An mp3 version of an interview W was subjected to by Carole Coleman of Radio Telefeis Eire. It is interesting to listen to him trying to figure out how to deal with an actual reporter.

"My job is to do my job."

Carole Coleman Bush Interview

Raven Kaldera's book Hermaphrodeities is the best transgender spirituality workbook I've ever come across. It's also the only transgender spirituality workbook I've come across, but that in no way lessens its greatness. I am impressed. I want very much to get together a transgender-genderqueer-genderflexible esoteric spirituality group at some point. Maybe I'll find one in SF; everything else is there.

Something I recently wrote in a newsgroup post:

... it occurs to me that when I say gender categories are socially constructed, some people seem to be hearing me say that all of our personality traits are socially programmed. This may or may not be true, but it doesn't follow from the argument I made. It is just possible that we have a predisposition towards certain personality traits, either because of genetics or randomness (quanta?) or an inner spirit or whathaveyou, and that these personality traits are categorized by society in terms of maleness or femaleness. When we begin to see this, which occurs long before we can begin to articulate it or even recognize it consciously, we have several options-- stifle those personality traits which do not fit in the categories we are told are right for us, debate the accuracy of the boundaries of the category but not its rightness in being applied to us, decide we belong in a different category, defy categories altogether, and any and every combination and alternative reaction you can imagine. I submit that this happens even before articulate speech, because we learn to form categories almost as soon as we can see. Androgynes, transsexuals, and other kinds of gender-variant people (even that term assumes a "gender norm" which I simply don't think is essential) can produce themselves in any number of ways. I tried to stifle the non-female qualities in me, tried to be an unconventional female, and now find that transcending the categories *through* crossing over them seems to make me happiest. Could I conceivably do one of the other strategies instead? Probably, but I've tried that, and I don't want to. That's that; give me the agency to make that decision or I will take it for myself. We aren't without social programming, we've just responded differently to it than the binarists.

[the person I was responding to argued that if gender was socially constructed, then why do not binarily gendered people who seem to be logical and wise reject binary gender also?]

It's important to recognize that cisgendered people are "logical and wise", for the most part (or at least not necessarily otherwise). Their predispositions are unique, and the way they react to social programming is different than the way we react. The categories are comfortable for them and give them a sense of belonging. Because something is socially constructed doesn't make it wrong or evil; only when it denies individual freedoms and creates injustice is it wrong. It's not race that is the enemy, it's racism; it's not religion that's the enemy, it's religious intolerance; it's not gender that's the enemy, it's gender bias and enforced binarism. Seeing people who don't fit these categories which most people find a source of comfort and protection scares a lot of people silly at this point in history and in this society; that is changing and will change more, we just have to keep working on it.

There is immense social pressure to fit one of the two given categories, if not completely, then as well as possible. We have all felt it, and as most people develop, it is vastly easier to fit the category as best you can. Even if gender stereotypes are not that much imposed on a growing child, as my relatively enlightened parents let me do pretty much whatever as far as gender is concerned, there is the pressure that we are not given the tools to think about people who are not one or the other, or who are some combination of both recognized genders. It is hard to think in those terms, perhaps even harder to think about it when the categories are not overt or enforced. One learns early that there are only two kinds of humans, and I think it takes a special kind of person (or perhaps determination or critical thinking) to question this at an extremely early age. I wasn't that person; I didn't develop that sophistication until I had a few years of liberal college (at a place where "postmodern" means "with it") behind me. For those of you who were, I'd love to hear what you think triggered that, if anything, or what differences you think you have innately or developed which helped you see that.

This is what I believe at 9:07 pm EST on Wednesday June 23rd, having just read Raven Kaldera's quite good book "Hermaphrodeities" and eaten an ostrich burger for dinner (yum). Subject to change without notice.

So, about a month from now, I'm off to San Francisco. I'm jumping off a really big bridge and I'm not really sure if there's water under me. Even if there is, water has the tendency to be hard upon landing. this year is going to be the most stressful of my life so far but I'll get through it. The year after may very well be even more stressful. However, I have a plan. First, I may or may not do my name change in the next month, so I can get my driver's license with my new name and apply to SFSU under my new name, with my new name on my diploma. Second, I will establish permanent residence in San Francisco. Third, I will take the GRE. Fourth, I will successfully apply for admission to SFSU's MA Museum Studies Program. Fifth, I will graduate from New College with a well-written, valuable thesis. Sixth, I will get an apartment in San Francisco and a job-- I have a lead on the latter, which is the important thing-- and I'll start my MA in the fall of 2005.

Seventh, I'll be transitioning in San Francisco. I have decided on hormones and top surgery, hormones in the next year and top surgery in the next three.

I know I promised my friends I would still be here in Florida when they got here. Well, even if I'm not living here I will be visiting, very frequently in all likelihood. And they should not forget their other friends in Florida who also desire to see them more often, and will play with them, and will drive wherever to visit them. And people should visit me in San Francisco because it is after all a really cool city and not as full of the HATE and DEATH as New York.

This may seem very chaotic and sudden and, perhaps, poorly planned to many of the people who actually read this (meaning all one of you). But I made the decision with regard to hormones and surgery a long time ago, I was just too scared of it to tell anyone-- including me, until recently. The MA in Museum Studies at SFSU is definitely the right thing to do, I would love to work in a museum and I could conceivably have a job doing that while I get my Ph.D. And then when I have a doctorate I'll have something to do while I'm waiting for a teaching post. I really wanted to take a year off before I went to grad school, but I also want to get a doctorate before I'm 35. I really wanted to transition before grad school, because New College seemed like it would be welcoming of that sort of thing, but really, nowhere on earth is more accepting of gender variance than SF. I have a lead on a job, which gives me a leg up on many people who live in SF. The flow is going this way and I'd better just go along with it.

I feel excited about this, I know it's the right thing to do... just all these changes at once are scary. But I've never asked that the Universe go easy on me. If I'm going to be tested, let it be fire...

Metasynthie posted this awhile back in the strap-on.org trans forum:

"Here's a little mind-scenario: you're in your apartment one day when you notice a little light switch behind a bookcase. You discover that if the light switch is up, you're considered male, your body is what everyone considers within the statistical norm of a male body, and everyone treats you like that's always been the case, your whole life is permeated with that. If it's down, you're considered female, same as above, etc. When you find it, the switch is in the position that corresponds to how you were assigned at birth. What do you do:

1) leave the switch the way you found it, maybe tape it down, move the bookcase back

2) flop the switch to the other position and tape it down, move the bookcase back

3) that switch is great -- you use it all the time and decide from day to day what position you want it to be in, what your mood's like, what bar you're going out to, etc.

4) you would experiment with the switch as above, but when you think about it, you would probably get tired of that after figuring out what the difference is, and eventually you think you'd just leave it flipped, as in #2

5) see if you can get the switch to hover right in the middle and stay there, and what happens if you do that

6) smash the switch with a sledgehammer

7) condemn the switch as an abomination and try to get legislation passed forbidding anyone from using the switch."

My answer is some combination of 3, 4, & 5. Obviously. If you've got an answer, post it in my forum or my guestbook. Please. So I don't feel like an idiot for making them in the first place.

Promiscuity is all in your genes! - News Details, Webindia123.com Is it just me or is this idea horrifying beyond belief? What if I don't WANT to be gene-modified to pairbond for life with one person who might not be a good partner? You fiends! Go back to making glow-in-the-dark bunny rabbits! Good GODS, man, you don't know the forces you're tampering with!

You're Nailbunny! You are the voice of reason.
Unfortunately for you, you're just a
hallucination.


What Johnny the Homicidal Maniac character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Excerpt from what I wrote in my physical journal last night:

First day of estrogen poisoning. Yep. No wonder I've been cranky. I was still somewhat mean today but only to people who weren't here, which isn't much better...I said bad things about X's mom because frankly she hurts them...Oh, hell, I just shouldn't have said it. Well, my parents are so cool that I really get very angry when I think people's parents are being evil, and X's mom seems very controlling...But that is not any of my business, as much as I love to meddle in my friends' lives. Geez. I'm the controlling one.
Okay. I have flaws. It's not a bad thing to have flaws; if I didn't I wouldn't have been born, I would have just careened off the wheel of samsara. I can improve. I just have to watch myself. Better go and get a rubber band. Or maybe a treaty with my shadow self.
I'm afraid of my shadow self because I fear making mistakes. I want to think I'm perfect. Every tiny mistake is a big terrible one in my mind, and they all go into the Shadow who appears at odd moments, reminding me of everything from embarassing missteps to egregious breaches of honor. And then I empower it by trying my best to forget about it, or dwelling on it...Mistakes are there to fuel my self-improvement. And if I truly want to be as close to perfect as I can be, rather than just trying (and failing) to appear perfect, I have to face my mistakes long enough to take a lesson from them, put the lesson into practice, and then set the mistake aside before I start indulging in emotional masochism.
The mistakes I feel most keenly are those which hurt other people. Sometimes this happens from ignorance, sometimes from carelessness, but it all comes down to the same thing-- I don't pay attention. I need to pay attention to others, not just myself. We all become a little self-centered in our transitions and to some extent that's necessary. But when I'm not engaging in self-analysis I should listen to people more and engage my empathy, pay attention to their feelings as well as my own-- and not just my projection of what their feelings should be, either. This doesn't mean forego my own needs-- but what need of mine does it fulfill to say hurtful things?
Of course, sometimes I seem to say hurtful things just to be hurtful. Probably this serves a purpose. Trash-talk with a friend about a third party brings the first two people closer together, even if only superficially. It's also an addictive temporary ego-boost: "I may have made mistakes, but I'm not as bad as that person." Of course if I truly understood and accepted my mistakes I wouldn't need that ego-boost. I guess I do use it to bolster a shaky sense of my own self.
Well, enough of that. Each time I start saying hurtful things about someone I should understand the reason why, so I can fix it. In the long term I need to figure out why I don't feel confident or sure of myself and deal with that.
Something comes to mind-- I was always praised for being smart, as a little'un. Smart, I seem to have decided, means not making mistakes...

And if smart means not making mistakes, then because I have made so many, I must be an idiot. But, I know I'm not an idiot. Trying to prove it by justifying my mistakes, ignoring them, or comparing them to other people's is not a useful way of dealing with this. I would probably be a lot better off if I could just accept that I can make mistakes and still be good, brave, strong, and smart.

The Village Voice: Features: Death of a Salesman by Tom Carson The best eulogy for Reagan I've read, heard, or seen yet. Something of Hunter S. Thompson crossed with Norman Rockwell.

Also, why is my mouse acting like it needs its testicle cleaned? It's an optical! Argh. I should go to bed before frustration consumes me.

Today, worked from 12:30 to 6:30 cutting lumber, framing a wall, and hitting things with a hammer, quite happily in fact. It was fun, other than working with the two-by-tens which were pressure treated, damp, long, and HEAVY. Those were for filling in sections of the block wall which hadn't come together properly and were too big for mortar. I ended the day tired but happy.

Until I realized I'd left my phone, my wallet, and all other precious lifesaving things at the job site.

I turned right around to get it, but it wasn't there. I assumed Will had taken it home with him, and I went to his house, but he wasn't there. I went nuts, got home safely (barely), threw things at innocent and unsuspecting Dave, tried to call Will, couldn't get his number right (because it's stored in my phone), tried calling the only people I knew of who would know his number, failed (I think Karsten's in Germany or something), called my own phone several times, snapped at Rew when he called, and in general raged around the house for longer than human beings are supposed to be able to sustain irrational rage.

It does not help that I am aware most of that emotion comes from the approaching estrogen poisoning. I hate it I hate it I hate it.

Finally Will picked up on my cell, assured me my life was saved, and now I am able to sleep. Rew was also very helpful in calming me down. I should be more sorry than I am for flinging objects at Dave's head. Maybe tomorrow.

There is a certain particular pleasure in sanding roughly-plastered drywall to a smooth finish. And in the work of a nihilist michaelangelo, painting vast expanses of white nothing on tiny chapel ceilings.

Yesterday's lesson: Superheated grains of galvanized steel are unpleasant to endure flying into one's face at high velocity. And sunglasses are not a particularly good substitute for safety goggles. I am fortunate to have learned that lesson without permanent damage, albeit not entirely painlessly.