Rebuild

Our psychology should be disassembled and then reassembled with new instructions. In other words, we dissect the childhood and identify which information was useless, contradictory and even harmful to us and then reconstruct. 

This is not an obvious process and there will be obstacles many of which are a product of our own adherence to programming. But if we understand that much of the world order is based on mindless drivel we can work our way back towards a stable and useful psychology with a solid foundation. 

People who don't naturally fit in must do this because without that rebuild they will always be trapped trying to reconcile against a baseline they cannot adhere to without losing themselves and their authenticity.

"Woke"

The term Woke has become synonymous with the dreaded gender ideology of 47 genders. Disingenuous idiots like Piers Morgan make that their front and center grievance for a world they increasingly don't understand and a subject they grasp even less. Add to the mix our own Canadian expert on everything and nothing Jordan B Peterson. 

I recently watched James O'Brien of LBC fame spar with Morgan on wokeness and the latter had trouble getting past transgender issues. The next big indignity was that the woke police was trying to make James Bond a woman which sends shivers up our collective spines. This kind of idiocy is hard to make up.

O'brien conceded he wasn't well versed on the topic and attacked it with an open mind which is all you can ask for. He also counts Paris Lees amongst his friends. Some British dimwit LBC callers he disarms and embarrasses regularly by asking for a definition of Woke which they stutter through before he hangs up on them.

Morgan and Peterson are far too dishonest and have far too much white conservative outrage to be repaired.

Themselves

I sometimes see what many would describe as eccentric gender variant people on the metro. Ill-fitting wigs, odd clothing choices and quirky mannerisms make them obvious visual targets and yet most people completely ignore them. No odd or derisive expressions from anyone because most urban dwellers have seen all kinds by now.

For that I am glad because in some cases I can see tortured expressions in need of much empathy. 

They don't need or want Judith Butler's theories on gender. They just want to be themselves and for that full kudos.

Answering questions

Euphoria doesn't last which I think is one of the discoveries of many detransitioners. Once you have transitioned it all becomes normal life again and the problems that were there before still are. If Ray Williams now thinks it was his erotic feelings which were responsible for his decision (he's fully bought into AGP orthodoxy), two years of full time living on hormones certainly put things into perspective and made him realize it hadn't been the right call.

This is why I think that the slow and steady 'less is more' approach works best where one stops at the point that harmony and balance are attained. In the past there wasn't a "real life test" for nothing for patients wanting to transition because it did help answer a lot of questions.  Living part time is fine but it can keep you on a euphoria cycle (I see a lot of very euphoric commentary quite often) which may indeed perfectly work for you but does not readily address the issue of a resting point which is different for each person.

One year of full time living in public can help settle an awful lot.

It did for me.

One term

If all gender variance were to be summarized as 'trans' then we have a problem because if the behavior being described is too varied it ostensibly renders the term meaningless. From enjoying women's underwear, to occasional dressing up, to full medical transition you cannot have one truncated term describe it all when the end results and impacts on individual lives can be so different. 

Not to mention that the amount of help and intervention required for each person varies substantially. 

In that case, a better suited and more inclusive term might simply be 'human'.

"They ruined my hometown"

I have been to Butlington Vermont many times because they are our closest American neighbors. Someone who grew up there goes back and the problems there are not exclusive to the US.

These are global issues...

All the lovely people

I'm chipping away slowly at the vitriol I have saved up for malevolent imbeciles. The world is full of them which I cannot change but I can change myself. 

As we get older we discover reality and we think the number of idiots has increased when in fact it was our ability to recognize them which improved. 

As antidote I focus on all the lovely people.

Not for everyone

My 26 year old daughter and I talked marriage and children the other day. It's a difficult topic for me because I have learned so much I want to be fair-minded and not show favoritism towards any choice. I know she values her alone time even as she concedes things continue to go well with her boyfriend who I very much like 

It must be said that marriage isn't for everyone except that we can sometimes only discover that along the way. Most in my generation looked at the formula of our parents and automatically followed suit only to later find out about half of us had chosen adequately. Transgender people ended up with an added layer of complexity just for good measure and realized along the way how rocky things could sometimes be. 

I have a very expansive view of the topic and told my daughter that friendship is the foundation which must exist from the outset. Would you be friends without the romantic feelings which will eventually be doused with daily reality? I feel that this is mandatory. 

Also, the authenticity of each partner cannot be smothered otherwise frustration builds as does resentment. This is something I wish I knew before although I was not ready at the time to accept who I was. 

I view the whole topic with some detachment now and dealing with people who are living with the daily ups and downs of these unions, helps keep my feet firmly on the ground and any return of illusory thinking far away from my psyche 

Cate

About five years ago Cate McGregor was named one of the notable women of Australia; an honor she was very sheepish about accepting. The now 68 year old ex-military officer calls herself simply a transsexual and was surprised to be included in such select company. 

McGregor is a transmedicalist who has trouble with extremism within trans activism. She was raised conservative and her path to transition consisted of resisting until you can resist no more which, as someone from her generation, I viscerally and personally relate to. 

She is not alone of course and some willingly or inadvertently feed into gender critical ideas of discrediting gender variance as conspiracy to violate women in restrooms or indoctrinating children. Her participation in a cricket Australia board resulted in her quitting over the idea of simple identification to play in women's cricket. 

So here we are at the crux of the issue with plenty of bad faith actors in the mix as well as wishful thinkers who seem to not understand the power behind the politics of sex and gender. 

I often find myself disagreeing with many within this sphere because in the end it should fall to a pragmatism and intelligence of common sense colored with empathy which are not always included in the discourse.

Daily living

 

I know who I am

I was in a full metro car the other day standing up when a gentleman sitting next to his wife noticed me and offered me his seat. He was so kind I first resisted but he insisted and so I gracefully accepted. 

It feels strange still sometimes having doors held open for me from time to time and I appreciate it as affirmation. I never take it for granted. This process is slow and organic and mostly about accepting who you are which is about stopping the suppression of instincts that were there from earliest memory. 

I have thought about how early some of us begin to express gender variance and yet the end result is never guaranteed. Some who begin later go on to transition while others are happy or at least resign themselves to part time. 

That brunch with my mother and neighbor today wasn't perfect but was more than fine mostly because of where my headspace is at. 

I know who I am.