Liam's letter

 

Death knell

To be sure, Royalmount mall is attractive and yet it is playing in a retail space that risks disappearing altogether. 

After 355 years of existence, The Hudson Bay Company which started in the fur trading business in the 17th century has closed its doors after filing for bankruptcy. It's regal flagship store in downtown Montreal was a landmark but fell victim to changing consumer tastes and a penchant for increasing online consumerism. Although not a mall, it was connected to the underground city and counted on the same type of customer.

Malls were a staple of suburban life starting in the 1960's but starting in the last 10 to 15 years became less frequented and either closed or reinvented themselves by adding more options to attract customers.

However as the middle class began to disintegrate in earnest by the early 2000's we saw these former draws of community life take their most serious hits. Vacant spaces are now the norm. 

I live close to the core of the walkable city connected with public transit which lends itself to more boutique options rather than one behemoth location which is why many suburbanites for now still go to these spaces. Royalmount, which exists on the lip of Montréal's more affluent areas is banking on the appetite for high end goods to keep them healthy and afloat.

Time will tell but then I just bought a coffee.

A Weight

One of the more unfortunate human traits is self-conciouness. You want to dance in the street but are afraid of what people will think because that awareness has been baked into us since birth. 

Yesterday as I spoke to my son I told him that the biggest gift he can give himself besides fortifying his critical thinking, empathy and kindness is to as much as possible eliminate the aspects of self-awareness which are unhealthy. 

I told him that the "what will people think" reflex should be wiped from his concious thought especially when so many of them are racked with their own particular strains of it. It is completely wasted energy.

I was an expert myself at being self-aware but as shyness burned off and experience taught me how human nature works, I became free of it finally. I just retained the public decorum that my father was so particularly gifted at. 

There is something very satisfying in shedding that particular weight.

If you haven't already done so, try it and see.

All shapes and sizes

I met an old friend outside a metro station yesterday and we walked on Mont Royal avenue which will now be pedestrian only until the fall. We found a café I have been to before with a terrasse in front and we spent quite some time catching up. 

I'm used to seeing transgender and gender variant people of all stripes living openly and so is he in his neighborhood and he admitted that he is used to me now. I said that I don't hinge my happiness on people's acceptance but I appreciate that he recognizes I am exactly the same person. He did joke however that if I were to glam it up drag queen style, it would be a different story. 

The most important thing I've learned is to be comfortable in your skin as who you are and it continues to reap dividends. The more relaxed you are, the more people pick up and feed off that energy. As a result strangers are more likely to want to approach me like the French couple from Marseilles who asked me for directions as I waited for my friend and were so happy to chat before moving on. 

There are still people who I have met over the years who don't know there wasn't always a life as Joanna and some may never know. I don't worry about it because doing so would risk perturbing the synergy we currently have. But if they were to ask me point blank I would simply admit it.

People of the world come in all shapes and sizes and the vast majority don't spend any significant time thinking about their gender which is the way it should be. Once that mindset begins to take hold, everything flows much better as you relax into the self.

All new

There is a recently completed esplanade built next to the orange metro line on the lip of the old city which beautifies la metropole yet again. It is dedicated to the many women of Montréal who so greatly contributed to its heritage.

Bravo...

In the end

In the end it isn't what people believe to be true about you that should hold any importance, but instead what you know to be true about yourself.

Can't make this up

Sherry Redstone wants to sell her interests in Paramount and so is looking to settle with the Trump regime. Paramount, which owns CBS, last year interviewed Kamala Harris on 60 minutes; an interview which the dear leader says was doctored to make her look smarter than she really is. 

As a result the buffoon is suing for 1 billion dollars which is of course a frivolous lawsuit. 

Supplication to tyrants never works out in the end but in the meantime you suffer some consequences until the dust settles. Since the FCC head is a Trump stooge and formerly affiliated with the toxic project 2025 crowd, he is a person not allergic to blocking the sale of Paramount to some interested bidder. 

Extortion at its finest. 

Anyone who still thinks that there isn't sometimes corruption at the highest levels of government even among first world nations is a perfect patsy for being sold swamp land in Florida. This current administration is neck deep in it including mixing government business with making Trump richer with his various schemes which include gold sneakers and krypto currency. 

On another note, the Trump tariffs have been ruled illegal by a three judge panel heading a trade court. They unanimously found that the regime exceeded their power by bypassing congress which is the body ultimately responsible for setting tariff policy and not the executive branch. There goes another court loss which will percolate its way up to the Supreme Court. 

If he loses, TACO man will need to issue reimbursement checks to those businesses who might have the good fortune to still be afloat. 

You can't make this stuff up but at least it keeps Lawrence O'Donnell occupied with enough material so he can keep calling Trump the stupidest president in American history.

Clearly also the most corrupt.

Beaten

 

Advocating

If someone were to ask me if I was a transgender rights advocate I would say yes but prefer they think of me as advocating for the dignity of all people. In that sense I am first and foremost an advocate for human rights. 

This is a more macroscopic view which takes into account all the variants we find in humanity. The point is to argue for allowing people to lead lives in which they can feel whole and accepted. 

I prefer not to play favorites and simply make the case for everyone to find purpose and joy in their lives while being free of myopic discrimination.

Humiliation

Humiliation is no longer a dirty word. Why would it be when even the president of the United States is openly and proudly a malignant buffoon. It takes pressure off others to disregard the concern with being humiliated and forgives their own foibles with ignorance. 

My father, who was a highly educated, humble and discreet man, spoke carefully and often with wisdom. Of course he was born in 1934 to a generation that understood that if you made some pronouncenent you had better be careful about your certainty. 

Somewhere along the line we lost the fear of looking like an idiot and people all over social media routinely trumpet their ignorance Iike a trophy they just won. 

It is no mystery why, up until recently, Joe Rogan had the leading podcast. An easily confused dolt who was "just asking questions" became fascinating content for people who cared more about identifying with the host than realizing his limitations and that they had better do their homework on their own.

Oh well.

Where do I stop?

One of the most difficult questions for a transgender person to answer is where they need to stop in their journey to authenticity. Do they transition socially, can they settle for living part time, only take hormones or also add surgical options some of which might only include facial surgery. 

There is no simple or wrong answer only yours but for a time it can expend much mental energy. 

The only thing I can tell you from my personal experience is that your psychology is overwhelmingly more important than anything else. Before you undertake any physical changes you should focus on that and it was solving that riddle which lifted the clouds to make my way forward very clear. 

Older people often have a tough road because so many life obstacles painted them into almost catch 22 scenarios where a step in either direction meant failure on some front. They also have much deeper and more pervasive programming over disobeying the gender norms they grew up with which often hold them hostage to fear.

I have always preached deep introspection before acting and understanding lived history to determine where your core motivation lies. Does this difference date back to childhood and a disconnect which needs addressing or is your variance more rooted and leans towards needing flexibility for gender expression. 

Without undertaking this process, decisions will risk being the wrong ones. Here patience will be a massive asset as well as the disregard for public opinion which includes extended family.

One thing I know for certain: living in fear isn't the answer.

The apologists

Listening to Trump supporters arguing in his favor has been very enlightening to me. Yes, there are those incredibly low information voters that are extreme but it is not they who are the most fascinating. I am more interested in the apologists who turn themselves into pretzels by cherry picking what they like while ignoring his massive criminality, corruption and repugnant character. 

I have decided that their support strikes at the heart of their own unstated frustrations which then are somehow assuaged by someone who says and does the things they wouldn't dare to in polite company. He gives their deep seated prejudices a voice which wouldn't otherwise exist. 

This is how cults work as well in that people identify with a leader who they can place trust in especially when their lives are in disarray. Jim Jones couldn't have made people drink the Kool-aid without this fundamental human character flaw. 

When the history books write their chapter on Trumpism it will be a morality tale on how technological progress only exacerbated our ability to fall prey to carnival barkers and how it is in the end an incurable condition. 

The human need to find solace in a symbol plus belonging to a group which can even override our empathy and ability to think critically.

Your new normal

When you establish a new normal in retirement you become very aware of your biorhythms. You can almost predict the little highs and lows of your day as settle into this new life. 

You want a balance that combines routine with some variety and I am pretty much there but there is still tweaking to do and perhaps there always will. 

The important thing is not to fall into traps with highs and lows but to harmonize everything so you feel whole and aware. We want minimized emotional swells which can trip us up. 

It is a process made slightly more complex by being transgender and yet no complaints here.

Time's up

Jordan Peterson appeared recently on the Jubilee podcast and thoroughly humiliated himself. His faux sophist style broke down when confronted by sharp GenZ students. One of them was Parker of Parkergetajob who is good friends and tag team debating partner with Dean Withers. Both of these young men are extremely sharp and will corner you with logic as they do to Trumpers all the time.

Peterson clenched his teeth and scowled refusing to answer hypothetical questions when discussing whether he believes in God or not. His usual Houdini word salad evasion methods of playing games with language didn't work and he clearly looked flustered. 

Defending Christianity while not explicitly professing to be Christian, ends up putting himself in his own choke hold while these bright young men danced all over his head.  

"What do mean by believe?" is gobbledygook but Peterson tried it regardless. Bad move.

For a time, Peterson had a shtick and a place in the pantheon of right wing intellectuals (an oxymoron if I ever heard one), but now his time is up and so is the Daily Wire's.

History repeats

We've been here before including the same type of people who were brave enough to call it out....

Latest find

Montréal is a great city for sitting on a terrace and having a good espresso coffee. It is a walkable city full of interesting and vibrant people and highly tolerant of all kinds of diversity. 

Cafe Tenini on the plateau Mont Royal is my latest find.

The Enemies Project

This is a well-meaning effort to have two sides sit down and deal with preconceived ideas, prejudice and ignorance. 

Here Eve and Nancy sit face to face and discuss openly their viewpoints. Eve is a transgender woman and Nancy a fundamentalist thinker who sees the world in black and white through a prism of religion.

Very much worth the watch and kudos to Eve for the incredible patience.

"No one wants to be trans" she says and she's right but then some people just are...

Pores

I used to say fake it till you make but that felt and was wrong. For there was too much mental energy channeled into posturing instead of fortifying the self. 

It turns out that people are looking for a secure person more than someone who passes the gender sniff test. In other words you must know who you are which will then percolate out through your pores. 

People can tell and it eventually made all the difference. 

If all else fails I have a fully-functional nasty side ;)

Eyes opening

As the Trump cult begins to increasingly feel the impact of the regime's cruelty the spell will break. The ones most invested and with the lowest level of intelligence will go last but even they will come to a light bulb moment when they or someone they love is kicked off Medicare. 

Moses Mike Johnson sat with a straight face and told Jake Tapper that Medicare will only be cut for able bodied young men which is a bold faced lie. 700 billion in cuts will require many people to lose their access and his own state of Louisiana has over 1.4 million people who depend on it. Some of the ones who will lose coverage will invariably die. 

Rand Paul has been making noise about not voting for the bill and if plastic spinal column Susan Collins and "I'm scared too" Lisa Murkowski vote with him that leaves only one more person required to kill the bill which would then send orange Jesus into a toddler rage tantrum. 

Stay tuned.

Conflating

Whatever form of transition you have chosen, it can be conflated with bad moods or experiences which can then make us question our path. 

This is very common and gender therapists warn about this happening all the time to their patients. Older people are the most prone due to the weight of lived history especially if much was lost.

After you live a while in your chosen formula life becomes more routine and both dysphoria and euphoria calm. This phase can make us doubt where we are especially if life events aren't going our way or even if we get up on the wrong side of the bed. 

This has happened to me occasionally but then the feelings burn off and I go back to being reassured often less than an hour later. Life isn't all roses every moment and we can be tempted to put everything in the same barrel when we are feeling a little off whatever the reason. It is why the psychological preparatory work in advance is so important no matter what path you choose for yourself. 

Life has challenges for us all and this is just one of the many.

Succinctly put

Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote the following response on why Trump is so disliked:

"A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege"

Chef's kiss 👌

Normal

Years ago in my old blog, I posed the question of what normal was but my mistake had been regarding my assumptions about the baseline coordinate system. At that time I saw being transgender as more objectionable and something to be mitigated to better fit in. 

As I grew in my understanding of self and society in general, I realized that most people have something objectionable to others plus the lack of critical thinking in the world was off the charts. People behaved to fit in rather than to be genuine and their fear is what governed much of their reality. 

This realization slowly morphed my outlook on divergences from accepted baselines which included the gender binary. 

I changed my viewpoint to emphasize the idea of seeking personal truth while upholding self-respect, mental wellness, transparency and integrity which should take priority over adherence to a largely irrational society. In other words, you do what you need to uphold these important tenets.

My son's neuro-divergence is also viewed in this light. It is merely a difference.

What is normal for you?

The why

Why we hold certain views about ourselves or on any subject bears deep reflection. After all, we want to have the best understanding possible such that we can justify them. Plus we should want to separate fact from what can be social myth. 

We as humans are prone to generating personal narratives which may work and bring comfort for a time but if they are erroneous they will tend increasingly not to work as an underlying buried truth gnaws at us until it is addressed. 

Therefore the why must continually be asked while knowing that as we age we will be more racked with questions than ever. The good news is that our exploration is also rewarded with more answers than we had ever imagined in our youth.

Transmedicalism

I recently watched part of a podcast where a caller objected to someone else not being "trans enough". This 28 year old transgender person calling was complaining about someone they know with a beard not being the genuine article because they weren't feminine enough.

The two hosts, one of whom was transfeminine and looked to be in her twenties, took issue with the caller's stance. It made me think about the transmedicalist arguments of the past which created a pyramid of respectability at the top of which would have been androphilic transsexuals. In the past they would have been obliged into stealth transitions to live as normal a life as possible.

As the visibility of gender variant people increased over time it widened the aperture of the lens which meant more shades were being noted. It is why the language morphed to include people who saw themselves as non-binary, gender fluid, etc rather than only on those who considered themselves women born with a mistake between their legs.

So while society takes note of the spectrum in front of them,  it has complicated the way we describe the different iterations of straying beyond the binary. This segment I watched was evidence that the issue is still very much present in the discussion of what consititutes a genuine transgender person.

My view has evolved over the years to the point where it is the amount of investment the person has which dictates what constitutes what an identity is. In other words, you embrace who you are and respect it to the point of not bending to someone else's will. For only you know who you are.

In that sense it tends to put everyone's identity on an equal footing because each of us is unique and our identity is not a game or a mask we put on.

Damage

Stupid people annoy me because it is thanks to them that the rest of us suffer. They don't vote correctly or make judicious choices and only learn once they finally burned themselves on the hot stove. 

I work on having patience with them but have particular disdain for the strain in which the head enters an aperture and will not be pulled out thanks to their blessed intransigence. 

These people are amused by shiny objects and easily take their eye off the objective and I am all but certain they cannot be cured. Only people who are open to being educated and having their minds changed are worth our efforts.

Trumpism has given me a front row seat to how the levers work. You take a large segment of people who aren't well versed in issues, add to that those with hatred and discrimination and sprinkle liberally with the greedy and power hungry and you have the perfect recipe for what is transpiring in the US.

This isn't a fluke but instead a formula that takes full advantage of worst traits of human nature. It proves that cruelty for others can be tapped into on a very large scale.

These regimes eventually feast on themselves which is why they ultimately collapse but the harm done (always to the most vulnerable) takes decades to repair as will be the case here.

Part and parcel

Imagine spending parts of your life being concerned for how other people live; being frustrated by them and wanting harm to befall them. It's sad and pathetic and yet millions of people in this world are like this. 

People who haven't caused them any direct harm are made victims to their vitriol. 

The basic psychology is not that complicated. They have deep seated frustrations about their own lives and need someone to blame. They will excuse their behaviour under the guise that these people are part of the cause of their own failures. Instead of examining their own psychology they choose a caustic shortcut.

Since this is a fundamental human flaw it will always exist and form part of the way society functions. The smaller and easier the target, the more convenient.

It's in the coding.

Art of the deal

This is Trump logic and it will prove itself to be very costly....

To trust

Many transgender people have trust issues and I am among them although I am recovering. We have been burned and need to find our way to a place that feels more comfortable once the mask we wore for much of our lives is fully removed. 

It can feel like walking a tightrope with no net until our confidence is bolstered to a tolerable level. 

This is a step-wise process which can take years and depends on your current age and how many years we have spent deep in the closet. There is no rushing it because the psychology of childhood programming cannot be undone so simply. It is like you are leaving a cult and in my case religion was added for good measure. 

Will I ever fully trust people? Well no because my life experience has taught me not to. However there are those who merit it and it is they who we want in our inner circle.

Finding them and keeping them is very much worthwhile.

Evil

After the "big beautiful bill" passed by 1 vote at 3 am, a person wrote:

"I am disabled. If medicare/medicaid fails I have a life expectancy of 5 to 10 days once my supplies run out. The house GOP voted to end my existence"

Just evil.

Hitting the fan

If their bill passes, the Republicans are about to kick millions of citizens off Medicare plus add trillions to the national debt thus sealing their fate at the 2026 midterms. This is what happens when you bend the knee to a madman who needs instant gratification and prefers that yes men surround him. 

When you add this insult to the tariff damage plus accepting a plane from Qatar that blatantly disregards the emoluments clause of the constitution, you can see how his numbers are plummeting. 

This is where the confusing elements of human nature best expose themselves. Greed, fear and stupidity mix freely to create a situation where the ship is headed for an iceberg but there aren't enough Paul Reveres to be listened to. The ensuing damage may sink the country beyond repair. 

All this because after the insurrection there wasn't enough moral outrage to act and apply section 3 of the 14th ammendment to prevent this disaster presidency. 

People who voted for Trump are increasingly having their blinders lifted and, while it is heartbreaking to see that it takes this much damage to finally wake them, it shows us the full power of how propaganda and lack of critical thinking combine.

Can we make it work?

Over the years I have written extensively about the relationships of gender variant people. They are often difficult and resemble minefields where you need to navigate the terrain very gingerly. I don't know of anyone personally who hasn't had issues because even without this added challenge, relationships can be frought with hardship. 

It is possible to make things work especially today where youth is more open to diversity and loving a person including all facets of who they are. Here I think of Gail the young woman whose partner was transitioning and who told me she wasn't going anywhere. Of course she is my daughter's age. 

Things have changed a lot over my lifetime and the pervasive programming over gender norms was softened over time. With education came tolerance and understanding which broke or at least bent the previous rules to allow for some success. 

My marriage didn't survive but then there were other underlying issues which made revealing my transgender nature the icing on the cake. I am now convinced that one cannot be truly content sharing a life without being genuine and respectful of their own identity. 

No one wins when there are masks worn. 

I think that the presence of dysphoria and its strength is the key ingredient which determines how much compromise and flexibility can exist within a union. That being said, someone who rejects you solely based on a desire for occasional cross gender expression in 2025 should be questioned. One can grow with society and be educated to the extent that it need not necessitate a dissolution. 

From where I sit now it's all very clear but then hindsight bolstered by personal experience will do that. I am also in that phase of life where I am almost an immovable object when it comes to respecting my own integrity and principles. 

Your own mileage may vary.

Save your energy

The weather in the northeast has been absolute shite which made me think about accepting things as they are. Railing against if won't make it change so we make our peace with that. 

The fact that the Polar Vortex is coming further south than normal is beyond my control. So it's rainy and colder than normal. Yet in a month I could be bemoaning the overly hot and humid weather. 

We never have it right which is precisely my point. It never will be.

Accepting things as they are is part of the harmonious attitude we can increasingly adopt for ourselves. It saves an awful lot of wasted energy better spent on what we can affect.

Stage 9

According to Trump, Joe Biden has "stage 9 cancer". 77 million people voted for this babbling imbecile which says a lot about human nature and the power of propaganda. Not so much as a wry smile from the sycophants in the background.

I now understand perfectly how Joseph Goebbels did it in the 1930's. Imagine if he had the power of social media to spread it like wildfire. 

Stupidity is the one unchangeable and predictable constant that prevents us from advancing into higher consciousness as a species. It keeps us from achieving a more harmonious and peaceful existence. We are incurious and easily distracted and while someone says to "watch the birdie" they are stealing our wallets from our back pocket. 

In some ways I can understand it because life can be hard and people want distractions from bad news but this era has depresses me with its reliance on the spread of misinformation and the power of wishful thinking of the hopelessly gullible.

The reception of the news on Biden? Poisonous attacks all over social media.

It is why we have no solution.

Montréal sans soleil

 

Adaptation

We morph into new beings over time as our psychology changes. This morning it was chilly so I left the house in slim fit jeans, a black top, a light black 3/4 length fall windbreaker and low heel black pumps (rare because I am usually in ballet flats or white sneakers). 

It doesn't feel the same way it used to years ago because my normal has adapted. For a long time now these have just been my clothes and no longer have a magical power but they feel right because they help represent my identity. 

If you are older, this process can take time. You eventually don't overthink or second guess anymore because you don't need to. 

The psychology, which always lags behind, needs to catch to where you are to close the circle so we can make complete sense of that adaptation and why it suits you.

Pizza topping

Trumpism broke the boundary line between conventional politics and a fundamental lack of morality. Suddenly people were looking at their own family's appetite for cruelty and asking how they could reconcile bridging such a wide gap. 

This movement allowed societal rot to come out from underneath a log and exposed deep seated prejudices that shocked some into abandoning ties they thought were unbreakable. 

Someone wrote recently in a YouTube comment that "difference of opinion is for pizza toppings but not core values" 

They were absolutely right.

When something is off

Properly looking after the self is mandatory and if you fall into the problem solver category it is possible you aren't doing yourself any favors. It took me a long time to learn the lesson that we can only look after others properly once we tend to our own basic needs. 

We cannot save the drowning person if we do not first put on our life preserver. 

Many people from my generation learned duty first and thought that in adhering to it, we would find balance which wasn't always true. We entered into social contracts which weren't always equitable and suffered the consequences as a result.

If we are an honorable person we can find ways to help others without losing sight of the self. But when you have the formula wrong you can feel something is off until you address the underlying problem. 

We are all products of many influences and ideally they should be analyzed to determine why our attachment style isn't working for us and why we might feel we are getting the short end of the stick. 

This isn't about narcissism but instead self respect.

"The Little Hours"

"The Little Hours" is a sex farce set in a Middle Ages convent; yes you heard right. I sat there sometimes laughing out loud at how witty and subversive this movie was as it poked fun at human hypocrisy and keeping up appearances. Here the target is the church but it could have been anything else associated with human nature. 

There is almost a Monty Pythonesque sensibility here mixed with early Woody Allen, subdued Mel Brooks and delivered by actors (some SNL regulars) who you can tell are enjoying every minute of what is often delicious dialogue and action. Formulaic Hollywood fare this ain't.

When I was young my mother told me that a priest filled her in on nuns. "You wouldn't want to live with them 24/7".  Well this movie confirms it. 

On Tubi and highly recommended.

Gotcha

Dean Withers is a very bright 20 year old who uses facts and critical thinking to dismantle Trump supporters often much older than him on his YouTube channel. He leads them into corners where they cannot escape and they invariably become frustrated once he administers the 'coup de grace'. 

I came upon his show and watched a few clips because I am fascinated by willful ignorance. We live in an era that gleefully bathes in it and where reading and research give way to conspiracy theory. Your opinion is as good as any and whataboutisms serve as counter for facts we don't like. 

Willful ignorance can also be called stupidity because you work backwards from a desired outcome to fabricate a narrative that holds up for you. It need not matter if you can defend it so bluster and repetition will suffice instead.

Dean's callers are the epitome of the Trump base with the same talking points and he handles them deftly with a patience I no longer possess and perhaps never did. 

How we got here took decades and it's not because people are becoming dumber. It is instead that the ignorant have become emboldened by compatriots on social media whose chutzpah they admire. Say anything with enough conviction and it will pass the veracity test which is what Roy Cohn taught a young Trump. 

Look up Dean and watch him go to work.

A fast descent

You can see how 100 days is all you need to begin to slip into authoritarianism. First your political detractors are cowed, the intellectuals are silenced and the courts are ignored. The Germans know all too well how quickly one goes from Weimar Republic to Third Reich. 

The key ingredient here is fear of speaking out and being targeted which is why mass coordination of the population becomes pivotal. If this fails we then end up with brown shirts taking people away from their homes in the night never to be seen again. 

The Supreme Court which leans predominantly right finally found some resolve and voted 7 to 2 against the Trump regime's attempts at denying due process. Whether this is respected or not remains to be seen but at least it's a step towards acknowledging what the American constitution very clearly says. The hold outs being Thomas and Alito will surprise no one as their personal corruption is beyond question. 

Beelzebub disciple Stephen Miller must be grinding his teeth here and he would have undoubtedly been a collaborator in the Nazi camps; so twisted is his psychology. 

Whether the US survives Trumpism remains to be seen but clearly it is mass resistance which will determine it. A toothless Senate and congress cannot do much even if signs of voting against the regime are beginning to surface. 

Americans aren't used to turmoil of this magnitude on their own soil at least not since the war of independence. But with the public increasingly being made aware of decisions which adversely impact their day to day lives, it is a matter of time before revolt expands well beyond partisan lines.

Not bad at all

My mother, who turned 89 on Thursday, and the religious sister immediately after me in the sibling pecking order who 16 years ago considered having an exorcism performed on me, sat across from me yesterday having brunch. They both call me J as compromise and it works because it is their way of coming towards me. 

I was relaxed as were they and there is no longer anything surreal about these meetings. They are now standard fare for both of them. 

Not bad for a child of the 1960's.

Press Briefing

 

Atrocities

A 12 year old boy who witnessed the killing of paramedics by soldiers has been shot and killed by Israeli forces. There is no denying that what is going on in Gaza is extermination. 

Humanity has been lost there and the Palestinians are seen more as a hindrance to Israel than as people who have a right to live in peace and dignity. 

The US government upholds this and it has emboldened Netanyahu to carry on with the aggressive bombing of hospitals and schools. 

Last year a 5 year old girl died waiting for an ambulance that never came because it was destroyed en route.

Deep in the heart of Texas

 

One term

I know I've said this before but the more I thought about it over the years, the more I began to find the term "crossdressing" to be both confusing and objectionable. Crossing into what? And was it just about clothing or was there more? Was it about the thrill of fooling others? Honoring a desire for feminine expression? Outlet for suppressed identity? A fetish? Were women "crossdressing" when they first began to wear pants? 

The motivations could be multi-faceted and extensive and yet one awkward expression for males breaking convention covered it all because society was so hung up about rules governing gender expression of the sexes. Go back and look at 20th century photos and the lack of sartorial diversity hints unquestionably at the obedient sheep we were. 

However if you go further back and examine historical gender norms, what was acceptable for each sex morphed only to slowly fall in or out of vogue.

Fast forward to today and it's harder than ever to legitimize the use of any one term. We see a rainbow spectrum of behaviour that rebels against the idea that any item of clothing belongs exclusively to one sex. 

Hence we have expanded our language to cover for the variety of expression we see everyday in the wild. 

Yesterday in the metro I saw a tall self-assured GenZ man wearing what years ago would have been most certainly considered "crossdressing" except that no one bothered to even bat an eyelash because it's 2025. 

You could see he wasn't trying to hide his maleness but simply being himself.

"Everyone is welcome here'

 

Suit yourself

The moment we realize we're not that important it frees us to be ourselves. The truth is that no one cares what you are doing because people are too busy focusing on themselves. You aren't as missed at family functions as you think and so your impetus to keep up appearances can be let go. 

The world doesn't revolve around us and that is a good thing. Understanding this has reduced my need to feel obligation towards unimportant things. 

I can now suit my instincts much more.

Miscalculation

I used to watch The Young Turks (TYT) but then they began to pivot. There was Ana Kasparian's huge fuss over the term "birthing person" and Cenk Ygur using the increasing rise of right wing populism to build bridges with some of their worst media influencers by emphasizing what unites them. 

They reckoned that the common enemy was the billionaire class who tried to cut services to the common man and they could split the pear on cultural issues. It was a big miscalculation. 

Not only did they alienate their progressive audience, but they gained no traction with people who were far more vested in cultural hatred than they had estimated. As Trump advances the caustic project 2025 agenda, they must see that the vitriol in "owning the libs" is far too entrenched in this radical movement. 

The current leader in the progressive media sphere is Meidastouch who have displaced Joe Rogan (the white dullard who is "just asking questions" but is constantly confused by the answers). The three upstart brothers of Meidastouch have simply stuck to their guns in pointing out the glaring everyday criminality of the Trump regime. 

As the crimes became more flagrant it destroyed the TYT tactic of trying to build bridges with people who are ostensibly fascists.

Conversion therapy

 

Maddie

The person who eventually introduced herself as Maddie approached me as we walked and catching up to me said:

"Hi are you what they call transgender?"

I said "yes I am"

"I saw you on the metro the other day and I just wanted to say hello. I have never met one before"

That she knows of. But I didn't want to get into specifics. She was maybe late thirties and had a kind face.

I said that I am 62 and I don't really care what people think but I couldn't help but feel that this is the kind of advocacy which helps.

Some of the friends I have made still don't know but eventually most of them will; or perhaps not.

It doesn't really matter.

Honorable intentions

When we are younger we might not reflect on what a marriage or partnership should mean. We might have been attracted to someone and felt they fit the bill but not wondered of we would be friends without the romantic link. 

My generation saw it as something you did because society expected it. You were a certain age and it was time to get serious about life and commit to it. 

With age we look back more carefully at what steps we took and why we thought they were important. Even if we don't regret them there is a blunt reality which seeps in and dissects it all with the benefit of lived experience. 

I tell my children that whatever call you make in life that you do it with honorable intentions and, if all fails in the end, they cannot take that away from you.

Arsonist puts out own fire

There's a reason I keep harping on stupidity...

Press briefing

This is scary close; even her North Korea style cadence. Kudos Lisandra!

Give me your huddled masses

Gender variance casts such a wide net that it does its best to resist classification. It is one of the reasons that over time I have become less concerned with labels and groupings to focus more on what each person needs. 

Human beings are highly unique but seek comfort in groups to feel better about themselves. When the internet first exploded out of the gate in the early 1990's I was among the relieved despite my already having begun to comb the library shelves years before. However, the stories didn't all align which made sense and only served to validate the work of Harry Benjamin and others which had begun decades before. 

As we become more self-assured in what we each need as individuals, the temptation to huddle into groups can tend to go away. At least it did for me. I also wanted to stay at arm's length and try for as much objectivity as possible while I studied the topic. 

Despite the progress, in-fighting among gender variant people continues to this day although it has been tempered by the increasing public awareness and empathy. Yes, some older transsexuals will still appear on YouTube channels aligning with gender criticals and decrying the "pretend trans" but even they aren't monolithic in their views. 

Motivations among humans vary and while it's tempting to be dismissive of those who only go to fetish nights or dress up like children, we should be more forgiving of what influences get people to where they are and allow them to find a baseline where they are at peace.

In the end, we are just people.

Perfect storm

There's a perfect storm brewing. 

As Trump heads into a budget meant to cut social programs while reducing taxes for the wealthy yet again, the tariff war will only make things much worse. 

Already hurting from trying to keep up with rising costs of housing and basic necessities, Americans will soon be facing the propect of empty shelves in stores as goods from China disappear because of their exorbitant new price tags. Businesses which rely on parts from China will be faced with trying to find last minute alternatives which will put their business model into crisis mode. 

Trump has gambled and lost and, even if he does an about face on tariffs, the world no longer trusts that there won't be more chaos on the way. 

Add to that the threat to remove the right of habeas corpus for migrants, threats to universities who don't comply with marching orders, ignoring court orders and ICE agents acting with impunity and you have a situation which is the equivalent of pouring rocket fuel on an already fiery blaze.

The piece de resistance is that the MAGA crowd is very much into chaos just to "own the libs" which is why they like a narcissist who likes setting fires. An official posting from the WH with Trump as pope isn't lunacy, it's part of fun of the shock value that their lowlife leader brings to the table.

North Korea might start to become jealous.

May I call you?

In addition to our current geopolitical chaos, we are in the middle of a worldwide loneliness epidemic. All the statistics bear it out and almost at every age level; we are more disconnected on a face to face basis than ever before. 

Texting and emojies have taken the place of calling and even when encouraged the latter must be preceeded by a warning text asking for permission. Texts are answered hours or days later or sometimes not at all. This is just one of the symptoms of the malaise which we are all immersed in even if I am among those who are prompt to respond. 

One third of people tell pollsters that they are profoundly lonely much of the time which is a stark statistic. You could see this coming when we embraced technology with such gusto and then had the misfortune of meeting a once in a hundred year pandemic which only exacerbated things. 

I have more time to observe this now that I have stepped off the hamster wheel of work which keeps us distracted. The speed of everything is what prevents us from fully realizing that something is deeply wrong. 

Human beings seem to like overshooting and then learning from its consequences. It is why every era suffers from a myopia on some front until a correction is made only to then fall short somewhere else. 

Romantic arrangements are also on life support as a result and the apps which kept many hopeful aren't working. An overabundance of men fight for the attention of a smaller group of women who have more options and choice than ever. The rules of marriage, if it occurs at all, will be forever changed because we have largely removed the financial model which lay at its core.

Reality

Rachel Proudie scolds those who still don't get what the problem is...

The consequences of stupidity

 

Living

In 2022's "Living" Bill Nighy plays a mid twentieth century civil servant who fulfills his societal role to perfection. He is reliable, dignified and takes the same train every day to arrive at a public works office where stacks of paper occupy him presumably until retirement. 

He is many of us and a symbol of a staid predictability which can eventually becomes soul crushing. Then one day a visit to his doctor seals his fate when he is presented with the news that there is nothing they can do with a cancer. His life is turned upside down to reveal that he never truly gave himself the chance to live. 

Nighy is almost understated perfection here as the stiff upper lip and soft spoken Englishman who doesn't want to perturb you with his problems until an epiphany happens and he begins to embrace the time he has left with gusto.

It's never too late.

On Tubi and very highly recommended.

Steady is good

The cycles of our emotional state don't get resolved because we find a resolution to our gender issues. We are still left with being human and every person deals with their own roller coaster of biorhythms regardless of their origins. 

We can confuse the two things and be tempted to think that gender euphoria will persist as a panacea for what ails us when it won't. All will calm itself into less euphoria but also less dysphoria which we should be very happy to attain. 

People who live on sporadic cross gender expression won't understand me fully until they live it for themselves. Their anxious energy build up until the next opportunity will keep them going but it will only work in direct proportion to the level of their gender identity disconnect. In other words, the worse the dysphoria, the less this tactic will work. Thus if dysphoria is virtually non-existent all the better for them since it gives them flexibility to tweak their life model.

Ultimately what we are trying to do is blend ourselves into cohesive beings who want to keep their boat steady. 

Because steady is good.

Keeping you angry

 

Tough act to follow

This new pope will not be popular with Trumpists because they aren't religious but instead in a cruelty cult. Christian nationalism is a cancer which combines religion with politics to create a molotov cocktail of stupidity. 

Using their logic Jesus becomes a victim of what they love to call the "woke mind virus" and already the reaction from the right has been foul and entirely expected. 

These people don't like the Jesus of the Gospels because he ministers to the poor, the sick and the hungry which directly opposes American republican politics of greed and individualism. It is why they have needed their own version of religion to combat against a Christ which they see as a communist because he is too meek and too welcoming.

So already Leo has his detractors which cannot be helped because the world is replete with imbeciles. 

His mission should be to minister to the masses in the most inclusive way possible in a world that is more divided than ever.

Crossfire

Being a right winger and conservative can sometimes get you into trouble. They tend to always be disgruntled but there are factions which don't like each other. 

Ben Shapiro is in that situation where he is Jewish and much of his audience are antisemitic Trumpers. This is the problem with more traditional fiscal conservatives who love open markets but also lean into cultural outrage. You are going to get into trouble when the dregs of the Trumpist base listen in. 

As conservatism in the US became increasingly about attacking DEI, immigrants and LGBTQ people it started these little internal wars. For example when the shrill and arrogant Candace Owens left the Daily Wire she could now lean into more anti-Israel and pro-Palestine content she had been chided for by Shapiro who wasn't having it. She had the same views as Shapiro on transgender people but not on that one. The people who feed on hyperbolic outrage sometimes end up feeding on each other.

I have to conclude that if you sat these people down and examined their childhoods you would find some unfulfilled dreams which then set them on a path for criticizing and belittling others. It is what happened to JK Rowling who conflated her being sexually assaulted with transgender people needing a bit of dignity. To her they were predators inviting themselves into women only spaces. 

The right wing always needs targets and as they are firing they sometimes turn on each other much to the delight of those who don't share their zeal.

For Shapiro who is bright but wrong on so many things, Trump became a useful idiot because he promotes many of this ideas. However tariffs are not one of them and in criticizing the administration over them he invites the more deplorable of the Kool-aid drinkers to attack him.

Turns out being hateful is like walking a very thin tightrope.

Pope Leo

The cardinals have made a good choice with 69 year old Chicago born Robert Prevost who is the new pontiff.

Highly educated, humble and kind; he looks poised to continue the progressive leanings of his predecessor Francis. He already has begun to criticize the Trump regime.

Well done.

Plague

The mostly right wing radical US Supreme Court has allowed the Trump regime to throw transgender people out of the military on the presumption that being this way is a mental illness and therefore deters from battle readiness. They say in their written defense that "men wanting to be women is a delusion". 

This level of stupidity is not fixable. 

Firstly the concept of man and woman are heavily steeped in societal construction which means that for conservatives a butch lesbian who dresses like a man is less of a woman. The same applies to men who don't fit their prescribed guidelines for the binary. 

Secondly, the concept of how sex and gender can be decoupled doesn't compute with their world view because everything else they hold dear as black and white would fall apart as a consequence.

I would ask them the question of which scenario makes the most sense: 

1) an artificially enforced binary under which everyone must operate.

2) a naturally occurring spectrum of behavior and identification observed once we lift the imposition. 

They would pick number 1 despite nature showing us repeatedly that it abhors perfection and unanimity. For conservatism's mantra is to ignore this messy diversity. 

Are transgender people ready and able bodied? If they passed the requirements they are and out of 2.8 million service members approximately 4,000 of them are out transgender people. In other words 0.14%.

You would think this was a plague when the true plague on human beings is their abject stupidity which has a far higher percentage of occurrence.

Sober

Once we enter life's third and final act realism tends to predominate. By now we know that many of the aspirations we had in youth have gone unfulfilled which need not be a bad thing. Hopefully wisdom has displaced those ideas as not having been right for us. Some might have been, but life got in the way. 

The human animal is complicated, unsettled and always wants something else. It is as if being where we are right now is somehow wrong and one day all will be fixed. But of course it won't. 

Existential angst is built into the wiring and the more quiet and still we are, the more it commands our attention. We can drown it out with activity but it is always there like a low hum.

Despite getting older, we might prefer the sobriety to being less settled and always chasing something which we can't quite grasp.

Well done

Mark Carney was measured, sharp, witty and diplomatic in his oval office meeting with Trump. He behaved exactly as I hoped he would and he must have prepared himself mentally to deal with deranged curve balls that we know the president is an expert in throwing. 

No, we aren't for sale and the way the PM expressed it was by deferring to the citizen owners of this country which was pure brilliance on his part and a tip of the hat to his humility. 

Mr. Carney is the anti-Trump which is exactly why we elected him. He has bought our patience as he tries to remake this country in a challenging era which will see us partly pull away from our previous coziness with our southern neighbor. 

Time will tell what he does but the unity we presently have I've never seen before. Even some hard core separatists voted Liberal which was a testament to their distaste for the American president and his threats to our sovereignty. 

Well done Mr.Carney.

Our energy

People feed off our energy. They can tell when something is off or conversely when something is right. Most human beings are equipped with this radar even if they don't tip their hand that they can detect something is off. 

This is why our authenticity becomes important because in knowing we are being genuine there is no poker being played and you are just yourself. It's why our internal work becomes so important. 

Interactions with people are more real and we ditch overthinking about how we are being perceived. It throws the whole concept of "passing" out the window because as a transgender individual you aren't pretending to be someone else. 

Once we understand that the world we live in has been constructed with many artificial and nonsensical constraints you can free the psychology in a way you never thought was possible. 

The cross and flag

The Trump cabal has it in for transgender people because they think it's easy pickings. Look for the weakest and most marginalized group and use them to distract while you do evil things elsewhere. 

It's a page taken right from the fascist 101 playbook. 

If you stand out they are coming for you and even if you don't they will find a way to make your life even more difficult than it already has been for you thus far.

Christian nationalism is a movement which justifies malevolence behind the symbol of a cross which has been done before many times. People who are ruthless need to drape themselves in something and a flag and cross combo is just the ticket. It's been said that when fascism finally comes to America this would be the way and they were right.

Most people are decent and don't care but the ones who do are twisted beyond repair and will take out their personal trauma on other people because that is what weak people do. 

That they fall behind someone who is equally flawed and weak is hardly a surprise.

Filter

We see everything through a filter as not only were we indoctrinated since birth, but along the way began to adopt a set of beliefs that correspond with a world view which suits us. It doesn't need to be perfectly true but more importantly it needs to feed our psychology. Sometimes our erroneous ideas hamper it.

The problem is that, if left unexamined, we can become stuck with ideas that are not only untrue but also reduce our ability to make judicious choices about our lives. 

This is where examining all of our thinking under a magnifying glass comes in. 

If we cannot explain to ourselves the why of our world view (which includes opinions on our own identities), you will be hard pressed to explain it to someone else. In other words we need to apply critical thinking to all of it and test from different angles to see if it holds up to scrutiny. 

Sometimes the right answer will be that you don't have all the facts and that's all right. You just need to be able to admit it.

Kid gloves

Kristen Welker was reverently interviewing an idiot and it was difficult to watch. He looked tired, disheveled and every phrase was slurred. All was punctuated by the usual disorienting barrage of word salad that too many Americans seem to not have a problem with. 

He has the vocabulary of at best a fifth grader. 

Lawrence O'Donnell seems to relish calling Trump stupid and once again he points out the obvious gaps of logic in trying to have it both ways with tariffs. "We are going to get richer but prices won't go up" is abject stupidity and one wishes that interviewers would stop treating him with kid gloves which is apparently never going to happen. 

They are far too aware that the cult is watching...

A pat on the back

Every time I go to LinkedIn (which is rare) I come away with the same awful feeling that it has become a cesspool of self-agrandisement. "Congratulate Fred on his work anniversary", "look at what a great team I work with" or "what a great project we just finished". It's corporate Facebook with only the slightest veneer of respectability left to distinguish it from the Zuckerberg platform where people post pap on a whim thinking everyone is fascinated.

We've gone in the wrong direction as a society in so many areas and this is one of them. What began as a place to share a CV and connections to advance careers,  became a syrupy "look ma no hands" back slapping orgy where humility goes to die. 

While there is much I like about this era's openness, this is one facet I don't favor even as I understand the psychology behind it. As we became victims to career advancement which included pep rallies a la Steve Jobs introducing the latest Apple gizmo, we forgot that dialing down the hyperbole makes for a better approach to everything. 

Today people compete for the biggest announcement or latest inspiring CEO quote that promises to keep you motivated into working weekends and late nights.

Never mind that it isn't ultimately in your best interest.