Musings from my everyday life...

Transgender woman and activist Julia Serano is absolutely correct.

By using the term Autogynephilia you are giving it weight, substance and validation. Her reasoning is the same as mine: that there is a distinction between acknowledging the erotic overtones experienced by the gynephilic male to female crossdreamer or transgender person and what this word is meant to fully imply which is:

1) That the arousal is a distinct narcissistic sexual orientation
2) That it is the sole driver for the desire to transition and the source of the dysphoria instead of its symptom

Both of these assertions can be easily called into question primarily because they cannot be proven and that is enough to take them out of the realm of scientifically accepted fact. When something is unproven you don't boost its credibility by merely inventing a scientific sounding term. But then science isn't exactly the strong suit of sexologists.

We have made this type of error before with Phrenology and Nymphoman…

I realize I am fortunate not to have felt compelled to modify anything. When I went to see Helene Cote (the Montreal General Gender Clinic therapist) as an outpatient a couple of years back she asked me how long I had been on hormones when I had never actually tried them. It should be noted that I was presenting as a female.

My genetics have helped me manage my dysphoria since I haven’t had to look in the mirror thinking I had to change my face or body in order to blend in reasonably well as a taller than average woman.

We know it’s not really about passing but about being left alone to be the persons we are. In the past it was about doing everything to be as close to a facsimile of a genetic woman as possible. Full blown transsexuals would disappear into the woodwork and start again in a different location where they could be treated and seen as any other woman. But in spite of their best efforts not everyone could escape detection.

Today some transgender people have refused to hide …

I am following American politics a little more closely these days. The Republican National Convention through the eyes of The Young Turks has been particularly entertaining but also disheartening in that the level of animosity and vitriol coming from the right is at an intensity I have never seen before.

There is indignation and anger because the political fault lines are no longer just about schooling, taxes or health care but more about what kind of country the United States wants to be. Do they want to be a banana republic led by flag-waving jingoistic patriots who love guns and fringe religion or one based on justice, equality for all and achieving higher goals.

While neither party holds a monopoly on perfection it seems the Democrats are a little closer to getting there except that they have made their own mistakes. By having their own insiders derail the Sanders campaign they helped remove the candidate who might have had a better shot at defeating Donald Trump. Instead they hav…

Here is a new article in the online version of TIME magazine telling us what we already knew about ourselves:

"In the last couple of decades, many medical institutions have moved away from the view that being transgender is the result of mental illness, as they previously did with homosexuality. Still, stigma persists, and some of the most influential medical bibles, including the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD), continue to categorize a transgender diagnosis as a diagnosis of mental disorder.

Now, a new study published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry adds nuance to the topic, finding that the social rejection and violence that many transgender people experience appears to be the primary source of their mental distress, as opposed to the distress being solely the result of being transgender. That distinction matters because it has implications for how transgender people are treated in a healthcare setting, as well as how they are viewed in society…