male remarked how he could see in the mirror what other people could not; namely traces of the woman he was living as at one time.

This is very common among many transgender people especially when we are still living through the self-conscious stage regarding how the public perceives us. We are more likely to think that we are being read whereas the public is more likely to see the person we are presenting as. I think it helps tremendously to relax and not focus on what people might be thinking and just live which helped me tremendously to free my mind in public.

For the record, if you hadn't told me, I would have never guessed he had been born female.

improv #3

 

The AI revolution

 

I am not the only one

My recent breakfast with Caro and Maika (the girls from the public market) revealed something interesting. I already knew that both were lovely, but I found out that young Maika's 18 year old sister is now her brother. He has had the mastectomy but will not necessarily pursue genital surgery.

What is fascinating is that her brother (who she accepts unconditionally) is seeing much the same confusion that I am. Namely that if many in my generation fought tooth and nail to avoid being the way we are, many today are confusing gender expression freedom as reason to push the envelope. The Montréal General Hospital gender identity clinic is needing to reject extremely aggressive advocates who want to skip steps which they rightly refuse to do. The clinic does not see being transgender as lifestyle choice.

I am glad that some within transgender youth also recognize this phenomenon.

Works like a charm

When we stop caring, we disregard whether people like our outfit or not. We disregard whether they are staring or not. We stop worrying about how well we are blending in.

Our body language also says: "say the wrong thing to me and I'll smack you" which has to come from your bones. Use your pent up frustration as motivation.

Rest assured that it works like a charm because there's never been a better time for it in our history.

Pure disdain

The Trump and JD Vance response to the latest US school mass shooting was to say the country needs to get over it as these things happen. This is an actual problem that the GOP and the gun lobby want nothing to do with solving if it involves tougher gun laws.

Meanwhile during rallies Trump tells his cult that kids are going to school, having an operation and coming back home a different gender which is a non-existant problem. Pure disdain for your followers who admittedly aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

The word imbecile is far too tepid.

God only knows

 

No one way

Sometimes I see content from young transgender people who are not into typical forms of femininity. They have gender dysphoria but they don't necessarily want to wear dresses or makeup. In other words they end up being like some genetic women are who aren't overtly feminine but find an expression balance that is almost in a tomboy range.

Of course there isn't one way to be female and once dysphoria is treated the person can end up assuming a more androgynous type of existence. This shows how once the disconnect is addressed, the balance of masculine and feminine energy can be played with and a baseline established which feels right to them.

As a contrast, the compartmentalized existence of some who are part time can create two separate characters which are sometimes nothing alike and all of the feminine energy resides in only one of them. That version of the self is often more likely to be extra feminine as a result.

Two cases where the expression and identity balance is very different.

A little panacea

Human behaviour during both the pandemic and Trumpism confirmed to me that people aren't getting more intelligent over time. I cannot laugh at the quack theories of the past and think how much we have improved in the 21st century when we haven't. We are as susceptible to cults and strange ideas as we have ever been.

The problem is of course willful and ignorant bliss of truly wanting to believe something deeply. Even when truth butts up against that desire nothing will convince us we are wrong. It is why Trumpists, Qanon disciples and the flat earth people cannot be budged unless there is a massive intervention which results in mostly themselves coming to salvation.

Life can be painful enough without the bluntness of reality and so a little myth is often the panacea that gets us through to the next day.

Calmer and calmer

I'm getting so much better at fielding negative surprises these days. It means that I becoming more chill as I settle into retirement and leave the career stress behind.

It's taken me almost 2 years to decompress which I wasn't expecting to happen but when I talk to stressed out ex-colleagues these days I can see why it did. When you first stop there is a giddiness which segues into a "now what" phase. All that extra time is almost guilt inducing as you can finally tend to yourself properly.

As I walked the Royalmount mall this week during its grand opening, I could feel the calm and the confidence surging in the veins. You are at a psychological state you never expected to get to. The way people treat you and you treat them has been completely transformed. Surprisingly, it has kept morphing past the point where I thought I was already at an optimum comfort level. 

There are still little ups and downs, but then we are human which has always been incurable.

Russian nested dolls

Being transgender can feel like an assembly of Russian nested dolls. In other words, you think you have gotten to the last level but there is yet another one inside. It is an analogy for the depth one needs to go to sometimes to figure out where you need to be. It is yet more fine tuning.

Being constrained and busy can be helpful because the distraction stops us from going further. When you have as much time as I do however, you discover new things all the time that you had simply buried in a psychological drawer during your previously very busy life.

I think I am running out of dolls or at least I hope so.

Cul de Sac

 

As I travel within it

At this age I am not particularly interested in a romantic relationship unless it brought with it the depth of intelligence and true friendship that I now understand to be pivotally important.

Transgender or not, I know my value and cherish it and I won't give up anything about my core identity but would be willing to share my happiness without getting lost in the trauma of someone else who is afraid or doesn't know themselves. I have spent years understanding my own psyche.

It is a shame that we only come to know ourselves properly as we age because our life partnerships are mostly made when we are not at the peak of our prowess. We are afraid to be alone and many of us make decisions based on chemistry that upon receding leaves us with someone we don't truly align with at a deeper level.

This is not about waiting for perfection for there is no such thing. Instead it is about acknowledging that neither person is perfect but each has the fortitude and the introspection to not always play the victim and bring their qualities to the table and share them.

I am complete without a partner as I have peace of mind, but the right person could add a layer of joy and satisfaction while conversely the wrong one threaten to unsettle what I already possess.

It is why I do not yearn and let the universe do what it must as I travel within it.