It's never about chromosomes

At once both succinct and brilliant....

Cover up

Watching Trump administration lackeys do backflips on television frustrates Lawrence O'Donnell. No one is more articulate or blunt about the president's monumental stupidity and here he tries once again to explain why tariffs are going to drive the US economy into the ground.

When Amazon's Jeff Bezos thought he might separately show the added tariff amount to the consumer, the administration panicked and told him to stop realizing that despite their electorate being sufficiently spellbound by their cult programming, they would finally realize that China doesn't pay tariffs on the goods they export. Nazi Barbie Leavitt was shortly thereafter on a presser trying to confuse people once again and blaming Bezos for even considering such a thing. 

The Amazon chief having already sold his soul dutifully complied.

There are already slowdowns at American port of entries as tariff amounts are being calculated and applied but soon there will be decreased shipments as companies cancel orders because their business model no longer works at those higher prices. As Lawrence states here, some smaller companies are already consulting bankruptcy lawyers in anticipation of what could happen to their businesses.

I am no longer surprised by stupidity at such high levels but watching a bloated and impossibly more orange faced Trump incoherently slur his way through an interview about China "eating" the tariffs, I ask myself how his overall approval rating can still be as high as 39%.

Maybe when store shelves start to empty? God only knows...

How to avoid regret

It would be remiss of me if I didn't admit that I love living the way I do which has saved me. I was always meant for it but did my best at every turn over my life to avoid it. 

Ultimately it comes looking for you as the path you are on narrows and becomes an inevitable conclusion. 

Do I regret coming at this from a point of maximum resistance and rejection? Not in the least because it only bolstered my confidence that this was right for me. In the meantime I did my homework and became quite knowledgeable in the topic. 

Today more than ever I am less hung up on terminology than the idea of adequately addressing gender dysphoria and its highly unique formula present in each transgender person. If it is dealt with the right way with patience and perseverance, you will find that you have little to no regrets regarding the path you ultimately take towards addressing it.

The problem

Ostensibly, Canada rejected Trumpism. Carney may not quite be able to form a majority government but given how far back the Liberals were before Trudeau stepped down, this is a massive victory. 

The conservatives still did well because we have our own share of people who don't want the old values that both the US and Canada used to espouse as ideals to return. Our country is divided too although not to the extent of our neighbors to the south. 

The recent polls show Trump deeply underwater with the worst approval rating of any president in the first 100 days since polling began in the 1940's. It's only going to get worse as even more devastation is wrought on the American people.

The global malaise we are suffering from is curable but will take decades to fix. We transferred all the wealth to very few people and that isn't going to be easily undone. But if nothing else, the population has woken up to the fact that the problem is more top down than it is left versus right. They realize they have been duped by machinations which saw most of their political power as citizens disappear over the decades. 

The Canada US relationship may never be the same as we must look after our own home after soberly realizing that too much of the US electorate cannot be trusted make informed choices between two imperfect candidates; one being infinitely worse than the other. Much of that lies at the hands of poor education. 

Since it's inception in 2016, the term MAGA has become an international slur synonymous with intolerance, stupidity, anti-intellectualism, racism and bastardization of religion. It doesn't stand for anything as much as standing against something which is how Pollievre ran his campaign. 

And therein was his problem.

I voted

The odious US president has helped unite my country like never before and Mark Carney will likely win a majority today because of it. Thanks to the 51st state talk which enrages us no end, the liberals will stay in power and we will avoid maple MAGA mini Trump Pierre Pollievre.

I voted only for the second time as myself in a federal election and the lady at the polling station thought I was my daughter because my male name is still on the voting register next to hers.

She was maybe in her early 70's and when I explained the situation she told me how wonderful it was. She proved that most people are kind, reasonable and understanding.

Go Carney!

The hardest part

If you asked me what the hardest part of my career was, I would tell you that it was managing people. The dynamics of egos, dysfunction and power trips made life more difficult when it didn't need to be. Hence I was forced to toughen myself up over the years to deal with a minefield of people who don't know how to behave because their insecurities impede them.

As an out transgender person this has helped me because in public you will run into all kinds of people. Most are benevolent but some carry their problems around like a weapon and their woundedness is visible. 

Your baseline is kindness but you sometimes need to convey a message that if they cross a boundary you are prepared to remove their spleen.

Figuratively of course.

Golden age

It's possible but unlikely that I will see a return to a new golden age within my lifetime. That will be for my children. 

As one of the last of the boomers I took advantage of a long period of sustained relative prosperity with no wars or major depressions affecting where I lived. By 2008 that changed and we began to slowly plunge into where we are today. 

The gap between the rich and poor is at a high for my lifetime and the consequences are dire. The middle class, once healthy and industrious, has been hollowed out thanks to the usual greed and stupidity. The generation of my children will be less well off than mine was. 

This is of course not an accident.

We are ending a cycle which began in 1945 and will end hopefully without a major event which is what has usually happened.

Our next PM

Will vote for him tomorrow. Smart, competent and has a sense of humor...

Quiet

Solitude is ultimately good for us because it allows for self-discovery. We can find out who we truly are in the stillness without the frequent need to entertain or care for others. 

Many people aren't aware how much living alone might suit them and I was one of them. Beginning in 2013 it was thrust upon me but then began to slowly appreciate the power of more time spent in reflection. As my demanding career neared an end during the pandemic, things coalesced into the life I lead now; one filled with less societal obligation and more focus on what I needed to do for myself. 

Older problem solvers like me never learned to properly look after the self and in so doing we can become rejuvenated with more freedom and possibility. It can be like being let out of a cage especially if one was taught to follow duty above all else. 

Living alone is how my lifelong dysphoria riddle was addressed via a plan which, despite its imperfection, I had been slowly and sometimes unwittingly building towards. It ultimately proved to work well enough and what remained was cleaning out those mental drawers which had been ignored or only partially opened for decades. 

We cannot plunge into our psychology without silence.

Sheen

Someone on YouTube went to the great trouble of putting every guest star appearance on the show  "The Love Boat" in alphabetical order.  All the while, the saccharine theme song played on top as the stars smiled into the camera.

As a kid of the 60's and 70's I grew up with the period's hopeful optimism and promise that "love won't hurt anymore" which spoke to era's glossy sheen. The show ran from 1977 though 1987 and many of the actors that appeared are now deceased or well into their 60's or 80's and I recognized many of the B actors who made numerous appearances on shows of the time. 

I Googled the odd name and saw their sometimes spotty marital history which contrasted against the idyllic portrayal of love which the show peddled knowing full well it was a whitewash. 

Still, we wanted to believe in our youth that we could at least get close to that high bar where we could ride into our own sunset hand in hand as music played. 

By 1980, I turned 18 and Reagan was elected president and a switch seemed to go off. The sheen from the previous decade began to fade even as the show continued into the mid 80's still lauding a romantic bliss which only sanitized television could provide us.

My introduction to real life was already underway.

Contrast

Pope Francis was a good man who tried to lower the temperature on Catholic orthodoxy by being more welcoming. A man who was used to dealing with the disenfranchised he contrasted sharply with his predecessor. 

As religion and politics are freely intermingled and bastardized in the form of Christian nationalism in the US, you could see the dividing line between religion as rebuke of difference versus the welcoming Jesus who dared people to cast the first stone. 

Despite distancing myself from formalized religion, I liked what this man was doing in his expanding an umbrella of charity. While I still found the church needed to go further, I realized that 2,000 years of history and tradition made for a very large obstacle not easily moved. 

We never used to talk in terms of right-wing and left-wing Catholics and yet they exist because I have talked to them. The dividing line seems almost to be old Testament versus New which on one side features a benevolent yet firm judge contrasted against the carpenter who came to seek the down trodden and welcome them. 

Fascism uses religion as a weapon to exclude people and will arm itself with religious imagery and language to exact vengeance. Hitler did it and Trumpism is its latest incarnation which seems to work particularly well on the simple minded and the vengeful. 

All those nasty administration people appearing on television with big crosses never fail to turn my stomach.

Standing out

Wearing bright colors and standing out was anathema to me because I would rather blend into the background than be noticed. I was already tall and so I didn't need any help being singled out and little ladies in a store would sometimes ask me "how tall are you madame?". 

As young women have gotten taller over time that has phenomenon has largely gone away.

Something happened over time and as I became more entrenched in who I am the idea of being singled out became less repellent. The shy kid who was afraid of stares suddenly became immune to them as I settled into the self as a fully out transgender person.

This spring coat, bought when I was in Toronto at a Sears closing liquidation, has been getting a lot of compliments from women and although I appreciate them, they aren't a prerequisite for feeling confident in my own skin. 

They are simply bonus.

Circular

I will occasionally dip my toe into comment sections of gender critical discussions which typically end up becoming circular. True biological sex becomes a focal point and gender is dissed. One video title was "one doesn't feel like a woman". The point being that one is a woman exclusively by birthright. 

Here we go again and I feel bad for intersex people needing to pick a side of such a polarizing issue among some people. 

The sex essentialists always leave out the part that one doesn't look at their own genitals to decide how to behave, gesture or dress. There is a spread of feminine and masculine traits among both males and females which are part of their personality. 

I would argue against them when they say one doesn't feel gender because we do. The problem is that people who transition and call themselves women perturb the power and political dynamics inherent in the concept of sexuality. 

I have never argued in favor of or against transition only that it should remain a personal choice and the person should be treated with respect like any other individual. 

David Reimer felt he was a certain gender despite his reassignment at birth and subsequent reversal so we can at least argue for a leaning which is likely part of brain chemistry. Since biological permutations exist, it's not a stretch to imagine these things can get reversed in certain people.

I don't completely understand the fervor this creates in some people but I gather some have had personal experiences which affected their outlook. Thus it's too difficult for them to just live and let live. 

Good thing the average person doesn't care enough and increasingly less the younger they are.

A huge shock

Not....

Noise

Many of us may have developed our own little pathologies. We over work, we over eat, we exercise to excess or have use other drivers or obsessions to keep us busy and distracted from facing our core in silence. 

The idea of just being quiet and existing in our ordinariness can be a challenge. The impetus to always be "on" can be overwhelming and we will doom scroll in favor of being tranquil and reflect in stillness. 

I have been guilty of this myself and work towards detaching myself from technogical temptations which is why years ago Ieaving social media became mandatory. I wanted to simplify my life more than ever and detach from the unnecessary. 

A good chunk of our lives can be spent ridding ourselves of our childhood baggage to finally seek solace in our authenticity and personal truth. One which is free of needless noise and societal pressure to perform for the amusement of others.

Lab experiment

Trumpism has been a perfect laboratory experiment for witnessing how a society can fractute into historically predictable groups. You put an incoherent imbecile in charge and suddenly people fall into buckets which include the hapless cult victim, the disinterested and obtuse, the ruthless agenda-driven schemers/haters and finally those who will fight back for justice with dignity. 

Trump lost his trade war with China because they know he is a toothless flip-flopper and because that nation will fight to the end before backing down. So playing a game of chicken turned out not to be a winning strategy for the orange man. 

The wheels are predictably coming off the bus as in the first term and as more Trump voters begin to feel the impact of his stupidity, some members of congress and the senate may yet find their spines and begin to think of impeachment because waiting for midterm elections risks a lot more damage being done. 

Letting this man make things up as he goes along risks seeing much more damage than what has already been done.

True friends

I met a friend for coffee yesterday who I have known since we were both 27 and worked for the same company at the start of our careers. We would lose touch for selected periods and then reconnect only to have busy lives get in the way again and see us drop into another lapse. 

We were in that beautiful old Montreal 1928 bank building now converted to a gorgeous cafe where we caught up yet again on how life has been treating us. 

I haven't lost him despite my outer shell looking different and he deals with the same person as before. He says he can't imagine being in my place and the challenge involved to which I respond that we run out of road eventually and must become fully whole. 

To date I have only lost one person (a former work colleague) and it wasn't a great disappointment. Some people are more into what you provide for them than appreciating and accommodating your personhood. 

As others have repeated to me, it is their loss and they are right.

Nostalgia

YouTube has videos featuring 2 hour-long segments from 1970's radio station programming as well as department store music ready to stoke the fires of our melancholic nostalgia. Suddenly we are 14 again and taping music off the radio or going with our mothers to buy a new pair of pants at the newly minted mall. 

It works well and as I listened to snippets it immediately took me back and reminded me how fast life goes. It is now that I have slowed down that I can fully appreciate that unavoidable reality. 

It is good then to live one moment at a time as much as possible and to savor without wasting energy on needless worry. 

The brief nostalgia trip told me so.

Famous words

In 1943 Anne Frank wrote the following in her diary: "terrible things are happening outside. People are being dragged out of their homes. Families are being torn apart. Children come home to find that their parents have disappeared" 

That this could have been written today in Trump's America or in Palestine proves why humanity is unchangeable. The same limitations exist because emotionally we do not progress as a species. Thus, society is broken down into proportions which are unaltered and we repeat history because of it. 

Frank was an empathetic and beautiful soul who didn't understand the cruelty she was witnessing. She asked herself deep questions about why human insecurity invariably leads to conflict and chaos and her young mind never attained the level of experience it needed to digest and process it all before she died.

Abide

When I was maybe 8 years old I would ask my father why I needed to go to church. I needed to have it explained to me since I hadn't chosen to be born and yet I was supposed to praise a deity I had never seen. 

I approached things, if not as an outright cynic, than at least as a deep questioner who wanted more evidence if I was to convince others that my belief system was solid. 

The topic of gender variance was no exception and I wanted to understand the variables involved, the amount of choice being exercised, the balance of nature versus nurture. Yes, there was brain chemistry involved but was it steeped in delusion and illness? I proceeded to try and find out to solve my own personal life riddle. 

In a sense the answer came through the realization that there were far too many variables at play and that ultimately people don't choose to suffer or be shunned. To be sure, there are those for whom this is nothing more than a pastime but I think they are not the majority. 

Also, the societal prescription for gender behavior was completely invented and overly rigid. It curtailed the public through intimidation and fear of shunning. As a result some people developed deep stigma and guilt which in some cases became fetish. In other words, much ado about nothing encouraged obsession where it need not exist because suppression can do that. Lifting it carefully can help to provide answers.

That society is full of idiots is beyond question and the longer we live the easier they are to recognize. But in the lifting of the blinders we may find ourselves fortunate to be free of obligation and stress from the irrational that many would just as soon not question and simply abide by.

Where they are

I try to meet people where they are. 

This morning sitting over my coffee a lady maybe in her early 70's waits for hers close-by and we chat briefly. She is holding a very docile schnauzer under her arm and she tells me she has driven across country from British Columbia and that she loves Montreal. You could smell the authenticity from her right from the outset. 

People give off vibes and their aura either shines through or it is blocked through not feeling able to be themselves and stew in frustration. By now I can detect someone who is open and in touch with who they are. It becomes almost a scent they perennially give off. 

There is already so much suffering in the world that we don't want to make it worse for ourselves. We should want to drop our shield and let moments happen without trying to control all.

Flexibility, openness, kindness and calm should be the governing principles by which we live and so I work to refine that goal.

Empathy

There is a man who exposes emboldened bigots online in Trump's America. He looks for their identity and posts their name after they have attacked others for no reason other than to feel power over them. 

A couple berates a man for brandishing only a Mexican flag on his truck while another riding a motorcycle asks a driver to roll down his window to utter a racial slur. 

In another incident a subway rider sits uncomfortably close while telling a young transgender woman that Trump is her daddy. He insults her repeatedly until she begins recording him and other riders come to her rescue and tell him to go to another car which he finally does. 

Empathy is a lost art which has never really caught on in society on a big scale. Some people's own shortcomings oblige them to prey on weakness thinking it will help their own lack of self-esterm. It doesn't work but they can try. 

There is plenty of everything in this world but it would be a lot better if people dealt with their own insecurities before deciding not to mind their own business.

Regret

I don't have a problem with Ray Williams regretting his transition. My issue is more with him using his own decision to feed into the gender critical movement as his motives are uniquely his own.

He started out identifying as a "crossdresser" and later got affected by the transgender movement's expanding umbrella. In the past there was more delineation between transitioners and other gender variant people who compartmentalized and dressed for various reasons which could include sexual pleasure as primary driver. Thus, as gender variance became cross pollinated, he decided that being "trans" was superior to being a "crossdresser" which he felt delegitimized him in the eyes of society.

Yes, it's a complicated subject and here Blanchard's AGP is accepted as fact without question when it could simply be called arousal. Williams admits to weaker dysphoria and less identity driven motives which is why medical transition was ultimately not for him.

You may find this frank discussion interesting even if the aim of the channel seems to be to denigrate transgender people and gender variance as a whole....

Pleaser

If we try to please everyone we end up pleasing no one and mostly displease ourselves. We can end up in a wasteland of dissatisfaction where our self-esteem is compromised. 

This lesson can take time because we begin life bowing to public expectation except that some of us never leave it. It takes effort to escape when we've been taught not to try. 

Protecting the self should include some flexibility because we want to be kind but not so much that our essence begins to be affected. When authenticity is compromised at the altar of expectation we will feel something is off. 

It becomes easier with age to recognize what is pomp versus what is essential aIthough I wish I had learned to make the distinction sooner.

On point

Both Karoline Leavitt and Pam Bondi give off that Nazi Barbie vibe. They along with Laura Ingraham of FOX use their Christian nationalism to bludgeon people they don't like. 

It's not true religion in the sense of seeking enlightenment or peace but more an exclusive club that you aren't welcome to join if you don't have the right credentials. 

That these people are dangerous is beyond question but they have always existed and Jesus in his day threw them out of the temple. They manifest the predictable mix of arrogance and stupidity which we can't seem to eradicate from humanity. 

As Riley Gaines stood next to Bondi with a vacuous expression which gave away her lack of brain neurons, the new head of the DOJ was risking her big cross burning into her flesh. Are these people self-aware? only as far as their intelligence and hatred allows them. 

The image below speaks for itself and is very much on point.

Focused

These days I have little time for vapid or uninteresting people. They give me nothing and I can give them nothing in return as they tend to be mostly interested in the sound of their own voice. 

Time is more precious than ever and I want to spend it nurturing my soul with the type of energy that sustains it. I want to learn from others while returning to them some of the benefits of my own life experience. 

From that perspective, life is better than ever as I sit on a hilltop with a more advantageous view of how life truly works. Needless obligation and care of the self have taken hold as never before as I prioritize my energy use more wisely.

Recipe

Retirement for me became a full life examination process. We slow down and remove obligation to permit a reflection into how we got here. For me this turned out to be more than how I navigated life as a transgender person to this point. 

I thought about the assumptions regarding how life was supposed to work as someone who was taught to follow a very precise recipe. Now I could look back and see how much of that was true; how much of what I had banked on turned out to have merit. 

Those of us who grew up buying into the nuclear model didn't question it. We married, had children and asked questions only after the cracks began to show in the foundation. We had compartmentalized our lives to such a degree that any deviations now were all but impossible. 

If you asked me whether I preferred to be young today versus back then I would be conflicted. While we had the order and structure and the means to have a stable existence we couldn't benefit from the power of an authenticity which wasn't exactly encouraged. In that sense I would opt for today. 

When you retire and if your mind analyzes everything, you may find much the same thing happens to you. You will take stock and slowly dismantle the vestiges of what turned out not to be true; especially for you.

Blood bath

Here Jeffrey Sachs very correctly identifies that Donald Trump is an idiot. For him global trade is a zero sum game which means someone must win and someone must lose. Yes, the US has a trade deficit with many countries but that is only a sign that Americans buy more from many smaller countries than they buy from the US.

This is not rocket science and yet his sycophants can't say anything because they are all cowed. Lisa Murkowski said as much in a town hall where she admitted that they are all afraid of backlash from the Kool-aid cult which is what happens when you force feed your population a steady stream of propaganda.

US trade policy is being run by someone with not even a high school level understanding of economics but don't tell that to the people wearing those big crosses on television.

With an intrinsically tied global economy  the big loser will ultimately be the US as it isolates itself and cannot sell to the rest of the world. Maybe when those US firms moved off shore to lower costs and avoid paying taxes, they should have thought about how things would turn out on the home front.

Jordan

I don't want to make fun of Jordan Peterson but he seems to invite it. There he was in front of fellow conservative Piers Morgan crying yet again over something which didn't seem to warrant it. You could see Morgan squirm as he waited out the episode. 

Peterson first gained fame by refusing to be told what pronouns to use and testified so before the committee on Canada's bill C-16. Not long after, he became the darling of the right who desperately needed gravitas in the form of their own intelligentsia. Never mind that Peterson wasn't well-versed in all topics. He just needed to sound the part. 

He is almost always angry at something and rails against postmodernism and "wokeness" which eventually got the attention of his licensing board. They were going to remove his psychology credentials if he did not take a media sensitivity course. His wild and often derisive posting on the platform (now called X) becoming worrisome particularly as it was deemed unbecoming for a mental heath professional who seems to be in need of a fair bit of counseling himself. 

Part of me understands Jordan Peterson because being the same age our blinders have been removed and the illusions of life are now gone. We can be tempted to fall into cynicism which colors our world view. 

But while I am a bit disappointed I am not angry; or at least not nearly as much. 

After becoming a model for young men to clean up their act by making their beds as well as performing other discipline-inducing tasks, he became almost a comic book villain. He would appear on podcasts with gaudy and flashy clothing which seemed to advertise the fact that he was impervious to what anyone thought of him. 

As the Daily Wire is befallen with financial woes his time may be up as I see much commentary that people are very wise to his shtick. 

You cannot pretend to be a master of all subjects while simultaneously spitting venom at the detractors who have figured you out.

Ruling

The UK Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the definition of "woman" does not include those of the transgender variety. A woman, according to the court, is someone who is born biologically female.  What they do with androgen insensitivity syndrome remains to be seen.

Outside the court Helen Joyce and other gender criticals were jubilant because they see this victory as a crack in the transgender rights movement. Presumably the next step would see people arrested for impersonation as once was the case in the not too distant past. 

This ruling doesn't make transgender people disappear or negate their existence and I have argued for not getting lost in definitions and rely on the basic rights of humans to live as they choose. This should not affect the right to hold a job or marry. In other words, this obstacle for someone transgender in the UK should change little starting today despite the region's almost vitriolic resistance to progress on this particular cultural front.

Gender criticals want eradication or at least returning people to their closets which will not happen because youth is overwhelmingly supportive of transgender rights. This means that the climate should only improve over time as millenials and GenZ increasingly gain political power. 

Joyce and others in this group are mostly older and form part of a generation which cannot get past this cultural hurdle. They focus on participation in sports or bathrooms to drive wedges into public opinion as everyday transgender people work in legal, engineering offices and banks without issue. My own former office is a prime example of this where a young transgender woman and transgender man work freely and happily. My former company's policy is that of complete accommodation of diversity and inclusion.

If there is an overarching theme to my writing these days is that common sense, justice and empathy should prevail over prejudice from small minded people. Thus I see this as another temporary setback within the overall arc of societal progress.

Progress which will still take time.

An overused word

Two older ladies sitting in a restaurant were asked by FOX News what they thought about Trump and their answers revealed their complete cluelessness. They were effusive about how strong and outspoken he is and how happy they were that he was in charge. 

I know I tend to overuse the word stupid but this scenario was an undeniable example. You could see that behind their eyes little gears tried their best to string together thoughts. Both likely victims to right wing media pablum.

Slowly but surely this regime is doing its best to collapse whatever democratic safeguards still exist. With a fully domesticated congress and senate, the executive branch now flexes its muscle and dares the courts to stop them. 

Soon, the only defense line left will be the public. 

At a Marjorie Taylor Greene town hall a man was stun gunned by police. No doubt the signs of things to come as the public begins to feel the pain of being ruled by an idiot and his enablers. The tariff chaos should be a clear sign that things are being made up as they go along. 

Greene for her part is another symptom of a dumbed down electorate. People in her district looked at this incoherent nitwit and thought she would make a great candidate which should depress anyone paying attention and cares about their country. 

As the US follows the game plan of a country like Hungary the people will need to fill the streets on an ever increasing basis until something is done.

Complacency is no longer an option.

Definitions

We can get hung up on the terms manhood and womanhood both of which are well steeped in social expectations. Even male and female contain greys when we consider intersex conditions and ambiguous genitalia in infants. 

In the end we should perhaps speak in terms of transparency and authenticity. Who are you as a person beyond the titles that society so desperately wants to impose upon you? 

Terminology seems to preoccupy the minds of many gender variant people despite the fact that validation is an internal process. Others don't tell us who we are. 

In the 1950's social roles were so rigid that the difference between the sexes was stark and unmistakable. Fast forward to today and the streets are filled with a sea of gender ambiguity and unisex trends which defy the old conventions.

Presumably each person today is expressing authenticity; not feeling that they are in costume and hiding who they truly are.

Public enemy no.1

When you add supportive people to those who just don't care how transgender people live, you get the bulk of the population. The remaining portion count among those whose own frustrations lead them into transphobic waters.

Ask a gender therapist today about the most recurring theme among their patients and they will state that it is imposter syndrome. They have clients who may even have transitioned relatively early, blend in easily as women and yet suffer from this affliction nonetheless. 

Is this surprising? Not in the least because most people's troubles are magnified in the mind and if our lives aren't sufficiently hard we will find ways to complicate them. 

This makes the transgender person themselves public enemy number 1. I know this because I still suffer from the little remnants of self-rejection despite not caring one whit what people think of me at age 62. 

The programming went deep and started early for me.

In the past, transsexuals needed to erase previous history because living anywhere close to a normal life required it. This meant stealth was an essential component even if it required enormous mental pressure to conceal early lived history. 

The good news is that transgender youth have less work to do in erasing trauma because the public knows far more about them. They can embrace a transgender identity with less pressure to conceal; something which took me far more effort given the era I grew up in.

They can incorporate all facets of what makes them unique and fully whole.

Mount Rushmore

There's a subset of every society which pines for authoritarian rule and it was easy to see during Trump's latest cabinet meeting. People around the table were fawning over the leader in North Korea style fashion in a way that would induce nausea in most intelligent and self-respecting people. 

Not all of them believe it entirely but Trump channels their hatred and vengeance while the rest have found their personal savior and are firmly in cult territory. 

The US is already in constitutional crisis after a 9-0 Supreme Court decision was handed down. This was the same court which thought it wise to hand even more power to a narcissistic idiot. Still, they found enough spine to agree that poor Mr García shouldn't be left in an El Salvadoran gulag. An order which will be duly ignored.

Stupidity is alive and well in the 21st century.

The Trump regime now wants universities and law firms to bend the knee which some of them refused to do. Harvard which is even older than the country itself resisted and sent out an email to students and faculty that it would not falter in defending its constitutional rights. 

Some years back I would have been stunned to realize how quickly a nation can fall into chaos but those blinders are now firmly and forever lifted. 

Hopefully Mount Rushmore will be spared the indecency of being altered.

Neoliberalism explained

 

Real life remains

Any kind of gender transition whether social or medical doesn't solve all your other problems. It just eliminates or at least mitigates a major life issue which you've likely suffered from since early childhood. If you had other issues unrelated to dysphoria, they must be addressed separately. 

Transition isn't really a choice because that clock in the attic will just keep ticking until eventually it becomes an overwhelming roar. This doesn't mean you have to do what someone else does only that it cannot be ignored indefinitely. 

I get up everyday and occasionally I feel cranky because I am human. Our moods are not going to be permanently rosy because we have addressed the elephant in the room which was our constant companion. 

Any pink fog you may have experienced in the past is now mostly gone and replaced with a greater sense of cohesiveness. The flourishes of euphoria which all people experience are still there of course.

Real life is what remains.

Oh and I ended up finding that purse yesterday in one of my thrift stores which was my little euphoria for the day. Paying only 11 dollars will do that for you.

The glass emporium

The Dunning-Kruger effect is when people who know little assume they have sufficient expertise to opine while those who can say more due to more knowledge tend to stay relatively silent. It's basically how society has always functioned where the more arrogant and brash someone is the more they are listened to. This is Trumpism in spades. 

When I was young I wasn't yet as well versed in how this dynamic played out but today it is crystal clear and it is everywhere. People who know very little pontificate as if they were steeped in knowledge while experts in their field are denigrated and told to be quiet.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood, before his death by age 45 at the hands of the Nazis, that stupidity was the biggest scourge on society. True malevolence was comparatively small and could be better contained but stupid people bathed in their own ignorance while speaking with conviction often with an agenda of seeking power over others. It was destruction via willful ignorance; the elephant in the glass emporium if you will. 

Stupidity is having strong opinion with no solid basis behind it.

Our current geopolitical climate demonstrates how stupid people can gain the ear of the population who themselves either aren't educated or have little agendas of their own. They may not be true monsters but they fail to see the big picture of how their actions play on the larger societal domino chain. 

During my three decades plus career I would see highly proficient professionals perform for the client and be respected by their peers while not necessarily advancing within the company food chain. Conversely, there were others who knew how to navigate the politics and play the game very well while being less of a performer. It didn't matter because they had the ear of management who didn't see the shop floor as well as the rest of us.

The reason "Christian nationalism" is so dangerous is that it combines black and white selective Old Testament judgement with politics. This is not the benevolent and empathetic Jesus of the Gospels but instead magical thinking cafeteria-style religion combined with monumental levels of stupidity.

Before you go

I would argue that Lyle Mays was the heart and soul of The Pat Metheny Group. His brilliant composing and playing is what gave them that beautiful hybrid style which sometimes bordered on world music or new age but still maintained a solid foothold in jazz and its virtuoso freestyle playing. 

But Mays wasn't just a master of his instrument because he often held back the chops to allow his compositions to breathe and bathe in those marvelous chord choices of his. I consider him to be one of the major influences in my own playing. 

He passed away in 2020 at only age 66 from a recurring illness.

Here is one his compositions indistinguishable from his soul-elevating work with PMG...

Adolescence

"Adolescence" is brilliantly made television. For one thing each episode is filmed in one camera shot which means that if any actor makes an error, the entire episode must start over. No cuts to speak of which meant some episodes took 13 tries.

The acting is stellar as is the dialogue which moves along briskly. The young Jamie Miller who is accused of murdering a fellow classmate, his family and the investigators do an amazing job at keeping us spellbound. 

As it was a limited series, I absorbed it almost in one go which is rare for me. This is quality intelligent television at its finest; devoid of melodrama or Hollywood ploys which would telegraph anything in advance. 

On Netflix and highly recommended.

No solution

There's no solution for our parents. At almost 89 my mother is still a force of nature but no one can quite rain on your parade like she can. Nothing is good enough and the impetus to critique is always at the tip of the tongue. No doubt something she experienced at the hands of her own mother.

Yesterday my youngest sister texted me to ask if I was free for lunch. She would be coming with our mother to my neck of the woods since she had a house to show later in a neighboring area. I was on the hunt for my backpack purse at the other end of Montréal but made my way back on public transit to meet them by 11 30.

We joke sometimes that we all need therapy after putting up with her unrelenting energy and bizarre ways. At our mother's toilet break my sister and I relieved the tension by commenting on how difficult she is. If you don't bring her somewhere she complains but once there she will tell you how much she prefers eating at home and how her calamari don't compare to the ones in Madrid. 

I was impressed with how much more impervious to her character flaws I am these days. I give her credit for her ability to have adjusted to her transgender child which was bolstered by my years of hammering away at the subject matter so she would understand it as much as possible. 

No, we aren't going to change her now. So instead we change ourselves.

Galloway speaks

Scott Galloway speaks the truth bluntly and calls out what is plainly stupid...

The sum of all experiences

If you lost a limb in an accident you likely would adapt to it over time. Still, there could be moments when you would look at people who hadn't experienced the same thing and think how nice it would be to not have had the accident. This would be perfectly understandable and expected. 

We as humans are highly adaptable but we are also emotional and prone to looking back wistfully at what might have been. We can reminisce about an old flame and forget that life with them wasn't quite as idyllic as our rose colored glasses would suggest today. 

Being where we are now and appreciating it fully without pining for something else seems to elude us and is likely a permanent mark on our DNA. We look at someone else's life and reflect on what that might feel like without fully understanding what they experience. 

Sometimes I reflect on what life without dysphoria might have been like and can be tempted to envy others. But then I remember that who I am today is the sum of all my experiences and removing that burden might have also weakened some other facet which needed to be strengthened as a consequence of my struggle. 

We are who we are; the sum of all our experiences.

Talking to the other side

Some people suggest that talking to other side of the political spectrum is the right thing to do but I'm not entirely buying it. I think it depends on how far down the conspiracy rabbit hole the person has gone and whether you have to pull out facts that you thought were common knowledge. 

When Hillary Clinton used the term "deplorables" she wasn't being sufficiently PC but she wasn't wrong either because at its core the MAGA movement is about cruelty. Yes,  many in the base are part of the illiterate who have trouble naming their own governor but there is another layer that wants to make others suffer and knows better. Many are motivated by single issues like abortion or lower taxes and any bluster against the "woke" left is just a bonus. 

I gage who I can talk to based on emotional intelligence. They don't need to know history or politics as much as possess basic empathy and decency which in the end counts for much more. This is the kind of person who is open to receiving information and learning something new. 

Today's right wing movement is replete with bad faith actors who are motivated by cultural outrage which preys on the weakest people in society. They have helped talk others who are less educated into voting against their own interests and cannot be reasoned with because they are too radicalized and dogmatic to hear you out. 

These people have an agenda which is immune to inconvenient facts and so you might as well talk to the wall instead.

What is more important

Long ago I stopped writing about the mechanics of being transgender. How I make up my face or what I wear on my body took a back seat to the more important understanding of how to adapt the psychology to daily living after having been raised to reject one's nature from a young age. 

Gender variant people are unique beings who run a gamut of expression and identity which obliges that they adopt different responses. Some are deeply challenged with identity conflicts while others regale in sporadic expression and don't need to plunge into introspective angst regarding what to do. 

How I live my life today on a pragmatic level has been streamlined such that there is little difference between myself and a woman of a similar age. Even there we find significant variety in taste and preference. 

After a while we settle into a balance of comfort and style which reflects the reality of spending hours doing something where adding pain would detract from the experience. Thus purchases now are weighed with that foresight in mind. 

For example, I am now on the hunt for a new backpack purse; a type that has saved my posture and eliminated shoulder pain I once had with other types of bags. Here again, style and comfort are weighed such that I can favor feminine styles while sparing my back and shoulders. In general life is a balance act where we make compromises to achieve an overall good. 

Recently I have been receiving comments from women (including one sitting next to me in the metro) on a bracelet I purchased for $4 at a thrift store. I thanked them while knowing that the balancing act of cost and visual appeal had been wholly respected.

But in the end the most important thing for me was embracing authenticity by dealing with my dysphoria out in the open thus elevating self-respect. 

Whatever formula does that for you is the correct one.

Art of the deal

As expected...

We are what we think

The mind is a deeply complex organ. Not only does it generate thoughts, store memories, govern logic and control many bodily functions but it also guides mood, social behaviour and attachment style. It can be taught to change and adapt through its capacity for neuroplasticity. 

Thus working our way back from programming is possible but can be akin to leaving a cult. If I raise you from birth to be a racist you will have to work your way out of it through critical thinking by realizing over time that people are not less than by virtue of their race. Interventions might be the starting point which start your conversion process. 

Understanding what is true or false can take a long time because planted information requires it be examined carefully. If your frontal cerebral cortex is only fully formed by age 25 by then I could have filled your brain with all kinds of information some of questionable veracity. 

Small wonder that entire sections of bookstores and libraries are dedicated to self-help and mental wellness. We can spend years undoing childhood trauma which was left unexamined. 

We can teach someone the rules of mathematics which they then take as a profession while they are members of Scientology and believe in Xenu. This is how we end up with appear to be gaps in critical thinking. If your parents were in a cult you are far more likely to leave that part unquestioned.

I feel that this in part helps explain the mental disconnect that is Trumpism.

An affliction

Self-conciousness is a horrible affliction which I suffered from in spades for many years. If you are a shy kid it comes with the territory and in many transgender people it can form part of the portfolio because of the derision and aggression against them. Sometimes it can seep dangerously close to narcissism if we aren't careful. 

It is when we let go of self-absorption that we allow full authenticity to take hold. We stop worrying about who is looking and why and concentrate on going about our business. 

People react to me differently since I rid myself of this affliction which does not mean letting one's guard down. They want to see someone comfortable in their skin and when we provide it they are reassured and almost thankful. 

So many people don't have confidence in themselves and their abilities.

I protect myself while at the same time trying to be kind.

Should have known better

If one wanted to witness human stupidity and short sightedness first hand, we need not look further than the Trump tariff saga. People who know better are unwilling to tell the man child that his wholly non-existent knowledge of economics and global markets is going to destroy the US. 

Somehow Trump got it into his tiny brain that going back to 1870 is the way to go; a time when tariffs prevailed and when making everything at home was at a high. However we now have a deeply integrated global economy which is what allows cell phones not to cost $5,000 for example. So instead of raising taxes on rich people he wants poor people to fund his tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. People already struggling will find themselves in even more economic trouble than they already are. 

Neoliberalism bears much of the blame for companies leaving the US to lower manufacturing costs. We opened global markets which ultimately helped feed an inequality that is not easily fixable. Putting the burden of that reality back on those who can least afford it is suicide for the country. 

The spineless jellyfish who work in congress will do nothing because they want to keep their jobs and simply avoid their constituents who will grow in numbers as they take to the streets in protest. It's the classic story of the emperor has no clothes. 

Some people who voted for this idiot knew better and simply thought his actions wouldn't affect them. Others were so drunk on FOX News and right wing media that they are unreachable. But nothing is more sobering than when reality finally comes knocking on your door. 

Imagine allowing your entire nation fall prey to a madman who should have been prosecuted and jailed for being an insurrectionist. But it was hard given so much of the American system is built to withstand the defense of truth and justice. 

Many safety valves failed most notably the courage of people who should have known better.

Physician help thyself

After we've lived a while, we come to realize that no one is coming to our rescue and that we are our main problem solver. No partner, psychologist or friend is going to get to the core of a personal issue better than us. You may also have been burned by someone you trusted and who you thought knew better. 

Ostensibly, this means that we are on our own which does not oblige that we feel alone. We can relate to others and share experiences which then feed into our arsenal of self-help. 

It takes time to know what drives us as humans because from birth we are given marching orders about how life works. Unfortunately much of that foundation was built upon numerous fallacies which societies rely on but aren't necessarily conducive to our mental or spiritual health. Often, we trusted that our elders knew better at our own peril. 

By this age I have come to certain conclusions while knowing I don't have the benefit of seeing the entire playing field. My humanity blocks my full perspective and yet I see where the fixes need to happen and guide myself to where I think I can gain more insight. 

No one is going to do that for you.

Community

It is regrettable that language and by extension labels become weighted down with negative connotations and archetypes. We then risk getting lumped into a group which doesn't exactly fit us. 

Humans are like this in that they want the comfort of little communities but then are also burned by their confinement. We can't have it both ways but we try nevertheless to thread a line. 

We should want to tread our own path and eschew needless labels which is often the scariest of all options. The most freedom resides there despite some sort of community feeling more comfortable to us. 

For me that includes all of humanity and the everlasting search for dignity for all people irrespective of their individual challenges.

As I had hoped...

They stand up for their country...

Grievance

Detransitioners who play into the hands of gender criticals leave me highly suspicious. What didn't work for them could be expressed without appearing on podcasts with bold titles decrying "gender ideology" especially when the statistics don't agree with them. This is but one example of how society works. 

Much of the world seems to operate on comparison, fear and grievance. Some people thrive on it more than others when their baseline should simply be live and let live. We should be happy when others find a solution that works for them but for some this is an invitation to be frustrated and attack.

Trump is one such creature of grievance and having received parenting less immersed in love than in the idea of winners versus losers, he spends his days making sure he wins over others often at the expense of logic. This is why the 2020 election result did not compute in his deeply damaged psyche. 

Now he is spreading his childhood trauma to the rest of the world in the form of tariffs. He will burn it all down if he has to because his 'raison d'etre' commands it. The fact that 75 million people fell for it is the far more depressing part of the equation.

There is no going back now because confidence has been lost and the rest of the world no longer trusts the US electorate to make reasonable and informed decisions. Never mind that much of the other half despises Trump to their core.

When someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.

Molina and company

 

Embracing calm

If you're used to action, retirement will surprise you. The slowdown is beneficial but it can confuse you at first. Having spent years looking after deadlines and obligations you suddenly find yourself as the main focus of attention. 

Calming has been good and has smoothed the edges of my transition. There is less erratic bumping against objects which previously blocked it and clarity of mind has helped me fine tune a balance point. 

Older transgender people are often masters of denial and refusal to properly look after the self. Having made commitments to others we prioritized them while allowing dysphoria to fester in the background. We deftly put out fires which kept us busy and distracted. 

There is nothing which compares with the work on the psychology which must be remade in a way that erases all negative messaging regarding our nature with no early childhood programming more pervasive than that received by those of us born into mid twentieth century religious families. 

There can be no gambling now with going backwards because getting here took you so very long. 

And so you embrace calm.

Liberation day

It would be comical were it not so painfully tragic and idiotic. "Liberation day" came and went leaving Americans with the prospect that their debt load and everyday costs will go up. No one is allowed to tell the mad emperor that he is wrong and that he has no clothes. 

Tariffs are a tax on imported goods passed on to the consumer and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand it. They also historically do not work and will work even less in a deeply integrated global economy. But Trump is a hapless imbecile with a record of destroying his businesses and now he has set his sights on bankrupting the US economy. 

Not only is the economy largely service industry driven but if you were a manufacturer would you take 3 years and much capital to build plants in the USA only to see tariffs disappear on a whim or the mad king simply leave office? Of course not. 

But in this dystopian scenario the economy is going to be allowed to circle the drain at the same time as deep cuts are made to social services most needed by the poorest people. The spineless sycophants surrounding Trump can say nothing and it will eventually up to the people to later save what is left of their own country.

This kind of evil and stupid would be hard to believe even in a movie.

The social order

I read a comment which said "95% of your problems will be resolved by getting off social media and your phone". It might have been a stretch but it wasn't entirely wrong. 

Certainly we are more isolated and anxious than ever and our social interactions outside of work for many have dropped off a cliff. Our reliance on third spaces like church, sport leagues, social clubs, etc. is at an all time low. We need to return to face to face interaction for society to be healthy. 

People used to be more like predictable sheep because pressure to conform was so high. Thus they would attend church service because it was frowned upon not to. Ask them after the service why they did so and you would get a mixed series of answers some bordering on complete gobbledygook and yet they benefited from the group dynamics of bazaars, spaghetti suppers and coffee in the hall afterwards. 

As society has become more pluralistic and diverse those people who thrived on order are confused and even angry. They let out their frustration often anonymously on platforms where they can rage over types of people they have never met. No wonder disdain for the "other" is at an all time high. 

The population can predictably be divided into segments because the essential characteristics of human nature never change. Those who pine for black and white and to be led by the nose will never disappear because free thought and uncertainty are unappealing to them. Hence some form of return to the old ways which appease them is almost assured. 

Mark Twain said that it was far easier to fool people than to convince them that they had been fooled. 

He was absolutely right.

Backlash has begun

 

A word of caution

I spoke to an ex-colleague yesterday who I knew has a 16 year old transgender teen transitioning from female to male. They were already on puberty blockers but I was surprised to learn that they were starting testosterone and that surgery was being discussed. This colleague also knows about my history. 

I could see the hesitation and discomfort on his face. I too have some reservations given his son's tender age which I shared very carefully without any sense of alarm. 

The previous case I am familiar with with another colleague is someone who did the same thing and is now 27 (same age as my daughter). The transition happened in the early 20's and at last word they were extremely happy. One would never have known from a photo that they were born genetically female. 

Apparently the doctor has assured the family that the regret rate is very low when undergoing treatment through an approved clinic and yet the tender age is still of concern to me. Given the tumult of being a teen one could imagine a scenario where one could look back in regret. My lesbian niece, who is now 24, went through a phase of questioning her gender and thought the better of it later. 

If my generation had wheels firmly stuck in the mud with few options to avoid massive pain and disruption, it appears we may have moved in the other direction a bit much. 

If I knew this trans teen I would counsel he delay just a bit longer and chew things over before any irreversible procedures. Of course easier said than done to someone of that age who feels an urgency which may or may not be entirely warranted.

Cruelty

It's hard to understand what Trumpists see. I try to put myself in their place to find some relational territory but I cannot and remain baffled. 

The best explanation I have is that frustrated people need someone to enact vengeance on their behalf. They want their enemies punished and Trump fits the bill which is why at its core the MAGA movement is ostensibly about cruelty. That is, until it happens to them. 

A Maryland man was mistakenly sent to a Venezuelan prison through administrative error. He is father to a special needs child of 5 and married to a woman who has just lost her husband to both incompetent idiocy and cruelty. This administration does not believe in due process and bases their immigration policy on the type of tattoos you have. A gay hairdresser recently met a similar fate.

It's hard to watch Nazi Barbie Karoline Leavitt lie her way through pressers with such arrogant aplomb. She is empty headed and so the confidence is unearned. Her worn cross contrasts sharply against the message of the Gospels. 

It all grates so much against our sensibilities because cruelty is precisely the point.