Musings from my everyday life...

I was prepared to go into a long discussion about my trans history but then it never happened.

I was at the Starbucks and Alex (the early twenties trans woman) had just finished her shift and wanted to chat with me. So, she sat down and we began talking about generalities neither one of us acknowledging we were transgender.

I wasn’t sure whether she suspected but then she began saying things that made me sure she didn’t. I was then sure I was the older lady and not the other trans woman. We talked about being yourself and having confidence and I sensed that she has more of it than I had at the same age.

Suddenly she talked about coming out to her parents in her mid-teens and them having a tough time with it but then coming around. She is funny and philosophical and easy with a laugh. At the end of our conversation she told me that I was a very nice lady and I thanked her. I felt I didn’t need to go down that other rabbit hole now.

She has her whole life ahead of her with the advantag…

I was in the Urban Outfitters store recently and happened upon the fitting room area.

Lo and behold there was a sign that very much caught my attention and I just had to take a picture. It was an indication that we might be advancing as a species.

Those stuffy "Christian Conservatives" (an oxymoron if there ever was one) who spend their time creating bathroom bills and feigning indignation can put that in their pipe and smoke it because the connection between being transgender and immoral makes sense only to them.

Kudos Urban Outfitters for being a hip and enlightened store!

Rachel Flowers was born in 1993 and is a virtuoso multi instrumentalist. Here she is playing Keith Emerson's "The endless Enigma" from ELP's 1971's Trilogy album.

Sadly Keith Emerson took his own life last year after many years of struggling with depression and suffering from a debilitating nerve disease which was taking away his ability to play. He was one of my keyboard heroes.

So I was awestruck when I saw this performance not only because Rachel is blind but because eyesight or not she is an extraordinarily talented performer. This is one difficult piece of music to play and she does Keith more than justice. Bravo Rachel!

I wrote yesterday about critical thinking and one important aspect of this is perspective.

Think of Einstein’s law of relativity where your vision is affected by where you sit on some frame of reference. Say you are riding a moving train and the only way you know you are moving rapidly is looking out the window but someone standing on the ground just sees a rail car whiz by them at 100 km/hr.

We don’t own objective perspective because we sit on our own subjective plain which hampers objectivity. So when a transgender person first discovers themselves they are sitting on a plain that doesn't correlate with what their brain is telling them. There is a disconnect between the observable world around them and how they are feeling inside and that disconnect doesn’t get repaired until that gap is addressed somehow.

The only way out is to reframe the reality around them that tells them there is something wrong with them. It prevents their self realization because much of what they have b…

None of us owns any true perspective and the reason is because we are all very much the product of biased indoctrination received during a period in our lives when we could not adequately discern and distinguish between truth or falsehood. The rest of our lives are then spent relearning things with a more complete set of tools but with the disadvantage of needing to jettison many of the untruths we accepted as gospel.

This is why I believe that to stop reflecting and questioning at any age is akin to atrophying the mind.

I personally had to work very hard to overcome ideas I had ingested and, although I had a rational mind, I couldn’t get past certain hurdles as to how I thought the world was supposed to work. It is why I am so concerned about false dogmas today and people’s abilities to delude themselves into rigid thinking which is either hurtful to others or to themselves.

When something is lodged so forcefully in ones psyche it often very difficult to remove; just think about the …

Stefanie Pest can consider herself very lucky to have such a supportive partner and family.

Most of the people I know (myself included) saw their marriages evaporate in part or entirely due to their transgender nature. She is almost my age and is now living the way she needs to.

But regardless of support you need to be who you are don't you think?....

http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/it-takes-time-and-love-transgender-woman-had-support-of-wife-and-family-but-not-all-so-lucky

One of Anthony Phillips's short little masterpieces with a beautiful flute bridge. This song has haunted me for years because it so melancholy and powerful.

It's from his 1978 "Geese and the Ghost" album with guest vocalist Phil Collins....

God If I saw her now

"Rest your head my love;
Rest your tired limbs;
Leave your mind at peace, at peace, at peace
What are you thinking now?"

"Thinking of a girl
As golden as the sun
She loved me not like you, like you, like you"
"Pray do you love me more?"

"It's hard to say for sure
A child, sixteen, was I
Both virgins did we buy, we buy, we buy"
"You loved her more than me"

"She left me one dark night
She took my heart for free
I've seen her not since then, since then, since then
God if I saw her now."

I know that for a very long time I fell prey to the failed man syndrome and it took me many years to shed it. It involves blaming yourself for your own dysphoria and subsequently being unable to measure up to a model of masculinity that was preordained through your parenting and society's influence.

That you have not measured up to a standard can be one of the worst things that can befall a male born child in this world. So much emphasis is placed on this metric that it is the source of much distress even among non transgender males. I was very good at the role and able to escape any detection but it wasn't at all easy to keep my deep dark secret.

Today, hyper masculinity has been the new response among the alt right white males who decry a world full of political correctness and emasculation as women find new places in society without the same reliance on males. The new chest beating has even taken the form of aggression against foreigners who would threaten white male identi…

I was in the Erin Mills shopping center recently and at my usual coffee spot. The woman ahead of me turns around and says "Oh hi!"

It takes me a moment but then I say

"Where do you work again?" Trying to recall where I have seen her.

"At the Sears that's where I've seen you. You know we're closing right?"

"Yes I do, I'm sorry to hear that"

"It's a blessing in disguise my dear. I needed an excuse for a change and may I say you are so well put together. I love your makeup"

I thanked her profusely and then we spoke for several more minutes before parting ways.

Not five minutes later making my way with a coffee in hand two little girls dressed in princess dresses almost barrel into my knees. They couldn't have been older than 6 and 4.

"Watch the lady" the mother scolds.

"She is so cute" I told the mother pointing at the youngest scrambling to get up..

"Actually that's my son and he likes…

How did the two American parties get so divided on transgender rights?

Well, when you end up segregating people by ideology you virtually guarantee it and with only two major parties you facilitate the building of coalitions over things like religion, LGBT rights and gun control. Hence it’s become the rural right against the urban left locked in ideological battles over these kinds of issues.

80% of Republicans do not believe there is such thing as being transgender while a healthy majority of Democrats do. It also won’t surprise you that the credibility of transgender people improves with the level of education of the voter. This is more true in the Democratic party than in the Republican party which contains more hard line ideologues; for them it is dogmatic conservatism that drives their thinking.

Divide and conquer by wedge issues wasn’t always so prevalent and Republican voters who are libertarians have been left with little choice but to align with a party that increasingly does…

A reader of the delawareonline newspaper writes a simple letter to the editor admonishing another letter writer who fretted about children being exposed to transgender children in the school locker room:

"A letter writer in Friday's paper is upset over regulations for transgender children using locker rooms and the trauma it presents to cisgendered children.

May I suggest she speak to her children on the issue? Her children may surprise her and may even educate her.

A transgender child is the gender of the locker room and the bathroom they are in. Most people understand this. Perhaps if the letter writer would take the time to do some research instead of relying on prejudices, she would understand as well.

Education is key to understanding complex issues.

Children are not born hating others. Hate is taught by words, actions or deeds.

A child's mind is open to learning. An adult's closed mind is not.

We have to learn and understand that everything is not black …