And yet you’re doing harm…

It was ten, maybe fifteen years ago, when I saw the ad in our lobby asking for volunteers to join the community group. I figured it would be a chance to meet my neighbours and to help find ideas to improve our community. The only one anywhere near my age was Christine. In our first meeting, the current president took an instant dislike of her. I have never seen someone hate someone else so fast. He announced it was him or Christine in the group. We both took the attitude of, oh well, his choice. That was definitely a “you problem”. Then he left. Immediately everyone else left too because “it just wouldn’t be the same without him”. Talk about welcome to the group! Christine and I persevered and worked on a bunch of ideas. A newsletter, a blog… we started looking into community gardens and spent an afternoon with an animal enforcement agent looking at dog turds in varying states of decay. The property manager claimed all the dog waste had been picked up the day before. We looked at a piles of waste that were growing mould and called his bluff.

The two of us clicked. Each time we were together we laughed and joked around. Then we added each other on Facebook. It wasn’t Facebook’s fault, I just got a chance to see a different side of her. A side that believed in con-trails, micro-chipping unsuspecting civilians, and poisoning vaccines so “Big Pharma” could sell more medication. Even then I could have probably ignored the posts except she was determined to have me see the light and not be a sheep. So she started tagging me in various articles and wouldn’t stop.

Once she sent me an article that had me raising my eyebrows so much I was surprised they weren’t on my scalp. But every claim it made had a credit, complete with a link. And, well, I always check the links. Then I was just plain sad. Every single link went to a paper that completely disagreed with the shared article.

Every. Single. One. Of. Them

They knew their audience. Those self proclaimed lions who were so much smarter than the sheep who refused to see the truth. They knew those “lions” would never click the links. That they would blindly follow anything the alternate media told them. Spoon fed by people selling them expensive crystals, space mushrooms, and coffee enemas (pro tip, it’s supposed to go in the opposite end).

And misinformation continues to tumble through our lives. From mis-attributed quotes to AI art being passed off as the real deal (sometimes to the point of being sold as real), most of that internet flotsam is easy to research. But many don’t. They trust the person who shared the information with them (who trusted the person they got the information from), or they’ve heard it before so many times that it’s been hammered in as true, or they simply don’t have the time or energy. And most of the time the info doesn’t really matter. I mean Plato is very much past the point of caring if someone else had one of his quotes attributed to them. But sometimes it matters so very much and the consequences can be life threatening.

I can’t remember exactly when it started, a year or so ago(ish), but suddenly everyone who supported transgender children (or any of the rest of the LGBTQIA2S spectrum) was a groomer, which showed that a whole whack of people have no idea what “groomer” actually means. It felt awful having those accusations thrown at me but I’ve dealt with bullies before so didn’t back away. Obviously I wasn’t alone. Their campaign was patently not working so whomever has been sharing the misinformation changed tactics. Suddenly they’re there for the children… watching out for them. They know what’s best for trans and queer children even over and above their parents, which is doubly ironic considering their rallying cry is “it’s my job to raise my children… you can’t teach them age appropriate sex ed and real, quantifiable proven history and science”. And what’s best for the children is absolutely no medical attention regarding transgender issues at all. Besides, all the multiple studies done over the past few decades are apparently wrong.

An article popped into my curated list of news. I guess the AI caught that I’m interested in queer issues and missed that I’m not interested in anti-queer issues. The writer, an Alberta endocrinologist named Dr. Roy Eappen, is another “I know best for the children and much better than their parents” type of guy. He is also pretty damn transphobic although I’m not entirely sure he knows this. Eappen proudly supports the “Do No Harm” organization, right down to placing their contact information at the end of his article. I went and took a peek.

The group, Do No Harm, started out with good intentions as an anti-racism organization then quickly devolved into, as Wikipedia put it, a “group that opposes gender-affirming care and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in medicine and medical education. The group assists state legislatures in attempts to ban gender-affirming care for youth.”

I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise since they started out as “a group [that] was formed to “[protect] patients and physicians from woke healthcare””

Isn’t it funny how racism, sexism, and queerphobia all travel together like the three muskateers. A little bundle of hate all wrapped up in self-righteousness.

Image by Raw Pixel

And Dr. Roy Eappen, is in the thick of it. His article is so smarmy and written in such an unctuous tone that I wanted to reach through my monitor and give him a good shake. He started off by praising his province of Alberta and the premier Danielle Smith for the common sense and science she has shown by protecting children from invasive and irreversible medical procedures. I understand that taking hormones changes the body. But know what else causes irreversible changes? Puberty. For an example of puberty and how the body changes, I give you my son Colin (not literally though, just metaphorically). You’d have to remove him and 18 computers from his apartment and, well, nobody’s got time for that.

When Colin was a child everyone from store clerks to bus drivers to, well, as I said everyone, assumed Colin was female. Even with a crew cut and wearing a Tonka shirt I’d get, “What a sweetie! She’s so pretty! What’s her name?” Which made telling them “Colin” that much more awkward. Now he’s a massive 6ft1in man, complete with a huge, curly beard. I doubt anyone mistakes him for a girl these days. That’s what puberty does and it’s irreversible for the most part, unless you can afford plastic surgery and a lot of electrolysis.

Eappen states that, “Last month the World Health Organization (WHO) declined to issue guidelines for transgender procedures for children on the grounds that “the evidence base… is limited and variable when it comes to longer-term outcomes”. He gleefully announces that “limited and variable” must mean they think there’s no proof that medical intervention helps and that some children suffer. I think that’s a huge stretch and since I have Google I can go to the WHO’s website myself and see what they have to say.

The WHO (and I can’t be the only one whose mind goes to the rock group first) has much to say about transgender children and teens and, as far as I can tell, none of the words were “limited and variable”. For starters, this is what they have to say about transgender (or gender incongruent) children:

Gender incongruence of childhood is characterised by a marked incongruence between an individual’s experienced/expressed gender and the assigned sex in pre-pubertal children. It includes a strong desire to be a different gender than the assigned sex; a strong dislike on the child’s part of his or her sexual anatomy or anticipated secondary sex characteristics and/or a strong desire for the primary and/or anticipated secondary sex characteristics that match the experienced gender; and make-believe or fantasy play, toys, games, or activities and playmates that are typical of the experienced gender rather than the assigned sex. The incongruence must have persisted for about 2 years. Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnosis.

I also found this quote about how “gender-affirmative health care can include any single or combination of a number of social, psychological, behavioural or medical (including hormonal treatment or surgery) interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity” and this one:

Gender Incongruence of Adolescence and Adulthood is characterised by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex, which often leads to a desire to ‘transition’, in order to live and be accepted as a person of the experienced gender, through hormonal treatment, surgery or other health care services to make the individual’s body align, as much as desired and to the extent possible, with the experienced gender. The diagnosis cannot be assigned prior the onset of puberty. Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnosis.

Eappen moves on to other statistics regarding transgender teenagers while claiming that people who support trans teens are, in fact, homophobic, which is so ironic because judging by my friends, a whole swathe of the trans community are gay, lesbian, or bi/pan. I know that isn’t an official double blind study. I also know I’ve seen it mentioned quite a few times (or umpteen dozen if you want numbers). Eappen claims that two thirds of boys who started out as transgender ended up as gay and that clinicians at England’s main treatment centre (which has since been closed) joked that puberty blockers were “transing the gay away”. Sadly the information regarding that study is behind a paywall and one solitary article was the only one reporting on it. He pontificates that “about 80% of all children who believe themselves to be transgender eventually come to terms with their sex without surgical or pharmaceutical attention” following that up with, “the worst thing we could do is prevent them from discovering who they really are by pushing them down the road of irreversible medical interventions”.

I have to wonder how many of those children simply gave up on being heard and eventually said what they knew the adults they’re communicating with want to hear. And how many of those children transitioned as adults. I also want to know where he got that information from. Eighty percent is a really freaking large amount. So I searched some more found this bit of information from the American Academy of Pediatrics:

The overall rate of retransition was 7.3%. An average of 5.37 years (SD = 1.74 years) after their initial binary social transition, most participants were living as binary transgender youth (94.0%; Table 2). Included in this group were 4 individuals (1.3% of the total sample) who retransitioned twice (to nonbinary then back to binary transgender). Some youth (3.5%) were currently living as nonbinary, including one who had retransitioned first to cisgender then to nonbinary. Finally, 2.5% were using pronouns associated with their sex at birth and could be categorized as cisgender at the time of data collection, including one who first retransitioned to live as nonbinary. Similar percentages were observed when examining the 291 youth who were in touch with the research team in the past 2 years (Table 2), when examining only those 280 youth who had not begun puberty blockers at the start of the study (Table 3), or if we examine only the 200 youth who had gone at least 5 years since their initial transition (Table 3).

That’s so far removed from what Eappen said I find it hard to believe they’re in the same galaxy. Eighty percent versus 2.5%. I mean I’m bad at math but not that bad! Unless he got that information via Tavistock, which was closed due to shoddy record keeping among other issues. In case you’re curious about Tavistock I found this bit of information through an article by Hannah Barnes from BBC’s Newsnight:

In March 2022, an independent report commissioned by Britain’s National Health Service found that the type of care provided at Tavistock was, quote, ‘Not safe or viable as a long-term option for the care of young people with gender related distress.’ It also found that the center had not used customary control measures that are typically in place when new treatments are introduced. Nor had the centre collected consistent data on its patients and treatments.

As for the trans girls in his study, how about did that go? Did the two thirds of the teens simply shrug their metaphorical shoulders and say, “Welp, I guess I’m gay.” That’s a huge amount of teenagers simply changing their minds. Where are all the other studies confirming this? And why are those birds chirping? Maybe it’s the chirping heard when everything else is silent. Maybe his confirmation bias study is the only one.

But, seriously, the reason why that study had so many subjects detransion is because every subject that they lost track of were counted as detransitioning. Shoddy paperwork does not mean your subjects are cisgender. And yet people still act like it’s trustworthy, like Eappen. It’s been shown that intelligent people are more likely to believe fake information because they know they’re smart and are positive they can spot the erroneous or misleading information. Here’s a short video about it:

I had almost finished collecting the information for this post when an article popped up in my newsfeed. An article about Nex Benedict. Nex, who used they/them pronouns at home and he/him pronouns at school, was a 16 year old non-binary student. He’s been described as intelligent and a straight A student, a talented artist, and an animal lover (especially his cat Zeus).

Oklahoma is a transphobic state. They’ve currently got 54 bills that try to restrict the LGBTQIA2S community with healthcare, being included at school, and the freedom to express themselves. They’ve already created a bathroom ban, forcing everyone into the washroom of their assigned gender at birth. Which is why Nex and his friend were heading into the women’s washroom. He was in a school disciplinary course (detention) along with three teenage girls he really didn’t know and they were mocking him and his friends for their clothing choices. When the girls entered the washroom, Nex spashed them with his water bottle and they proceeded to dogpile him and beat the shit out of him. Right up to bashing his head several times on the concrete floor. He blanked out for a bit. The school has pointed out that all the students walked to the nurses office under their own power several times, neglecting to mention that Nex walked there like he was inebriated and walking a roadside sobriety test. Then he and his friend were given a two week suspension, the girls received an “undisclosed punishment”.

Nex’s grandmother wanted to press charges against the girls for their unwarranted and brutal attack. She was told not to bother because Nex was the instigator and would be the one blamed. Because a bit of water is equal to beating someone to a pulp. If it was here, she’d be able to press charges. There however, it’s like a couple of four year old’s fighting in the living room, crying for their Mom because “he started it”. Sometimes it doesn’t matter a whit who started it. It’s what happened during and after that counts.

A trip to the hospital led to a diagnosis of a possible concussion then he went to bed early with a headache. And then he died in the living room the following morning. And now his family is bereft and little Zeus will never know what happened to his person.

It’s been a month since Nex died and the toxicology results have yet to be released. The Owasso police department is flopping around like a landed fish. Nex’s autopsy showed no signs of the beating being the cause of his death. Then it was too soon to tell and then a flop back. And now they’re waiting for the toxicology because they feel that “something’s going to be there”.

I read about the education superintendent, Ryan Walters, and his long list of transphobic actions. For example, last year, Walters and the rest of the educational department made a YouTube video to help end “radical gender theory” by talking about a “man” who assaulted a cisgender girl in the women’s washroom, complete with images of a crying little girl. Because nothing tugs on the heartstrings more than a stock photo. But it hit closer to home is when he called Nex’s death a tragedy then immediately went on to tell ABC that he wanted to focus on “the basics of education” and would not play “woke gender games” or back down from a “woke mob”. Feeling kind of like a martyr there Walters? People in his community are mourning Nex and Walters is busy using his death as a platform for his political view. That goes far being insensitive and uncaring.

Another example of his insensitivity is that he hired Chaya Raichik to be part of the Oklahoma Schools Library’s media advisory committee. Raichik has never lived in Oklahoma but she’s got one thing going for her, she created the queerphobic “Libs of TikTok”.

Nex had a teacher who he admired. That teacher, Tyler Wrynn, made a Tik-Tok video in support of queer and gender queer youths. Raichik used her platform to showcase him and similar teachers, stirring up a mob who sent him death threats and called him a “groomer”. He ended up resigning… for supporting his students.

Meanwhile Chaya Raichik agreed that Nex’s death was “horrible” but she also misgendered him, claimed he was mentally ill because he was trans, and stated she wanted to “eradicate gender ideology from public life.” And then there’s some walking piece of human excrement by the name of Tom Woods who, when asked about Nex, stated that he and the rest of the LGBTQIA2S community are “filth”. That’s classy, especially when you’re talking about a dead 16 year old.

These people, these politicians, they don’t seem to realize how badly they’re impacting families and children, ratcheting up the number of suicide attempts and leading to more dead children who felt unheard and unsupported. They talk about “woke ideology” and “woke mobs” and “radical gender theory”. They claim they’re there for the children. They aren’t. They claim they want to put the control back with the parents. And again they aren’t. If they were for the children, they’d ensure they never put any bills in that made a swathe of students feel hopeless. They’d realize that the more rights they take away from trans people, the more confident the general population feels in bullying and harassing the trans people in their lives. He’d realize he’s keeping medical treatments away from children which has been approved by their parents.

And I just opened a new tab to verify some information and the main article was Nex Benedict and how he’d committed suicide. The pathologist agreed there were signs of a brutal beating but it was the overdose that did him in. And I’m done, at least until tomorrow afternoon. I mean this post has taken long enough, especially since WordPress ate my entire, complete previous post and I’ve had to go back to the beginning. But now I need some space.

I’ve been suicidal before and well know the feelings of hopelessness and simply not mattering. It hurts to know he felt the same. That he looked around his world and saw more and more angry people who were against him. A school that rubber stamped approval for the other students to bully him. They even scared away his favourite teacher for supporting him and his fellow trans students. Nex had so much light to give the world and now it’s gone.

And here’s a final quote by someone with a pseudonym of Crystal who works for MSN:

With so much misinformation and panicked language floating around, it is reasonable to be concerned. Everyone wants what’s best for children.

But my suggestion would be that if you have concerns or doubts, why not have a conversation with a friend or loved one who is trans. 

And if you don’t have a trans person in your life you can speak to, perhaps you’re not in a good position to have an opinion on trans people’s rights.

Well that was, umm, interesting…

I was nearing the end of my grocery excursion when I looked at my phone and gave an inward sigh of relief. I had 25 minutes left until my OnDemand vehicle arrived and I only had three items left to pick up and all of them were in the same aisle. Then a message popped up on the screen saying, “We needed to move your ride to a different vehicle. Your new vehicle is MINUTES away: White Toyota Camry, pick up at [not particularly needed]”. Suddenly “me being ahead” was “me being so far behind”. This store is notoriously awful with their number of open tills and amount of people in line and I no longer had that amount of time. I tossed the last item into the cart and hurried to the front.

I usually have to get dragged kicking and screaming to the self serve machine (might be a small amount of hyperbole). An employee could come to me and say, “There’s twenty people in this line and there’s an empty self serve machine available” and my response would be, “That’s okay, I’ve got a book”. My anxiety does not mesh well with UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGAGE AREA. But I what could I do? There were two open tills and both had long lines so I wheeled my cart to the last self serve machine available. The machine behaved and didn’t make a peep through the whole exchange and, soon I was heading to the exit… where there was an OnDemand vehicle outside the doors. As I watched, it cruised over toward the entrance and out of my line of vision. The first bag felt like it had been filled with cement while the second was a smidge lighter (why did I buy that many cans?). The last bag was clipped to the cart and was quietly obstreperous. It did not want to leave. By the time I walked out the door with all three bags the vehicle was turning out of the parking lot. I watched as it drove away then called OnDemand.

Now here’s the fun bit. OnDemand is a service that recommends you reserve your ride the day before. I called at the grocery store once and was told there was a ride available in five hours. Did I still have a ride available in 15 minutes or did I have to re-book and hope for the best. The answer would be… after I got off hold.

I reached the bus stop and looked around at the wet ground. Was it too wet for my fabric bags? There was a grocery cart but it was equally wet and had a potato in the baby seat. Why a potato?

“Excuse me?”

I turned around to see a young, average looking man watching me from about a metre away.

“I was wondering something,” he said as he walked toward me. “Could I buy your socks?”

My socks???

“I’ll pay you $20”

For my $1 Dollarama socks? “Sure, that’s fine,” I replied. That was when he noticed my phone.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t know you were on the phone.”

You have no idea how long it took me to get two relatively normal feet (I’m ignoring the baby toes)

I assured him I was on hold and he handed me a twenty before walking to a nearby low wall that doubles as a bench. I sat there with my bags in front of me, phone to my ear, while pulling my feet out of my boots and taking off my socks. Then he wanted to take pictures of my feet. Uhh, I guess. They’re pretty ugly. So he pulled my left foot onto his lap and started taking pictures. That was when dispatch answered. He’s assuring me that the message had been for another person and my ride would be there soon. Meanwhile I’ve got a complete stranger kissing the sole of my foot… and talking baby talk to it???

I tugged my foot away and put my boots on. “My ride will be here shortly”, I informed him.

“Can we do this three times a week?” he asked hopefully.

Oh hell no!

I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “I’d run out of socks pretty quickly.”

“I’ll pay you $500 every five days.”

Wait what??? “I can buy more socks”.

He took my phone number and walked away just as my ride pulled in. It was a challenge to get my feet and the bags into the rear footwell and the seat belt clasp kept hiding on me. Meanwhile my my phone was blowing up with messages. I finally checked my phone and he’s asking where I was and if I was ignoring the phone or had vanished. Yeah buddy, I’m a vampire. I turned into mist.

“I’m still here,” I texted back. Damn, there’s needy and then there’s this.

I was thinking about parameters regarding meeting up to exchange socks and money, albeit between his nearly incessant texts. I know that first of all, there was no way he was getting near my apartment. We could meet outside the convenience store and I could just hand him the bag of socks. This also would stop him from whispering sweet nothings to my feet. And, second, I refused to believe any millennial could afford to pay $2000 every month for some dirty socks. Talk about a horrible reason to skip out on your half of the rent!

Then he texted me again.

“We need to set some boundaries,” I informed him, knowing that we really meant I. I don’t think he has any boundaries. “I am very introverted plus I’m also asexual and on the aromantic spectrum. I can’t handle anywhere near this many texts or romantic stuff.”

He apologized then immediately sent me, not one, but two dick pics. I mean seriously? I get that he’s proud of the thing but nearly half the population has one; it’s not share worthy.

“This aro-ace is out of here,” I texted then went through the menus to find the delete option. The last reply I saw from him was a bewildered, “What does that mean?” I’m not Google, he can find it on his own.

It was all around a weird encounter but I got a twenty out of it so there’s that.

It was Bell Let’s Talk Day…

*I started this on Wednesday but my brain made the Windows shut-down sound so I had to finish it on Thursday*

…or, for those of us who are mentally ill, it was Wednesday. We don’t need to recognize a day, we’re aware of our mental health (or lack thereof) every day of the year. We’re in it waist deep, breathing (whether it’s four squared or 7-4-8), using our five senses as a distraction, or discussing which would be better – CBT or DBT.

Bell created this day to improve awareness of mental illness and to provide information to those who need it, although I’m sure the chance to shore up their horribly bad reputation went through their heads a time or two.

The first time I remember experiencing mental illness was sometime in my teens when I begged permission to build an open box from 2x4s in order to grow grass. I needed that tangible bit of proof that spring really would arrive, that I wasn’t going to live my life in constant desolation. I was met with baffled confusion because, of course spring would come, spring always comes. And, besides, grass wouldn’t grow in the basement. So I muddled through, not knowing that what I was experiencing was depression.

I used to love to go to the mall. I’d browse in The It Store. I went there so often and, yet, I don’t think I ever bought a damn thing. It was all novelty items and gag gifts and it grew increasingly more risque the deeper you went into the store. And, since this was pre-Chapters, I would check out the book stores as well. Most of the mall is one level but it turns to two at the south end (thanks to a hill). There were huge open spaces on the top floor, in the centre of the hallway, I’m assuming to let light flow through. They were fenced off with a clear railing. At some time in my teens I’d be blithely walking along the hallway and a thought would suddenly pop out of nowhere, “JUMP OVER THE RAILING!!!” I began to walk right against the store fronts, often brushing against the windows because I was that close to the stores. A few years later another thought came along. I’d be waiting at the bus stop when my brain would suddenly scream, “FALL ONTO THE ROAD!!!” I was so scared I’d do just that, I absolutely always made sure to stand a body length away from the road, just to be safe. These are called “intrusive thoughts” and they’re pretty common. I don’t know why, sometimes our brains are assholes. Here’s a very small video that helps to explain them although she’s a hell of a lot happier about them than anyone I’ve ever met.

And, over the years I gathered more symptoms, from sobbing at every session with my college therapist to several attempts at trying antidepressants. Eventually, the symptoms grew like an avalanche, gaining more and more symptoms until it became life threatening, to me not to anyone else. And now, here I am, with a good sized list of mental illnesses/neurodiverse diagnoses (and a hefty blister pack of meds). My life has settled into a quiet routine. I have chair exercises three times a week and a bevy of zoom groups and classes. They help to keep the depression down to a dull roar. I have a psychiatrist, a therapist, and an entire care team keeping an eye on me. And a cat who loves to snuggle with me for an afternoon nap.

I know I pretty much never clock as “normal” and these days I don’t even try. When I’m wearing makeup I get glittered up enough to be mistaken for a disco ball (note, this has never happened). I’m friendly to everyone and people do like me. It’s just… when Colin was little I used to joke that he wasn’t just marching to his own beat, he was off following a different band. I’m pretty sure I’m playing the xylophone and marching along right beside him. And, yes, our diagnoses are pretty much the same.

Over the years I’ve had people minimize what I’m going through. I’ve been told I’m on a lower level of the Ontario Disability Support Program than people who are physically disabled. There’s no bottom tier, you’re either disabled or you’re not. And I’ve been given the side eye because I went to Canada’s Wonderland for the day, along with Colin.

What they didn’t understand is we went there with PFLAG so there was a single bus ride there and back. They provided us with enough snacks to constitute breakfast plus a meal ticket for dinner, all we needed was to find lunch. We picked up our disability passes so we didn’t have to stand in line. In fact, the staff had no idea what to do with the passes so let us immediately board the next ride. They even let us sit in the front for every single roller coaster. I scouted out a relatively comfortable and quiet spot to nap on one of the small lawns and proceeded to lie down for an hour. It was blazing hot that day and I ended up having a Canada goose (aka Canadian Cobra Chicken) join me. She was so hot she was panting, I could empathize. Eventually we caught the bus and went home where I proceeded to recuperate for several days. I told this story to my therapist and she commented that the comment came from a lack of knowledge. The person didn’t realize how much time and effort I spent planning for the trip and planning at the park. They didn’t know how much energy it took from me. They simply saw pictures of Colin and I smiling and figured my trip was like everyone else.

There is so much misinformation about mental illness and a lot of it is flippant. I dropped a cupcake I was craving so now I’m depressed. No, you’re sad. If you feel the same (or worse) level of sadness for over two weeks then you might be depressed. And you’re not OCD if you wipe crumbs of your counter, that is in no way obsessive compulsive disorder and inviting someone with OCD to your messy house is unlikely to get it clean. A person with OCD has a compulsion (or compulsions) and an obsessive need to complete that compulsion. It could be they need to check their stove three times before they leave, even if they hadn’t used it. Or test the door knob to make sure it’s locked five times. Or washing all the dirt and germs off their hands except they always feel dirty and now their hands are bleeding. Psycho doesn’t mean someone’s running amok with a meat cleaver, no matter what the movie industry claims. The person is in a state of psychosis, which means their version of reality and actual reality are kissing cousins. They’re not any more likely to harm someone, in fact they’re more likely to be harmed. And just because you dislike someone doesn’t mean they’re a narcissist.

When you misuse words and minimize mental illnesses, it’s easy to see those illnesses as less than they really are, and to assume someone is faking, or not nearly as disabled as the “real disabled people”. You don’t see the real challenges people face. This impacts people at work, at school, in relationships, and more. Bell Let’s Talk Day is only one day. Are you ready to listen and support for the other 364?

All the little children…

They haunt me, these children. Their stories have been etched into my mind, jumping out seemingly at random, popping into my thoughts with all their sorrow. They live here inside me and I don’t know how to let them go. I usually keep quiet about them because they’re, quite literally, traumatic but I’m sharing a story of a child with you today, partly because they’re the newest and haunting me the most, but mostly because their story isn’t gory (as so many of them are).

It started with a short video including a transcript and it was shared in a group I belong to. I clicked the link with some trepidation and the video began. The setting was a father (behind the camera) and a young child who looked to be around five. The father starts with, “Can you repeat what you just said?” and so the child obliged.

“Daddy? I’m a girl.”

The father immediately told her she was wrong and, before she could say anything, he grabbed her full glass of water and ice then upended it on her side plate. She looked at him with absolute confusion then asked, “But why?”

Tears stained her cheeks as he asked, “Aren’t you going to drink your water from your cup?”

She started to cry even harder and said, “That’s not a cup”. Poor kid, she shared something of vital importance to her and he responded by dumping her water. Talk about feeling unheard.

Then her Dad responded with, “Yes, it’s a plate and always will be a plate.” He pointed his finger from the cup back to the plate.

“Cup and plate. Cup and plate. They will always be cup and plate.” He must have made a gesture because she chimed in, hopelessly saying, “Cup and plate.”

The man posted the video, obviously, for attention and it worked. He had thousands of people agreeing with him and praising him for being a good father.

A good father

He did not change his daughter into a boy, that isn’t something that can be done through videotaping and humiliating anyone. His daughter is still a girl. But she’s now a girl who knows she cannot trust her father with anything personal or important. He’s not safe. And she’ll grow up from childhood to her teen years (and beyond) feeling unsafe. She’ll end up going through the wrong puberty, watching as her body change in ways she never wanted. Hopefully she won’t follow the footsteps of Leelah Alcorn, who was trapped by her right-wing fundamentalist Christian parents and kept away from anyone supportive. They refused to let Leelah be herself until she got to the point where she felt that the only way she could be free was by stepping in front of a transport truck. No one should feel that desperate and unheard.

This man’s daughter has been born into a world where people feel comfortable enough to share,repeatedly, a ceiling-view sketch of the torso, legs, and feet of someone who has hung themself. The sketch also includes a large transgender flag on the wall. This message is in no way subtle. Another comment is 41% – which is the number of trans youths in a survey who had attempted suicide. Saying “you should be one of the 41%” is blatant to anyone who’s heard of the study, but how many people have heard of it?

This man’s child is facing a future with hatred and discrimination and his first action was to humiliate her across the internet. How many of the thousands of people who agreed with him unknowingly have a transgender child of their own? A child who is waiting for their chance to speak. You’re supposed to support your children, not drive them to the brink of suicide. And to do it for social media likes is appalling.

I don’t know this child’s name or where she lives (other than the US) and I will never know how she fares in the future. All I can do is hope. And so I tuck her in with the rest of the children and hope they rest gently tonight, in real life and inside my mind.

A Brand New Day…

Have you ever found yourself wondering if you actually have money or if you’ve simply forgotten a bunch of bills? That’s the situation I’ve been in lately. It doesn’t help that I’m horrifically bad at math so calculations are always a bit iffy. But I finally realized that between not needing a week of food last month due to being on a family vacation plus getting paid for several months worth of cat sitting, I actually did have some money to play around with. Woo hoo!!! This doesn’t happen often!

My favourite hobby and my favourite place to walk

I’ve already bought 99% of my presents so those purchases were out of the way plus my kitchen is well stocked. So I looked at my life and what lies ahead to figure out what was crucial. I spend every single day in a state of exhaustion so the first and biggest need obviously was sleep. Sleep problems walk hand in hand with mental illness. Nightmares don’t help and getting up to pee 3+ times a night doesn’t help either. The latter wouldn’t be much of an issue except for the whole nightmare thing. It’s hard to go back to sleep when you’ve just drempt that a massive tornado plowed through your childhood home and you’re the only one who made it to the basement. But I’m already on medication for the nightmares; I needed to sort what else I could do. Everyone and their cousin talk about screen time and blue light ad nauseam. We all have to reduce screen time before bed. That’s thrilling. No seriously. My biggest hobby is scrapbooking… digital scrapbooking that is. So am I supposed to give up a soothing and relaxing hobby? Then they suggest reading. I love to read! I have two different apps on my phone and have a bunch of books ready to read between the two of them. Except that’s screen time too. And finally there’s Mah Jong. I found a great app and, well, yeah.

I tried the blue light filter on my phone once and it made my photos look like I’d taken them in the bowels of hell, so that wasn’t an option. But there are anti blue light glasses available. They’re also mega dorky so I don’t have a picture of me wearing them… anywhere. I’ve realized my room is quite bright and I wasn’t able to dim it with any success so I picked up a cute and soft sleep mask from Dollarama. It’s definitely dark while wearing it so that’s one issue dealt with. I’m not sure if either the glasses or the mask are working but I haven’t been trying that long. At the very least they’re doing no harm. Unless I wake up at 3am and attempt to walk to the bathroom with the mask on.

I got covid-19 back in March/April 2020 and it was awful! I couldn’t walk from my bedroom to the living room without stopping to take a break in the kitchen. My apartment is tiny plus all my rooms open into the kitchen so this wasn’t a long walk. I had to sit in the shower as well because I couldn’t stand that long. Energy and balance were definitely in short supply. Finally it was over and done with, or so I thought. Soon balance issues became noticeable. I fall easier now and I struggle with walking downhill. Winter was a nightmare last year. I can’t climb up or down snowbanks. Every sidewalk has a snowbank at the end and there’s a snowbank for the first day or two after a snow storm at every bus stop. I couldn’t go for walks anymore, at least not safely, and I couldn’t use the rebounder (aka mini trampoline) I’d bought several years earlier, I didn’t have the balance and it didn’t have the handlebar. But there was a nice one on sale through Amazon last week and it had a handle. It’s now set up in my room and my old one is going to Colin.

This winter I’m going to walk the hallways in my building, doing a loop down the south stairwell then along the hall to the north stairwell then up and and back down my hall. I’ll need some music, which I have on my iPhone, and headphones (also bought), and now the armband to hold my phone is on it’s way and should arrive by Christmas.

The last thing I wanted was a fitness band. I had a Fit-bit when I moved here but the company was having issues with their new band material. It was creating raw, sore burn-like marks on quite a few people’s wrists and I was one of them. My phone counted steps but I wasn’t always holding it so it wasn’t accurate. Then I found the bling-i-est smart watch imaginable. We’re talking glitter, silver, rhinestones, and mother of pearl. It arrived this morning and looks so pretty! Now to get it sized small enough. Luckily Cat Dad is going to help in the morning.

Tomorrow’s a new day and I’m looking forward to making a fresh and fit start!

A swing and a miss…

It happened in a group I belong to. I’m not going to tell you which one as I belong to several through several different organizations. I’m not going to say when either, keeping in mind I regularly have posts in the draft section for weeks at a time. I will, however, tell you the rest.

It was the beginning of the group and we all had all been sharing recent news about ourselves. Then someone said that her friend’s son had moved in with her after an altercation between him and his father. And then she commented that he said he was non-binary and that he wanted them to use them/their pronouns for him. So I was explaining to her that she needed to use they/them pronouns all the time; in her thoughts and when they weren’t even around. She was in the middle of explaining that she always tries to use his pronouns when the facilitator spoke up asking what sex he’s interested in. Talk about a jaw dropping moment.

She sounded baffled and said he was apparently interested in all genders. So I’m trying to explain to her what pansexual means and the facilitator announces that he really loves language and just couldn’t bring himself to use “they” in singular form and she chimed in agreeing with him. No wonder she couldn’t get their pronouns right if she didn’t even believe in them to begin with. And then it happened. One of the other group members piped up.

“I don’t get into that stuff,” she stated, ignoring the fact that by joining the conversation (or interrogation) she was, indeed, getting “into that stuff”. Then she continued with, “Tits and dick, that’s it. There’s nothing else, you’re either a man or a woman who have tits or a dick.”

I tried to explain to her that biologists know gender is a spectrum and that cultures around the world have celebrated more than two genders for millennia when she announced she was done and leaving. This would have been the perfect time for someone in authority should have addressed the blatant transphobia and explained why it shouldn’t have happened and that people of all genders, races, and sexual orientations are welcome but there was radio silence regarding the prejudice. Instead the woman announced that she was leaving because she didn’t like to talk about “those things”. This was quickly followed with a clamour of people assuring her that she was a valued member of the community and should stay; they were going to change the subject. So she stayed.

I barely said anything after that. I just sat looking down at my hands. The facilitator started going around the group asking everyone to rate their mood from one to ten and say something brief about their life. I was one of the last people. I took a deep breath and I told everyone I’d been at a four before the group but I was now a three.

“But why?” the facilitator asked in confusion.
“This has always been a safe place for me,” I explained. “But as a queer person I no longer feel safe here.”

Cue questions from several people about why I’d say such a thing. I said it was due to the transphobia, repeating, “as a queer person I no longer feel safe here”. Then everyone, except the one who actually spouted the transphobic words, clamoured to assure me that there was absolutely no transphobia in the group and no one said anything remotely transphobic. It just didn’t happen. But don’t worry you’re safe here, even as a queer person. It’s okay. But it wasn’t. If they couldn’t recognize transphobia then how am I to trust they’d recognize acephobia or homophobia. As a welcoming group, the transphobia should have been dealt with immediately but it wasn’t and I doubt it ever will.

This was my group, the one I looked forward to every week but now what? I felt unheard and invalidated during the group and even now. This group was supposed to to be a safe and supportive but it doesn’t feel safe to me now. I don’t know if it ever will.

Yet another goodbye…

His mother was a barn cat and he was placed, with his siblings, in a free box in our lobby. He went home with my neighbour, and then friend, who picked him because he looked like Angel. Then I found out the woman who brought his cat mother to our building lived diagonally across the hall from me. A triangle of people all connected by one small kitten.

He had been named Oreo. I wanted to rename him Harlequin because he was such a clown and the black and white markings on his face reminded me of them. But there were three small children living across the hall who thought of him as theirs. I could not bring myself to rename him when he was so obviously missed. And, by the time they moved, his name had stuck.

Oreo was the quirkiest cat I ever owned. I joked that he was an down cat and not a up cat. He couldn’t stand being held in your arms or on your lap. He preferred being at your feet instead, either on my footstool or directly on my feet. He wouldn’t even sleep at the top of my bed even though all the other cats slept there (Angel and Lara even sleeping on my pillow). Instead he nestled at the bottom corner of the bed. In later years I placed a folded fake fur blanket there which he, thankfully, would sleep on.

He got along with all the other cats, except for Angel, who thought she was a person, but his favourite cat to be around was Lara. Not that he had much choice in the matter. Lara’s the extrovert of the lot who thinks that everyone is there to pet her and every cat wants to be with her all the time. While she spent more time with Blackie than Oreo, after Blackie died Lara pretty much crazy glued herself to him. He didn’t mind at first and they would snuggle together in various configurations after Lara groomed him for a while. Sometimes they’d lazy play fight, lying down head to head and softly pat their paws against each other.

When I first registered my cats at the vet clinic across the street in 2019, the receptionist looked at the three oldest cats’ ages and said, “Wow! You’re looking at a lot of heartbreak in your future, with them being so close together in age.” I was ticked at the time seeing as all three cats were healthy but then Angel died suddenly from cardiac arrest/congestive heart failure on May 31, 2022 and Blackie quickly followed her on August 29, 2022, only three months later. Considering how she rapidly lost the ability to walk my best guess is it was something brain related. And then, out of my trio of cats, only Oreo remained.

He was already on one capsule of gabapentin a day for arthritis and could no longer get onto my bed, so I’d lift him up each night and several times a day. Luckily he could still get down by jumping onto my mini trampoline so I didn’t need to worry about him falling off the bed while I slept or made dinner. Then he refused to let Lara go anywhere near him, not even to groom him. I upped the gabapentin to two capsules but his rejection of Lara continued and he began crying mournfully whenever he lost sight of me. And he started sneezing so forcefully I expected his head to spin around like the girl from The Exorcist. Then there was blood, little droplets of blood that sprayed across the wall and his favourite blanket and the kitchen mat. And he started having seizures.

I booked a vet appointment for him the next day (a Friday) and Colin arranged to have his visit extended to cover the appointment. The results were diametrically opposite of each other; he either had a cold or a tumour in his nose. We headed back to my place with antibiotics (which Oreo hated) and a phone appointment with the vet in ten more days. He never made it that far. I had a psychiatrist appointment on Wednesday and asked Cat Dad if Oreo could stay at his place seeing as I’d be gone for the whole afternoon. He agreed then, upon my return, commented on Oreo sneezing blood and having to mop the floor. I was confused but thanked him then, shortly after we got home, Oreo sneezed and the blood was definitely more than droplets. Sadly it was too late call to the vet but I had plans to call first thing in the morning.

I woke at dawn on Thursday, September 14th because Oreo’s breathing sounded funny. I hurried to him and carried him to my swing chair to watch the sunrise. He immediately struggled to get down and limped as fast as he could to his kitchen mat, he was a “down cat” right to the end. I lay beside him for hours, watching his nictitating membrane rise and his pupils stay fully dilated. The vet opened at 8am and I was on the phone that minute setting an appointment. It was made for Friday, September 15th, Oreo’s 16th birthday. Colin immediately made plans to be there.

Oreo had been on antibiotics for almost a full week and he’d only gotten worse. By the time Thursday rolled around he was no longer eating or drinking. Not with his food warmed. Not with is favourite treats. Nothing. I called the vet clinic that afternoon to ask if I could stop giving him the antibiotics seeing as he hated them and wasn’t consuming anything and was asked to come in right away. It was very obviously his time to go and I put Colin on video chat so he could be there in some way. And, like always, the end was instantaneous. One moment he was looking up and the next his head dropped to his paws. Colin thought he was sleeping, he looked so peaceful.

It was so hard walking home empty handed. It seemed like my apartment was that much emptier. Then again, just over a year ago I had five cats. Now there were two. Smudge sniffed intently around the area Oreo favoured then walked away. Lara started crying for me every time I was out of sight. And I washed Oreo’s kitchen mat and gave it to Colin. I couldn’t bear seeing it without Oreo curled upon it.

Ironically I had three cats offered to me around the day of Oreo’s passing. I turned them all down. I think it’s time for just Smudge, Lara, and myself. I hope they live long and happy lives.

Goodbye Oreo. You will be forever missed.

When Country Proud meets prejudice…

It started with a beeping smoke detector, one that kept me up half the night. The next morning I called the superintendent about that beeping thing only to discover he was away for the weekend. So I asked my neighbour for help. He came over with a huge ladder and pried the detector apart, hoping to pull out the battery. But there wasn’t one, at one least visible, there was a lithium battery tucked away somewhere inaccessible, unless you held both a hammer and rage. That was when he invited me to help him find the instruction manual. As he was rummaging through the drawer, I noticed a stack of flyers that, if a little larger, could be seen from space. They were completely red with some black text and colourful pictures. It was very “rah rah our country is the best – or it would be if Trudeau wasn’t prime minister”. There were many blurbs about our rights and how they’re being trampled, along with having Trudeau charged with treason. There are only two reasons he could be charged. One is if he physically harmed the person on the throne and two is leading a full on attack on Canada. Since I never saw him backhand the Queen during his visit or heard about him gathering an army to invade Ottawa, I think he’s safe there.

I made note of the website, which wasn’t hard, and searched it out. The website was just as red and was dotted with colourful, patriotic, primary school style cartoons. A map of Canada, Mounties, beavers, maple syrup, and hockey. They were comforting and very stereotypically Canadian. All the text was upbeat, assuring the readers that they were doing great and making a difference, before asking for donations and volunteers. I scrolled past a few links, and then I saw it, the new pride flag with a line and circle placed in the centre. Nothing like patriotism and a dose of homophobia. I steeled myself and clicked the link.

Many years ago I had a friend who I met in the tenant’s association and, when we both had Facebook, we added each other. I hadn’t realized until then that she was a huge conspiracy theorist. And her aim was to get me to see the “truth”. One day she sent me an, I am loathe to call it an article, a series of words. There were links scattered throughout, all of them from reputable sources. I clicked on the first link and it was the same topic but exactly the opposite of what they were claiming. All the other links were the same. I realized the author knew his audience would never click the links, that for all they called themselves lions, they would blindly follow anyone who said they had the truth and assured them they were on top of the pack and everyone else were sheep. This website was the same.

The whole page was devoted to fear mongering about sexual education in school. They included a link to the Comprehensive Sexuality Education. I clicked on the link and, sure enough, it was nothing like what was written. What is it about people who claim they’re leaders and know the truth? Meanwhile they can’t even click links and Google names. I’m underwhelmed with their leadership skills.

It was about what I expected. Lots of fearmongering about what sexual depravities the children are learning from 0-4 years old where they claim the children must learn about masturbation (as if they all haven’t discovered it on their own) and that they “develop an interest in their own and others’ bodies“. This escalates all the way to 9-12 years old where they should have already had sex and be browsing through online porn. It’s both sobering and frightening that grown adults could look at this codswallop and think it was real. And then I read the last piece which involves SOGI. They claimed the program is crossing into gender confusion that is harming the well being of young students”.

Whoever is operating this organization has something against the UNFPA, UNICEF, IPPF, UNESCO and the UN World Health Organization. This time SOGI was blamed on the UN, claiming it was inspired by the human rights win of “a gay man in Australia”. No mention of who he is or what the win actually entailed, they wrote exactly what their readers wanted to know, that he was gay. Because that’s the crux of the matter, that’s why they put a pride flag next to the story. Underneath the flag it says they need to “stop the segregation of students through SOGI”. First, do they even know what segregation is? And second, they’re the ones wanting to hush the queer kids into silence and to let them know, through actions, that they’re lesser than the other students.

Last year I wrote a post about a neighbour who informed me that he was fine with the LGB’s or whatever as long as “they keep their lifestyles to themselves”. He didn’t want anything rammed down his throat. This isn’t the Church of Homosexuality and Queerness. There isn’t anyone going door to door extolling rainbows and fabulousness. Nobody is wanting to put anything into any of his orifices. But there it is. An idea has permeated through our culture (and other cultures as well) that queer people are just sex, sex, sex, and perversion.

Five or so years ago I had a friend who I met through work. We got along well. She came to my Christmas party and we went out for lunch a time or two. Then I told her about an instance that happened at Canada’s Wonderland, a large amusement park just north of Toronto. Colin and I had gone to the park with PFLAG to celebrate Gay Day. It was great! Free transportation (with snacks), discounted day passes, and a bbq dinner. It wasn’t until the next day that I heard about the couple at the waterpark. They hugged briefly and parents complained vociferously that children should not be exposed to that sort of thing and the young men were ejected from the waterpark. I told my friend about the instance only to have her tell me she agreed with the parents and the staff. Things of a sexual nature should stay in the bedroom; little children don’t need to witness that. Then I what she’d think of a straight couple doing then exact same thing and she was fine with it. Because if a straight person hugs their partner it’s a show of affection. If a gay couple does the same it’s perverse and a sign they’re going to strip and do the nasty. We weren’t friends after that.

The person who wrote that page of misinformation wrote, near the bottom, that “it’s fair to note that all men and women of any orientation and gender deserve equal rights” as if this mitigated the fact they used a crossed out pride flag as the image for the post. You can’t say everyone’s equal then slap a pride flag beside a post on degeneracy. It just doesn’t work.

And SOGI was created by the ARC foundation in Vancouver, BC

This post has cattitude…

{An addition as to why I disappeared for three and a half months. It’s because my body hates me in oh so many ways and I’m exhausted and unable to focus in the evening when I usually write. I’d write more but I’m thinking I’ll write a blog post instead as it’s a fair bit. I’m going to try to make it sooner than an entire season.}

They always say to write about what you know. I’ve lived with cats since I was six years old and am 53 years old now so that’s a lot of expertise. Of course most of my knowledge occurred after I moved out. Before then it was my parents who footed vet bills, bought the cat food (whatever happened to the canned Purr cat food with Garfield on the label?), and scooped the brunt of the kitty litter. Now I’m responsible for everything concerning them so my scope of attention has expanded.

One important note before I really write anything. While I’m going to dispense my opinion regularly (I’m good at that), one thing I won’t do is give medical advice. My medical advice is “you should make an appointment with your vet”. I’m not a vet. I have no vet training. I don’t even play a vet on TV. I just love these furry, little weirdos.

There’s a huge thing that irritates me, or well, infuriates me and that would be the multitude of negative stereotypes about cats. I’m sure everyone can come up with at least five and then continue on with more randomly popping up. Cats are cold and aloof, they’re unloving and uncaring. They’re calculating and conniving, plotting against you at every turn. A dog will run in and try to save you. The cat will push you out the window. Have these people even met a cat in real life??? People might say they’re just jokes but I’ve met plenty of people who were serious. And there are plenty of people who brag about hating cats and some bragging about wanting to hurt them. I had someone tell me, and several others, that he deliberately aimed for cats who were crossing the street. So I describe my cats here, hoping it will open the mind of at least one person. It’s almost impossible to find something negative about Lara running screaming to the front door because she’s positive she has a new friend on the other side. Or, pulling from the past, Angel settling down to sleep with me while using my hand as a pillow. And Smudge, who jumps onto my lap at night before raising her head so I can kiss her forehead multiple times. Then she purrs and drools with happiness. I don’t want to hear anything from the peanut gallery. Dogs drool too.

And there are other hazards too. Outdoor cats face the brunt of them with antifreeze laced puddles and winter-time falling asleep in a car engine while it was still warm. And cars (see above) or wild animals. Think coyotes, not foxes. Cats are too close in size for a fox to consider prey, in fact they’ve been known to play together, but they’re a decent meal for a coyote. People with outdoor cats say it’s unfair or even cruel to keep cats indoors when they could be climbing trees, chasing bugs, or rolling on the lawn. A friend of mine agreed with all of the the above until several of her cats died in unfortunate ways and well before their time. Now she has several pampered indoor cats who are living quite happily.

Essential oils are a tricky one. Some people say NO, they’re toxic while others give tips on how to massage your cat with them. There really is no in-between with that. I err on the side of caution here and they don’t come into the apartment. If I want something pretty and relaxing I use a spray bottle full of rose water. You can buy it dirt cheap in the international section of your grocery store. You can even drink it if you want to (I bet it would be amazing in lemonade).

I can never understand how a cat can turn up their nose at a new brand of food yet scarf down a twist tie or two but cats are weird (sometimes in extremely expensive ways). I am an absolute fanatic when it comes to elastic bands. If they come in here they’re right in the trash. Twist ties are the same. And while I buy Dollarama toys, I inspect them carefully. Smudge loved the crinkly balls… until I found a piece of one in her poop. And there’s often toys that have easy to remove small bells. My cats absolutely love the plastic spirals (which I fish out from under everything regularly), small stuffies that can be carried by mouth (Smudge loves this), and the laser pointer (which I added a huge, rhinestone keychain because it’s small and easy to lose). And for cat loving Canadians, Dollarama sometimes sells a flat pack of six squares of cardboard which fit together to make a cube. Each side has a cutout, some to climb through and some to look through. The also snap together. Smudge and Lara love theirs. Oreo will be sixteen in less than a month and prefers to lie on mats.

I think the most important things I can suggest is to trust your instincts first. When I discovered Lara hiding at the back of my bed after vomiting bile with a bit of blood, the first thing I did was pull her out while the second was to take her across the street to the vet. Thankfully it was just a stomach bug that was cleared up with oral medication (and an anti-nausea injection so she’d actually take the first dose). But finding my social butterfly hiding under my bed rang alarm bells. I don’t think she’s ever hidden before in her life. Second is to look up actual veterinarian sites. I mean Millie might be great but Millie’s House of Cats and Herbal Remedies* isn’t. It’s best to go to your own vet or to a veterinarian site, you know, the people with knowledge and experience.

If you’ve got any cautions or toy ideas please feel free to share them in the chat!

*I have absolutely no idea if this is a genuine website or not. I’m betting on the not though.

Look! There’s a groomer! And one over there!

Years ago, a country had a huge edifice of learning called the Institute for Sexual Science. The primary topic they discussed was being transgender – why people are trans and, more importantly, how to help them, something that included non-binary people. This place was not just an institute but a safe place, an STI clinic, and a place to get both gender affirming surgery for trans women and hormone therapy. Magnus Hirschfeld, the man who founded the institute, was both Jewish and gay and understood the need for a safe house. Then a man rose to power and demanded the building be torn down and every book and scrap of research burned. The fire that engulfed those more than twenty thousand books was the first and largest book burning in Germany. The man was Hitler.

That’s how safety can disappear in a second; that’s how hope gets destroyed.

Photo from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
This is the Institute for Sexual Studies; a sanctuary for the LGBTQ community

For many years trans rights has slowly been increasing but there’s a long distance to go. The knowledge that was lost in the flames has been regained and hormones and surgery are available (at least in Canada). Even children are allowed the right to be themselves; the school board has, in writing, that names and pronouns need to be respected. That’s easy right? It’s simply that people need to be their authentic selves and treated fairly, who could take offence at that? Apparently the majority of the right wing, fundamentalist population. They looked up from stripping women’s rights back by around half a century and pondered who else to drag through the mud. They finally decided on a double whammy of transgender people and drag queens, who they were already dragging, so it wasn’t exactly a long reach. It’s pretty clear that someone (plural) has been planning this for a while, right down to accusing anyone who disagrees with them to as a groomer. If you talk to one transphobe, you’ll hear the same lies, half truths, and misdirections as all the others. It’s like they’re reading a script.

The act of grooming, is not about reading story books to children in a public library, something that about 99.9% of the right wing population seems to have forgotten. It’s when a pedophile slowly and increasingly introduces things of a sexual nature, as secretly as possible, into a child’s life, with the intent of having sexual interactions with said child. Like when my younger sister came home from school with candy one afternoon. My Mom asked where she got those treats and was told, “From that man who lives at the corner”. Yes, she had gone into his house to get them even though we’d been told not to but she wasn’t all that old. This was the 70’s, when kids walked themselves to school in grade one, kindergarten if there was little traffic on the streets. My Mom immediately called the police, who assured her after a talk with my sister, that nothing had happened to her. That’s how it works though, starting small and innocent then progressing to more adult things and eventually sex. And he was a bona fide pedophile too, he was certainly not supposed to live a block from an elementary school, or invite young children into his house. Pedophilia and grooming are definitely not inviting children to listen to age appropriate stories in a library with their parents and staff right there (literally right there).

I’ve been sitting up here in the north, watching news and posts about the States. State by state tumbling down like dominos. The conservatives rant and scream about how they’re saving kindergarten children from having their genitals mutilated by surgery and from being put on hormones. Basically they’re saving children from things that weren’t happening in the first place. But when they’re informed of this they plug their ears to the truth and keep on with their campaign of cruelty. No more blockers until they’re an adult and old enough to decide, meaning yet another generation gets to go through the wrong puberty. Forced detransitioning for teens who had already started puberty blockers or hormones. To me that sounds like a ticking time bomb for suicides. I can’t imagine the terror, panic, and fury of teens who were happy and comfortable matching with the gender of their hearts, only to find out they now have to stop their blockers or hormones and go through a puberty they never wanted. The conservatives need to put themselves in those shoes.

There’s another reason I don’t believe the right’s claim to be doing all this for the children. That’s because I’ve seen how Christian conservatives treat transgender children when those kids stubbornly stay trans. I watched a story about a little girl who simply wanted to use the girl’s washroom at her school, and when I say girl I mean prepubescent child. A good portion of the interview was conducted while sitting on the roof of their house because it was the girl’s favourite place to sit. She was sad because she wouldn’t be able to sit there for much longer as her parents were already making emergency plans to leave the state with her. Not only was she dealing the fear of using the boys toilet at school, considering she was pretty much a human punching bag seeing as she was slender, slight, and feminine, but she also was dealing with guilt. She knew that the whole family was getting uprooted because of her. They were leaving friends behind and a good chunk of their belongings. The interviewer spoke to adults in her home town too. You’d think that since the religious right were so devoted to helping children they would be intent on helping her, even it was misguided assertions of telling her she’s a boy. No, they jumped right into insults and threats of violence. According to them she was an “it”, “the thing”, and a “half baked maggot”. They then moved on to bragging about beating the shit out of her. Sounds very family oriented, doesn’t it.

A few months ago I logged onto Facebook and noticed a girl I follow was moving, as in right now, due to safety reasons. They had to leave almost everything they had including her much loved hens but it was worth it to keep her safe. I really don’t think that families in the US should have to drop everything and flee. How about you? So much for the land of the free. Maybe it should be changed to the land of the free-ish.

I did a lot of reading while writing this post and discovered a number of things done mainly by parents on the right side. Like taking the kids to Hooters for a meal, which isn’t the worst except you know there’s definitely at least one Dad leaning over the table to his five year old son and pretend whispering, “Would you take a look at her bazongas???” What’s worse is I discovered multiple Moms sewing Hooters outfits for their very young daughters then taking her to Hooters to show off her outfit, complete with group photos from the staff. I don’t have anything against the staff but shouldn’t the little girl have an array of job opportunities, far later than kindergarten, and not settle for a minimum wage job with horrible pay and shitty job requirements.

Worse than that are the beauty pageants. They must be a US thing, specifically a southern US thing. Basically the Mom stuffs her little girl (it’s always a girl) into a dress designed for a woman except sized for a little girl and then she’s gussied up to look like the child version of a grown woman. Hair extensions, false nails, pancake makeup… what does it do to a little girl when her dress, makeup, and fake hair seem to matter more than her. When she’s judged on how sexy she can appear. This isn’t a hobby or activity, it’s a multi-million dollar industry formed on backs of children. And not a peep from the religious right.

Even their claim to be concerned about permanent damage rings false. First there’s circumcision and pierced ears. Whether you agree with them or not you have to admit they change the body. Circumcision is obvious (even more obvious with complications) but pierced ears (and other locations) can get infected, the body can reject the metal or, like me, they could get scars. My right earlobe sinks down, leaving my earring look like it’s flapping in the breeze. I’ve had so many people warn me I’m losing an earring. Even the most accepted practices are often performed without consent on babies and toddlers.

But I’m not really talking about that. I’m talking about things like plastic surgery on an eleven year old to make her look older. I swear there was an article about her. I must have set it down for a minute and now I can’t find it anywhere. She got her hips, buttocks, and I believe her lips. And now she and her Mom are pretending she’s older so she can date young men. I wonder how many innocent men she’s put at risk of getting labelled a pedophile. I don’t know whose performing these procedures but they’re getting done and this girl’s not the only one.

Kansas is doing it’s absolute best to ignore trans people although the children, so far, are safe. Florida’s busy banning books, oops they’re simply putting books in a different location away from children. The law is written so broadly it can encompass the whole LGBTQIA2S community. I highly doubt that’s a coincidence. And then there’s Missouri. Why is there Missouri? I just have the name jotted down, I just can’t remember why. There are so many states in the United States, so many countries in the world, it’s impossible to keep up with the hatred. I just looked and, damn, Missouri has forbidden teachers to say anything about the LGBTQIA2S community and then they need a guardian’s permission first. By the end of January they had wracked up at least 27 anti-LGBTQ bill and were leading the country. I think Texas has surpassed them; this is not a race you want to win, Texas. And they’ve started after the children. Their bill, which bans children from receiving any gender affirming surgery, has been placed on hold. The senator who introduced the bill had this to say, “Sex changes and little kids are two things that should never go together,” Proving, once again that the people making these bills do no research and speak to no one in the community.

When I was in college, I had a teacher who explained the primary difference between the parenting styles between liberal and conservatives. The liberal parents believe in following their child’s lead, discussing what went wrong, in the case of negative behaviour, and brainstorming how to make things better. Conservative parents feel like their kids unfinished as children and shouldn’t have any say in decision making until they’re nearing adulthood.

Liberal parents have children who wander into their grade one class wearing orange track pants, a lacy purple top, and mismatched shoes (one’s bright red). The parent with the child shrugs and says, “At least they stand out in the crowd.” The conservative parent’s child is well dressed and they’re noticeably scratching themself. “Quit scratching yourself,” the parent says in that hissed whisper parents use when they wish they were both silent and invisible. The parent gives the offending sweater a quick swipe before continuing with,”See, your sweater is nice and soft so stop wriggling around” It won’t be until the evening, at bathtime, when they discover the huge, torso sized rash. A parent is dispatched to the pharmacy for soothing cream and the child is slathered before bed. In the end each family has happy and content children.

And that would be the end of it except one side has decided that parenting their own children wasn’t enough, they had to take control of other people’s children as well. Other people they’ll never meet. Because they know better than those other people. And so it goes, with the right listening to the people they trust; the leaders of their churches and the good ol’ boy local politicians. And the liberals getting derided for listening to their children.

And somewhere out there, there’s a little girl worrying about her chickens.