On point

My daughter and I were conversing last night and she said something which I thought was absolutely on point. She noted that when I was her age the world economic structure was more balanced but societal tolerance was not whereas today, it is the reverse. She was absolutely correct and whereas I could perhaps reflect on a career and home ownership with more confidence, her generation is much less certain about their future.

Their advantage is that they all tolerate and accept each other as they are such that none of them is left in the margins because they don't fit into some artificial imposed social standard.

True trans?

Ray the detransitioner potentially opens the hornet's nest and gets into the authenticity question which has been known to stir controversy. When we began to abandon the terms transsexualism and tranvestism from common usage, we blurred the lines to where today both seem to have fallen under the more murky "trans" confusing the general public as well as some gender variant people themselves.

Again, language is fine and can mean different thing to different people, but in the end it's the individual diagnostic and that person's way forward towards a life solution which has far more relevance.

That Ray is posing this question now it's perhaps to close the loop with who he really is....

87

My mother is 87 and in spite of my best attempts at educating her on gender variance and sexual anomalies, things don't easily compute for her. She does her best best of course and accepts it all.

If I bring up intersex people or androgen insensitivity syndrome it's all the same to her. The different varieties if gender variance are also all the same.

Still not bad for someone born in 1936. She's come a long way. :)

Dumbing down

Sometimes I watch old interviews such as the ones Dick Cavett and Mike Douglas used to do and the first thing which strikes me is the calm and decorum which is clearly missing today. The guests were not only better educated but their social graces were superior and I invite you to see for yourself.

The dumbing down of society is not a fabrication of the imagination. It is very much real and observable and grown adults acting like immature teens seems to be a distinct phenomenon.

It's hard to pinpoint how it happened but clearly it was a subtle enough progression that we only notice it through contrast. Even game shows in the 1960's had both celebrities and players show us a higher standard of behaviour.

My suspicion is that having a tighter grip on expectations forced people to try and improve their personal brand whereas today it seems to be a badge of honor to be a crass and ignorant dolt.

Appearances

My relationship and attachment to appearance has morphed greatly. Yes I like to be feminine and I will put on earrings and light makeup before leaving the house in the morning, but thinking about it beyond that becomes needless distraction.

It makes sense that something becomes less novel as it becomes part of daily existence. I went from chomping at the bit as a young teen to get a rare opportunity to express myself out of the house during those early forays to where I am today. That is a span of over 45 years and what my existence now has done is eliminate that longing and turned it into comfort, stability and harmony.

That I don't take many photos of myself these days is because I don't feel i need to. For I have come to a place where my validation comes entirely from the internal sense of self.

How much do we choose

When I was first researching the topic of gender variance I was then and still am most interested in the concept of choice. It was the rubber hits the road difference for me and I would ask myself why on earth would anyone choose this; something which was difficult to manage and went so much against the grain of society.

Over the years I concluded that the amount of choice was directly correlated to gender dysphoria. In other words, the more intense the disconnect was, the less choice you had to do something about it which was what Harry Benjamin was telling me in his 1966 landmark book. But then over the years I would also meet people who had chosen to express gender variance simply because they wanted to which was yet another wrinkle to ponder. I had dinner with one such person and his wife which was interesting to say the least. Perhaps at his level it could have been termed propensity but who knows.

I still reflect on the idea of choice but without the heavy trauma that used to accompany it. For not only has the world changed, but most importantly I have as well.

End of empire?

 

Roots

For the longest time I had been left somewhat traumatized by my inability to hold on to romantic love and yet today I have never been more content. Not because I don't possess it, but rather because I am in touch with a core identity which supercedes it in importance.

I had been going about things all wrong and tried, as much of my generation did, to fit into a structure that did not suit me plus I now understand that many of the choices we make in youth are based on fear of solitude and societal obligation. All that to say that there are no couples I currently envy.

So I am more primed and ready for it than ever but don't miss it because I know all the pitfalls of erring and so, whether it comes or not, the roots I have firmly planted shall not be disturbed; emphasis on the shall not.

"Pops"

Back in the mid 1980's Father Emmett Johns was the pastor at the church I attended every Sunday with the rest of my family. Then suddenly one day during his homily he announced that he was leaving parish ministry to tend to the disenfranchised of Montreal. He had already asked permission of the bishop who had wholeheartedly offered his blessings.

Using an old travel caravan, he formed "Dans la Rue" and with committed helpers would serve hot meals to drug addicts, the homeless and LGBTQ youth who were living on the street; this until well into the night. During a time when it was even more deeply dangerous to be who you were, he was ministering to people that society forgot and became affectionately known to them as "Pops" because he had become a father figure.

This is the true message of Chrstianity where instead of judging we open our hearts to those who have been rejected simply for not being able to fit in. This type of conviction could not have been easy as he was well into his fifties at the time, and yet Father Johns recognized that his calling needed to mean something more than preaching to comfortable middle class Catholics.

By the time of his death in 2018 at the age of 90, he had become a household name in Montreal and all the more so for the people who needed him the most.

Comforting

I am a difficult person to convince of anything because I examine things carefully and with a critical eye before accepting whether there is veracity. It's why I find it fascinating to examine our own belief system over our lifetime and realize how much was absorbed without sufficient questioning because you took its inner workings as a given.

This is of course normal because when young we don't possess the right tool kit and critical thinking requires a decent level of detachment. It's hard to do that when you are immersed in the bubble of a world you think you comprehend.

At this age I can step back and look at my past and present and see the drastic difference in approach. Mostly what I see now is that much of the world adopts dogmas without enough analysis because there is safety in finding shelter within shared belief. It need not matter if the model is perfect; it just needs to be sufficiently comforting.

Freeing

There is something very freeing about no longer having specific goals in life and living one day at a time. Yes, I've been working at the piano composing music and on my painting but these are not goals but instead instruments to feed my need for creativity; something which my work career did not offer me.

With grown children who have lives of their own you are left a bit rudderless but that is not a bad thing if you can finally concentrate on the self without guilt that is neither warranted or merited. I am increasingly getting used to this constructive meandering and ability to turn on a dime and change my mind about what I will do that day.

As someone who always wants to get to the root of things and put them into perspective, this is a good time of life to do that.