Jan 2011:

I passed along an interesting take on past prejudice, from the local Sun tabloid - A German Jewish leader has gently said that, despite respect for Holocaust victims, it's time to move on. So, to paraphase his statement, may I suggest that: The role of the victim is not enough - transgender is much, much more. On the one hand, it's nice to see how some of my friends are doing with this trans thing, but on the other hand, it's kind of scary to see how solipsistic one can get when so deeply involved in this special-interest group! Power to all you folks, but remember that nobody cisgendered can relate to our ways, needs, and interests, and NEITHER SHOULD THEY! We do this for ourselves, first and foremost - however, there's nothing more boring than hearing about another's unhappy times. Think and speak of the good ones; our gender variance is empowering, liberating, and positive, just a bit more of an adventure in the middle of this life we live.
 

March 2013:

These days, when I show up at events in boy mode, people tease me about "not being pretty today". Sometimes it's a chuckle, sometimes it's "Yes! Another blow against the narrow-minded!" and occasionally, someone calls me Shae and it makes me smile. This is Just Me, and if some redneck-asshole who has no love life starts ragging away on me, then I'll just be sad for him - he'll never know how good things can get, if you make it happen. And ignore him, 'cos I'm having the time of my life. None of this would have happened without trans pals, Milady, Himself, and a real grassroots community awareness of genderqueer reality. Enjoy whoever you are, y'all!
 

Jan 2014:

My fave homily is that "there are two kinds of people in the world; those who say they can, and those who say they can't - and they're both right".

I just picked up on something just as apropos -

"There are 3 types of people: Those who make things happen, those who watch what happened, and those who wonder WTF just happened..."
 

July 2014:

Oh yeah - absolutely nobody batted an eyelash at the tranny in their midst during several of the gigs I've attended or performed at. Our "safe" places are great, but do remember, my trans peers, the rest of the world is as much fun. Join in the party, go to a ball game, check out a new restaurant, shop the antique stores, just Get Out There! We're people, not victims.
 

August 2014:

Canada's National Firearms Association, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, Responsible Firearms Owners of Alberta, and the National Rifle Association are all outfits I'm a card-carrying member of, and one thing they all hold in common is "Refuse To Be A Victim".

Inasmuch as there's a trend within our trans community towards blaming society for the slings and arrows we're forced to undergo, with concomitant "you gotta listen to me whine about my hard life", I'd like to point out that you're only a victim if you choose to be. I find it difficult to lend credence to this "don't use the word 'tranny', it makes me feel bad about myself". After all, most of us are ambulatory and healthy, with more than a smattering of brain cells, so, really, folks, if you lay trips on me for not sympathizing about perceived past injustices, then I'll definitely give you something to cry about.

Running out of patience with the Politically Correct ultra-minority!
 

Nov 2014:

...the Transgender Day Of Remembrance vigil: Mickey from the Pride Centre of Edmonton ran a good show; elder Dean Brown gave a short benediction, Jan Buterman commented, Ivan Coyote shared some personal memories of a good transpal, several of us stood and read off the names of this year's trans victims-of-violence, and gentle socializing ensued thereafter - seems that I know several folks in the trans community!

One thing that struck me was how many of these victims were from Brazil and other Latin countries, where certain militarized government officials are in the habit of driving up to a site and using it for machine-gun training - with the transfolk still inside. Some reacted with tears; I'm saddened, angry, and were I to comment overmuch on my own feelings, the government here would take away my guns. Powerless to do anything about it other than get into the front lines (not gonna happen), raise awareness, and be thankful that I live in Canada, where people like us don't have to worry about it. As much...
 

June 2015:

Events over the first months of 2015 have conspired to make me see myself, more and more, as seriously trans. Yes, without drugs or surgery. It's turning into an interesting ride; thank heaven my people just accept me for who I am. Anyone else doesn't approve? Outta luck!

Still, some fool just remonstrated with my overt lack of sympathy and concomitant lack of "respect" for my trans peers. Let's get it straight: Respect is earned. There's no such thing as a free lunch, so you can get to work on your goals rather than whining. Only headcases pull that sort of nonsense, and they have no credibility because, well, they're crazy.

This isn't the first time I've been accused of promoting suicide in our oh-so-emotionally-fragile dysphoric colleagues. Next time you decide to moan about your sad lot in life, kindly remember there's lots of third-worlders without water, fleeing war, or trying to cross the Mediterranean in crappy boats. Those are real problems. Closer to home, if you're able-bodied, get three squares a day and have a roof over your head, I fail to see your reason for crying. Hell, some trannies even have taxpayer money for the op! Get a job, step away from your filter bubble on social media, make things happen. With all the stuff in the news about Jenner, more people are getting in tune, learning that it`s not right to call us down for being different. Fuck'em if they can`t take a joke and are scared of us - "transphobia" means fear of the transgendered.

Why do most of the womenfolk I spend time with, see transwomen's angst as a strictly male phenomenon? As in, "suck it up, you sissy!" - no, I'm not making this up. Genetic women have it far worse than their trans equivalents, always have since the paternalists dumped the mothers and healers. If a woman rabbits on about this sort of thing, she's a ditz or a headcase, but if a transwoman chirps, we're all supposed to back off and be kinder? Again, whining about one's sad times means you're giving power to being negative. And stop being offended with labels and pronouns; be happy that you're simply accepted! There's worse things to be called than "tranny"; either you get over it, or embrace it, but being offended by the word means you need to lighten up.
 

August 2015:

A discussion on getting out enfemme in Flickr's Just Class group: "Going beats wishing you had! Second chances disappear rapidly..." Very much agree. Carpe diem, always. Excuses I see and hear aren't vaguely acceptable: "Family is staying with me. Life changes keep me from getting out from hiding. A break is as good as a rest."

Yikes! I do understand not wanting to get out, but really, it looks like trannies all hew to the notion that we're here on sufferance, and need to keep perpetuating this notion that being in the closet is a good thing. With Jenner's perambulations through the norteamericano media, we're right on the cusp of a time when we can step out and be accepted. Time to stop hiding - a pal came out to her family at a lake cabin weekend, and had a box of fireworks for after her announcement; the family took it very well, and now this lady has her whole life ahead of her, enfemme as she wants to be!

On the one hand, I've had over a month of doing the yardwork mostly in drab, and afternoons/evenings enfemme, with six days on the range in filth-wear. On the other hand, it's turned into less of a Fun Time than simply someone living their life, in my case being a fashion victim. On the gripping hand (and who here has read Niven?), I find it interesting to see how many people in the world ignore the oddity of a tranny in their midst, choosing instead to interact normally and continue on with their lives. And this is in EDMONTON, redneck capital of Canada, folks! All the trans community's back-patting over recent mainstream media coverage will go for naught if we don't stand up and celebrate, and that does mean overcoming the fear of the naysayers. Bob Marley said it well: "You never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have."

Judging from the tone of most commentary, I'd say most of us white, male, middle-class, middle-aged trannies are far more interested in keeping what privileges we've earned - and power to you all! Still, inaction in the face of this cultural bullying lets future generations of crossdressers continue with shame and fear that they don't deserve. I heartily despise bullies, having dealt with far too many as a short kid. You want to leave that as a legacy, your choice. I kinda feel good that so many of my peers give me props over doing what I damn-well-please, and no hiding about it, and even better when I see them getting out, finding their space, and doing things they never thought about!

Understand, there's more and more young folks doing the gender-fluid thing, males successfully playing good rocker-girls and party animals as well as some insane drag art, and of course the whole drag-king phenomenon that's intricately tied with gender. Some transition. Some older types like me chase the ring and occasionally make things happen - or have it happen to me. It feels better than watching it on television.
 

August 2015:

So. A Halloween costume company is selling a Jenner outfit. Looks silly. Now half my pals want me to sign a petition to stop it. Milady sneers at the tranny sissies whining, and I'm highly amused with the situation - it's okay to mock, say, Donald Trump, but 'cos Caitlyn identifies as trans, we're all supposed to bend over backwards to be liberal bleeding hearts. NOT!!! It's what happens to celebrities; they're fair game. I can't agree with any action that reinforces the "poor, poor, pitiful me" mindset; strength comes from within first. Trans lives matter, but not if they're so weak that they suicide after a few bumps in the road - the same ones I encountered in the 70s. It's called evolution, and that's a good thing.

My coping mechanism is not sweating the small stuff, and realizing that it's ALL small stuff. I never got cut any slack for being tiny when I was younger, and I still deal with that. Get overwrought over self-perceived hurtful behaviour? There's more important things to worry about than these white, middle-class first-world "problems". Grow a set of whatever gender's gonads that you want, or the rest of the world will continue to see us as a gang of self-absorbed whiners. Learn how to shoot, volunteer with the disabled, clean up a highway - this helps to make the world a better place.
 

September 2015:

Comments from two cisgendered, aware and open-minded friends:

"I have no problems with the LGBT-etc alphabet soup, but you need to learn to blend the ingredients better."

"The trans community in entirety is small enough and misunderstood enough as it is. Why spread it to the inside? Has anyone used the term TrannyNazi yet?"

There's getting along with your peers, and there's getting along with the world at large. Both are essential. I hold no truck with transsexuals asserting the only way to be termed "transgender" (or to use the word "tranny") is to take hormones and get surgery; and this is what certain TS-identified locals tell me repeatedly. Folks, I'm entitled to call myself whatever-I-want; I'm out there daily, presenting my fugly tranny self, with a smile and pleasant attitude.

I've seen far too many of our people lose their minds over the drugs, and it's a regular event to have one send me a nasty email denouncing my ways - and then block any answers. Thinking you're better than other transfolk because you've given up a gender is arrogant and unjustified - after all, womenfolk won't see a transwoman as female; at best, most see a curiosity and someone Different, and at worst, "someone who doesn't have a clue what being a woman is". Milady ran into one years ago who blithely told her all about being female; it didn't go over well..
 

October 2015:

I see some American employers are now giving transsexuals benefits for their transitions. Not a ton of people in one company would need this, so it's not too expensive. I'd still rather the Alberta government didn't get into this; the NDP can't manage money effectively at the best of times. Facial Feminization Surgery, depilation, and breast augmentation all fall under the cosmetic surgery umbrella, and that's definitely NOT something that should be funded. It's surely awful that alcoholics, smokers and the obese are soaking up so much healthcare coin, BUT: there's plenty of hot women who have the same A-cup breast mass as I do, any brow or trach shaving is a personal decision, and hair removal is paid for by thousands of non-trans people every day. Two transwomen in my shooting groups roll their eyes at the new breed of demanders - they paid for all of their own work!

I'm in the enviable position of being in excellent health, mostly by NOT not eating McFood or taking up drugs, smoking or drinking, and staying active. I have one wardrobe, containing bits appropriate to all genders. That's not an issue, as most womenfolk these days dress like guys or in *gag* jammies, capris, or crocs. I and most of my tranny peers look male, only long-haired and far better put-together. I don't hold with being only one-or-the-other, and manage to do my daily life looking like a fugly woman or an obvious male-in-a-frock. As you can expect, when I push the concept of us all being trees in the same forest, ire is raised and feeble catholic guilt trips ensue.

I agree with some who say the government's need for "gatekeeper" professionals such as psychiatrists is an impediment to gender reassignment. However, as with any human endeavour, if you want to upgrade on tax dollars, then you have to spend that time. I see people spending good coin on breast augmentation; at the same time, I worked in hell for a couple of years to upgrade to a very good rifle. Different strokes; my biggest issue with all this is the tunnel vision that says TS needs overarch the greater needs of the community. A good pal's wife needs a liver transplant; she's not whining, milady needs a new hip and toughs it out (wait lists and parts availability) - I feel either of these is more important than taxpayer-funded transitioning. Of course, if this is a serious focus of your life, perhaps you need to consider circumventing the government sponsorship and pay for it all yourself!
 

Samhain 2015:

Something from Gender Fun's Amnesia Sparkles, a well-known makeover artist.

I perform MTF makeover Transformations and often times the girls get cold feet before coming over to my studio for the first time. Later they book me again and finally make it to my studio for a transformation. They feel terrible for canceling on me but they explain that they experience a great deal of SHAME AND FEAR preventing them from keeping their appointment. Many of my girls have never come out to anyone about their crossdressing. I'm the first person they allow themselves to be their femme self with. I'm honored. I also understand the shame they've felt in the past. BUT I WILL SAY THIS, that "Shame" is not yours to have. That shame is a cultural and societal virus imposed by individuals that are threatened by folk that have the COURAGE to explore all facets of oneself. It takes time to find that courage. As for that "Shame," it has no place in your life ANY MORE! LIVE YOUR LIFE THE WAY YOU WANT TO. Dressing in femme hurts no one.
 

March 2016:

I always enjoy my friend Bunny Yanak's writing, and I do concur with her points.

Pretty tired of hearing that "my brain doesn't match my body." Or that I "suffer from a birth defect." Because that's supposed to be a better explanation than that maybe our society just needs to stop shoe-horning people into gender identities based only on what is between their legs. Because I guess it's easier for me to just go to the doctor and get myself all cut-up and have my plumbing rearranged to make you more comfortable with me, than it is for you to open your fucking minds. I don't have a birth defect. My brain is just fine with my body. The only thing my brain has a problem with are your simplistic, childish conceptions of sex and gender.
 

May 2016:

So now the liberal do-gooders of the world are fighting for trans rights too. A plethora of "How To Be A Trans Ally" op-ed pieces list various politically-correct bits of indoctrination for those who can't figure it out. Though most of these writers get one or two points right, such as "Trans is when gender identity doesn't match birth identity", I'd say this empowers teen and twentyish trans people to be rude and insistent about minutiae, while setting back sympathy for our cause. "Offensive" is a reflection of the person offended, not the lack of sensitivity on the speaker. Someone gets a pronoun wrong, walk away, or laugh, or tease them about it.

I could go on and on, but here's my take: Get dressed, get pretty. Now go out, walk, shop, interact with family, friends, even coworkers if that's your thing. Be who you are, hopefully pleasant and friendly. Be prepared for the sub-class of human who will go out of its way to jeer at any person who's Different, and take that abuse and/or praise like a grownup.

Any trans person, and this definitely includes crossdressers and transsexuals, is best served by the attitude that we're "gender enhanced" rather than suffering from malady or delusion. I so despise the term "dysphoric" because it makes what we do seem dysfunctional - and that is simply NOT the case. You don't have to fight for or with us against oppressors, show any sympathy on our "plight" (I call it gender euphoria) or even approve of us - just accept us.
 

November 2016:

I've avoided any commentary on the Yank political action happening over the last few months. But. Obnoxious liberals are bullying their way into having people who clearly AREN'T homophobic, racist, transphobic, sexist, whatever, do sissy bullshit to avoid offending others. The winner is a goof and too bad he got voted in, but when people get sick of being told what to say and how to think by others, they push back on those who want to establish their superiority by displaying how liberal they are.

When all the non-racist, non-misogynist, non-homophobic, non-bigoted, everyday ordinary people get so sick of you calling them racists, misogynists, homophobes and bigots, that they go out and vote against your candidate, do you: A. Reevaluate your personal conduct and strategy of convincing people to share your politics? - OR - B. Call them racists, misogynists, homophobes and bigots, and yell at them even more?

You still don't get it. You riot, attack people, call them names - all because someone won an election, and you can't see that your behaviour is the reason he got elected. People are tired of you overly-sensitive liberal infants throwing temper tantrums and getting your way. People are tired of BLM being praised when it's just a racist hate movement. People are tired of not being able to say or do anything without someone getting offended and trying to send a lynch mob after them. This affects me directly as a trans person; so many people walk on pins&needles wondering how to address me so as not to offend, they're dying from liberalitis.

Your BS got old real fast and people are finally realizing how bad it got. They didn't want a leader who would bow down to the Politically Correct any more. Blame yourselves for being so insufferably liberal that people saw this as their only option to stop what you started. People aren't racist, or sexist, or whatever other buzzword you want to throw around, they just got sick and tired of the sissification of our society.
 

February 2017: Distressing realities.

Noting Toronto Pride's kowtowing to BLMTO, a minority contributor, trashing their party last year, it's entirely apparent that left-wing breastbeating (and ensuing polemic) is blinding many to knee-jerk support of untenable policies. A presence at a mainstream event like Pride is a privilege, not a stick to bully others into doing a group's bidding, as these middle-class student activists did.

Yes, police are utterly necessary. I almost hear the "oppressed minorities" with their fear. But seriously, cops are on duty to keep creeps from making things worse. And I see too many commentators carefully ignoring a salient fact: that those who fear cops generally have something illegal to hide. Could be there's a warrant out, could be you're carrying, could be you want to do something nasty. The hullabaloo over shootings mentioned also ignores facts: these deaths were of people committing violent crime or threatening LEOs.

It's just as distressing to see white, cis, heteronormative and privileged youths trashing their amerikkkan world with impunity these days, without the same repercussions, but - overall, the less aggro you get, the less you'll be targeted by the authorites. As a part-aboriginal, trans, laissez-faire Alberta tradesman, MY PRIDE INCLUDES POLICE.
 

May 2017:

Blaire White just posted on her page: "Every trans person I've met has had some sort of mental illness outside of just being trans that has made it impossible to remain their friend." Within my own circles, I see alcoholism, overuse of X and fentanyl, self-absorption, virtue signaling, and a concerted effort to ignore real-world, mainstream mindset.

I personally feel it's a gang of straight people, with no experience with a drugged body, unaware that if you take any drug, your mind will be affected. Loudmouth Panas, and several other Illusions alumni who went to the dark side, have regularly exhibited exactly these symptoms.

I wish I could sympathize, but all you folks, unaware of the harsh realities of drug use, need to be more skeptical of your doctors' advice. I happily admit my years of weed use, and yes, I've tried everything at least once. Drugs change you, and very often not for the better, but you have to constantly be aware that your mental state will be changed because of it!

Alcohol doesn't help? Or the mighty F? Most of the M2F HRT medicines prescribed are synthetic (yes yes, I know about the "natural" ones like what you get from pregnant mares; that has a high risk of user stroke). What I'm getting at is, the side-effects displayed by my trans peers using these drugs are sharply defined and predictable. It hurts to see my pals dropping onto a particular mindset, common with those individuals I recognize as disturbed.

Then again, biological evolution is a slower process than the psychoactive end of things - some interesting sci-fi from Gibson and Sterling illustrates that. There's a cabal of moneymakers pushing any form of "scientific" quackery, but the biggest problem is: nobody can tell you exactly how those drugs interact. All I can go by is watching and doing pattern recognition.

An old spec-fic colleague pointed out the cyclic nature of dependency trends over the last few decades, and indeed I see the present minority-interest claims of victimization (reinforced by politically-correct bullying) and offloading of responsibility to government. Meanwhile the corporate profiteers are laughing every time they look at the bottom line.
 

September 2017:

I joined in on the local provincial UCP constituency meeting, electing the new board from the Conservative and Wildrose parties. Nobody batted an eye at the tranny in their midst, though Sandra, board director in hot purple heels, took me aside to discuss the present New Democrat GSA and trans policies.

I found we all agree that the government has no business legislating this sort of thing, as parents aren't the close-minded bigots that clueless liberals insist they are. On the flip side, agreed by all, is that it's not the teacher's job to snitch on their students, unless the kids are being disruptive. Perhaps NOT making this silly smokescreen the issue it has become, is the issue.

Lovely being in a room full of people already sick of the nanny state!
 

November 2017: NPR: New Generation Of Trans

Some tales of racially profiled and alternatively-gendered Americans. I don't have to deal with this very often, and usually it's hillbillies that are offended. Is it because I'm riding on my white male privilege, as I'm so often accused by the entitled, young, militant trannies I keep running into? Or is it my presentation, that of someone who's clearly male but who cleans up fashionably? Or perhaps, that I'm out there, smiling, confident, and happy? I've dealt with bullying all my life, and now, the worst grief I get is from - wait for it - other transpeople, who insist I be angry, unhappy, and wallowing-in-self-pity like them!

Obvious that looking good like this helps us feel good about ourselves. Everyone disses themselves, not giving enough credit, and we all need to be reminded that we are indeed important, and that only we can self-empower - slay the world with the fact that we're boys in frocks, and looking quite proud and lovely doing so. Remember that many women can't be bothered to do the work of prettiness these days, and I'm sure that by 2040 pretty and gender won't at all be congruent.
 

December 2017:

As Illusions president Rachel Carmina is a convicted child pornographer, I won't be supporting that Edmonton tranny group. The #2, Christy Garland, likes to be offended but rats out other queens. They are ignoring the Illusions Code Of Conduct, allowing members to show up sloppy and ugly, and are giving strength to an antiquated worldview of hiding and staying in the closet as a secret special-interest group. As well, outreach with the rest of the world has dropped to nothing, and the annual Winterfest is a mickey-mouse affair. Edmonton's high-profile trans activists are large men who transitioned after a lifetime of being bullies, left their wives for younger sleeker models, and insist there is only the gender binary, while calmly shredding other transwomens' hopes with a casual "you have no idea how to be a woman!" This is supposed to encourage T-girls to get out and be happy? Three times this year, I've run into self-styled twentyish trans "activists" - confused males railing against the system, refusing to present nicely, insisting their demands be met automatically, and that other transfolk be as unhappy as they are.

When I decided to step out into the trans scene at the turn of the century, I saw enough positive interaction from the locals to get a lot of confidence, and did turn into a happy and secure transgendered individual. And while I still have a lot of contempt for the ongoing media circus, it seems only reasonable to hope that others among us would learn to step out as themselves, without all the drama that's endemic to, well, men emulating women. Funny, though, this isn't happening; there's a staus quo of closeted trannies hiding, with occasional forays into the safe spaces of the Pride Centre and the queer clubs.

"Safe" spaces are a concept I find bogus and less than enabling - the idea that others provide said space - no, one makes one's own, or that space becomes a dead one. Stand up for your legal rights, and show pride. Attend the functions you choose to; and realize that most people don't care how you present, as long as you're not a slob or shaming others. If I'm out of the house and not working, chances are I'm dressed pretty and am interacting with the rest of the world as a proud and attractive transwoman. That includes my shooting clubs, my mainstream political affiliations, and all my day-to-day social interaction - and my peers in those areas are all positive about what I'm doing.
 

February 2018:

Jordan Peterson on "crucified people" :

You re going to have a rough life, just like everybody else. And you re going to have your fair share of suffering. And you re going to be touched by malevolence, and that s going to hurt, and you need something to justify that. You think, Well, what is a noble enough aim so I can suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and prevail in spite of that? That s what you need. That s what everybody needs. And maybe you could have it if you just decide what it was. Why not? It s worth a shot. You don t have anything better to do. - an excellent article in the Journal by David Staples!

Further commentary involved a short tirade (page 3) against VUE Weekly's previous far-left print bogosity (page 11).
 

April 2018:

There's tons of different kinds of crossdressers. There's those who'll be closeted all their lives, others who are happy to post part pix of themselves on the internet, those who present their photos in nice clothes, some who stay bitter and just like to drag others down to their level, and those who actually get out into the universe. Some, like me, thrive on being in public, smiling our faces off and generally taking in what the world has to offer us. I also incite others to get out and have some fun on the town.

Like it or not, being "just a crossdresser" is actually part of the whole movement of being transgendered. Serious spectrum of possibilities, and definitely those who insist they're "women" would look down at those of us who eschew the hormones and surgery. They blather on about "commitment" but still keep themselves insulated from the real world as much as they can. I notice that when I take off the pretty bits and go back to my mundane time in drab, it doesn't go away, and my girl ways stick with me.

Meanwhile, I, as an obvious man-in-a-dress, trot out to symphony events at the Winspear, drag shows at the Yellowhead and the Buck, goth nights at the Starlite and the Mercury Room, techno gigs at the Ortona, Con Hall, and any number of church venues and bars - and, of course, munch down all over town (last few places include Dawaat and Dadeos on Whyte, Brewsters in Oliver Square, the Moose Factory, and the Double Greeting on 96th Street). Nobody gives me grief, the venues happily take my money, and people always compliment me on my heels (full disclosure: I'm a blatant shoe slut).

But even with my own life as a tranny, I still choose to spend my time with people I see as the Good Ones. Way more important than blind loyalty to those of us who are also some variety of trans - it's what kind of person you are, not what position you hold in a microcosm special-interest club, or how much television time you've amassed as an "activist". Most people don't vaguely care! I ran into the city a couple of days ago for band practice, and on the way back stopped for groceries. A couple of shooters I don't see too often stopped to chat (and tell me how good I looked); we talked about our latest toys, a local gun builder who's making quite the name for himself, and how some trannies need to be aware that 99.9% of the population aren't interested in their cause or their hurt feelings. This is the one thing that gets my back up: some pathetic tranny droning on about his sad times. Enough already; that's not interesting to most of the world - any other trans person has already been through that, and has grown up and moved on.
 

March 2019: Michael Hurd's essay Generation Snowflake: Why It Happened is a brilliant slag on growing up children while being their pals, and aptly shows us what's wrong with today's society.

Accountability is an ethical issue. But it s also a psychological one. When you go through life never being held accountable, it impairs you psychologically. You might have otherwise been a decent, rational person. But when everyone walks around on eggshells about your feelings never questioning or challenging you in any way then it creates an unrealistic bubble around your mind and life.

Some people are more emotional than others. Some are more sensitive than others. We don t really know why, but that s how it is. Being more sensitive is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, deeper and more reflective thinkers probably FEEL more too, since feelings arise from thoughts. However, if you create an atmosphere where people are accustomed to assuming all their feelings are valid, and must be paid attention to, merely because they have them, then you consequently create well, look around you. It s an aura of shallowness, superficiality, narcissism and self-centeredness that all arises from one thing: The false conviction that feelings are automatically and always valid.

Sadly, we have a real-life laboratory to provide support for my assertion. Going back to the early 1990s, I wrote about the dangers of telling children that their feelings were valid, their feelings represent who they are, and they have a RIGHT to their feelings and emotions above all else. I suggested that if you raise children to believe these things, they will turn into monsters. And isn t that what we re seeing today, with Generation Snowflake, the irrational turn to socialism, the whiny and unsustainable turning of everything and everyone into a victim? These are now the normal and to-be-expected cultural, psychological trends in the younger generation more than anywhere else.

What the hell happened? I wrote about it decades ago. Nobody listened then. Today more are aware of the problem and willing to articulate it. But government schools and parents remain largely paralyzed by the problem. If your kid FEELS something, then it must be so. And if you fail to make it so, then you re guilty of emotional abuse. Imagine the West having been won with this attitude. Imagine the frontier of America having evolved into the utterly livable, twenty-first century place it is today if most children had been raised to believe their feelings are all that matter. Would we ever have had the automobile, the airplane, the computer technology and advanced state of medicine we know today? Highly doubtful.

So what does that mean for where we are going? Feelings and rational facts are not the same thing. Your feelings do NOT make you special, right or anything in particular. Your feelings are not an achievement. Feelings come from your underlying ideas and beliefs. Those ideas and beliefs are rational or crazy, sustainable or intolerable. It s up to YOU to figure this out, and to allow others in your life to provide feedback. Otherwise, you ll end up like so many people today, especially, I m sorry to say, so many of the younger ones: unaccountable snowflakes.
 

June 2019:

From Philip Cross, writing for the Financial Post: The anti-fascist left were the real fascists all along!.

It is fashionable among the radical left to demonize the growing number of elected conservative governments in the Western world as the rise of the extreme or alt-right. This is most pronounced in the anti-fascist (antifa) movement, particularly on university campuses. However, the anti-fascist movement has a sophomoric misunderstanding of fascism and its location on the political spectrum. More disturbing, this lack of understanding extends to its own social media and even physical tactics that mimic the mob psychology, street rage and bullying that are hallmarks of the fascism they denounce.

Fascism is best thought of as a nationalistic version of socialism, embodied in Hitler s National Socialist party, which was shortened to the Nazis. Fascist governments like those of Hitler and Italy s Benito Mussolini (and, to some degree, Spain s Francisco Franco) in mid-20th century Europe believed in totalitarian control of the economy and oppressive state curtailment of individual liberty. Those are the antitheses of conservative principles. Fascism subsumes all ideology to the goals of the state and the need for state surveillance. The extreme version of conservatism isn t fascism, as the left wants us to think. It s libertarianism.

Instead of left and right or liberal versus conservative, a better schema is to locate movements on a spectrum that runs from tyranny to liberty. Fascism embodies many elements of the socialist s state control of society. For libertarian icon Friedrich Hayek, Hitler s National Socialism was indeed socialist in concept and execution, while H. Pierre Secher, biographer of one of Austria s leading socialists, Bruno Kreisky, wrote of the striking similarities between the leftists and the fascists in that country: Ideologically, the distinction between the Sozis (Socialists) and Commies on the one hand and Nazis on the other, was probably only the internationalism of the Marxists and the nationalism of the Nazis. In every other respect they agreed on the evils of capitalism. The connection of Jews with capitalism helped fuel the anti-Semitism of the Nazis.

Mussolini s claim that in a fascist regime there was to be everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state is of course the totalitarian opposite of the libertarian ideal. Mussolini was long involved with the socialist movement in Italy, breaking with it because of personal ambition and because his socialist brethren would not support Italy s entry into the First World War. Once in power, he inaugurated a major extension of welfare spending and public works projects. Mussolini s insistence that his fascist deputies take seats on the far right of the Italian Constituent Assembly may have led some observers to wrongly conclude that fascism was right wing.

Students have been drawn to the appeal of totalitarian certitude long before political correctness and the antifa movements arrived on campus. When the conservative sociologist Peter Berger, whose family fled Austria from the Nazis, found himself in the midst of a violent, left-wing anti-war demonstration in the 1960s, he said it reminded him of the stormtroopers that marched through my childhood, with student protestors adopting from fascists their anti-intellectualism, their anger, their street theater, their glorification of youth, or their mysticism. There was also their mob psychology and the militant anti-reason impervious to argument. These characteristics are all amply evident in today s campus protests against a fascism they hotly denounce but whose tactics they generously employ.

Off campus, the triumph of religious appeal over reasoned argument today is found in the radical environmental movement, whose early roots were in German fascism. The historian Anna Bramwell, while making the common mistake of conflating conservatism and fascism, nevertheless wrote that Greenness was seen as an incipiently sinister conservative or even Fascist idea in German thought going back to Hitler s support of renewable energy to help reduce Germany s dependence on oil, in short supply through much of the war. The anti-fossil-fuel movement uses the fascist s appeal to emotion over reason, demonizing all who dare question it as climate change deniers.

Today the rise of extremism is more pronounced and frightening on the left than the right. The demonization of the right as fascism, that therefore forfeits its place to be heard in the public square, employs the strategy developed by the Marxist scholar Herbert Marcuse. One of the progenitors of the so-called New Left in the 1950s, Marcuse maintained that certain views on the right had to be silenced because this freedom of expression was serving the cause of oppression. In this line of thought, censorship serves the cause of freedom because intolerance against the right, while indulging extremism from the left, somehow levels the playing field for democratic debate. That absurd notion is at last managing to take hold in many academic and media circles today.

Philip Cross is the former chief economist at Statistics Canada.
 

June 2019:

Good points to transwomen from "Louder With Crowder - Wake up, feminists - transgenderism is the patriarchy and war on women", written by Courtney Kirchoff, a feminist genetic woman...

Dear "feminists" who claim to care about other women but let anyone into the women's club even if they're equipped with penises, as you bitch about the patriarchy and whine about gender stereotypes:

While you were knitting genital hats, marching on cities to protest for "women's rights" (but actually protesting for the sake of protesting), a man decided he could be a woman simply by saying so.

While you were concerning yourselves with the extermination of white men from planet Earth, foolishly exposing your comical stupidity and abhorrent racism, a man decided he could be a woman by wearing a dress.

While you were perpetuating a lie about how 1/4 of women are sexually assaulted on college campuses, insisting there's a rape culture against women, a man decided he could use ladies' bathrooms and locker rooms.

While you were complaining about not making as much money as men, while ignoring how men and women pick different jobs, thus exposing your inability to read farther than two sentences, a man took the "Woman of the Year" award, and a cosmetic company made a boy their new "CoverGirl" spokesperson.

While you were bitching about the patriarchy, a "secret" conglomeration of men determined to keep women down, a man decided to run on the women's track and field team. And he won. The same for weightlifting and volleyball. Not to put too fine an eye-liner point on it.

Brief side note: transmen (girls who think they're boys) aren't being discussed in this post because there isn't a large contingent of men whining about "the matriarchy" conducting a "war on men." Let's move on...

All of this happened while you, feminists, claimed to care about "women's rights," while actual men trampled all over said rights and actual, biological women. These men, who parade as ladies while embracing every single stereotype you've claimed to loathe and despise, continue dropping their pants to shit upon what it means to be a woman. While you applaud their "bravery."

Wake the hell up, you dim-witted, screeching bovines who refuse to wear tampons for stupid reasons like "stopping period shame." The only shameful issue surrounding periods is men clip-clopping around in peep-toe pumps believing they're just as womanly as those women who have periods. If you want proof of the patriarchy, check the grown man in the stall next to you, who's not quite sure what that box mounted to the stall wall is for. Surprise for him when he pops that one open and realizes it's not a lipstick dispensary. Almost as bad as finding a penis betwixt your legs if you believe yourself to be Rose in Titanic.

But no matter how many gaudy diamonds a man wears below his stubbly Adam's apple, he'll never be a queen of anything. He's a man. A man with an ego big enough to believe he can simply make himself into a lady by stating it, making YOU conform to HIS reality. No, it's not all ego. There's a dangerous dose of delusion mixed in his estrogen cocktail. Those who are phobic of reality are waging war against those of us living by its rules. Calling transgender people "delusional" or "egotistical" is not hate speech. A man who is a man is not a woman. If you find that hateful or offensive, consider smacking yourself in the head. If not once, five or six times.

But this open letter isn't for the delusional dudes prancing about town dressed like pinup models. It's to you ladies who allow these hairy-beasted ogres into our club of femininity without raising one naturally thin eyebrow. Thereby selling womanhood to the lowest bidder: men. Delusional ones. I know I typed "delusional" already. Bears repeating as often as these hogs shove their trunks into pantyhose, and tuck their dicks in...wherever, I don't want to visualize; let's move on.

What happened to women being valued for being women? If being a woman is as simple as stating it (or my favorite, claiming they have a "female brain," whatever that is) while embodying all the female stereotypes of a Barbie doll, what other conclusions can I draw other than your disinterest in the value of real women? It sure seems as if transwomen think all it takes to be a lady is to look like one. Grinding women, and womanhood, down to basic parts and fashion choices. If ever there was an attack on femininity, this is it. We have men taking our jobs, invading our private spaces, pushing us out of opportunities all with society's blessing. Branding anyone who objects to the shameless appropriation of femininity -- and masculinity when "transmen" pretend to be boys -- as "transphobic."

Meanwhile you "feminists" are bitching about the gender pay gap and pinning it on "the patriarchy." The patriarchy doesn't take the form of Armani-suited men sitting around a boardroom table like King Arthur's knights, waxing eloquent about what masters of the universe they are, back-slapping each other between butt-slapping their busty secretaries, get me a sandwich, sweetie. The patriarchy is Caityln Jenner, a beefy former Olympian who's decided to be a shemale and cut off his winky, leading a trendy movement for men who see an opportunity to advance by figuratively shoving (or sometimes literally punching) real women out of the way. See also HISTORIC: French Vogue Screws Biological Women, Features 'Transwoman' on Cover.

Kiss women's sports goodbye as men take over and cream real women. Because yes, ladies, men are physically stronger than we are. They're going to perform better in sports. Women's sports were established so WOMEN could play SPORTS with other WOMEN! For the fun of it. To compete with each other. To play. Women's sports were not, to my knowledge, established for entertaining the masses. Or for wimpy men who couldn't hack it with the boys. Watching female sports, in general, isn't that interesting. Exceptions to every rule, sure. But letting men compete with us? Women's sports are for women. Men's sports are for men. Let the boys play with the boys, let the girls play with the girls. Otherwise, it's not fun anymore, is it? Ask the girls who keep losing to boys. Ask them how they feel about being constantly made to feel less simply because a boy is beating them.

And yet you ladies, who allow actual girls to be routinely defeated by actual boys, have the audacity to lecture the rest of society about "women being paid and valued less." Let's all be thankful irony hasn't taken the form of a fat pride feminist, you'd have suffocated long ago. Behold, this is your war on women. Not Mitt Romney with a "binder full of women." Men, taking over what it actually means to be a woman while appropriating how we look, how we sound, and how we dress, while actually taking that which belongs to women, is the war on women. A war perpetrated with your third-wave feminist blessing. Consider your hypocritical selves just as exposed as a transwoman's dick in yoga pants. Then get out of the way, women concerned with delusional men's appropriation of feminity have work to do.
 

August 2019:

A very sensible look at how the media is using tragedy and lies to push forward anti-gun policy, in spite of real statistical evidence contrary to their claims.

Canadian and U.S. politicians and mass media are acting out their usual routine following the weekend massacres in the U.S. and a few attacks across Toronto. Politicians exploit the events to win votes. Media exploit the events to win eyeballs. Everyone blames everyone except the person who pulled the trigger. (Blame: Trump, Scheer, NRA, video games, the Internet, YouTube, masculinity, racism, ) Gun haters like Toronto Mayor John Tory enter their trance of mass hysteria. Ban guns! Ban guns! Ban guns! Society can follow this playbook for the next thousand years, but it won t stop a single attacker. Here are five realities that we need to stop ignoring if we do want to stop the people who might kill us. But only if we want healthier individuals living in healthier communities governed by healthier politics.

Five Realities

1. Guns Are Good. We need to recognize the legitimacy, value and benefits of firearm ownership and use, as well as its potential costs, dangers and risks. Focusing only on costs imposed by mass murderers and terrorists is dishonest and leads to bad outcomes. Yet that s almost all we do. We also could explore how we see risk and safety in relation to firearms. Some people feel safer when their guns are loaded and handy, and feel less safe without them. Other people feel safe when their guns are locked away and unusable. Others get nervous at the idea of firearms. The Hill+Knowlton summary of the Canadian government s consultations on gun bans last year did an excellent job of accurately and fairly representing the diversity of views. It's possibly the smartest report of its kind, and the only good thing to come out of the consultation circus. Too bad the government overshadowed the report by promising to further criminalize honest gun owners.

2. Laws Will Continue to Fail. We need to recognize the failure of current laws, and the flawed logic and reasoning behind them. We ve had all the anti-murder legislation we need for a few thousand years, ever since No. 6 of the 10 Commandments: Thou shalt not kill. Laws won t stop people who want to kill us. The solution to mass murderers probably isn t a legislative one, and certainly isn t one that punishes the people who aren t doing the killing. Good Guys don t need the laws, and Bad Guys don t read them. Education could be more effective than legislation. We probably should also hold dishonest politicians to account. Hundreds of men and women voted new laws against hunters, farmers and sport shooters promising they would keep our communities safe. How should we deal with politicians whose lies cost lives?

3. We Have a Social-Cultural Crisis. Years of data show that attacks with bullets tend to be: - by poor people - against poor people - in poor areas with a majority of black, brown or red residents. Illegal drugs and gangs are often part of the picture. Massacres also happen in rich and middle-class areas, fancy night clubs and average shopping malls. The Quebec City mosque shooter was white. Toronto s Danforth Avenue attacker wasn t. People increasingly suffer from emptiness, alienation and desperation. We have youth drugged up on chemicals from the street or the doctor. We can t legislate our way out of this. We don t have any guns to ban that will fix this. Solutions will require dealing with messy, unpopular and unpleasant topics about culture, parenting, immigration, integration, race, ghettoes, poverty, schooling, hiring, policing, penal systems, mental health, addiction, gangs, and more.

4. Guns Don t Kill People, People Do. Team Gun Ban goes crazy at that sentence. We ve had guns around for hundreds of years. We ve never had more people owning and shooting more guns legally, safely and responsibly. Violent crime rates in Canada have been declining for decades. If our guns were pulling triggers and causing massacres, we d already all be dead. We ve never had a gun problem, we ve only ever had a people problem. If we magically got rid of all the bullet launchers, we would stop murder by bullet. But the bullet isn t the issue, the person who fired the bullet is. Let s say we could magically eliminate all guns and ammo. Mass attacks existed before them, and will exist after. (Think: bombs, blades, cars, planes, ) The easy and not-very-important questions are: What gun was it? How did he get it? The harder and more important questions are: Why did he want to kill? Why did he think it was OK to kill? What s happening in our families and communities? Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders ratified this angle at a press conference today about the weekend shootings in Toronto. A reporter asked how the attackers were getting their guns. I m more interested in the people willing to use the guns, Saunders said.

5. Mass Media Promote Mass Shootings. We need to recognize the role of mass media in mass shootings. #NoNotoriety. Coverage is improving, but if you re feeling powerless, worthless, hopeless or angry, the media keep proving that mass killing is an instant shortcut to Page One. Media have incredible power and opportunities to change their coverage and reduce mass killings.
 

Late August 2019:

2019's Alberta government has withdrawn official support for the ban on queer&trans conversion therapy (which is still a very good idea).

If municipalities and counties are supporting said ban, why insist that the provincial government jump on the bandwagon? Alberta's United Conservative Party has bigger fish to fry than trying to please a politically correct minority. Jobs, resource development, family values, and fewer taxes are Very Important, after the devastation wrought by the "socially conscious" dictatorship of the New Democratic Party, which distiguished itself by its Politically Correct arrogance and more-of-the-same kind of political corruption. (Addendum, April 2020 - too bad the UCP has exceeded the corruption and lack of caring for Alberta further; not only does this government stink more than the NDP's previous attempt, they've even exceeded the fundamentalist Good Old Boy entitlement that the previous Conservative party were so good at.)

I'm (very) visibly trans, and feel that the less government intervention, the better. I'm entirely welcome everywhere I go, and it's because I refuse to behave like a victim. Act like people, and you'll be accepted. Whine about your "hard life" and the great majority will tune you out.
 

September 2019:

Hubris, a huge problem with the alphabet-soup brigade. No, feelings aren't the issue in healthcare. Just because some think they learned that "feelings matter" in school, doesn't mean that anyone performing health services is obliged to wrap them in marshmallows to keep them from pouting. And mental health? There's a whole quack industry catering to Feels, but when a shrink or therapist says to ignore the naysayers, then that's good advice. Feelings DON'T matter. Life in the real world is a daily game of "suck it up and carry on." Anything else is just promoting mediocrity. You want to be a victim, your choice - it doesn't work for me, and the cis world isn't obliged to bend over backwards to pay homage to pronouns.

But, what would I know? Decades of experience living the trans life has me spreading good cheer everywhere - except for the local whiners (i.e., Panas, Shostak, and Garland) who actually enjoy being a victim. No apologies; this is the real world, and the precious, precarious, tiny trans minority won't be changing it too soon, other than by guiltless one-on-one outreach. Those who get bent out of shape over pronouns have abdicated their duty to get along with the Real World. Trans and nonbinary people are due nothing more than the common respect that every human is entitled to. Obviously my tiny opinion won't change any of the upcoming queer&trans youth; sad to see how so many make their own lives so much harder than needful.

This sort of activism has a lot to do with how people see us. Be strong and don't claim hurt feelings; most people don't care, and neither should they.
 

February 2020:

From the "Crossdresser Girl" group on Flickr. I made these comments and several folks appreciated them.

[merikakenny5] "Hey, I'm new to being a crossdresser, I need help and advice."

YouTube! Especially for makeup tips. Practice. Start reading the fashion mags - InStyle, Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire... get an an idea of what styles you fancy. Don't buy cheap makeup at the dollar store; prepare to spend $50-100 for the basics: foundation, eyeshadow, eyeliner, contour and blusher, lip colour and mascara, brushes and cotton pads. Nail polish and remover, too: it's the finishing touch that adds femininity to one's look. Your local drugstore cosmetics gal can steer you right, tell them you're on a budget. Oh, and skin care is pretty important too - hence the topic here, shaving your legs really helps. Get a MAC or Sephora makeover sometime; their technicians train with trans people.

Wear contemporary clothes unless you're going out somewhere adventurous. Dress for your body type. If you have a pot belly, don't wear a tight frock; rather, find something like an A-line dress that flares from bust to hemline. Baggy and bohemian is good. But part of trannying about is showing off some leg and wearing lace or other nice fabrics. Notice that I don't say "dress for your age" - occasionally I do, mostly I don't, and I'm 65. Look over my photostream and profile, you'll get an idea of what I'm trying to say.

Wear boobs appropriate to your frame, don't wear them too high (adjust the straps so they're at a proper level). A tip for boobs - a sturdy balloon filled with a cup or two of buckwheat make an acceptable inexpensive fake breast. Double balloons filled with water works, but when they leak or burst, it's an issue. Please don't go out in public dressed like a whore with 40EEE fantasy tits! It makes the rest of us look bad.

Find a good wig for your first one. A quality cap is a must; a colour that suits your skin is a good plan. Go to a quality mainstream wig shop if you can; the pros know how to choose, fit, and style the wig, and have seen their fair share of M2F trans people. If your guy self is a brunette schlub, don't go for the "sexy-blonde" look; get something your own colour and a mainstream look. Or grow your own hair in a style that you can move around between masc and fem - I wear mine mostly in a ponytail in the yard, at work and the range, brush it out to the sides for going out. (also have dyed the grey temples blue/purple, f***em if they can't take a joke)

And above all: Never apologize, never make excuses, DON'T hide it from your wife or GF. Don't be homophobic. No fear: wig and cosmetic techs, LEOs and firefighters, hotel and medical staff see us all the time. Don't be a victim. Show pride.
 

March 2020:

Trans What??? - from the Flickr discussion group "Just Class"

Pamela Lennon: Most of us do our best to promote a positive image of transgenderism in terms of our everyday engagement with others. By our actions, we win hearts and minds. However, I read an article in a mainstream magazine by a TG activist in Ireland earlier this week that left me furious. The individual wrote "where someone uses the words transwoman rather than trans woman, it must be presumed that they are seeking to cause offence". What a superior and arrogant attitude. I somehow doubt that the general public are so up on the nuances of TG terminology that they know about such things. I have to admit, I didn't. What worries me is that social media, Twitter in particular, is being regarded as the authentic voice of persons who are TG when in, fact, it simply reflects those who are most intolerantly vocal.

Nikki Kent: I have to admit that I am struggling to find where offence is caused here. To me, it seems to be an issue of semantics more than anything that may now be part of the armament used in some internecine warfare amongst social dysphoric people.

Shae Guerin: Ah yes, the job of all these "activists" seems to be to antagonize those in the real world, who simply don't care. I spent four hours yesterday at the concert hall doing one-on-one outreach with many people who were honestly curious, and not at all informed. We aren't a significant enough portion of humanity for people to be interested - other than those liberals who virtue-signal their version of "tolerance." Recently I've had a couple of these twits insist the reason I'm out-and-accepted is because of their acceptance - hardly! More to the point, it's the average conservatives who simply accept another's lifestyle without judging.

Jennifer M. White: In this world there are no shortage of people who prefer "victim" status- it absolves them of taking full responsibility for who and what they are. "Oh, how much better life would be if only the name calling weren't holding me back". Honestly, I think most self-described "trans activists" do more harm than good, and put "trans liberation" back by years if not decades. From here on out I'll be punctuating "trans&women" with an ampersand. And anyone who doesn't do exactly the same is asking to get their wig pulled off.

Shae Guerin: Harsh words alert! It all boils down to the simple fact that, while some of do feel we're actually women, anyone assigned male at birth is a man - no matter how many hormones or surgery is applied to that body, one just becomes "trans". NOT a woman. Womanly, yes, feminine, perhaps, and I do wish those insisting on the victim status of "dysphoric" (psychobabble that just annoys me) would stop.

Karen Joanne Smith: "Transwoman" is a compound noun whereas in "trans woman" the word "trans" functions as an adjective - thus the individual is a woman. To adherents of identity politics this is an important distinction. A friend of mine defines herself as "a woman with a trans past". To me, the distinction is not real. In years to come a forensic anthropologist examining her remains would conclude that she was male, but that she had undergone a certain amount of reconstructive surgery. I wish that transwomen could be happy to be transwomen: self-acceptance (as opposed to the demand that society participate in a legally enforcible masquerade) is surely the ultimate goal here? "Gender dysphoria" is merely a term used by psychiatrists to define a state in which there is a disjunction between an individual's biological sex and their sense of gender. I think this can be separated from identity politics - it is a term that describes quite accurately how I feel about myself. That feeling going back to early childhood that I would rather have been born into a girl's body is essentially what "gender dysphoria" describes. The term has extended, however, to cover a variety of conditions that are perhaps more problematic. For example, there is evidence that a rash of young women are identifying as gender dysphoric in their mid-teens. For these young women the condition sets in after the beginning of puberty, and a debate rages about its origin. The story of one such who underwent sex reassignment surgery, only to later regret it, is found on the BBC web site: i-should-have-been-challenged-on-my-transition. The problem with the rise of identity politics is that clinicians are reluctant to ask the hard, controversial but rational questions that ought to be asked in such circumstances.

Pamela Lennon: I will simply add that those who should be leading on this complex issue (that has real consequences for real individuals) have abandoned the field to the loudmouths.

Nikki Kent: If I may add (for clarity ...whoever she is) - while the idea of 'gender dysphoria' may be a psych's term needed to replace the pathology of "gender disorder," "social dysphoria" is a term found amongst the trans&whoever people - I honestly didn't make it up!

Shae Guerin: I've found "dysphoria" to be synonymous with "dysfunctional," which creeps me out and offends me. No, this is just another term that the psychiatry and psychology professions use to justify their practice, and allow the victim class an excuse for their unearned tears. Then again, I've never understood the concept of paying a therapist; though I did chat with a guidance counsellor in high school, and it helped. Still see it as money poorly spent.

Nikki Kent: Shae, I find that quite refreshing! As the 'dys'-whatever is happening in a social context, while the individual, in their personal view, may consider themselves 'dysphoric', in society's view they may simply be 'dysfunctional'. I like that. Perhaps that's a question that should be put to trans proselytisers, when they adopt the arrogant and superior attitude that Pamela referred to.

Suzi Lavelle: I think it is pretty obvious to spot when people seek to cause offence. Pamela's original observations are absolutely right. For people like ourselves to assume that others intend to cause offence when they simply are confused by the terminology... well, that is blatantly intolerant. There are plenty of seriously offensive things going on all round the world - such as LGBT-free zones in one country. These are things that need to be confronted. So we should save our efforts to be ready for those battles, rather than invent offence from people who probably don't care.

Helen Turrner: I see myself as a trans activist but I have my own special way of doing it; ask Pamela she will tell you how I get society to notice and hopefully accept us. Once upon a time many moons ago I had the misfortune of growing up a teenager through the 80s, a time that was spent worrying if the Russians would bomb us and what to do in the three minutes we had left.

It was also the time the gay movement took over every aspect of life. Every male role model turned out to be gay. Terms and words that had been used to describe everyday life got hijacked by this community. Let's face it, the word gay does not mean homosexual, it means joyous and happy, even the god damned rainbow got hijacked! At every turn an activist (and my brother was one), would ram it down our throats (now behave) that we had to accept them. That it is normal, that it should be taught in school, that children should be made aware that they could be that way inclined! All at a time when we know that a lot of unsafe men were in the education system. Popular culture was all over it virtually every song was about man love or sexual acts, and if someone of an older generation should speak against it, all hell would break loose. It got to the point where we became homophobic because we got sick of hearing about it all the time.

As time moved on the gay community settled down and we started to accept that these people are totally normal and not a problem at all. Seems we haven't learnt our lesson because those trans activist are doing exactly what those people did back in the 80s. Most of the time it's done by a nobody trying to become someone, getting a few moments' fame going down in history as the savour of our kind! When in reality it was the like of you and I being part of the real world. I have no time for loud-mouthed people, the sooner they drop off the edge of the world the better. Then maybe we will be where our gay brothers are today just getting on with life.

Shae Guerin: What, you're NOT 100% on-board with the loudmouths? Oh, for shame. I see all this trans activism the same as I did the "feminist" movement around in the late 1970s. A gang of attention-seeking misanthropes trying to hijack authority. Yes, some good came of it all, but those feminists weren't taken seriously by my female peers then, and still are derided for not being with the times. So it will be with those of us who feel that breast implants and HRT give them the right to lecture us about the "good of the community" (a hint: there is no community, we're just a bunch of people with different viewpoints).
 

August 2020:

Tanya Munroe, a BC gal who's entirely convincing in her pix, has this on her profile. All very well put!

I'm not a professional model by any means, but I do study body behavior. Girls, most of us want to pass as women, regardless of our psychological, genetic and sexual positions.

Manspreading - just no; unless your intention is sexual. Crossed ankles, one knee over the other, both knees parallel, sitting sideways with knees parallel - do this.

HANDS - Men don't have delicate hand gestures. Fists on the hip are a dead giveaway. Crossed arms are aggressively defensive. Hands on hips, fingers forward is masculine. Try shoulders back, a hand on hip, thumb forward, the opposite hand arm down, bent at elbow (as if carrying a purse), and loose wrist.

FACE - Head up, show your neck, tilt your head a little (not a lot, you look like you just broke your neck). Chin down creates a false double chin, looks aggressive, and doesn't show YOU off. Partial profile face on pics show every bit of male genetics (I'm guilty here). Big eyes: open your eyes! Show all that effort you spent on eyeliner, shadow, eyelashes! Damn! Your eyes will say soooooo much!

SMILE! - or smirk, grin... too many if us try to be runway models and fail horribly - because we aren't runway models! A smile softens the face, relaxes the viewer and helps the illusion we want to create. Duck lips are waaaaay overdone. Try an open eyed, head tilted smile.

STANDING - cross your legs, turn a foot sideways for balance and to show off that wicked pair of heels, partial profile, shoulders back (see above for hand placement). NO straight on pics unless you look so femme that you don't need ANY advice! No fists, no leaning forward!

Oh dear Jebus... WALKING. STOP walking with your shoulders swaying like an aggressive gorilla! STOP walking in heels like you are off on a mission to save New York! STOP swinging both arms like fisty pendulums! Wear heels you can actually stand in (your balance is important, more important than wearing your fave platforms that will break your ankles if you take a step on carpet, a Lego, a slight incline, an invisible cat). Walk as if you are walking a tightrope, crisscrossing your legs (you will instantly develop that sexy wiggle that with practice and comfort, can be enhanced to sexpot levels). DON'T move your shoulders. They are frozen in place, set back - seriously - do NOT move them! All your efforts to be femme are done like dinner, the illusion is over, the man behind the curtain exposed! Your upper arms are ALSO frozen at your sides. Bend them at the elbow or the wrist. The wrist looks best dropped down (with bent elbows) or turned up - not straight out. If your arm is completely straight, turn the wrist out to your side. Women have a different center of balance, male balance is at the chest, women at the hips. Walk from the hips, don't stride, don't strut, don't heel-to-toe step, don't scuffle. Short steps, crisscross (as the tightrope example above), try to place your heel and toe together every step to develop a habit of not driving your heel first... unless you enjoy breaking your stilettos and your ankles (I don't know you... that might be your "thing" - but I doubt it).

I hope this helps you. It's information I've gleaned over the years that has really helped my confidence and passing.
 

September 2020:

Helen Turrner, a lovely human whom I'm becoming friends with, often flashes on our magnificent obsession with intelligence and good humour, as in this topic from Just Class - Embracing Femininity.

"Embracing our femininity is more than just the clothes. How we dress matters not a jot, my wife wears 50s fashion almost everyday, she seldom wears jeans doesn't wear trousers or leggings. She goes to work in full skirted dresses and at times wears the petticoat with them, she shops, cleans and cooks in clothes of that era, is she wearing a costume??? Am I wearing a costume when I dress like that?? Or is it just my style?

For me embracing femininity isn't wearing overtly feminine items. Stockings, frilly knickers, satin and lace, its a state of mind. It's walking like you are gliding on air not through mud, its moving in a soft fluid way not a hard harsh manner. It's having a bounce in your step, not a stomp. It's being gentle in your action speech and movements even when you need to be forceful. It's having love in your soul, trust in your heart and empathy at your core. It's being the enigma, the desired, the loved, the lusted after, it's having the power of seduction, the ability to stop a room full of people due to your feminine presence.

The makeup, perfume, hair all helps. But for me, leaving the man at home is how I embrace femininity. Not dressing to blend, not dressing to conform to modern ideals, not trying to be a woman in a mans world. I am or want to be a Dita von Teese, Audrey Hepburn, Princess Margarete, Kate Middleton, Joanna Lumley kind of woman. Feminine, confident, strong, powerful, alluring. That is the femininity I aspire to and my style is who I am, I wear what makes me happy and confident. It's not a costume! I hope anyone who meets me comes away with a positive view and feels that I am feminine and not a guy in a dress.

But for each person it will be different, my view will differ from A B and C. In the end, how can we embrace something we really don't know? Heck, even women don't know what it is to be a woman any more than we know what it is to be a man. All we can do is give both a visual and tactile interpretation of the accepted overview of femininity."
 

November 2020:

Something snarly I posted in Flickr's Alberta CDs and friends this month:

Interesting and more than a little bit sad how so few Albertans here actually get out and about! I swear, there's maybe a dozen of us in this entire province who show up in the real world!

C'mon, girls, let's step out and hit the restos, shows, and shops! None of the Covid excuses, especially "when the vaccine comes out," that's a bogus cop-out, like many of the other excuses so many of you have been tossing my way the last couple of years. I get out and make a point of being visible, and you know what? Nobody gets negative, and many strangers give me props for style and courage!

The informal Alberta Trans Experience includes TS and TV girls, queens, admirers, supporters and wives, and to my knowledge, gets together at least once a week, even if only pairs and trios. The last bash in Camrose had half a dozen of us partying with the masses, and it was a blast!

Though the present leadership in Edmonton comprises a pedo who's destroyed Illusions, a twisted media-hog bully who loves being a television "spokesperson," various barflies and a couple of self-pitying victims running the TTIQ group, there's still many of us attending drag shows and bingos, art exhibitions, and musical and dance events in town. There's the active Camrose group, a couple of youthful, unhappy Special Groups like T/Noca in the Red Deer area, and the university activists in the major zones (Edm, Calgary, Lethbridge).

Visibility counts. Show some pride, otherwise the next generation of t-girls will continue down the path of closeted self-pity so many of us have embraced, and misguided "activism" berating the non-trans majority about pronouns.
 

December 2020:

Rachel Anne Williams posted this intelligent article in Medium, 20 July 2019 - Being Nonbinary Has Nothing To Do With Looking Nonbinary
 

December 2020:

An intelligent and pop-culture-aware Youtube video called "The Gender Code" puts things in an interesting perspective. Transpeople won't be surprised with this two-hour butt-burner; call it "Trans For Dummies" as its intended audience, the television generation, is those who have open minds but no intention to transition - but may be interested in trans people as people. It's bit of a slow slog, with the usual wallowing in self-pity, supporting the "community," missing some realities for clarity, and railing at how things are, but there's some hope. And great hair. Irish TG producer Luka Lipa Keating has some fun by presenting transmen and transwomen as simply men and women, tries to define masculine and feminine traits, and brings up New Age energy and goddess-worship. The last half-hour is pie-in-the-sky "should" ranting, celebrating the "gender revolution." Oh well, can't be everything.
 

September 2021:

The problem with pronouns, the hundred-or-so "genders," and increasing additions to the glbt2sq+ list, is that most people already accept us as people; all the rest is just noise. This noise only serves to further separate we non-traditional types from the mainstream, which is NOT a Good Thing.
 

August 2022:

Barbie Satin, a major player in the New York kink and dungeon scene around the turn of the century, posted this recently on Fetlife. I concur.

Self reliance and being a CD: a rant.

One thing I see over and over again here, on Reddit and every other social media site are CD's looking for a "daddy" or sometimes a mistress to transform them. Nobody is going to take you in, feed you and transform you. You have to work your ass off and do it yourself. Nobody is going to want you until you make yourself sexy and desirable. That means working on your makeup skills, getting some hot fetish outfits and then getting off the social media sites and walking out into the real world.

No man ever owned me or controlled me. I could be ultra submissive during playtime but afterwards I expected to be treated as at least an equal. Modern sissies want to make no effort and just stay locked away in those ridiculous cock cages and be kept as weak and pathetic sex toys for some dominant male asshole. If I had done that I would never have accomplished any of the things I did. My time in the scene was an epic adventure I would not trade for anything. 25 years ago when I was working at a Manhattan dungeon and writing for papers like Feminine Illusion the girls out having real lives were strong and confident. Now it seems like sissies think they must be weak and pathetic.

Weak and pathetic will get you nothing but being used and abused until some day the jerk you gave yourself to kicks you out for a younger model.

I also see a lot of fetish CD's being brainwashed into thinking they must be on hormones and be in transition. If you dress for fetish and sexual reasons, then going on hormones and ending your male sex drive will take away the reason why you dressed in the first place. It seems to me there is a political agenda at play to get as many CD's as possible to be in transition. I was never on hormones and never wanted them. I never locked away my cock and I had kinky sex with hot women. I got to have the best of both worlds.

These days a sissy having sex with a female is almost seen as blasphemy against all the crap in those idiotic captions and that sissy hypno bullshit. Who made up all this crap? I see sissies bragging about how many years they have watched that ridiculous hypno crap as if it is a great accomplishment. Instead of working on makeup skills and wardrobe and then walking out of the closet into the real world they sit and endlessly watch that useless crap.

I had a set of big giant steel balls and that was why I accomplished everything I once did. I was a bimbo but I was a damned smart bimbo in charge of my own destiny. I owned my own little production company and never worked for any man in the porn industry. I also had several men wanting to be my sugar daddy and I turned them all down. I was not giving up control of my life to any man no matter how wealthy he was.

Another fantasy a lot of sissy CD's have is of being a hooker and being pimped out. I get the hooker fantasy and I lived that fantasy in real life. I had a blast doing it and as the old song goes, I worked hard for the money. Why on earth would I want to hand money I worked for to some useless pimp? Pimps are all subhuman garbage. One night I was out riding around with a friend while dressed looking for a female hooker to blow me in the back of his van. We witnessed four pimps jump out of a car with baseball bats and beat another pimp to death right on the street corner. That happened in NYC.

You will never get anywhere by being weak, you accomplish great things only by being strong.
 

September 2022:

Further on what Barbie wrote above - later deleted from my page on FetLife, as they decided this is "transphobic":

Sissies? Submissives? Beta-bois? FFS!!!

Good frickin' gravy. WTF is it with all you trannies? I see the aficionados posting sissy memes featuring genetic females and totally silly text, while insinuating that they're somehow hot&desirable? That they're sexually active, and worthwhile, just because they have some unrealized desire to "submit", and have confused "femininity" with "weakness"? (a hint - this whole alpha-male schtick is based on an erroneous study of wolves in captivity - NOT a real sociological look at human interactions) Kink is great, but bottoming with another man while dressed femme-sexy isn't necessarily submissive. Just horny.

I got on to Fetlife to see what other t-girls can get into, and more and more I see fools in idiotic chastity locks, little-girl poses, often-ridiculous fake bosoms and unrealistic costuming. These trannies are wannabes, making us all look like a gang of fools rather than any kind of viable lovers. 90% of the memes I see show young, cute females, and most of the rest are professional trans porn models!

What drives me buggy the most is a complete disregard for the realities of living femme in an XY-chromosomal body. Yes yes, there's the skinny queer young things with fabulous breast implants and good hair, generally using artificial HRT. They're the exceptions, and deal with all sorts of perceptual shifts and attitude from others. The porn performers are a small percentage. How many of us will ever actually step out into the real world, calmly going about our business while presenting in a dress, heels, and makeup? One out of a hundred? Maybe! Reality: connecting with an amenable, sane lover takes work. Regular HARD work, caring, and an awareness of where&who you and your lovers are.

I'm sick to death of the excuses: "You have to understand my feelings/wife/job." Utter bullshit. I get out, all across North America. Nobody cares, because I have the attitude that I DO belong. The five thousand people in my rural Alberta town are amused and supportive, and the youth treat me as Good People. When I get into the city, sometimes dragging along trans pals, the mainstream folks welcome me and praise my fashion sense, and yes, occasionally my intestinal fortitude ("I admire your balls in doing this").

SO! No, you don't need to "pass" in public, just get out. Make no excuses, never apologize, and FFS, quit hiding! All this "I'm terrified if someone sees me girly" is entirely invalid - VERY few people care (those who mind, don't matter, and those who matter, don't mind). Get out there, have lots of sex if that's your thing (remembering that at one point in your life, you won't be able to anymore). No, I don't disagree with "you be you" - but those who stay in the closet are simply ensuring that the youth will see this magnificent obsession as something shameful instead.
 

September 2022:

I've been blathering, in both official languages, on my flickr profile, and it mutates. So here's a text version of it.
 

October 2022:

From a recent MSN post from a palliative-care nurse, listing the most common regrets of those dying:

5. "I wish that I had let myself be happier."

4. "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."

3. "I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings."

2. "I wish I didn't work so hard."

1. "I wish I'd lived my own life, not what others expected of me."
 

December 2022:

The International Journal of Transgender Health has released a very dry and scholarly look at Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8. Reported proportions of transgender individuals show as .02% to .5%; with child surveys approaching 2.7%. Many of my woman and transfemme pals comment, "Poor kids..."
 

January 2023:

The Daily Wire reports that The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine just released an article debunking "false and unproven assumptions used to medically transition children."
 

March 2023:

I've always considered any woman wearing nice shoes as automatically interesting. Christian Louboutin said that "heels are a painful pleasure," and Christian Dior added that "you can never neglect the choice of your shoes. Too many women think that they are not important, but the real test of a woman's elegance is what she wears on her feet." Coco Chanel also thought the same: "A woman with good shoes is never ugly."
 

May 2023:

An interesting and scholarly take on the feminist movement, written by Professor Ellen Annandale at the University of York. All references included.
 

June 2023:

Commentary, from Baire White - a realist, not a psycho. "Are transwomen women?" and on detransitioning too.
 

June 2023: - Bai Zuo is used generally to describe those who "only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment" and "have no sense of real problems in the real world"; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to "satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority"; they are "obsessed with political correctness" to the extent that they "tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism"; they believe in the welfare state that "benefits only the idle and the free riders"; they are the "ignorant and arrogant westerners" who "pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours". This is so painfully accurate of what's happening in the western world.
 

June 2023: - Pride now is all about racial minorities, trans activists, and pedophiles

ANDREW DOYLE: When I was growing up, Pride's rainbow flag was a shining beacon of tolerance. But these ugly new versions are divisive, dangerous - and deeply homophobic.

It is now Pride Month, formerly known as 'June'. The streets are festooned with multicoloured flags. They fly from shops, banks, schools, hospitals and almost every other public institution. Pride colours are splashed across the sides of police cars, and major corporations have garishly plastered the banners on their websites and social media accounts. In some areas, zebra crossings have been painted over in Pride colours, even though disability groups have made it clear that these eyesores are disorienting for guide dogs and the partially-sighted.

But, of course, most people won't complain. Why would they? Britain is a nation of liberal-minded citizens, the vast majority of whom believe that everyone should be treated equally, irrespective of sexual orientation. So flying the Pride flag is surely just a sign of support for these minority groups, right? Wrong, according to the actor Laurence Fox. This week, Fox posted a video online in which he burned Pride-themed bunting in his back garden. At the end of the video, he described the flag as a 'celebration of the mutilation of children'.

As you'd expect, it sparked outrage. Setting fire to a symbol that has long been associated with equality for gay people strikes many as reactionary and grotesque. What's more, Fox's words won't make any sense to most people. That is because many are not aware of the insidious shift that has taken place in what the Pride flag actually represents today. The truth is that a sinister movement has hijacked Pride for its own nakedly political ends. The best way to understand how this has happened is to trace the evolution of the flag since it was designed by the American artist Gilbert Baker in 1978.

Baker's flag was a simple rainbow. It had eight stripes, later whittled down to six. This is the flag with which we all became familiar. It symbolised joy and hope and equal rights for gay people, and was flown in Pride parades and atop gay bars, restaurants and coffee shops. But that flag is rarely seen these days, especially in Britain and America. The shift began in 2017, when the 'Office of LGBT Affairs' in Philadelphia added black and brown stripes to include racial minorities. This was a bizarre modification. After all, the point of the rainbow was that it represented everybody, regardless of race: there was no white stripe, after all. But the floodgates had been opened. Activists decided that unless they were specifically included on the flag, then they were not welcome. And so more changes soon came. A pink, blue and white chevron representing trans people was added in 2018 by the activist Daniel Quasar. This became known as the 'Progress Pride' flag. At the end of the video he described the flags a 'celebration of the mutilation of children.'

Most of us could see that the flag was starting to become overcrowded. But it didn't end there. In 2020, 'sexual health and wellbeing advocate' Jason Domino added a red umbrella to symbolise the plight of sex-workers across the globe. The following year, 'equality speaker' Valentino Vecchietti ('she/they') added the 'intersex symbol', a purple circle on a yellow background, to represent the tiny minority who are born with ambiguous sex characteristics. Not to be outdone, in 2022 Microsoft created a garish, kaleidoscopic monstrosity of 40 different variations on the Pride flag. And, this week, Vecchietti returned to the fray to propose a new Pride flag which includes an infinity symbol representing autistic people, 'to recognise the broad and varied experiences of those with neurodiversity'.

Needless to say, these groups actually have very little in common with one another. It's clear Pride is descending into farce. It's bad enough that the old 'LGB' has expanded to 'LGBTQIA2S+', to mean 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning/Queer, Intersex, Asexual and Two-Spirit' - this last for people convinced they embody both masculine and feminine characteristics. Now the all-inclusive rainbow flag, which worked perfectly well as a symbol of unity for decades, has been distorted by campaigners determined to cram it with as many new symbols and colours as possible to promote their own idiosyncratic and decidedly niche causes. Pride has almost nothing to do with gay people any more: it is being driven by what is known in academic circles as 'intersectionality'. This new far-Left religion focuses obsessively on group identity - of race, gender, sexuality or something else.

Colloquially, it is known as wokeness. This obsession with 'identity' has resulted in some truly demented and dangerous outcomes. We have seen womens' sports infiltrated with biological males, and male rapists accommodated in womens' prisons. But children are being affected, too. This week, an audio recording went viral in which two 13-year-old pupils at Rye College in East Sussex were heard being reprimanded by their teacher for refusing to accept that one of their peers could identify as a cat. It sounds like the stuff of fiction. But, as the Mail reported yesterday, at one Bedfordshire school, one girl is identifying as a male cat called 'Kit'. The 16-year-old often wears a cat mask and tail to school, rubs up against her friends and miaows as they stroke her. Reports also emerged this week of a secondary-school pupil who identifies as a dinosaur, another who insists on being treated as a horse, and one who wears a cape and calls himself a moon. What are these pupils doing? Perhaps they are making satirical gestures to expose the ridiculousness of their teachers' obsession with 'diversity'. They understand that those in authority have succumbed to an absurd belief system and are naturally testing its limits. Perversely, the children are the only ones seeing the situation for what it is, while their deluded teachers go along with the new orthodoxies. We desperately need the adults back in the room.

All this is about as far removed from the aims of the original Pride movement as it is possible to imagine. The UK's first march for 'gay pride' took place in London in 1972, attended by just 2,000 brave people. It was a protest against ongoing injustice: at that point, homosexuality had been legal in England and Wales for only five years, and would continue to be illegal in Scotland and Northern Ireland until the 1980s. I was growing up back then, and it was impossible to be openly gay without unpleasant consequences. The flag was a symbol of acceptance: when I saw it, I knew that this was a place in which I could hold my boyfriend's hand without putting us at risk of abuse or violence. Last year's Pride parade in London, in contrast, attracted over a million people, many of them not even gay. In one sense, this is a positive reflection of how far we've come. On the other hand, it also suggests that Pride is no longer needed.

It certainly has little to do with homosexuality any more - and indeed, many gay people no longer feel welcome at Pride. Last year, police removed lesbian activists from a Pride parade in Cardiff because they were holding banners that said 'lesbians don't like penises'. In other words, they were protesting against a movement that sees 'gender identity' as more important than biological sex. This, of course, is the pernicious dogma behind the garish new Pride flag.

Even Stonewall - the UK's foremost LGBT charity - has redefined the word 'homosexual' to mean 'same-gender attracted'. Its CEO Nancy Kelley has claimed that for lesbians to refuse sex with those who identify as women but still have male genitals is analogous to 'sexual racism'. This is a total inversion of homosexuality. To pretend that biology has nothing to do with sexual orientation, a view now endorsed by Stonewall, is actually a form of homophobia. Yet such attitudes are common on social media, where extreme trans activists - not in any way representative of trans people as a whole - routinely abuse gay people online and shame them for their orientation. Some of them assert that 'genital preferences are transphobic' and that gay men who aren't sexually attracted to female bodies are 'bigots'. It's a rehash of the old anti-gay trope: "You haven't met the right girl yet."

And then there are the dangers to children. The Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service, the disgraced paediatric former gender clinic run by the NHS, is, at last, due to close following a devastating report by Dr Hilary Cass that determined it was not safe for youngsters. History will show the Tavistock to have been one of the greatest medical scandals in recent British history. In her book Time To Think, journalist Hannah Barnes found that between 80 and 90 per cent of the adolescents referred to the clinic were same-sex attracted - that is, probably gay. Studies conclusively show a strong correlation between 'gender non-conformity' in youth and homosexuality in later life. But rather than allowing girls to be tomboys, or boys to be effeminate, the new religion of gender identity fluttering on the Pride flag encourages such kids to believe they are 'trapped in the wrong body.' And this is perilous for vulnerable children. The Tavistock and other similar clinics seem to me to peddle a form of conversion therapy - trying to turn gay kids straight. The Tavistock Gender Identity Developlment Service was forced to close following a damning report: "Many young gay people have been put on dangerous puberty blockers because they don't conform to heterosexual stereotypes. In almost all cases, this then leads to taking cross-sex hormones and, in some instances, irreversible surgery."

This is the point that Laurence Fox, in his shocking and rather clumsy way, was trying to make this week. So it is hardly surprising that the new Pride flag, with all its unsightly embellishments, is considered by many to be the very opposite of what it purports to be - a celebration of diversity. Instead it is a highly divisive symbol that works against the measured conservative forces that, after a long struggle, saw gay people accepted in society. If you find all this confusing, you're not alone. Woke ideology is all about misleading people, relying as it does on the public's good nature, and tricking decent folk into supporting regressive ideas under the guise of progressivism.

But now that so many sensible gay people are rejecting Pride, perhaps others will follow suit. Standing up to the woke isn't easy, because they have no hesitation in 'cancelling' those who take a different view, often by contacting peoples' employers and ruining their livelihoods and reputations. Sometimes, they even rely on the police to arrest their detractors for 'wrongthink.' But I stand by my conviction that Britain is still an overwhelmingly liberal nation. In spite of the threats and intimidation from powerful activists, and the corporate and political figureheads who do their bidding, we can and must reject these regressive ideas. I believe that we should restore the sense of unity and hope that was embodied in that original rainbow flag - and ditch the new one for good.
 

July 2023: - Some engaging videos - a funny one from Isaac Butterfield: "Pride Month is no longer about gay people living their lives, or even trans people living their lives, it's about dissolving gender and selling a fuck-ton of product. It's not a celebration, it's a sale!" More seriously, who is behind the trans agenda? Jennifer Bilek shows it's corporate profits. And finally, some very sobering commentary from Scott Newgent, a transman who was fooled by Big Med and Big Pharma. In April of 2024, he posted another YouTube video defending J.K.Rowling's recent commentary.
 

August 2023: Reality: Mslistersis delivers a scathing commentary on trans activism. "Everything about trans ideology is a lie... Trans rights activism is not a civil rights movement, the natural successor to gay rights, but a homophobic cult that has attached itself leech-like to gay rights and is steadily killing the host. Within the double-think dystopia of the trans cult, gender-affirming care is sex-denying abuse that mutilates healthy bodies and creates lifelong patients for profit. And protecting trans kids is, in fact, grotesque child abuse that destroys their puberty, fertility and future. And so, your allyship is in fact your complicity in the greatest medical scandal since lobotomies, and in this dark and tragic chapter of human history. You're not the hero babes. You're the villain."
 

September 2023: Transfascists insist "trans women's concerns still intersect with those of cis women's" - not at all. Transgender issues are exclusive to those of us who live it. Claiming anything else is called "stolen valour." The physical issues (menses, pregnancy, size disparity with XY humans, etc) and socialization that genetic females live with, have no parallel with those experienced by the trans/gf/tv/ts elements. The same translusional wonks tell us "trans women are women" - again, wrong. They're transgender, which is completely different from women. Bad actors in the MtF activist element will cry loudly about how they're misunderstood and that they're victims of genocide - that and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee at McDonalds. We can only band together as humans, but the most obvious and egregious sin of a male claiming to be a woman makes him look stupid and puts genetic women down.
 

January 2024: Well, we all have to address various parts of our lives. In 2014 I was diagnosed with ideopathic pulmonary fibrosis; a progressive, terminal shrinking of the lungs that usually kills the patient within five years. One accepts changes, and when no "magic bullet" is available to deal with the disease, one changes one's lifestyle. An expensive (and potentially toxic) medication called Nintedanib helps to slow it down. Oxygen therapy has been another challenge; logistics are important and living with a leash sucks, but is def better than running out of breath all the time. It's been interesting; the first few years were mild, though a couple of pals did mention, about 2018, that I was huffing and puffing going up and down stairs. However, since the wildfires this year, the condition has been more aggressive, and is now catching up.

Time with milady is always low-key; she's been my rock through this, and I'm more concerned about her welfare after, than I am with my incipient expiration date. I had asked her to be the executor for my estate, and now, having done so for a cousin, will instead be making arrangements for a lawyer to do it. The money will probably be well spent; she doesn't need the aggravation. The last cull!

As well, Canada supports an official Medical Assistance In Dying program (aka MAID); a pals's wife used the service after her battle with cancer. I have a chat scheduled with my respirologist tomorrow and will be visiting my quack GP next month, and am looking at a hospice to do it in. Emptying the house is now a huge task; twenty years of winemaking has gotten me quite the collection of hardware, fifty years worth of tools filling a roll-cab, the kids and the ammo in the safes, and the usual kitchen detritus one inevitably acquires, all add up.

Of course, this preamble is just to slide into inspiring discourse with my peers here, most of whom fit nicely in the 50-70-year-old age bracket. Milady has reminded me more than once that "Everybody dies, so work back from that." Inevitable. The respirologist indicated I should start clearing out my possessions, writing a will, and generally get organized. Done. A list of credit cards and banking info, passwords, tax details, insurance, even a list of "who to notify" all make it easier. I got together a will program that brings up all sorts of things I'd not thought of previously: that previously mentioned, power of attorny, living will, estate planning, funeral/cremation issues, taxes, on and on. Gotta get it done - and realize that none of this is free, or even cheap!

Which brings me to the point: about six metres of closet space filled with frocks, blouses, corsets and lingerie, 130 pairs of high-heels and twenty pairs of boots, a couple dozen hats, a few purses, several pairs of breastforms, a drawer full of cosmetics, much bling, and a dresser full of stockings, lingerie, and toys. Ohh, those misspent immoral decades of sheer pleasure being a t-girl! Got my money's worth and more, which points out "What's it worth?" As you've probably noticed, a goodly percentage of my dresses are moderate-to-high-end; you get what you pay for, though not necessarily what you ask for. Some could go for good coin on the infamous Internet vending sites, but I'm not really one for shipping stuff all over the globe (unless it's a gift that'll have a good home). Though it's a thought. Same with shoes - the biggest issue I have is comfort, but people will buy a dozen cheapo pairs off the web and be happy if half of them fit. Size 10 isn't always Size 10.