I talk to people

She was maybe 6'1", about my daughter's age and walking just a few feet ahead of me. I spoke up and said:

"It's so nice to see tall women because when I was your age it was more rare"

She butted shoulders with me, beamed me a wonderful smile and said in French very sweetly:

"Thank you so much and have a wonderful day!"

From bad to worse

We are currently at a flash point in the world. The US in particular is experiencing rampant gun violence, mental health and drug issues as well as increasing poverty while the top 1% continues to amass wealth at a breakneck pace. It's like sitting on a powder keg.

This is a decay period before things need to be remade which happens to all countries at some point in their history. Even my own Canada is experiencing a less extreme case of the same malaise as we adjust to a new reality which necessitates that the old power structures either be dismantled or at least reshaped to reflect our new needs.

As we very rapidly shifted away from resource and blue collar dependent economies into technology driven ones in the 1990's, we failed to properly recognize how people would be impacted. Now some of those left behind are suffering under the weight of stagnant wages and rapidly disappearing job prospects. Third world countries now produce the goods in the types of factories that once employed them.

None of this is easily repairable and it will take time to reshape society such that those left behind to not fall prey to despair. Because once that happens on a large enough scale, the ensuing chaos will overwhelm what is already a bad situation.

January 6th was a bellwether for what ails the masses and even if those people represented the highest rung of the ill informed, their desperation could not be ignored lest it worsen.

A bridge too far

Our sexual plumbing has very little to do with who we truly are, and yet it is an incidental trait which societies have historically disproportionately weighted. If we think about the limitations that people have suffered, we can see that it has been due to something which should have been far less consequential.

Power structures demanded strict gender roles and the biology inherent in birthing gave those structures weight. Suddenly there was a way to conveniently determine status within a society based on dogma around biology; this regardless of whether it was a correct method. The roles of protector and of nurturer were drawn around this binary regardless of the affinity of the person to fulfill the role. Yes there were general inclinations in people, but not everyone fit them and so they played a role to comply with expectation to avoid banishment.

Today as those mandated roles have been loosened, it has unnerved those who relied heavily on them; none more so than theocratic leaning conservatives who viewed this world order as divinely ordained. For them there can be no divergence from this model which is why they are so vocal that it not be undone. Women and minorities already taking up more room, it only exacerbated their discomfort when LGBTQ people also demanded rights which for them was a bridge too far.

The argumentation around biology is all that is left to conservatives because in its absence their case falls apart. Since there is enough behavioral divergence in people, you cannot defend your moral panic in any other way. They cannot easily be dissuaded since they operate on fear. Some can be converted with common sense and logic, but the rest must simply be drowned out by the greater numbers of those of us not afraid to progress.

Chuckle

It never fails to make me chuckle inside. Some women will look at me then immediately look at what I am wearing on my feet. I can see them asking themselves: "is she wearing heels?". Then they see it's flats.

One of the disadvantages of being tall I suppose except that it now amuses me no end.

Don't worry about how tall you are. Just be confident.

Fine tuning

Being retired and ostensibly living alone (my daughter comes and goes) leaves you with a lot of time to reflect. Years ago being with someone, working full time plus still having young children permitted distractions which are now gone. You need to fill that space with other things.

Yes I am a musician/composer, am starting to oil paint again and I work here and there but nevertheless this is a major life adjustment which has forced the remaining outstanding issues to the surface. A trans person who had been non-self accepting for a large chunk of their life will have psychological clean up to do and I fit that bill perfectly. Being trans isn't remotely obvious no matter your age.

There are no more guard rails as to how I am to live and no one cares except me. But the pervasive programming we receive from earliest memory has left some remnants which need addressing. It won't change how I physically live, but putting in the work will further improve the state of the psyche.

I used to envy gender variant people whose less virulent dysphoria (or lack thereof) allowed them to compartmentalize their lives; something many of us cannot readily do and hence I have tended to gravitate towards people who have transitioned for guidance in fortifying morale. I simply understand them better.

Things are good but they can always be improved and so the fine tuning will continue and likely only stop when I draw my last breath on this earth.

Top 10

Captaine Montreal is a content creator on YouTube who profiles Montreal. He covers metro stations, the history of the city and focuses on selected Burroughs to provide a balanced view of what life there is like.

His recent top 10 of the best Montreal burroughs took many features into consideration such as access to public transit, availability of services and cultural life. That my own burrough ended up in top spot only confirmed why I should be happy living there and why I have absolutely no plans to move.

It was time

Weather was finally nice enough to wear a skirt. Early mornings in May in Montreal tend to be chilly.

Dear diary

My traffic is way down compared to my old blog and yet I could not care less since this latest incarnation serves even more as diary to express my thinking on different issues through the lens of a trans person. Increasing viewership is not really much of a concern.

Life feels more joyous and balanced even as I iron out wrinkles from my past. We all have problems but the perspective we gain when the biggest issue in our lives is being increasingly reined in, makes those problems seem less significant.

We should all want to tap into what makes us tick so we can become more authentic. The hard part is how to do so when you are viewed by so many from a perspective that you should not be allowed to exist.

What clothing can mean

Clothing choices become necessarily pragmatic over time and, if you have spent any amount of time in uncomfortable shoes, the pain afterwards will be sufficient reminder to be more judicious. I walk a lot.

I think I am about average when it comes to my choices as compared to genetic women in that I am neither frumpy nor a clothes horse. Thus I have over the years developed a combination of style and comfort which serves the occasion and gets me occasional compliments from women although I do not seek them. To be sure, comfort has gained in importance as more time is spent in certain items over varying occasions.

It is interesting that the more frequently we can express authenticity, the less important clothing can become as it develops into a tool to convey identity rather than an end in and of itself. Genetic women run a huge gamut of preference in this area of course (just as some men), but in general you might surprise yourself in how you morph over time as you grow into your sense of self through daily living.

Like everything else in life there is a process to go through.

Gotcha

Dismantling idiotic right wing talking points...

Be not afraid

I have come out to a lot of people over the years and have yet to face even an ounce of rejection. Thus I am living proof that good and decent people will not let you down.

The temptation is to believe what you see online which is more weighted towards the dregs of society. After all, anyone who goes out of their way to post negative things about trans people clearly has some issues. This is why I strongly urge that you base yourself on the real world and not the virtual. Nice people will be good to other nice people regardless of identity because they are secure and have nothing to fear. No one has been better here than my own children.

Unfortunately, fear of the other is what drives much of the hatred in this world.

For the longest time I allowed my own fear of rejection to paralyze me and I suffered in silence through self inflicted misery which need not have happened. But when you are victim to pervasive programming there is perhaps some just cause for trepidation. However, even people I might have hesitated to tell have been amazing which shows how often we are our own worst enemies.

Since my transition has been purely a social one, the people I frequent are split into groups: some know I am trans but have never seen Joanna, others knew me before but now see only Joanna and others have only ever met Joanna and don't know I am trans.

The process of coming out continues but there is not much left.