Want To Learn Something New In 2022??

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

Proposing some intersex gender modality & transition terms

So there are a whole bunch of different ways that intersex people can be/identify as trans. I've been thinking about what names would be useful for articulating these differences and in this post I'll list what I've got so far. 🧑‍🔬

I'm hoping to get feedback on these, so if you have feedback let me know! 💛 I expect to edit this post, to incorporate feedback and further ideas.

CW: mention of IGM and forced HRT

Types of transitions

Distransition: a medical transition forced upon an intersex person, such as through IGM or forced HRT. Dis- to indicate the negative aspect of the transition being coercive, as well as to connote disability since this process is so frequently traumatic and/or disability-causing. In disability studies language it's a form of debility (disability caused through systemic violence).

Mistransition: a distransition (forced transition) that is not in alignment with a person's gender identity. Mis- to indicate the incorrectness of the alignment as well as to maintain a negative connotation because this is a coercive transition.

Entransition: a consensual transition done by an intersex person. Contrast to distransition. En- acts as an opposite to dis- and also to me indicates a level of intent (e.g. envision, enact, enliven). It also serves to indicate that transition is different for intersex bodies than for perisex bodies.

Retransition: an entransition done by an intersex person who previously had been distransitioned. I.e. when an intersex person does a second transition to undo, alter, or improve a forced transition. Re- to indicate a second transition, but also that it's a revision of the first one.

Retrotransition: a retransition that is done to undo the effects of forced transition. So an intersex person who, after being forced into a binary gender, then transitions their body towards a best approximation of what their body's natural state would have been without forced transition. Retro- for backwards to indicate undoing that is worth differentiating from detransitioning.

Laterotransition: a retransition done by an intersex person to a gender that is neither the gender externally imposed by a distransition nor what their body's "natural state" would be. For example, an AFAB AIS person who was coercively transitioned female, who then later transitioned male. Latero- as contrast to retro- (latero- is to the side, antero- is forward) as well as to indicate the turn away from the path set forth externally by parents/doctors.

Anterotransition: a retransition done by an intersex person that continues the direction set forth by previous forced transition. So additional transitioning done by somebody whose gender is in alignment with what was externally imposed. While this will probably be somebody's AGAB, it doesn't have to be - some times intersex people are forcibly transitioned to a different gender than their AGAB.

All of these transitions would have an analogous gender modality. So an entransgender person is somebody who has/is undergoing/intends to entransition. And a retrotransgender person likewise has/is undergoing/intends to retrotransition.

I see distransition and mistransition as potentially useful for intersex people talking about trauma and structural intersexism. I think entransition might be useful for talking about how being intersex and transitioning is frequently different than for perisex people, especially if it is a retransition. And perhaps distransition and anterotransition may be of use to exparium folks.

Personally: I was distransitioned as an adolescent and have recently started a process of medically retrotransitioning.

Feedback welcome! A list of revisions will go at the bottom of this post. Will make flags for terms once I feel satisfied with them.

While we are on the subject - financial abuse is not always just physically taking money away or not having a savings account or escape stash. For a lot of people it is the other spouse sabotaging your credit score, constantly overspending, and you being unable to trust that joint household bills and loans are paid. Did you know that once you add an authorized user to your bank account it’s nearly impossible to remove them without their permission? Did you know that your spouse, who likely knows your birthday and SSN, can often gain access and reset passwords for any online accounts and create new ones?

Financial abuse will ruin your life and there’s really nothing except significant time that fixes it. If you are in a situation where you think this might happen to you you should freeze your credit with all three major agencies. You can find info on how to do this at USA.gov/credit-freeze

This is not something that only happens to tradwives. You are not exempt because you are independent or competent.

I think the whole “we all end up disabled” thing is particularly frustrating to me because I was born disabled and will die disabled and will become increasingly more disabled between those two points. I understand that ageing happens, accidents happen, etc etc

but when I was talking about having a right to imagine disabled futures, I was talking about the right for disabled babies to be born and to grow into happily disabled adults. and I shouldn’t have to justify that desire by scaring ableds about how soon they’ll become one of us. it should be enough that I exist and people like me exist, and we all deserve the right to live happy lives

When trans women are mocked and made into jokes in the media, I get very upset, and I am often told “Kay, you can’t go through life getting offended every time someone makes a joke.” And I sputter and object but they don’t hear me. So I want to be clear for once, about why the jokes make me angry.

I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about “men in dresses”, about people who “got their dicks chopped off”, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.

And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldn’t bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself. And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.

And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And they’re still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.

That is, if she doesn’t kill herself first.

Listen