link
It reminds me of how he has gone from identifying as straight to identifying as gay back to straight, and done this several times - I think that he simply doesn’t have a label that fits him
Before I went on horomones and met my current wife I went through a similar period. In my own case it was because I could not be emotionally involved with anyone who didn’t see me as female.
the money, our son, moving back into the town where his unsupportive parents are
I didn’t mention this before by the way but hormones don’t have to be expensive. Mine cost me about 20 dollars a month.
But for him it may seem like an unorganic decision, but I have to say that after having my first child I understand it a lot better. I know that if I thought I had to choose between having another child or two and being true to myself it would be a difficult decision to make.
also know that he seems to have truly thought that the hormones, the surgery, so on and so forth, were what made him trans, because they made him “pass,” and he places a great deal of value on female beauty (trust. me.).
Its easier to appreciate the value of something when you don’t have it.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
post mortem on someone detransitioning
A response to this
I think it is impossible to assign a label without an action like that being more common. You may have almost nothing in common with people who did things similarly. I do know of the one guy in australia who had a similar thing happened, but he was a lot unhappier as he had already went through with SRS.
But if I had to guess it has something to do with confusing masculine and feminine and male and female. A drag queen who thinks that they are a transsexual will end up generally only with unhappiness.
I haven’t had much communication with him about since shortly before he decided to revert back to his birth gender, so I am not sure what the exact reasoning was behind it, except that the hormones were expensive, and I think he was worried about what impact this may have on our son - which was never a concern for me;
I think this is more an issue with the idea that hormones and SRS are the end all be all behind transitioning.
Being transgendered is in my opinion fundamentally a matter of your instincts not matching up with your body and way society treats you.
Among older people transitioning isn’t nearly as easy, effective, or even as useful. Because instincts change as you get older and have children.
I think it is impossible to assign a label without an action like that being more common. You may have almost nothing in common with people who did things similarly. I do know of the one guy in australia who had a similar thing happened, but he was a lot unhappier as he had already went through with SRS.
But if I had to guess it has something to do with confusing masculine and feminine and male and female. A drag queen who thinks that they are a transsexual will end up generally only with unhappiness.
I haven’t had much communication with him about since shortly before he decided to revert back to his birth gender, so I am not sure what the exact reasoning was behind it, except that the hormones were expensive, and I think he was worried about what impact this may have on our son - which was never a concern for me;
I think this is more an issue with the idea that hormones and SRS are the end all be all behind transitioning.
Being transgendered is in my opinion fundamentally a matter of your instincts not matching up with your body and way society treats you.
Among older people transitioning isn’t nearly as easy, effective, or even as useful. Because instincts change as you get older and have children.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Everything on the table in cuba
Cuba opening up
Its interesting to see cuba opening up. My guess is that the combination of the castros failing health and Obama getting elected were too much for them. They want to leave behind a legacy and Obama is the absolute perfect person for them to negotiate with.
Its interesting to see cuba opening up. My guess is that the combination of the castros failing health and Obama getting elected were too much for them. They want to leave behind a legacy and Obama is the absolute perfect person for them to negotiate with.
About detransitioning
A posting on detransitioning
The RLE aspect–the idea that there are tests to pass, results to collect–may have had negative rather than positive effects. While it may help people see and process their doubts and fallacies, it may also teach them to suppress them for fear that they will be unfairly delayed. If uncertainty means that you’re not really transsexual, well, maybe you just won’t be uncertain anymore.
I think this makes a fairly good point. We recognize the usefulness of a RLE, but what we don’t recognize is whether or not the current RLE is worth anything. The RLE shouldn’t currently be a binding authority. It should inform rather than decide.
Its important to remember that the RLE is currently only a hypothesis. As far as I know there are zero medical studies stating its effectiveness.
I personally didn’t have to go through any sort of RLE. I just had to show that I wasn’t crazy and was committed for six months.
That has its own issues because you get fakes who just want to convince you not to transition, but who wont tell you that until you have given them a bit of money.
It also creates a sort of ordeal-dynamic for the natural feelings of loss and gut-liquifying terror that accompany a change of this order. They become important, but perhaps not in the right way.
To me a future where I didn’t transition was a blank emptiness. There was no such future. So I had no reason to be afraid or to feel any loss because of it aside from normal worries like fitting in. It wasn’t really “transition or death”. Its more like “transition or something unthinkable”
Even now after transition though I still occasionally wonder if I made the right choice. When I think about it I can logically think about the health and other worries and compare. However the idea of living as a man is still something my mind can’t process on an emotional level.
So for me if I had to guess at an effective “nonbinding transgender evaluation” it would be on whether you have logical reasons for transition and emotional fears. Then you could follow up with the people who have been through it and if they are still content with their decision several years down the road you could say that it is worth something.
The RLE aspect–the idea that there are tests to pass, results to collect–may have had negative rather than positive effects. While it may help people see and process their doubts and fallacies, it may also teach them to suppress them for fear that they will be unfairly delayed. If uncertainty means that you’re not really transsexual, well, maybe you just won’t be uncertain anymore.
I think this makes a fairly good point. We recognize the usefulness of a RLE, but what we don’t recognize is whether or not the current RLE is worth anything. The RLE shouldn’t currently be a binding authority. It should inform rather than decide.
Its important to remember that the RLE is currently only a hypothesis. As far as I know there are zero medical studies stating its effectiveness.
I personally didn’t have to go through any sort of RLE. I just had to show that I wasn’t crazy and was committed for six months.
That has its own issues because you get fakes who just want to convince you not to transition, but who wont tell you that until you have given them a bit of money.
It also creates a sort of ordeal-dynamic for the natural feelings of loss and gut-liquifying terror that accompany a change of this order. They become important, but perhaps not in the right way.
To me a future where I didn’t transition was a blank emptiness. There was no such future. So I had no reason to be afraid or to feel any loss because of it aside from normal worries like fitting in. It wasn’t really “transition or death”. Its more like “transition or something unthinkable”
Even now after transition though I still occasionally wonder if I made the right choice. When I think about it I can logically think about the health and other worries and compare. However the idea of living as a man is still something my mind can’t process on an emotional level.
So for me if I had to guess at an effective “nonbinding transgender evaluation” it would be on whether you have logical reasons for transition and emotional fears. Then you could follow up with the people who have been through it and if they are still content with their decision several years down the road you could say that it is worth something.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Transformative change vs incrementalism
This is a comment on Nate silver's political disagreements with sirota
There is the logical leap from "no corporate power" to "state socialism" and the whole emphasis on it.
That being said what I think Nate was getting at is that there are reasons to despise transformative change beyond the whole soviet canard.
To make a programming comparison there is an essay out about the cathedral and the bazzar at The cathedral and the bazzar
The point it makes is that incremental solutions deal much better with bugs. And the same applies to policy as law is just software on humans.
Fundamentally I don't trust transformative change because it does not rigorously test every element of its plan for usability, efficiency, and so on before moving to the next step.
I think that incrementalism is the real populist position. Transformative change is much more likely to come from CEOs and dictators rather than a democracy.
To make a corporate comparison
If you look at google the reason why they can put out so many great and solid products is because they embrace the incrementalist mindset. They don't give their engineers direction and if something bubbles up and becomes popular more people can work on it and produce a better more solid product.
Whereas microsoft embraces the transformative mindset. The process is locked down and resistant to input so the leader of the team can execute their goals. The problems are that they generally release bug filled products that execute a singular vision by people who have little ability to change the product for the better.
There is the logical leap from "no corporate power" to "state socialism" and the whole emphasis on it.
That being said what I think Nate was getting at is that there are reasons to despise transformative change beyond the whole soviet canard.
To make a programming comparison there is an essay out about the cathedral and the bazzar at The cathedral and the bazzar
The point it makes is that incremental solutions deal much better with bugs. And the same applies to policy as law is just software on humans.
Fundamentally I don't trust transformative change because it does not rigorously test every element of its plan for usability, efficiency, and so on before moving to the next step.
I think that incrementalism is the real populist position. Transformative change is much more likely to come from CEOs and dictators rather than a democracy.
To make a corporate comparison
If you look at google the reason why they can put out so many great and solid products is because they embrace the incrementalist mindset. They don't give their engineers direction and if something bubbles up and becomes popular more people can work on it and produce a better more solid product.
Whereas microsoft embraces the transformative mindset. The process is locked down and resistant to input so the leader of the team can execute their goals. The problems are that they generally release bug filled products that execute a singular vision by people who have little ability to change the product for the better.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
A divide amongst the liberal blogs
The Obama supporters have a view of the world where the people are basically good and failures come primarily from miscommunications, incompetence, and stupidity.
The obama criticizers have a much more good and evil religiously based view of the world. To them the first group are religious zealots who support people based on charisma or unthinking irrationality.
So the first group basically trusts Obama and assume that the request is primarily so that Obama can do it right. The second group basically doesn't and assumes that the request is so that Obama can be Bush 2.0
The request that the first group makes is not that you should support things that you don't like. It is a request for you to see the world in a less binary good and evil manner
Now to be fair that might not entirely be a good thing. I think the latter view is probably more effective at organizing and mobilizing because it is based on simpler principles. A wait and see attitude does not translate into hits on a blog after all.
And I think while we criticize you we do think that you provide a helpful counterbalance to the right. But we don't agree and we aren't going to act like we do agree. We think that you might be too apt to ignore the importance of things like experience and skill.
The obama criticizers have a much more good and evil religiously based view of the world. To them the first group are religious zealots who support people based on charisma or unthinking irrationality.
So the first group basically trusts Obama and assume that the request is primarily so that Obama can do it right. The second group basically doesn't and assumes that the request is so that Obama can be Bush 2.0
The request that the first group makes is not that you should support things that you don't like. It is a request for you to see the world in a less binary good and evil manner
Now to be fair that might not entirely be a good thing. I think the latter view is probably more effective at organizing and mobilizing because it is based on simpler principles. A wait and see attitude does not translate into hits on a blog after all.
And I think while we criticize you we do think that you provide a helpful counterbalance to the right. But we don't agree and we aren't going to act like we do agree. We think that you might be too apt to ignore the importance of things like experience and skill.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Suffering does not make you more moral
I was reading http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/BA2N155CN1.DTL and thinking about Gaza and I had to post a thought that I had been thinking about for a while.
Suffering does not make you more moral. The rockets Gaza fires at Israel are wrong and riots are wrong.
They are an expression of rage.
When you suffer it is easy to justify making other people suffer too. But that makes hurting others no less immoral. And generally the targets of your reprisals are random or loved ones.
Such rage and hate is a natural response. But it is not a good response.
Suffering does not make you more moral. The rockets Gaza fires at Israel are wrong and riots are wrong.
They are an expression of rage.
When you suffer it is easy to justify making other people suffer too. But that makes hurting others no less immoral. And generally the targets of your reprisals are random or loved ones.
Such rage and hate is a natural response. But it is not a good response.
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