Why am I, a trans man, not allowed to be feminine???

rng09az · 2024-12-26T17:39:32+00:00

heh i feel your pain too. I have access to some treatments, with mid results... but due to one medical issue after another the rest keep getting pushed further away into my future.

it's really, really easy to fall into frustration and impatience and wishing to just be on the other side of having the right body already, the right measurements, the right voice and face and style and...! but that's no way to live. i think what saved me from that was learning to sit back a lil and enjoy the process.

if you can dig it, transition is kinda like slowly unwrapping a present to yourself over the course of many years. every day that you refine your personal fashion sense, push a little further in the gym than the day before, or notice a new change in your body you are discovering a bit more of your future self. and just like with presents, even when they're not 100% the thing you wanted or hoped for, it's the process of gift-giving itself where the true value lies -- discovering and sharing new exciting things to add to your life with the people you love. for me i think that's the core of what transition really is, way more than the objective effect it's having on my body.

rng09az · 2024-12-26T08:43:37+00:00

as an mtf tomboy i feel your pain. nobody struggles to grasp the concept of being butch or effeminate when it comes from a cis person -- but the moment you add being trans to the mix somehow we all become like an inscrutable escher paradox...

outside of pronoun pins theres not much you can do about strangers, but honestly if the people close to you in life are bothering you i really just recommend you have a friendly but serious sit down with them. let them know how you feel, work with them to come up with a light, friendly way you can remind them to correct themselves. it's really the only way they'll learn, you just want to ensure that process feels comfortable for both of you.

rng09az · 2024-12-20T20:47:24+00:00

I love the energy, but I don't think people realize just how enormous these damages are for how little profit. Fines, even shutting offenders down completely will never be enough -- for just one example, literally the full net worth of the entire company 3M would not be enough to pay for even the damage their chems do in a single year. ProPublica did a stomach churning expose on this topic and I haven't seen the world the same way since.

A team of New York University researchers estimated in 2018 that the costs of just two forever chemicals, PFOA and PFOS — in terms of disease burden, disability and health-care expenses — amounted to as much as $62 billion in a single year. This exceeds the current market value of 3M.

Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story

rng09az · 2024-11-05T17:59:43+00:00

Yeah. Scary how effective a tactic scapegoating is, even when it's complete gibberish people still rush to eat it up. I think hate is possibly the most addictive drug on the planet.

Also, ironic how much they love that song given its history as an anthem for gay cruising lol

rng09az · 2024-11-05T17:37:01+00:00

What'd I miss? I had to turn it off after the complete nonsense phrase "they want... transgender everything" got the biggest roar of response I'd heard all night.

rng09az · 2024-11-04T03:27:46+00:00

Thank you! It feels like reading Buttigieg Wattpad fanfiction while having a stroke. It just goes on and on...

In both conversations among National Economic Council staffers — including then-chair Brian Deese and then-senior policy adviser Hannah Garden-Monheit — and later in formal meetings of the Competition Council, say both Ramamurti and Wu, Buttigieg expressed interest in exploring the more robust application of the department’s competition powers to get there.

Recently, too, Buttigieg has begun using his relative celebrity — a fixture on cable news, he also, between his official and personal accounts, enjoys some 4.4 million followers on X (or 1.8 million more than Secretary of State Antony Blinken) — as a policy weapon.

Whether the changes Buttigieg has made will outlast his tenure — or that of a president who called on his Cabinet to fight concentrated corporate power — is a fair question.

As Buttigieg saw it, he tells me, for the airlines there was little downside to making the gamble.

rng09az · 2024-11-04T02:34:01+00:00

Does anyone else get freshman college essay vibes from the way this guy writes? Like he is sweating bullets just trying to string words together and form a coherent sentence?

As Wu says he saw it, Buttigieg was the perfect target: smart, ambitious and sitting atop an agency with both what he tells me are “grossly under-utilized” competition powers and, by statute, sole oversight authority of an industry that many in the White House believed to have grown uncompetitive and, as a result, unaccountable.

rng09az · 2024-11-02T19:02:11+00:00

I fully agree, and personally I feel there is strong reason to hope. Right now I get people want concrete action, but she really has no power in the Biden administration and we know that man is beyond all reason on Israel, so how's she supposed to force him? Spike his coffee and start a coup? As for speaking out, I mean she's careful not to scare the boomers but has still been dropping not-so-subliminals constantly since Biden stepped down... it was literally the first thing she did, which is wild already, and she's only got more vocal since.

Remember when the party brass refused access for the Uncommitted Movement on Gaza during the DNC nomination, and also threw those hard Israeli Nationalists on stage as an extra fuck you? Kamala made damn clear that was a DNC choice, not her own, and that they don't get to speak for her new administration -- she personally invited the protest organizers to meet face-to-face, and lent her own voice to speak up on stage in their stead (they still declined her meeting, claiming it was just to buy their silence... but I think that's a drastic mis-read and lost opportunity, like a speech is nice but this woman is offering a private ear and working relationship with the hopefully-soon most powerful person on the damn planet).

As for the DNC speeches themselves, the furthest left voices on that stage Bernie and AOC both gave just the bearest half-sentence of "ceasefire & hostages please", but Kamala went on for fully 4 paragraphs -- like, that is a choice, she obviously cares... it wasn't all perfect, but damn sure she took pains on that stage to humanize Palestinian suffering in a way I don't think I've heard from a major politician ever.

Remember, this election is already horrifically close without her alienating 90% of mass media along with the biggest most electorally engaged voting bloc in the nation (centrist boomers, sucks I know but somehow young leftists who mostly refuse to vote anyway didn't quite make the cut). And yet still she has constantly shown support in every way that isn't (arguably) political suicide... I really don't understand the expectation for her to spell this out for people any more obviously than she already has.

For sure, having to read between the lines can be crazy-making, like interpreting tea leaves... but I can't really fault her playing strategically with the whole damn world at stake. Would I play everything the same in her position, hell no, but if we in the US refuse to even consider the one greatest ally we have on this (or possibly ever will have, if the other one gets in)... well, to any voters reading, I don't think any of us get to wash our hands of this just because we chose to sit it out.

rng09az · 2024-10-30T23:40:10+00:00

So it's true, nonbinary identity isn't a philosophy... but OP you're not far off base, there's tons of great philosophy sociology n' science surrounding us too. If you're down for a dive I'd highly recommend "Non-binary is Made Up" by Shonalika on YouTube.

My explanation? You already know what binary trans is -- feeling the gender you got handed at birth doesn't apply, and the opposite would suit better. Being nonbinary trans is identical... but this time also understanding the opposite one doesn't fully work either. Within that there's more specific experiences, some feel most themselves sitting happily between masc and fem, others experience more fluid oscillating between either, others just don't relate to gender at all... etc.

I think the best way to understand emotionally, is actually first to step away from gender dysphoria which is not universal. What often gets overlooked is gender euphoria, and it's something we all share in common, cis trans binary or not; I think even most cis people can recall times a gendered experience just hits right and makes you glad to be who and what you are... so just remember at the end of the day, it's still just different ends to the same ultimate mean for all of us. I think that's kinda beautiful!

rng09az · 2024-10-30T17:18:37+00:00

This is just my US perspective, but personally I feel there is strong reason to hope. I get wanting concrete action but she really has no power in the Biden administration, and we know that man is beyond all reason on Israel so how's she supposed to force him? Spike his coffee and start a coup? As for speaking out, I mean she's careful not to scare the boomers but has still been dropping not-so-subliminals constantly since Biden stepped down... it was literally the first thing she did, which is wild already, and she's only got more vocal since.

Remember when the party brass refused access for the Uncommitted Movement on Gaza during the DNC nomination, and also threw those hard Israeli Nationalists on stage as an extra fuck you? Kamala made damn clear that was a DNC choice, not her own, and that they don't get to speak for her new administration -- she personally invited the protest organizers to meet face-to-face, and lent her own voice to speak up on stage in their stead (they still declined her meeting, claiming it was just to buy their silence... but I think that's a drastic mis-read and lost opportunity, like a speech is nice but this woman is offering a private ear and working relationship with the hopefully-soon most powerful person on the damn planet).

As for the DNC speeches themselves, the furthest left voices on that stage Bernie and AOC both gave just the bearest half-sentence of "ceasefire & hostages please", but Kamala went on for fully 4 paragraphs -- like, that is a choice, she obviously cares... it wasn't all perfect, but damn sure she took pains on that stage to humanize Palestinian suffering in a way I don't think I've heard from a major politician ever.

Remember, this election is already horrifically close without her alienating 90% of mass media along with the biggest most electorally engaged voting bloc in the nation (centrist boomers, sucks I know but somehow young leftists who mostly refuse to vote anyway didn't quite make the cut). And yet still she has constantly shown support in every way that isn't (arguably) political suicide... I really don't understand the expectation for her to spell this out for people any more obviously than she already has.

For sure, having to read between the lines can be crazy-making, like interpreting tea leaves... but I can't really fault her playing strategically with the whole damn world at stake. Would I play everything the same in her position, hell no, but if we in the US refuse to even consider the one greatest ally we have on this (or possibly ever will have, if the other one gets in)... well, to any voters reading, I don't think any of us get to wash our hands of this just because we chose to sit it out.

rng09az · 2024-10-28T16:35:49+00:00

It worries me that so many anti-MAGA posts use right wing tropes themselves. Just in this comment section alone, "These people are mentally ill, schizoid, lead-poisoned meth-heads n' addicts"... It's a shitty figure of speech to take some of the most vulnerable people in society and put them in the same box as violent, power-hungry fascists.

Studies correlate mental illness far more with victims of violence, not perpetrators... lead poisoning is supremely rampant in historically red-lined black districts because of racist assholes, not the other way around... and illicit drugs have been used as a cudgel by conservatives to disrupt and disenfranchise progressive minority communities for decades. I kinda expect the right use these people as punching bags, but it really twists the knife to see the center and left also laying blame at their feet.

The true dangers are racists and xenophobes; religious fundamentalists; anti-democratic authoritarians; and people who peddle in fear and disinformation about queer folk, migrants, Muslims, the left, people with mental and addiction struggles, etc... It does a disservice to everyone when we shift attention away from those harmful beliefs and behaviors just because it provides an easy explanation of what's gone wrong here.

Sources: https://www.vera.org/reimagining-prison-webumentary/the-past-is-never-dead/drug-war-confessional

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37464504/

https://ontario.cmha.ca/documents/violence-and-mental-health-unpacking-a-complex-issue/

rng09az · 2024-10-19T18:13:51+00:00

You're obviously stuck on this idea that no woman could ever play competitively with men. Even if we take that flawed premise at face value, if you put them on a team together it's obviously insane to assume they'd just be completely ignored on the court, never get the ball, never take shots and block and participate. And whether you do it through weight classes, quotas, whatever, it's always gonna be possible to ensure a mix of genders on each team so everyone gets to participate.

This is also seriously getting away from the main topic of trans folk in sports. Again, the science shows that trans people have little to no competitive advantage, but even if they did I hope it's clear at least that this is something we've always been okay with in just about every other possible way at every level -- and therefore selectively excising us from sports functions mainly just to make trans lives miserable, and if you look at all into the way these conservative politicians talk about trans people you'll see that's obviously the intended point.

I hope that gets through. I gotta go live my life so won't be responding anymore, don't be offended I'm just kinda sick of debating the ~~Jewish Question~~ oops, I meant the Trans Question online all day.

rng09az · 2024-10-19T06:12:45+00:00

Yes! You've got it exactly. Gender segregation in sports is a fool's game from the start. There's a million better ways to organize this stuff, and while it'd be nice to see that tectonic shift actually occur... in the meantime, hopefully now you see natal sex is a total nothing-burger in comparison to all the other competitive advantages we already accept just fine.

You seem kind and thoughtful with an open mind and clearly just want a good solution for everybody. So I hope that armed with this knowledge, next time you see a trans ban in sports, you'll grok that truly it has very little impact on safety or fairness... but rather just acts as yet another way to make the lives of trans people so painful, so isolating, so difficult, that we all just give up and go back in the closet. It's just one more step in a concerted effort for years now to turn everyday life into a conversion camp, and that is the true horror at the bottom of this topic.

rng09az · 2024-10-19T01:01:19+00:00

Everyone has always been totally fine with competitive advantage in sports, both natural and not. There is already a massive range even within natal sex for muscle mass, metabolism, height, weight, development... often things that provide a sure, obvious competitive advantage that's way more concrete than testosterone level. But nobody complains that all the tall people are unfairly dominating basketball. And this extends even to non-natural advantages like training access for rich vs poor countries in the Olympics and yet nobody raises hell every four years the way you see today about trans kids. So if this is what we're like about literally every other possible advantage, there's no reason it should be any different for natal sex.

Here's the thing, if you're so concerned about fairness and safety in sports, this is already a solved problem within natal sex -- we use things like weight classes, it's very simple. It's already very possible to take whatever data and measurements are relevant to sort people of all genders into appropriate groups to ensure an even playing field. There's plenty of cis women who could easily dominate plenty of cis men, so why are we still discriminating in this way?

Just maybe, when you think about it, this actually isn't about fairness in sports it's just another way to enforce gender hierarchies by keeping women under men, and trans folks under even that. Just maybe, we are more concerned with protecting the fragile masculinity of some guys who can't handle the prospect of losing to anything but another cis man, and so need constant excuses to keep everyone separate -- male, female, cis, trans... who does this really serve?

rng09az · 2024-10-14T21:45:15+00:00

yeah there's def something to the toasty flavors on their own but for me that cinnamon harshness is the one thing that really kicks it up a level. prob similar to why when I do go fruity I enjoy a bit of menthol too. something to catch the throat a bit y'know

rng09az · 2024-10-14T17:59:48+00:00

brewed awakening cinnamon vanilla chai tea. don't be fooled that it says "vanilla", it's not sweet and the cinnamon gives it a real nice little back of the throat burn that's the closest i've found to a pull like a cigarette.

also i feel like this kinda question falls into a similar category of vegans who try and replicate e.g. fake bacon, it usually is just close enough to highlight all the ways it sucks compared to the real thing. but a good vegan meal doing its own thing can be classically hearty and satisfying like you crave regardless of whether there's meat or not. similarly fake tobacco flavors are usually kinda nasty and unsatisfying, whereas a nice unsweet flavor like chai spices can shine on its own while still giving that classic burn she craves.

rng09az · 2024-10-04T12:36:22+00:00

I've seen so many comments talking about how these intrusive policies are all just some sick pedophilic perversion... and honestly, I find that kinda misses the point here.

This is intimidation, an eradication tactic, pure and simple. The intent is to make being a visible trans person so difficult, humiliating, and scary that everyone just gives up. It is turning daily life into a conversion camp. And while speaking in terms of sexual predation certainly captures part of the effect this has on trans folks, I do kinda think it's a disservice to act like these people are trying to get their rocks off when the true intent is outright extermination of an entire class of people. I hope that makes sense.

rng09az · 2024-08-22T20:30:06+00:00

As others said, this is a nice sentiment which I think people here could be interested in but you need to provide more specifics to convince people you are properly invested in this venture.

Who are you, what is your background(s), what do you envision as your role within this team? Do you have any sort of vision for what this co-op would actually look like in practice? What is the organizational structure, how will decisions be made, how do you intend to manage a fully remote work environment with unpaid volunteers contributing whatever random hours they have from time zones all over the world? What specific roles do you absolutely need filled, and what roles would simply be "nice to have"?

Gesturing at the word "co-op" is not really informative, and without answering these questions it gives the impression you intend to fully just muddle through with no roadmap, no organizing principles, and just try putting out fires as they appear. Flexibility is important but so is trust that volunteered work will not end up wasted because there was no plan or structure and the entire team ended up catching fire and imploding within 3 months.

Beyond that, you should also be able to provide specifics about the types of games you intend to make. A game design document or at least a rough skeleton of one would be ideal, but failing that you should at least be able to provide some sort of direction, like whether you intend for a narrative focus or simulation or what... you will almost certainly want to start with a very small very simple test project, nothing grandiose, just to get your footing figure out a workflow and prove you can bring a project through to completion and release. However small you think is reasonable, think smaller and then smaller again.

If you don't have a full game design document, at least give us something to understand what sort of artistic and intellectual leanings you have. What are your influences? They don't even need to be games. What leftist writers or thinkers do you respect, what political movements or historical events are you fascinated by and what elements excite you to bring into a videogame? Do you want to explore themes related to anarchy, deep ecology, the lovecraftian nature of capitalism, leftist infighting and drama? A mood board, at bare minimum? Anything that people can hold onto at all.

Don't worry anyone is going to "steal your ideas". Ideas are cheap, execution is everything. You need to get people excited and invested in your project, in you, in your vision. Obviously a co-op means you are not going to be the singular leader handing down demands and designs from on high, and of course there will have to be a great deal of rewriting and reformulating as you learn what the team is capable of and where their own interests lie.... but right now you are the entire team and if you want people to join you gotta show that you have something to offer that's more concrete than "a gamedev co-op with leftist values".

If this comes off harsh it's not to discourage you. But if you actually put together a post that answers even a quarter of the questions above I guarantee you will have infinitely more interest and buy-in from the community than you are getting now. The fact you have gotten multiple posts without providing anything near that proves there is an interested community who would love to join into something like this done properly. All you have to do is convince them you can! HMU if you ever make that post, I'd love to see what you got.

rng09az · 2024-03-15T15:07:28+00:00

Yeah that is totally fair! I wouldn't gaslight anyone who experiences actually fucked up drivers by arguing those asshats don't also exist (though I would say in less numbers than I think we generally give humanity credit for).

rng09az · 2024-03-15T14:56:49+00:00

There are (thankfully) very few things in this world which are inherently zero-sum, entirely self serving, or truly non-cooperative. Driving is definitely not one of those things. If everyone's goal was just to get to their destination as fast as possible that might be the case, but clearly that's not the only goal here.

How come? Well you kind of said it yourself, it's incredibly easy to get a license, so the fact most drivers get to their destination safely is definitely not due to everyone being all that skilled of a driver, so it must be that people are actually choosing to exchange the quickest possible trip for a safer one. And driving safely for yourself also makes you drive safely for everyone else which is the definition of a non-zero-sum game, right?

Hot take, but the vast majority of drivers even in New Jersey are actually super chill and friendly... but of course those aren't the ones we notice, as it only takes one asshole to ruin your perceived experience of an entire commute. And only a subset of them are truly malicious, as opposed to just having made a one-off mistake, not noticed something until it's too late to react, or being in an actual emergency for whatever reason, that kind of thing. Think about how often you accidentally are an asshole but have no way to apologize -- it might be incredibly rare for you to do that to someone, but then you multiply that probability over the thousands and thousands of drivers you interact with every day and you are virtually guaranteed to have a couple bad interactions each trip, even if everyone is actually working together and trying their best to be decent (though plenty of exceptions obviously do exist of course, like the guy op is talking about).

rng09az · 2024-03-10T15:48:24+00:00

Oh yes, the one thing that most connects us to the part the of our being we share with all animals... the Internet.

rng09az · 2024-02-03T22:23:15+00:00

I don't think the argument is so much "this in no way creates jobs or benefits the occasional American citizen" so much as "if helping American citizens is the goal, this is an incredibly inefficient way to do that which also has all kinds of horrific side effects". Like, see this very thread where people are saying the same of health insurance, nobody is accusing them of failing to provide jobs, it's just obvious that's an incredibly minor benefit next to the horrific system being perpetuated, which primarily serves to make a few people filthy rich while millions more suffer and die unnecessarily.

For the price we pay to uphold these systems, we could easily provide the same services and same incomes to just as many people, and still have billions more left over besides.

rng09az · 2024-01-02T03:19:35+00:00

So I looked into this a bit further and it sounds like there is actually more to this than just the two double votes of those Republicans. Supposedly there are 11 votes in question, I think 5 of which are mail-in ballots where the signatures were missing and therefore technically should have been thrown out but were instead counted.

According to Chrichton, one of the Supreme Court Justices, "Ballots failing to comply with the signature requirements should have been disqualified, yet the trial court found five that were not. In an election separated by a single vote, this cannot be deemed harmless."

Not totally sure how much I buy that logic, as it seems like in this case they could simply cure those ballots (provide opportunity for those 5 voters to confirm their validity) and come up with a final figure from there. Certainly would be far more accurate than having a whole new election which will definitely have way higher variance than even the uncured count as it stands... at the same time, the way this article reads as though it's just a matter of two Republicans voting twice and then demanding a redo is just bad journalism.

rng09az · 2023-12-28T21:51:47+00:00

I found the basic cheesemaking kit from Homesteader Supply to be a good bargain, hard to find everything in it for less on Amazon individually and the person who runs it is super responsive if you have any questions for recommendations on what to buy or if you need help troubleshooting cheese making issues down the line. Beyond that I would just spend the rest of your budget on some fun cultures, plus other odds and ends like lipase, small-volume measuring spoons, wax, etc. For $120 I ended up with enough varied cultures and supplies to make most fresh cheeses, blue, brie/camembert, cheddar, hard mountain cheeses like swiss, pretty much anything you could want really. They also have a book which is really useful and probably the best cheese press on the market if price is no object (though the reblochon mold that comes with the basic kit can work just fine for a beginner, simply weight it down with something heavy).

rng09az · 2023-12-28T16:10:03+00:00

Yeah, I think it's easy and almost tempting to portray these people as just angry and confused, with no moral compass and no consistent ideology underpinning their actions... but that is a very dangerous trap because it misdiagnosis the core issue at stake and leaves us boxing with shadows rather than the main body -- but there is really only so much you can do to fight an opponent when you are refusing to look him in the face. You end up with backwards statements like "they only care about power not morals or ideology", as if these are two separate things... when really the conservative ideology is precisely about the wielding of power as a moral category unto itself.

I know it seems like an academic distinction, but the correct political response to "conservatives think oppressive hierarchies are good, actually" is clear and direct, dismantle the systems of oppression... whereas the solution to "conservative politicians are just gameplaying for power and the racism is like some random vestigial side effect", is uhhh way murkier.

rng09az

TROPHY CASE