thoughts of a random transexual

hair and comics

2012-02-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

as some of you may remember from another recent post I was growing out my hair, it took a few years but as vain as it may sound I was really enjoying it. well that's gone now, had to get it cut for some job interviews, my hair is now very very short, and I'm finding it more frustrating then I was expecting.

in other news i've been reading a lot of comics, most of which I got for my birthday, I may be the last nerd on earth to read it but finally read the long Halloween, I also have hush I'll get to, and the three ghost in the shell manga (1, 2, and 1.5) the movie ghost in the shell being one of my favorite movies so I'm really enjoying seeing their source material, even if so far (still reading) I prefer the movie, mostly because it seemed to do a good job of taking the best and most thought provoking scenes from the long book and putting it into one story.

wow been a few weeks

2012-01-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

sorry for the absence, but I was in a literature class, has a result it was common for me to spend the entirety of one day reading for my homework and the next day writing, put more time doing homework in a week with that class then a month in others, but my final was Thursday so unless a job I should be getting soon takes up a similar amount of time I should be moving back to a weekly schedule soon.

came and left suddenly

2011-12-31T23:27:00.000-08:00

today I had a bit of an odd experience, while I've been in a mostly lower period of my depression, it's been a fairly mild one overall, but this morning, I seemed to be slipping into a pretty bad one, all the normal thoughts and urges of my worst depression spikes were rearing up, I did my best to try and focus on the book I was trying to finish before the new year, and a few hours later I was starting to normal out to how I've been recently. I'm not sure how to take the experience, based on my feelings, and the general way it felt it seemed more like a depression spike then when I get sad, but i've never had a depression episode that was so short.

role playing

2011-12-10T21:34:00.001-08:00

sorry I haven't' been on much been a bit lower on energy lately (probably stress) and much of my spare energy is spent on making a website for a family member (a paying albeit low paying job).

anyway I've been trying to RP more on the haven, like most forum rp's it can take a while to find one that fits you and that lasts, but I'm hopeful for the one I'm in right now. As you may recall role playing does often tend to help me out, since it's one of the few times I can freely and fully express my feminine side. Still I'd like to do it some more, and I'm not sure how well I'll be able to keep up with multiple forum rp's (though am available for large chunks of time in the evening) so anyone out there feel up for an email or IM rp, I'm open for suggestions, or we could go with my Isabelle scenario (don't worry the rp will focus on your characters new discovery, Isabelle tends to be a secondary character in her rp's) I also have a few sci-fi settings I can throw out, but I don't have a lot of story ideas for them.

transgender day of remembrance

2011-11-20T11:18:00.001-08:00

The 13^th International Transgender Day of Remembrance is being held on November 20^th2011: Since 1999, the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), on which those trans people who have been victims of homicide are remembered, takes place every November. The TDOR raises public awareness of hate crimes against trans people, provides a space for public mourning and honours the lives of those trans people who might otherwise be forgotten. Started in the USA, the TDOR is now held in many parts of the world. In the past, the TDOR took place in more than 180 cities in more than 20 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
Sadly, this year there are 221 trans persons to be added to the list to be remembered, mourned and honoured as an update of the preliminary results of Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring project reveals.
You can find a list with names and more detailed data here.

family and depression

2011-11-12T15:56:00.001-08:00

I don't know how to start this so with this awkward segue I think I'll just jump in. recently I decided to post a comic on my Facebook it's not a comic I made but I felt it offered an important glimpse into what depression is like and I was hoping it could help clear up some of the many misconceptions about it. (here's the comic for those that want to check it out http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html )

boy did this turn out to be a mistake, most people ignored it to then comment on some power rangers video odd pic that someone felt the need to post very shortly after my post. however those that did read it quickly started asking me invasive questions, told me I need to think positively and remember all the good things I have, ignoring the fact that the comic itself kinda points out that doesn't work and oblivious to the fact that all they're doing for me is adding guilt that almost put me in another bad spell of it. so for me lesson learned, I can't talk about my depression except with very few people who either now enough to not make it worse or at least won't get insulted when I say they're not helping.

I don't want to leave this on a downer so here are a couple of beautiful video's I found recently.

more assisans creed

2011-11-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

hey I know it might seem weird talking about assassins creed in three posts in recent memory, but i thought I'd just share this little multilayer trailer for the upcoming game

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/ultimate-templar-assassins-creed/723599

now I know I might be making two much out of this but a few of the lines of dialog has me hopeful that there trying to make the Templar more like the one's in the first game aka, giving them some moral ambiguity, by making their ultimate goals something positive rather then just personal gain like it was in the last two games.

cross over fan fic

2011-10-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

I normally don't indulge in cross over fan fiction, I often think of a scene or two but I give them very little thought (truth be told I'm not much of a fan fic fan in the fist place) but I had a little idea a bit ago I think there are a few interesting dynamics that are worth exploring, and I may try to do this at some point with my own characters in an original setting.

the basic premise is that one of the assassins from assassins creed (I'd prefer altair over etzio but one from the modern age may work best) somehow goes to gotham city and eventually meets batman. it would probably work best if it started off from batmans point of view and altair's introduction was after batman started examining the death of his targets. as un batman as it may seem, having batman be unaware of the nature of the assisnation victims until after he'd met altair, not that altair would tell him. this provides some immediate conflict and should give a nice fight/chase scene, perhaps with some nice dialog at workable points. after this encounter batman would start digging into the victims and discover what they were really up to and here is were I think most of the story would take place.

I think what I like most about this story is the morals at play, batman may not be the perceived to be as big of a moral paragon as say, superman. but he still lives by a very strict unbending ethical code, most notably not killing people, and while the assassins do kill people, they seem to have a small tinge of regret about it and very strict rules not to kill the innocent (even if players like to violate this rule themselves). so contrasting the assassins willingness to kill hundreds to improve the lives of millions or billions, would make a great contrast with batmans strict moral code that sometimes ends up in civilians suffering (how many people have suffered because the joker escapes). you also might be able to explore some interesting possibilities with how much effort batman puts into pursuing the assassin since he only kills these bad people and batman presumably has other criminals and supervillians he could pursue.

unfortunately I'm not too familiar with batmans character (watched the old cartoon show, talk with a lot of people who read his comics but I haven't read them myself) to fully explore batmans reaction to it, one of the major reasons I think I want to do something like this with my own characters, but with my own characters I have the problem of trying to establish how strict the moral codes of both characters are, without bogging down the story.

pony tail

2011-10-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

so I've been growing my hair out lately, it's gotten pretty unruly for the most part, but I started pulling it back into a pony tail, ti's still a guy pony tail, but I'm hoping I'll be able to use this to eventually have long hair.

been spending a lot of time on youtube lately

2011-10-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

don't entirly know why, this isn't just a depressive episode like normal, I think having to move in with my dad is just kinda crushing my creative side. but while I'm here I figured I'd highlight one youtbe account I found recently that I'm really enjoying, I haven't watched all the videos on her account but I love what I've seen, I'll link a few of my favorites, but I recomend checking out more, though be warned she she is an atheist so if your very religious you may want to avoid some of the videos that involve religion.

this is the first video of his I found and it's actual a very nice explanation of transhumanism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLyXeXH_igI&feature=related

after watching a few video's about gay rights I often get worried that they'll mishandle trans issues (sadly I've seen just as much trans hate in gay and lesbian communities as is stereotypically associated with Christians) so I think my real love for her channel started with these two videos on trans issues http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD_1pBiwaeQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvOe15a4pN0&feature=related

and finally a makeup tutorial. A GREAT makeup tutorial, she doesn't show you how to do some complicated look with eyeshadow, she just shows some basics it's an actual getting started video containing information that i've had a lot of trouble finding before. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRSDA6b10NQ&feature=feedf

Dragon age (I will misspell many things about the games)

2011-09-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

alright, I feel like doing something a little light hearted, so I figured I'd look at the dragon age series in a similar way to my recent looks at assassins creed. this time I think I can do it without spoilers, but I am going to be discussing some themes and the like.

unlike assassins creed I feel that even in terms of story the two games are on fairly equal terms, though with very different strengths and weaknesses. I'll go ahead and start with some of the things DA2 did better. first and foremost would be characterization, while dragon age origins had great characters I believe the characters in DA2 got a lot more time to shine and were noticeably less cliche. the story is also much more focused on the hero, truly letting you feel how Hawke managed to climb from the status of an anonymous refugee (and in my chase apostate dodging the templars) to a hero.

right there is one problem with DA:2 you rise to the ranks of a hero, and the game kinda ends hoping to be picked up in a sequel, to put it simply you see a great view of the rise of the hero but very little of the full hero's journey. this also makes it to were the scope of the game takes a hit, it wasn't until I was watching some clips from origins that took place in orzimar, and remembered how big that one city felt, and it's not even the only city you visit. you got a sense that you were trying to save the entire land of fereldan, were in DA2 the town of kirkwall is the only place ever seemingly at risk.

however on a technical level I do think DA2 outperforms the original, I kinda hate to admit this but while playing the original game I switched the difficulty to easy, not because I was having trouble in the fights, but the fights were so repetitive and samey that I just wanted to speed through them to continue the story. were as the fights in DA2 were much better done, and a little touch I really appreciated as a mage, when it goes to a cut scene to show you taking down a big baddy, it actually has your character acting more inline with their class, and i got to see my mage in cinematic cut scenes summoning fire to kill dragons, rather then watch them suddenly take up a sword.

had to move back in with my dad

2011-09-17T15:38:00.001-07:00

it's why I missed last week, and I'm still working on getting settled in (would be going a lot faster but you know the drill) hopefully I'll have something substantial soon.

aliens

2011-09-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

ok this is a little thought experiment I had a little while ago, what brought it about was that I was tired of seeing sci fi that always used our concept of male and female (and often even our secondary sexual charecteristcs like breasts) on aliens, it seemed rather arrogant to even in fiction always have sex and gender of creatures from diffrent planets or realities, mirror our concept of sex and gender. so I wanted to come up with a species that didn't mirror that, further more as I feel is the case with the best sci-fi I wanted to come up with plausible reasons why the creatures took an evolutionary path like I hard rather then just say "this is what their like" so here's what I came up with.

the species is divided into four group, any member of any group can produce an offspring by mating with any member of any other group. each group is actually adapted to handle the harsh conditions of one of the four seasons on a planet were the conditions season to season vary so widely that their adaptation is to have most of the species enter a shelter and a period of little activity (similar to hibernation but not quite), while the subset best adapted for the current environment, provides for the rest. off spring are typically carried by an inactive member of the species unill the baby is born.

deus ex

2011-08-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

ok before I get started I just want to send a quick thank you to everyone who sent me well wishes or showed their support in some way, it means a lot more to me then I could ever express.

I've been playing a lot of deus ex human revolution lately (spent money I barely have and shouldn't have spent to get it), it's been helping me keep my mind out of a sudden depression spike. but I have to say the game is fantastic, I may have been caught off guard by a boss fight has a stealth/non-lethal combat character. what impresses me the most is this constant theme about the morality and philosophies of human augmentation, both arguments for and against are regularly featured with Adam Jensen himself being some one who's live was saved by cybernetic prosthetic. and for those of you thinking it's only an intellectual exercise, they've already got chips to interact with the brain/nervous system, it's incredibly basic right now, but a time when these questions start relating to real life is probably closer then you'd think. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/pax-2011-deus-ex/719894

prepare for angry and ranty

2011-08-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

I know I made a post on saturday, but this happened yesterday and I really need to get it off my chest. I'll put it behind a cut so if you don't want to read it you don't need to see any part of it.

so my fucking ex tried to get a hold of me again, this is the only ex I've ever refereed to on this site and the person I was referring to in my loosing a friend. i've began to see our relationship differently. it's not an exaggeration to say that up until that point blamed myself completely for any problems between the two of us. the way she told me to basically go away back then was the first time. I'll be brief, but some highlights include, making me make promises I was clearly uncomfortable with, making her own promises just to find loopholes she could use to effectively break them and knock my self esteem down at the same time (done nearly daily) constantly asserting this idea of the kind of person I am, regardless of what that's doing to me and my well being. making me feel ashamed of not being ready for certain stages of a relation ship (namely sex but that's not all).

these things continued even after we had broken up. and the less I saw her and interacted with her online the more I was able to start putting my life back together, and uphill battle with or without her yes, but doesn't change the fact that she was a significan't impedence to me. naturally i've tried expressing that I don't wish to comunicate with her anymore, and he has promised mutiple times now not to contact me.

yesterday being the thrid fucking time she makes that promise, and you know fuck her for thinking she still has the right to contact me like that, fuck her trying to emotinally black mail me the last couple of times into listening to her, fuck fuck fuck her for trying to talk about how much she's changed when her method for "apology" is to start off by trying to make me feel even worse about myself.

last time she got in contact with me I was almost out of sleeping pills I had kept handy, I was kinda proud of that fact since downing the bottle is a frequent thought of mine, but dealing with her tends to mean I need them to get to sleep for a few days so now I have a new fucking bottle, and I'm back to researching ways to take a fatal dose without throwing up. fuck the fact that I had to leave school early today because without constant distractions this fucking thing had me ready to break down in tears.

reasons why digimon is better then real life

2011-08-20T14:14:00.001-07:00

when the good guys are loosing, the good guys grow jet packs and rocket launchers.

my writing

2011-08-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

just thought I'd make a quick post on my writing, my cheesy erotic piece is coming slowly but it is coming. and so far it has seemed to help with my desire to write. and not in just the momentum way I was originally thinking, I think I was starting to get a little burn out on my cyberpunk piece since I really want it to be good, so much to the point were even though I only had a few pages I already had scrapped that to completely rewrite the opening. so taking a break and writing something simple and cheesy seems to have helped me put the more enjoyable parts of writing, while I still plan to focus on the sexy one for now, I think I might end up switching between the two pieces, both to keep things rolling on my cyberpunk piece and so that I minimize the risk of the sexy piece feeling like a chore.

asssians creed

2011-08-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

before I get started I just want to direct everyone to the humble indie bundle #3 there's only a few days left on it, it's pay what you want, a portion goes to charity (the rest goes to small independent game studios which is also a nice plus) and you get 7 great games that can run on just about any system (independent studios typically can't make games that really tax modern computers, though you might have trouble running them on a netbook).

today since I want to mostly work on homework, work on my story, or play the bundle (thank you Jennifer ) I figured I'd give some quick thoughts on the assisans creed serious, so spoiler warning: for the first and second game, I'll try to avoid talking much about brother hood, but I still might give info about the first hour or so of play.

now I fully admit the first game has problems, there was a lack of side missions and you were required to complete several per assassination, resulting in a lot of repetition (that being said I loved the environment so much I did all of them). these problems were addressed in the second game.

however overall I can't help but feel that the first game was better, they may have fixed the repetition problem but I believe they lost some character in the process. at first I loved ezio, but in assassins creed two, he's content to spend his entire life searching for revenge, and never seems to appreciate the bigger picture of what's going on even after it was directly reviled that he was to play a very important part. Altair though had a very strong arch, he starts off in the game fairly arrogant and breaching the philosophy of his brotherhood, by the end of the game, he seemed to have a deep understanding of what the assisans stood for, and knew how his actions affected those in his brotherhood.

another place they lost characterization is in the Templar themselves, I love that each target has a chance to monologue while on their death bed. it gives a great sense that the assassins aren't in this just for blood. in the first game, most of the Templar seemed to actually want to help the people they had power over (they did it in bad ways but their intentions seemed good) there was one exception and that made him an extremely satisfying target. when we reach assisans creed two, the moral ambiguity is gone even though ezio's reasons for killing are are far less noble, they compensate by making the Templar unambiguously evil and greedy for power.

cartoon superhero's

2011-07-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

ok before I get into this topic I just want to get something out of the way, if you came here from ask.com and are looking for Jennifer's TG caps of defiance you can find the link here and always in my sidebar to the right. also for the record I wasn't ripping on ask.com for the sake of it, people looking for jennifers blog have always been one of my highest sources of visitors from search engines, and after the recent upgrade to Google analytics I found out they ALL came from ask.com and they were the only ones from ask.com. so next time think about using Google or yahoo, ask is not a very well written search engine.

now a lot of the people following this blog know that I'm just now getting into comic books, but I do have something of a passing familiarity with a lot of the characters. some of this is due to being a fan of linkara who mostly reviews the bad comics but details from other characters can still pop up. most of my knowledge about the characters comes from the 90's cartoons though, batman, superman, spiderman, and the x-men, spent a log of time with all of these shows. even know that I'm approaching my mid 20's I still enjoy these shows (re watching them on netflix).

however I haven't been a fan of a lot of the more recent ones, super hero squad does such a through killing of the charecters so to have hulk literally bawl like a baby. both the batman and the latest spiderman shows horrible respect for their source material (seriously there's a line in the batman that says, before the supervillans showed up gothem was officially the most crime free city in the world, and aside from a specific crime scene, gotham is portrayed as a bright and peaceful looking near utopia) and while wolverine and the x-men didn't look too bad I don't like that they felt the need to stress wolverine so much. so outside of the movies (both animated and live action).

which leads me to the few exceptions, fantastic four earths greatest hero's and more recently the avengers earth's mightiest hero's. I'll mostly be talking about the avengers since it's the one I found recently. while there are a few problems with it, mostly in the forms of toning down the characters flaws to make it more "child friendly" (this is probably most obvious with iron man) I still find it entertaining and fairly real to the characters otherwise. which leads me to the last thing I want to comment on their theme song (check it out). it might be a little cheesy, but it still seems to fit, and I find myself enjoying it a lot.

the internet

2011-07-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

OK I want to start by stating that I don't believe all technology is truly neutral while I can't think of any tech that I would be comfortable banning all together. I believe some tech lends itself naturally to societal or individual progress and comfort, and some tech lends itself to a more destructive nature and good can come from that tech with discipline and control.

Now the reason I'm bringing this up is because ATnT's cap isn't a unique thing, Canada has to deal with a lot of bandwidth cap, you add to the fact that net neutrality is something that still pops up from time to time (the most recent attempt at ending net neutrality being the aptly named internet freedom bill). and these trends scare me, I know has a tech geek this may seem a bit cliche but I truly belive the internet is one of the greatest things people have ever made (possibly the greatest). i've seen it allow people a voice to people who otherwise wouldn't, I've seen unite communities of people who might otherwise think they were completely alone. it has been a true force of change, and has allowed information of all sorts to become easily assessable. and I belive we are only scratchign the surface of the impact it might have in our world (possibly one of the reasons I'm a cyberpunk fan).

these policies are a direct detriment to that, companies who start charging per bit instead of upgrading the network slow down the evolution and growth of the internet, possibly to the point of halting it altogether.
the effects of ending net neutrality could be even worse, if the architecture of the net is changed so that only large corporations are capable of significant web presence then the beauty I see in the net will quickly be lost, possibly even converted into a detrimental force in the world at large.

sorry for the lecture, and I'll try to have something less soap boxy next week, but this has been on my mind for a while, and it feels great to get it off my chest.

sex

2011-07-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

well my computer's back and settled so I suppose it's time to get back to regular updates. and because it's been on my mind I'm going to give a rare post that actually earns the adult content warning I put on the blog.

last time I talked about this I mentioned that I'm a virgin and that still hasn't changed so this will mostly cover my solo experiences, you have been warned.

first I'll give an odd confession while I do masturbate I actually don't think of myself as enjoying it. they main reason I continue to do it is because I've learned that my body does have physical when I try going a long time without it I get stressed more easily, my headaches become more frequent and eventually my body can become more ache (it starts around the shoulders). to add to it, I very rarely experience what I'd refer to as "sexual attraction" based solely on some one's appearances, something some one says is far more likely to trigger that reaction then any way the look dress or act. to put this in perspective, I have probably spent more time fawning over linkara (who is a comic book expert and my fawning started when he nerded out about star trek) and iron liz (who is a very avid pen and paper RPG reviewer) (two people who do entertaining albeit low budget shows on the Internet), while they are by no means unattractive I think it's fair to say wouldn't exactly rank as high as say movie stars or super models in terms of being conventionally attractive.

I think these two things is the main reason why I read caps, when I actually am looking for some erotic story or imagery I need a lot more then just imagery but I don't want to sit and dwell on something for a long time. this has also lead me with very little explorations of my sexual interest or sexuality beyond just discovering a few big ones while I read. but there is a major exception to this, and that's my submissive side.

now I want to stress that there is a lot more to submissiveness and submission then just the sexual fetish involved and it would be doing a disservice to a lot of people to say that it is always about sex or little more then sex, but fact remains that it's difficult to explore without running into a fair amount of sex.

wow long winded rant and only now am I getting to the point, right now I'm going through another phase of attempting to explore this part of myself, the locked in lace forum has some sort of sub or off shoot site called the isle of submission, were I've started role playing, and last night I had another idea. I think I might start writing my first sexually explicit story, I have a lot of scenes I've already started planning out and I have most of the main characters planned (though I'm still trying to decide if I should include magic) while I normally want to avoid stories that are so blatantly self insert I think this might help me out in the long run, both in terms of finding an outlet, and hopefully letting me slide back into writing (there are still a few non sexual stories I want to work on)>

computer trouble, going to be out for a bit

2011-07-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

title says it all, my computers down, and I have limited access to working computers, so I might not be able to blog for a bit.

ups and downs

2011-06-11T18:22:00.000-07:00

so things have been a bit up and down lately, mostly down it would seem, but frankly it's surprising I don't feel a lot worse then I do.

for a brief run down the bad weekend I mentioned a couple of posts back was quickly followed by my landlords telling me to get out, I have some time to find a new place, but it's only been about 6 months since the last time I was kicked out of a place (I swear I'm not a bad tenant, both times it's been the land lords finances) worrying about a place to stay is one of the primary reasons why I even bother staying in this state, so when my housing situation ends up being this unstable I spend a lot of time thinking why don't I just get in my car pick a direction and then try my luck somewhere else (without a place to stay, knowing anything about the area, or even much money for basics).

the good news, I found a potential house in just a few days I'm still waiting for full conformation so I'm trying not to get my hopes too high up but this would work out very nicely and has been keeping my stress low. and while there wasn't anything to alleviate the bad weekend stuff, something did happen that helped put a little hole in my normal depression. basically this, http://venatus.tumblr.com/post/6308720276/that-post-about-wanting-to-date-someone-on-tumblr-i the girl who left that ask can be found here http://thenakedfemme.tumblr.com/ picture here http://thenakedfemme.tumblr.com/post/6328354128 (sorry for the link spam in this part) it may seem petty, but thoughts that I'm pretty much destined to spend my life alone does tend to be a common companion during my depressive episodes, so hearing that somebody would like to date me, even if she couldn't for a number of reasons did mean a lot to me.

trans community needs help

2011-06-02T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'm grabbing this specfic part from the haven but I've seen the same thing float around a few times, please read this the American Psychiatric Association is getting ready to make some changes that will severely hurt trans people and especially gender variant non trans people

By Kelley Winters, PhD
May 28, 2011

On May 5, the American Psychiatric Association released a second round of proposed diagnostic criteria for the 5th Edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). These include two categories that impact the trans community: Gender Dysphoria (formerly Gender Identity Disorder) and Transvestic Disorder (formerly Transvestic Fetishism).

While GID has received a great deal of attention in the press and from GLBTQ advocates, the second transvestic category is too often overlooked. This is unfortunate, because a diagnosis of Transvestic Disorder is designed to punish social and sexual gender nonconformity and to enforce binary stereotypes of assigned birth sex. It plays no role in enabling access to medical transition care for those who need it, and it is frequently cited when care is denied.http://www.gidreform.org/blog2010Oct15.html

I urge all trans community members, friends, care providers, and allies to call for the removal of this punitive and scientifically unfounded diagnosis from the DSM-5.
The current period for public comment to the APA ends June 15.

The entry in the current DSM on Transvestic Disorder, like the former entry on Transvestic Fetishism, is authored by Dr. Ray Blanchard of the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (formerly known as the Clarke Institute). Blanchard has drawn outrage from the transcommunity for his defamatory theory of autogynephilia,
http://www.gidreform.org/blog2008Nov10.html
asserting that all transsexual women who are not exclusively attracted to males are motivated to transition by self-obsessed sexual fetishism.

He is canonizing this harmful stereotype of transsexual women in the DSM-5 by adding an autogynephilia specifier to the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis.
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?ri...

Worse yet, Blanchard has broadly expanded the diagnosis to implicate gender-nonconforming people of all sexes and all sexual orientations,
even inventing an autoandrophilia specifier to smear transsexual men.
Most recently, he has added an "In Remission" specifier to preclude the possibility of exit from diagnosis.
Like a roach motel, there may be no way out of the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis once ensnared.

What You Can Do Now

1. Go to the http://www.dsm5.org/proposedrevision/pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=189
APA DSM-5 website, click on "Register Now," create a user account, and enter your statement in the box.
The deadline for this second period of public comment is June 15.

[NOTE: Safari may not load that web page. Use Firefox or another Browser instead]

2. Sign the Petition to Remove Transvestic Disorder from the DSM-5,
sponsored by the International Foundation for Gender Education.
http://dsm.ifge.org/petition/

3. Demand that your local, national, and international GLBTQ nonprofit organizations
issue public statements calling for the removal of this defamatory Transvestic Disorder category from the DSM-5.
So far, very few have.

4. Spread the word to your networks, friends, and allies.

http://www.gidreform.org/blog2010Oct15.html for More Information

Cross-posted with additional comments at the
http://gidreform.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/transvestic-disorder-the-...
GID Reform Advocates Blog.

Visit PINKessence at: http://pinkessence.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

bad weekend

2011-05-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

well I just got home after attending my sisters graduation party and let me just say I hope everyone reading this had a better weekend then me. for a few highlights, stress depression and sleep deprivation started peaking around the same time till I had to find a private spot to blast some music and cry a little, and my dad got drunk and quite possibly ensured some cousins I like are never coming down again. so yeah sorry not in the mood to make a bigger post right now but I'll try to be a little more positive next week.

it's strange loosing a friend.

2011-05-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

so yeah, the friendship between me and the person I mentioned in my "not on tap post" is officially over. it's an awkward feeling, I do feel a bit bad about it, but at the same time this is the same girl who regularly ignored me, called me a bad friend when that made me insecure, and made me not saying bad things about myself a requirement just for talking to her and then weeks later tried to send me uplifting video's and trying to build a supportive relationship. I really can't be played with like that and as such, even though a part of me is sad to see the friendship officially cut off, I'm very relived and glad that it is.

glasses

2011-05-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

ok I have about three topics I'd like to talk about, but energy seems to be a bit low lately. hopefully I'll get to them soon. in the mean time the title says it all. looks like I'm probably going to be getting a pair of glasses soon. I haven't seen the optometrist yet (appointment this wensday) but based on how well I could see the stage compared to other family members at a show I saw a few days ago it's pretty probably I'll be getting something. though I'm not sure what, my child hood history indicated I'd need reading classes when I got older, but now it looks like I may be near sighted.

either way I've started looking into what to get. I don't know a lot of the options out there but my insurance does cover scratch resistant lenses, so that one's pretty much a given. I'll have to check on how much transition lenses cost, there not covered but it would be handy to have a ready pair of sunglasses for driving. and the part I'm the least familiar with, the frames. my insurance will cover up to $130 for the frames but I don't even know were to start with those, for now I'll probably just take a look at what they have available were I'm getting my eye's checked.

gamerisms

2011-04-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

just a short post this weekend but I wanted to say I've been inviting to be a member of a corroborative blog on tumblr with a number of wonderful people, the blog is called gamer isms, and it's primarily going to be a gaming news/editorial place, but with the exception that were building it to be a safe space. so if your tired of hearing "make me a sandwich" 'jokes' or using the word gay like an insult within gaming communities it should be worth checking out.

http://gamerisms.tumblr.com/

not on tap

2011-04-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

something's been running thorugh my mind lately so hopefully you don't mind if I use this to clean up a few cobwebs that have been hanging out in my head. just a few things to keep in mind, the fact that this is coming up now is a good thing, a few years ago I wasn't able to recognize this and tended to blam myself for everything (still blame myself for 99% of it but hey it's progress). I'm just barely now coming to realize some of the problems with my last romantic relationship (a relationship that happened years ago) it wasn't the only thing wrong with the relationship, however it was a pretty big one, and I think I only recently realized it because in the guise of a "friendship" she's still treating me like this.

I know she's not doing it maliciously but she treats me as if my energy and emotions are on tap for her, she bears little to no regard for ignoring me for small things even after I've expressed concern about it. yet (especially while we were dating) she seems to always expect me to be available, even if she was just bored. yes she would offer emotional support and the like sometimes, but it rarely had anything to do with when I needed it, and I suspect much more to do with when she decided she was up to it. and keep in mind, she knew about a lot of the problems I had, a very emotional blog post on the haven was effectiveness what started that relationship. I know it might not come off very well in a blog post, especially since I fully understand how sometimes you just can't muster up much energy, sometimes even for important things, so you'll have to take my word that what she did was not just a few isolated incidents, it was the norm, and her volunteering any energy or even willing to listen to me when I was having problems were rare.

a little confession

2011-04-06T21:53:00.000-07:00

alright, I’m bored and my depression is spiking so I’m going to get something off my chest, this is something I’ve felt kinda guilty for doing but I know I shouldn’t. very very very minor spoilers for mass effect and dragon age games.
I’ll admit I’m a sucker for a good romance, though I rarely like them to be the focus of the story and hate it more when it feels forced in. I’m also a video gamer and an avid role player (pen and paper and forum play by posts included). and one thing bioware as been doing a great (though far far from perfect) job of doing lately is opening up more role playing options and romance options within that.

the two have been a great combination for me, and a great chance to express myself. the problem is that my characters always go for the same type of guys, in mass effect it’s kaiden, never winter nights two (not bioware but it was based off there work) it was cassivir, dragon age two it was Anders (alister came close for the first game but he doesn’t quite fit) these are all protective guys, kaiden especially talks about how he wants to protect your charecter and they all talk about how they don’t want to see any harm come the charecter. now my characters are not weak women in dragons age 2 my version of hawke stood in front of a man twice her size and as a mage challenged him to one on one combat (mages are not made for going into a fight alone) my version of shepard has talked (face to hologram) to entities so old and powerful as to be on the edge of comprehension, and she’s done this without flinching and telling them that she will not go down without a fight, and that they better be ready to find her fighting back at every instances. and in all these games it is quite easily my character saving her love interest despite how I like the conversation to go once there somewhere safe.

I know that since I do my best to bring these characters to life and flesh them out to be real 3 dimensional characters this shouldn’t feel like paradox but the constancy of this has always gotten to me a little. also one of the things that annoys me is that I have yet to come across a female character with those sorts of dialogue options I would love to see a girl character in one of these games fill that romance role.

update on escapism and cats

2011-03-27T18:54:00.000-07:00

ok still trying o pull myself up, though I do seem to be climbing, so i've been having trouble coming up with full topics for blog posts, so here's a few updates on previous posts.

one is my cat, thanks to a vacuum kind of spot cleaner and finding a spray that seems to work for the carpenter (thanks to my good good friend jennifer) I think my cat is safe, the landlords still don't like it so he's on very shaky ground but there no longer actively telling me I can't have him.

second is that I think I gave the wrong impression in my escapism post, while I admit I overindulge in gaming and escpaism while my depression is flaring, I think I pretty much have it under control when my depression isn't killing my functionality. and when my depression flares I need the distraction, if I'm not gaming it's typically only a matter of time before I start doing things like literally researching how to suscessfully kill myself, I know why some of the common methods fail and I've spent time looking how to do them effectivly, and spent time thinking about where I could go to do it that would take the longest for them to find me (ideal situation being not finding me at all) and while I enjoy stuff like writting or reading, I basically need to build up momentum before they manage to occupy enough of my head to sufficiently keep those thoughts out, otherwise a part of my brain brings them up and before you know it, I'm thinking more about sucide then what I'm trying to read. gaming as the advatage of drawing me in sufficently right away.

furthermore I don't think I use it to avoid other things, if there's something specific on my mind I usually find a way of trying to deal with that (often thanks once again to my friend Jennifer) but a lot of times it's not stuff that I can, sometimes it's self esteem issues, and sometimes it's just the sadness thoughts of death, so I welcome anything that can bring something else into my head.

escapism

2011-03-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

sorry the posts have been really low lately, my depression is flaring up and I've been needing a lot of caffine just to stay functional for my homework so getting around to blog posts as been an uphill battle. and has per my usual when I'm not drowning in caffeine and homework during a depression I click on some video games, spent a little more money on them recently then I probably should have. I know burying myself in video games probably isn't the best course of action but it's one of the few things that involve me enough to keep the darker thoughts out of my head, it really wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that dragon age 2 got me through the last couple of weeks. hopefully I'll be a bit better next week and have something a bit more substantial.

cats

2011-03-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

sorry for the short post but I just got news that I probably won't be able to keep one of my cats. since he's already sick the chances of finding him somewhere else to live are pretty slim, practically zero. so it pretty much means I'll have to put him down soon. and that fact is kinda hitting me hard, my cats have been one of the few constants in my life since I got them, and out side of meds one of the few things helping my depression (it's pretty much them and a very close friend who I can only communicate with via messenger). sorry, I don't know what else to say, but yeah, the news has hit me pretty hard.

"your so much more then trans" but you'd never say that to a doctor.

2011-02-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

this blog post is inspired by a little incident that happened between me and some one else recently, and if your reading this, it's not aimed at you, rather the incident reminded me of several others, and I think it's probably a larger problem in society.

the basic premise of this problem is that I've seen a lot of people say things like "your not a transsexual your so much more, your creative intelligent etc etc" or "why do you define yourself as gay, there's so much more to you then just your sexuality" this always struck me as odd, after all I've never met someone who's gay or trans who would themselves say that by identifying as such there identifying ONLY as such, and I've never been able to see any reason why identifying as trans or gay would by it's nature exclude those things. the odd thought process that goes behind these sorts of statements was highlighted once I realized that no one as ever said anything similar when I identify as a gamer, a nerd, aspiring computer programmer.

this leads me to a fairly frightening conclusion. the reason the phrase is suppose to be a compliment is because trans or gay or the like still have a negative connotation. naturally the idea that these things are still looked down upon isn't surprising or a revelations in the least. What is, is that people who are normally sympathetic, still in some deep part of there psyche have trouble seeing people beyond those identities, that there is some how a mental block in them that once someone says there trans they have trouble seeing anything more then a serious of stereotypes surrounding gay or trans people, like I said in the title and earlier, people would never say something like this when talking about a doctor or an artist, and I don't know of anyone who would say a doctor is incapable of being a writer or singer a well. but when I identify as transsexual, or others identify as homosexual is suppose to suddenly become a big compliment that were seen as more. though I hate to center so much on the recent incident I had I think I'll close out with an exert from the last messeage I sent to that friend, it may not be the best way to say what I said but I think it captures an emotional essence I felt at the time that would be difficult for me to duplicate. I sent this directly after she had told how I was so much more then just a transsexual, and seemed to think I was clinging to that identity in a way that was isolating me from others.

"but it's not something I've ever felt confined to, knowing what it is as actually given me great hope, i've found a community of others with similar experiences and I have bonded/started to bond with many of them and the idea that I may be able to one day look in a mirror without hating everything I've seen (I can get pretty graphic here, but I'll hold off)

i've never identified myself as just a transsexual or even as just a trans woman, but none the less that identity is a very vital part (emphasis part) of who I am."

I am nerd, I am geek, I am gamer, I am some one who pretends they have writing talent, and yes I am also trans and so much more, but it is not a compliment to tell me I am not something thing, just because I am many things.

black widow

2011-02-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

so I've been trying (and slowly) getting into comics recently, it started off with me tracking down some of the marvel ultimates line since (has I recently discovered) there suppose to be something of a retelling/re-imagining of the marvel hero's, for the most part the characters are the same but starting off in modern times and free of continutity.

anyway to make a long story short some of what I read prompted me to track down some comics of black widow in the main marvel line so far I've read a trade paper pack of her's called deadly orgin seems like a good place to start if you want to learn about her, didn't have a lot of action scenes but showed a lot of scenes from her history, basically giving an abridged version of her history (as far as I can tell).

and most surprisingly I felt myself connecting and emphasizing with her a lot more then I thought I ever would with a superhero character, if you don't know much about black widow the follwoing might be considered spoilers, but it is all pretty much back story stuff, still be warned.

I found I oddly connected with her plight of feeling fractured, and having spent so long being told who she was that she's having trouble feeling like herself, or like a whole person. in her case there were even refrences to things being done to her head, which may have made her think that she was something she wasn't (in her case a balarina). obviously I don't know exactly what it's like, but the basic theme of loosing yourself to what your told you are, and spending time trying to piece your own basic identity together was something I found myself emphasizing with a good deal, and now I'm really looking forward to reading more of her stuff.

quick update

2011-02-06T10:45:00.000-08:00

so a few thing have happened since my last blog, nothing major but a number of small things.

one I got my second cat back, I was really happy about it at first but the two seem to hate eachother suddenly, I'm hoping it's temorary and that they'll go back to there friendly selves soon.

I was very recently contacted by an old friend who I figured wasn't willing to put any effort or energy into our friendship, so I'm kinda happy about that, but a little cautious since she might easily go back into that attitude.

and I did one of my nerdiest things on tumblr and made a blog dedicated to random thoughts from across the Borg collective please check it out share it, and feel free to submit to it, i'd love to start posting stuff on there that came from other people. (I've also included a picture of one of my recent jokes on the blog) http://assimilationponderings.tumblr.com/

just venting

2011-01-29T20:41:00.000-08:00

it should be fairly obvious by now that I consider my online spaces to be some sort of safe space for me and my issues. today I'm going to be taking advantage of that and I'll be venting a little about one particular individual, who I won't name, but has consistently pretended to be a friend (even after I made it clear I didn't care for the friendship) but as attacked me, claimed I couldn't really be trans unless I obsessed over one thing she obsessed over, continually asks me questions that are very hurtful to me, even after I have answered the question, explained the situation isn't going to change, and explained numerous times that it is a very harmful question for me, and when I have the gall to get upset when she asks it for the 12th time (I think I'm lowballing it) accused of being bitchy and being in PMS.

it should be quite clear that this person is obviously deeply misogynistic, what with the whole "upsetting questions make you upset, change your tampon" (she actually did say stuff like change your tampon) and her claiming that I can't really be a woman if I don't obsess over her (traditionally girly) interest. but is also incredibly rude and has no sense of respecting another human being. I think what annoys me the most is that just when I think she's gotten the picture on something she some how always comes back with the same annoying attitude and the same fucking question. the reason this came up today is that she recently started trying to re-initiate contact with me, and the same day, when I simply gave some info to a question she posed to a comunity she STILL managed to come at me. it's gotten to the point were I can't be sure if she's really that dense, or if she is trying to bully me, and in fact I've considered reporting her on the claims of bullying.

I'll admit there are multiple people I don't get along with, happens to everybody, most people I simply hope not to see. I know this girl from an online community/safe space and she has the honor of being the only person I would ever want to leave or be booted off that place.

birthday

2011-01-23T15:04:00.000-08:00

my birthday was a couple of days ago so now I'm officially 24 years old, as such I've made the joke "still not old enough to rent a car" a number of times in the last few days.

all in all I think I had a pretty good birthday, i've been doing less and less for my birthday since I got out of high school, and this year if it weren't for my parents taking me out to a birthday dinner and movie I wouldn't have done anything but I got a few good meals and managed to see both black swan (great movie, a lot more sex then I was expecting though) and green hornet (funny movie) I also got some of my favorite food which I'll be slowing eating, unfortunately I'll be eating it slowly because pineapple always gives me sores not to try and make it last longer.

in the next couple of weeks I hope to have a post with some more detail about my struggle with depression but to be honest, those posts are really hard for me to get out, when I have the energy to type them everything in me doesn't want to dwell on the thoughts but when the thoughts are there anyway I don't have the energy to type, but in the long run getting them out there has helped tremendously in the long run so I'll try and get something typed up.

tron

2011-01-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

so I saw the new tron movie a little while back, and while I admit it wasn't the deepest story out there I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it (and I've been playing the opening narration about the grid more then most people could handle), it had wonderful visuals and great action scenes and story wise felt like a true successor to tron, which I admit I only saw a few years back when Disney decided to air it on TV (around the time they released kingdom hearts 2 and I still wonder if that was coincidence or if they purposefully did that). they even had a number of good nods to computer science while they were still in the real world, real UNIX commands were actually used (any one wondering were the kill -9 thing came from) and even the sound track was very enjoyable even if it seemed like daft punk had to write most of the music to fit has background music instead of stand alone tracks. and I really hope they go through with there plans of making more of these, I've even heard rumors of them making an animated series to act as a bridge between the original and the new one.

but lets face facts, I am a giant nerd, I consider myself to barely know UNIX commands yet I was still able to catch a few they used, and being the giant computer nerd any movie about somebody being sucked into a computer world is probably going to have to work really hard to make me not like it. now for the big question, WHY, is the original tron not available for dvd, it looks like it was made at some point but checking online used copies were going for about 70 bucks and netflix didn't have it for rent either I'm going to wait till legacy is on DVD before I decide it's OK for me to pirate it (I'm hoping for a combo pack or something) but watching the sequel brought back a few memories of the one time I managed to see the original and made me realize I really wanted to see it again, and commercially seems like they would be printing more of the movies to sell as I'm sure others think the same I do and I've seen people who wanted to check out the original before watching the new one, but over priced used copies seem to be all that's available.

opposites

2011-01-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

hello, I hope everyone had a good holiday. mine was pretty good once I got past a scare with one of my cats. but it's ok and the cat will be just fine.

now here's a little fact about myself I always found curious and a little odd. my favorite genres of fiction are fantasy and cyberpunk. two genres that I don't think could have less to do with each other. but it goes a lot deeper then just liking to read/watch/play those genres the most. my two favorite fictional characters are link, a noble swordsman who's effectively an elf. and major makoto kusangi, a cyborg woman and talented hacker, leader of a nearly military police unit that bends and breaks rules on a some what regular basis.

heck even some of my ideas of paradise fit this (the ones that revolve around the environment I'm in rather then the people I'm around) a quite place with a big lake I spend most of the day in (to be fair I doubt I could handle that long term without a computer) or being able to immerse myself in a digital world with all the information and knowledge of the ages is instantly accessible (not a clue how I'd handle that long term). just always thought the constant contrast between the two was a bit odd, are a lot of people out there like this or is it just me?

away for holiday

2010-12-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

I really need to need to start working on these updates ahead of time, I still have plenty of ideas about what to talk about but I seem to easily miss weeks, mostly just from not making up my mind in time. oh well for now I'm just poping in to say that I won't be back till early january. visitin family for the holiday and all.

in the mean time what are some of your thoughts on depression, I don't want this to be too much of a downer but there's a stigma attached to clinical depression and I don't really understand why. plus there's always the fact that people need to state it's "actual" depression or people will assume your just being sad. I won't name names but the second one actually happened to me recently I told I good friend that I don't' talk to very often that I've been trying to manage my depression and they started asking me what was going on in my life. I had to point out that I've been medically diagnosed and medicated before they started to realize my depression was more then just being sad.

just the right song.

2010-12-04T20:39:00.000-08:00

The other day my depression was spiking up again, has per my usual pattern I started devoting as much energy I could, to keep the lonely and sad thoughts out of my head (not very successful, but it tends to net better results then when I leave my mind to it's own devices). Yesterday that manifested in me playing random clips and songs on Youtube. when I managed to stumble across one that really helped out and seemed to calm me down a great deal. the song is the closing theme to the second season of ghost in the shell stand alone complex. living within the shell

kind of ironic that the song which helped me out of the empty lonely feelings I had yesterday was actually called living within the shell, but maybe the way it uses the living within the shell imagery is exactly why it proved so effective. I'm not going to pretend I fully comprehend why it was so effective yesterday, but I'm very glad it was and i'm going to try to keep track of songs that seem to be able to do this so they can help me out in future instances were my depression spikes up.

ofcourse i'm also very glad I have headphones, because I ended up playing that song about a million times yesterday, and if I didn't have headphones my roommate would probably hate me by now. oh and just so I leave this entry on a high note, I'll present some proof that Keanu Reeves is immortal (possibly a highlander)

The guy on the left is Paul Mounet, who was an actor known for his deadpan acting style. He died under unusual circumstances and no body was found. I rest my case. (orginal source: http://snakeskins.tumblr.com/post/351461656/jsyk-keanu-reeves-is-fucking-immortal-the-guy-on )

update

2010-11-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

my depression has been flaring up again, so i've gone back to my usual habits of combating it with caffeine and video games, not the best way I know, but once the mood hits those things are part of a very small list that provides relief. the good news is that I'll be getting health insurance that should be kicking in in january and from there I should be able to get back on some medication.

beyond my battle with depression not much has been going on, have a lot of writing to do in my class this month which has been keeping me busy and that's about it.

super hero's

2010-10-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to do something like this for a while but kept holding back since I realized how big it would be. that is until I realized I could just break it up into different sections. so while I'm not sure how frequently I'll be doing this, but I'd like to spend some time examine some of the different things that make certain genre's and sub genre's work and what sort of appeal they have. at the very least I hope this will be informative and entertaining, but I'm also hoping doing this will help me flesh out the stories and games I'd like to make in the future.

first up the super hero genre, for the record I'll be including a bit more than just the traditional super hero's I'll keep close to what causes the appeal but what I'm including will include people like the punisher as well as the power rangers.

It was a quote from Kinsey Hope’s (gender bitch) tumblr that prompted me to start thinking about this. it would probably take days to dig through her tumblr to find the exact post but the general jist is that her life experiences and her work in social justice had changed her concept of evil from the "big bad guy" to something more akin to thousands of paper cuts that dig deeper until they reach the bone.

hopefully you'll forgive the slightly graphic nature of that description but it got me to think, maybe that's part of the reason why super hero fiction is has successful has it is. most of us by the time were adults have realized that evil very rarely has a singular face, and is quite often coming from everywhere, yet the comic book movie is one of the biggest genre's and comic books (which are primarily but not exclusively super hero) make up a million dollar market, and it’s been that way for a long time. and one of the biggest things they have in common is the presence of colossally evil forces. Now, big uniformly and very powerful evil forces may not seem like a better option but, they come with two things. the first being it effectively consolidates the evil in the world, since I don't read a lot of comics my view may be skewed, but from what I've seen they don't usually have the all to real situation of evil coming from everywhere, the manage to give it a form. Now I do know of some exceptions, particularly when they have people like cops in on the evil, but there still giving some sort of from, giving people the ability to metaphorically fight against it.

Which leads me to the second thing that consolidating the evil does. it gives us the actual super hero's most of which act as symbols of hope, and epitomize the good people are capable of, I have heard many people who seem to actually use some super hero's to help them give them the strength to choose to do the right thin. heck this even has some advantages, when the super hero's start having a fall from grace or making really bad choices people are able to blame the writers (like what most fans did with spider man's recent deal with the devil). and in the cases were the hero is doing stuff we clearly aren't suppose to look up to, hero's like The Punisher, it's likely to be more in the actual revenge aspect, those hero's are doing to the same kind of things to the bad guys that the bad guys do to others, things most people can't do.

and of course it would be downright lazy of me not to mention the spectacle of it. heck I think that's one of the reasons why I liked power rangers growing up. most super hero battles actually look cool, over the top martial arts, super powers, someone suddenly coming from the shadows, that in and of itself is a lot of fun and I'm sure a major contributor to there appeal, especially for the colorful super heroes.
Feel free to comment if you feel I’m wrong or feel I’ve missed something, in fact please do, like I mentioned at the beginning I’d like to learn more about the appeals of different genre’s from this exercise so anything you can add will be greatly appreciated.

when a home makes you feel unwelcome

2010-10-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point but I'd like to start off by apologizing for not posting in a while. the class I have this month is consuming a lot of my spare time (without the benefit of actually being educational beyond the first week.) and I have a few ideas for posts I hope to get started on soon, but I can't promise I'll get to them this month.

now onto the title of this post, and yes this is going to be one of those ranty and is actually composed of two topics. first has to do with were I've actually been living I found out I need to look for a new place and that I'm going to have to vacate it pretty soon. I'm in no danger of being homeless as a result, but if I can't find something closer to my school than my dad's place (currently staying with extended family) it will be a lot harder to keep up with school. I have some time to look, but given the budget I'll be looking with it's not exactly hopeful.

the second has to do with my online home, Rachel's haven. it's been a wonderful place for me that allowed me to explore and discover myself but there's been something of a trend developing. that trend is that they will do actions that make women like me feel unwelcome under the pretense of creating an open atmosphere. it's not really prevalent yet but a small number of instances have happened in a short enough amount of time it's eroding the atmosphere the place has. the short version is that in a few threads I was trying to assert that woman like me have a right to be fully acknowledged as women regardless of circumstances such as legal identity how long you've been on hormones, or even what popular media will refer to us as. those threads were locked out saying they were not conductive to an opening and welcoming atmosphere. yet in another thread some one (actually one of the same admins that locked out one of the threads I just described) felt the need to comment how trans people (male or female) shouldn't' as a community show objection to horribly offensive media like the family guy episode I already waged about.

to break it down with the haven, there not creating an open atmosphere, there slowly building one with a clear message, that women like me aren't welcome, merely tolerated, we don't have a right to feel safe or in any way express ourselves they'll tolerate many sorts of religious or political discussions that don't appear has hostile, but not if it's some one from the TS community saying anything about our identity. but the highest members of the staff will still go out of there way to tell us we should be quite docile and merely thank them (or texas) for allowing our existence in any capacity.

like I said this is a few instances that happened fairly recently so things aren't that bad all over yet, but it's starting, very clearly. if I can figure out the right way to bring it up, or if I see it happen one more time I will say something to the other members of the staff on the site but given who has particpated in it I'm guessing that if I do ever bring up this fact I'll be looking for a new home online and offline.

god this really hitting my depression hard.

[update] I checked one of the threads after posting this and it appears that instead of just locking it it's been upgraded to a full on removal, I'm gone for the weekend and I want to phrase this right but it only stresses the point, ts men and women aren't really welcome, were not to be seen or acknowledged we are less important then the people who come there because there interest in TG is recreational (not the best word I know since it's still a valid form of self expression and I don't agree with the gender roles but I'm at a loss for words for a better on, and at a loss of time and spirit to look up anther right now) . I hope I can figure a good way to bring it up, it's not easy pointing out when the only safe place you've had for years starts becoming unsafe and unwelcoming.

[update number 2] ok I'll probably wait till I see something else again, turns out the thread wasn't deleted by the haven staff so there innocent of that part of the problem.

I won't be silent any more (kinda)

2010-09-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

first off I'd like to welcome my three new followers and anybody else who found my blog in the last couple of weeks. I'm always happy to have more readers, even though my blog about depression in addition to being transsexual including people finding my blog by googling the words transsexual and depression. but this blog was made mostly for self expression and one of the things unfortunantly is my depression.

which leads me to the title of the blog, it's gotten harder and harder for me to keep any number of my political or social views away from people, I'm still no were near working up the courage to tell people about my gender issues but recently I've started posting a few current event issues related to gay rights, and subsequently had just about everyone from my past join together and tell me what a self serving evil heathen I am. this has been going of for a few weeks, were I'll give logical and moral reasons why, you know, people deserve basic human rights, and then they'll resort to personal attacks (the most mild of which was critiquing my grammar has there entire argument) and try to tell me how I'm not listening to them, this got to the point to were for most of the day there was actually a face book page devoted to hating me, made by some one who deleted the account they made it with before anyone could find out who it was.

now people thrashing around and saying nonsensical things to be bigoted isn't anything new and I was actually expecting as much, but still, a few weeks worth of personal attacks as started to wear me down a bit even if I give no weight to any specific attack. so it's left me a little drained (that's part of the reason why I missed last weeks post) and horny, that's possible a coincidence, but it's weird non the less

depression

2010-09-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

well I still seem to be in an up and down section of the upswing of my depression (at least I'm still hoping it's an upswing and not just changes within the down part) but like I mentioned last week here's something of a post detailing my struggles with depression.

depression is something that is unfortunately very common among the transsexual crowd. but when you have a body that feels alien, and a society that tries to say you don't have a right to exist it's amazing to find any transsexual or intersex individual who don't' suffer from it. I also belive there are a lot of missconceptions about depression, and that most people experince it in very diffrent ways.

I remember the first time I started hearing about depression as a sort of medical aliment, I was in early middle school. and at the time there was a news program made for school students, they had some sort of special on depression and trying to raise awareness of it, and has I heard some of the testimonies about it it really did resonate with me. but for a number of reasons I didn't take it that seriously and weeks later I gave it no mind. the two biggest reasons for this were fear of being something of a hypocondriac and thus misdiagnosing myself, and the fact that the special presented it as something that is always present in those people, 24/7 265 days a year. were as mine was persistent but did (and does) go away for long periods of time as well. it wasn't till many years later, after my depression had played a role in me dropping out of college the first time, did I really start learning that for some people it does come and go in various patterns.

as I sort of stated earlier, my depression or not depression periods (I have no idea what to call them) tend to come and last for long periods of time. and a large part of the danger for me is that sometimes when those down periods go on long enough that I begin to effectively forget it's not just the way things are (such as happened when I was at my last job getting verbally abused for a living) during these periods I begin to really think about suicide, and I've really thought about it more than anybody should (ideally no one should have to think about it at all except in context of suicide prevention but I hope you get my point). I can often spend hours contemplating how to keep people from finding my body, how long it would take to get a gun in my gun loving state, what I could use to keep me from vomiting when I'm using poisons, you get the idea. but for my sake it's importatnt to try and remember what I'm like in my depressive states and recognize when I am, there may not be a lot I can do to counter the psychological effects it has on me, but knowing when I am in those down area's helps me take enough control to keep away from drastic actions and to make sure I keep taking care of myself (so far anyway)

but most importantly I think there are some very dangerous misconceptions about depression that are held in public consciousness. one I still struggle with myself is the idea that the medication is bad or that it's like giving up on life, or the more extreme people like my own father who equate depression medication to happy pills that keep you in some sort of euphoria. after dropping out of college I was on depression medication for a while, and in general I felt better than I usually do during my high points, life was still far from happy bliss, I still struggled with my gender issues but my head felt a lot clearer, of course my own hesitance to take medication that proved helpful to me (as opposed to the mountains of caffeine I like to self medicate with when I can afford it) led me to stop, and now I doubt I could afford the doctor visit to get the prescription even if I finally manage to get past that stigma.

but most importantly (and I'll admit I'm not sure how best to say this) is the misconceptions that society has about how depression works, like lady Alexia i've heard people tell me that my life is too comfortable to surfer from depression, which is a very bad thing to say regardless of how comfortable somebodies life is, the fact that depression increases the likely hood of suicide should tell you it's not a logic based alignment. any statement like this will only make things worse, it's not addressing the depression itself, it's not doing anything to alleviate the thoughts or emotions that come with it, and most of all it's adding a layer of guilt on top of the depression so it's actually making things significantly worse. in a similar vein it's never a good idea to say things like people who commit suicide are taking the cowards way out or are being selfish. these sorts of statements are likely to make people more likely to commit suicide as they attack the self worth of people who are already starting to see it as a last option, and even if you don't think these people are around we hear it, and you can never be sure, most people in my life wouldn't know that about me but it still stings when I hear it. and for the record, many people who do commit suicide believe there doing a favor to those around them in the long run (myself included)

short post

2010-09-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

sorry I haven't posted much this week. I'm kinda in a middle grounds with my depression, I'm coming out of it enough were I'm no longer dwelling on all the negative things (there fore no longer feeling the need to express them here) but I'm still having trouble working up the motivation to do any real musings or writing. but don't worry I seem to be on my way up. and in fact I'm thinking next week I want to write about my experiences with depression as a whole.

social habits

2010-08-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

this one has been on my mind for a little while now, and truth be told it's actually something I've been accused of before not liking people, or otherwise being antisocial. but as I hope all my friends would be willing to tell you that's not the case there are however a number or things that keep me from being a very social individual.

one of the biggest (and most normal) reasons for this is that I am an introverted individual. the short version of this is that being around crowds of people just drains me, I'd also much rather have a slower conversation were I have a few moments to think through my response than the rapid conversations that are the norm. I've actually been reading about it in an issue of psychology today and there is a lot more to it than that, but if you feel shy or out of place in big parties I recommend doing some reading, learning about common introverted behavior really felt freeing to me. (the psychology today website doesn't' have the article I'm reading, which is entitled revenge of the introverts, but check a few of these out and you'll get some basic ideas, they have a lot more if you just search introvert thttp://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-introverts-corner/201002/dont-call-us-we-ll-call-well-no-actually-we-probably-won-t http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-introverts-corner/201001/itll-be-fun-and-other-extrovert-lies

the rest of the reasons are actually things that cause some problems. most relating to my being a transexual, and the depression that comes with this. basically the way that this works out is that if I can't find way to constantly keep myself stimulated while in public. I'll give you an example, recently I had to attend my schools orientation, despite having been there for a month, I already knew about everything they started talking about, and after about ten minuets of my mind wandering I suddenly had to start holding back the tears while my mind went to, well I'll just say some dark places.

on a similar token it also seems dishonest of me to socialize with people as long as I have to pretend to be a boy. this isn't always the case but the more intimate I want the relationship to be the more dishonest it feels to go forward unless I were to work up the courage to tell them first. I recently decided not to ask a girl I like out but I'm still OK with trying to get a dungeons and dragons group together, just for an example. this trait is defantly a problem and I believe is the biggest reason why most of my socializing is done online, all the people I talk to online know my current status and they still accept me as a woman, I'm not at a point in my life were I can get this anywhere else and it's the only way for me to have a deep meaningful relationship (friendship or otherwise) and as many times as I have to hear people tell me how bad that is for me or claiming I don't like people. it's far better than the alternatives I have access to.

links highlight: gender bitch

2010-08-21T21:02:00.000-07:00

well this weekend I have to put together both a 3-5 page paper and a 3-5 minute presentation (ok I did procrastinate the presentation but the paper is fairly new news) and since I don't want my long emo rant to be the top post for much longer, how about another one of the link highlights.

this time it's one of the activist blogs that I ran across recently it's called genderbitch: musings of a trans chick.
http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/

I have to say this girl is completly awesome I'm still reading the back catalouge of her blog and I've probably spent more time this week reading it than I have doing what I'd normally consider leisure activities (I actually tend to do that when I find a blog I really like). she's very expressive and clever. she also as a way of writing which is very very good at pointing out how other's have severly fucked up http://genderbitch.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/intent-its-fucking-magic/ I've also taken to following her on twitter http://twitter.com/genderbitch which includes updates to her tumblr account (fair warning she posts a lot to tumblr) which are still just as awesome.

and since I have a feeling some people reading this may want a bit more I'll give you this Scott pilgrim avatar I made, I'm considering redesigning the site to use (an idea I actually stole from Kinsey of genderbitch) it since a part of me as always been a little uncomfortable using some one else picture as the intro into the site.

I love the machete

emotinal baggage

2010-08-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

OK a bit of a story behind this surprise post. I can feel my depression flaring up again, and as is it's patterns it attacks the same areas of my life, the same thoughts, I'm not in a position to counter most of them, or possibly all of them, but I figured I'd try and this time it's attacking once again my feelings regarding my last relationship. for the record, part of the problem is that I truly blame myself for everything I'm about to bring up, in my own head everything bad about the relationship was 100% my fault one way or another, but if I'm to gain any control over this depression(at least enough so I don't' drop out of school like last time) I can't keep thinking in those terms, so this well out of necessitate frame her to be worse than she is, so the few that know who I'm talking about please keep that in mind. (and if she ends up reading this I'm really really sorry but if I don't let this out I think it might start ruling me again). also I have no idea how to start this or structure it, and being a pretty emotional piece at an emotional time I don't think I could, so this might not be very clear.and also keep in mind I only ever talked to her through text, instant message email that sort of thing

first off a small things I'm likely to repeat, despite the fact that we met on a TG friendly website I always had the suspicion she considered me a man, this was mostly a number of small things, I'd always be holding her, never the other way around, when she asked to dance she'd also make it a point of saying I was leading you get the idea

I suppose one of the biggest things was that I never felt free to express myself in the relationship, early on I had gone to her with a few of my emotional problems, and she'd respond by telling me how hurt she was to hear me talking bad about myself, this only served to make me feel worse I'd try to apologize and say I wouldn't bring up stuff like that again, then she'd state that just make her feel worse, this would bring me to an even newer low and our exchange would pretty much end by that point, I doubt she knew but I was crying after both the times that happened. one of the reasons why this was so pivotal is because one of the primary ways my depression attacks me (for the record she doesn't know this) is convincing me that I am nothing but a negative impact or a burden on those I care for and those around me, so having my girlfriend confirm that no matter what I did I was significantly hurting her made an already emotional time pretty extreme. after we'd had exchanges like that twice I didn't feel comfortable volunteering my problems no matter how much I felt I needed to talk about them, ans since she very rarely asked how I was doing I never got a chance to express them.

on a related note she also started planning an expensive trip for the two of us, very shortly after we started dating, as some one who honestly didn't believe they were worth anything the fact that she was paying for most of it was putting a lot of stress on me, I was able to communicate this a few times, even using phrases like I'm not worth it, she wasn't willing to give up on it completely, in part I believe do to the fact that it was going to be our first time meeting face to face. but eventually she promised to stop bringing it up until some time really close to when things had to be finalized. shortly afterward she regularly brought up "the thing I promised not to mention" which was a double hit, I know exactly what she was talking about so not only it was an instant reminder of how much I was taking from her by going on the trip but how much I was taking just from asking her not to talk about something she was looking forward to.

another big aspect was that I know for a fact the feelings she was feeling for me in the relationship, weren't actually for me, she had some how constructed a sort of persona me that she had fallen for, I tried bringing this up a few times, and she'd usually just get angry, on several occasions she stated she did in fact know who I was. but there was one specific time were I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a persona she had built up of me, it was pretty much the in sighting incident that made me realize I had to break the relationship off. I had been pretty down for a while, I was once again contemplating suicide, I was in bed upwards of 14 hours a day and often only eating only one microwave french bread pizza a day, this went on for weeks, in fact from a nutrition stand point I don't know how I made it out of that. my roommates didn't know much but even they seemed to be picking up on the fact that something was wrong, and my closest friend (some one who I also communicate with exclusively through text) picked up that something was wrong, but I didn't talk to my friend much since at the time I thought all the stressors in my life were related to my relationship and I didn't feel right talking behind her back. one day it got so bad that I couldn't even gather the will power to really chat, I'd give one word responses to everything, my GF

the purpose of this blog

2010-08-14T20:30:00.000-07:00

as usuall I've been doing a lot of thinking in my spare time and one of the things that came up is why I've been incorperating things like twitter and forumspring into my blog (by the way it's still here http://www.formspring.me/venatuscindy if you have anything you want to ask me it's so empty right now) afterall I first started this blog purely as a form of emotinal release and self expression. while I originally joined twitter just to follow some web celebration I didn't have any reason to update it let alone impede it in my blog and I didn't have any reason to sign up with forumspring at all. believe it or not despite the fact that these were my own actions it took me a while to figure out why I was doing it and I think I figured out why.

The primary purpose of this blog is still self expression and emotional release (and because of that I'll probably be more ego centric here than I am in other places) but I remember when I was first coming to terms with my own gender identity and realizing the concept that some one could truly be born in the wrong body the only sites I was able to find were either based on the sexual fetishes of TG or it was http://transsexual.org/. the idea that my gender issues were just some sexual interest caused it's own problems, due in part to the fact that as I was just discovering this I still considered myself devoutly mormon. and while transexual.org was a wonderful site full of information there wasn't a lot I could relate to on it on a personal or emotional level, I didn't feel as sure as she was when I was just a child (though it was always an innocent fantasy), I was never obsessed with things that others considered girly. though I may have desired a few they were pretty small and I hid that desire easily) and due in part to the diffrences in how well we fit into our assigned gender roles I spent a lot of time thinking it wasn't me and that once again, it was just some sexual fetish I had to control. and has the story goes that didn't last all that long before I finally had to come to grips with it.

ok I got a little off topic there but hey this is my blog, in the end the point I was trying to make is that I think on some level I hope this blog might help some one else, some other confused transsexual girl might stumble across this blog someday and find some one she can relate to, and hopefully that fact will help her come to terms with herself more easily and the more of myself is out there, the more likely that becomes. and while I'm probably not the best qualified to answer any questions she may or may not have I know that when your in that situation you often want something more personal or emotional than an expert so I want to make sure I'm as available as I can be.

a bit busy

2010-08-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

sorry I haven't posted much but I do have some legitimate excuses, last week I was busy both moving and getting ready to go back to school, which started last Monday. I had planned to make a post this weekend but I found out a local convention was going on so any time not spent there is pretty much being spent on my homework. I forgot my camera today but I plan to bring it tomorrow, so with any luck I'll be able to at least give a basic break down of my first con.

everything but the kitchen sink

2010-07-25T18:29:00.000-07:00

this week is a bit of an oddity, I actually have a number of things I'd like to comment on but there almost all current events that would be less relevant down the road and typically much better brought up elsewhere. so I figured this would be a fairly blanket post on all the subjects.

first up is something that's just about me. I decided to sign up for form spring. http://www.formspring.me/venatuscindy if your unfamiliar with it it's basically a continuous QnA, since I've signed up I now have my own page and you can ask me any question you want (well any question that can fit in about 300 characters) and unless the question is spam or intentional flam-bait or anything about how to contact me outside of the internet I plan to answer it, this includes being able to ask questions anonymously, so if anybody reading this has something you'd like to ask me about being trans, living in a place as conservative as Idaho, or about any of my nerdy subjects I blab on about, please feel encouraged, and don't worry about me having any idea who it is.

now some bad news there's a legal case building up in Texas were a trans woman recently lost her husband (a firefighter) and his family is now trying to nullify their marriage and claim his life insurance benefits for themselves, and because of Texas legal precedent defining gender by genetics, and the fact that gay marriage is not legal there it has a strong chance of succeeding. and to make matters worse their now trying to lay claim to the money she earned herself (turns out she was the main breadwinner in the relationship). a better explanation and linked details here http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=2671

now some good news, a family is allowing there transgender child to grow up as her real gender, further more this is getting positive media attention in daytime television. http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=2708

and finally the movie inception, go see it. if you only see a small number of movies in theater every year, go see this movie in theaters, and if you can't do that, rent or buy it as soon as it's on DVD. the movie is seriously worth it and I want to see more thought provoking Hollywood movies like this, and if you just want an action movie, it does that incredibly well too, seriously this movie as something for all adults and you need to see it.

why activism is important (to me at least)

2010-07-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

you may have noticed I added a small section of activist blogs into the side bar, it's actually something I've been considering for a while but was a little hesitant since pretty much every single one of those blogs as a list far bigger than mine, but expect mine to be growing fairly regularly.

I also know that activism is generally seen as not popular by many, middle class white men in particular, but even woman, transexuals, the GLBT, and all manner of racial activism will try to dismiss it as being overly sensitive, or any number of ways to say that it's not worth it or that it's only for angry young people (ignoring the fact that most people in activism tend to be older than teens or twenty's) but as you may have guessed I don't buy it. and I really don't buy the idea i've been told a few times that as I mellow out and grow older I'll get over it ( for the record I'm 23 which I know puts me on the young end of things).

but as long as trans people are dropped from ENDA (the employment non-discrimination act) in what felt like seconds after it was first introduced, as long as I hear trans woman say we have no part in feminism since it's very name excludes us, and as long as studies like this Half-of-Japanese-Females-Think-Virtual-Girlfriends-Are-Superior are met with scores of men saying the women need to lower there standards in men ( to be fair the study did have a large number of problems including sample size and didn't disclose too many other variables, but that's still about 150 girls that believe that). I'm sorry but transsexuals should enjoy equal employment, trans woman have just as much right in feminism as any woman, and if a woman is competing with a computer program for love and affection her self esteem and standards are already too low. and I honestly and truly hope that I am never comfortable with those injustices.

idaho laws

2010-06-26T14:14:00.001-07:00

rant latter, for now I'm to angry about about this news.

http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/you-make-me-feel-like-an-unnatural-woman/comment-page-1/#comment-18013

short version, certain politicians want to make it illegal for a transsexual (trans man or trans woman) to marry anybody.

a romance rant

2010-06-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

I didn't know what I would write about this week, but just know I got back from reading the latest blog entry on lady alexia's blog the ups and downs of life as is typically the case with her blog posts I can relate to a lot of what she's saying the way you can always feel depression in the back even when your in a "good mood" even some of the ways her father can make her feel worse when not trying. but what really prompted this post was how she ended it. I really don't believe a beautiful soul like her's is destined to die alone as she seems to believe. I wanted to post a comment but I have two problems, one is that I don't think I can do it without it sounding like the pre-packaged re-assurance which isn't bad but isn't often that helpful, and two doing so would probably make me something of a hypocrite, since after my last relationship I've felt the same way about myself. my last girlfriend also seemed to love me no matter what I did, in my case the problem was that she didn't seem to see the real me, showing she didn't know how I was feeling to turn around and say she knew me well enough to know when something was wrong. in my case when I realized that I tried to be the girl she believed I was , but it was too taxing for me, and even when I hit my lowest were I could barely managed to speak she seemed to stay by me. it was this that helped me realize a few things, one despite the ease of my position I was still finding the relationship emotionally draining to the point were I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it up forever, and two if I couldn't stay in a relationship with a woman who was already somehow convinced that she was in love with me I obviously didn't have a chance at sustaining a real one.

Ok I kinda went off on a tangent there, has I tend to do on my blog. but that's kinda how I came to my conclusions about my own love life in the future. which is one of the reasons I didn't comment on Alexia's blog, also one of the reasons why I really wanted to, I know how lonely that thought process can get sometimes. but she has such a beautiful mind and soul that I don't believe it can possibly apply to her, so if anybody out there is better at being supportive please please post something on her blog

story elements

2010-06-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

some time ago I was trying to break down the kind of thing I like in a story. part of the reason was so that I could easily find new stories and another was to help my own stories. when I got to one aspect I kept trying to descrbe it to myself. it just kept seeming to depressing "I like stories were the heros are poor and down, wait no that sounds bad" I had a few more but they went along the same lines of sounding like they were incredibly depressing.

however after thinking a little bit more on why I liked them I came accross the first time were I could describe it better in few words than the descriptions I was trying. "I like stories that emphasis hope" and that's the reason why intially they sounded so depressing, if the hero's aren't down hope may be present but it won't be the focus. I also think that's one of the reasons why despite the bad reviews I retain my intrest in mirrors edge. that game depicts a world were the opressive goverment has allready taken over but the runners in an act of defiance still run packages to varios targets, I haven't played the game myself but such a small orginization that information and packages are aabout all they can muster but they continue the fight, seems perfect for the kind of story were hope plays a major role. the main charecter is even named faith

so just like at the end of my cyber punk post if anybody can think of a few stories were this element is emphasized I would appreciate it, and hopefully I'll actually have a new post by this Sunday.

sex

2010-06-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

OK I honestly don't know how to get into this, so in my typical fashion I'm just going to akwardly jump into it but a fair warning while I'll try to avoid graphic descriptions the subject matter will ensure that some adult language is used.

I wish I didn't have a sex drive. I know this will sound weird to a lot of people, especially since I have those adult content links on my own blog, but I doubt any one would describe my relationship with sex as healthy. for the record I'm a virgin, unless your one of those extreme types that counts masturbation has losing virginity.

the funny thing is while i'll admit I masturbate fairly regularly I don't 'enjoy' it by any means, I've just learned that if I don't I reach a point were i'll be inexplicably stressed out, iratible and even my body will be tenser, so the matter of when I do it is usually set to when it would be most convinent to take a shower afterward. you see I treet it almost like a pill or an injection, unpleasent but bearable while being better than going without it, I do it then move on and do my best to put it out of my head.

then there also the fact that my sex drive caused a lot of confusion about my sexual identity when I hit puberty. like many other transexuals once that point hit it took a while before I could sort the diffrence between the sexual aspects of it and well the rest of it.

plus not to mention that the body image issues that come with sex and being a transsexual is undoubtedly a major reason why my last (and to date most significant) relationship

I know that was fairly incoherent and unorganized and I thank you if you managed to sit through it, it was just some stuff I needed to get off of my chest.

family guy

2010-05-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

ok anybody watching fox last night will probably already know were this is going, I thought about trying to do some in depth analysis but these two places http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/ http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2010/5/seth-macfarlane-complete-idiot already did that far better than I could, and since I'm still job hunting and trying to write a few side projects I figured I'd leave the more logical discussion to them and use this space (as I often do) to vent.

so with that out of the way let me state that I'm not one of those people that hate family guy by default (well I am now but I wasn't last week) while I felt they went frequently over the line, it usually felt more like failed humor and rarely seemed mean spirited, though i could easily be wrong about all of that.

the episode featured quagmires dad during the first segment of the episode had a seris of gay innuendo as the cast was trying to convince quagmire that his farther was gay, bad but not really insulting or horrible yet. but then comes the reveal that that quagmires dad is a woman trapped in a mans body. I'll forgive how all of her transition is apparently done in one quick operation, but after the reveal the entirety of the episode is little more than a series of dehumanizing jokes at the expense of transsexuals. Ida (quagmire's farther) is referred to as it. both peter, the stupidest character in the show, and Louise (one of the smartest) insist that transexuality is simply being gay, with the only advocate that it's not being quagmire, the shows running gag of sexual deviant.

later on brian starts to fall for Ida and ends up sleeping with her, following that most of the cast as a few laughs at his expense and when Brian learns about it, he proceeds to vomit for thirty seconds straight, followed by screaming, and then states that transsexuals need to inform the neighborhood when they move, that's right, now the most liberal and intelligent character treats the sexual encounter as the worst thing that could possibly happen and infers that transsexuals are sex offenders. I cannot stress how down right insulting that is. the vomit scene alone probably goes on as long as any attempt at portraying transsexuals has human beings.

and to cap this all off, if you follow the links at the beginning, the creator of family guy stated that he's on the side of the GLBT and thought that we'd be "very very happy" with it. here's a hint seth, if you want us to enjoy the episode, don't portray us as the disgusting it.

ok angry rant over and I honestly feel a little better, mind you I'm officially avoiding family guy from now on. so thanks for reading and I hope I'll have something a little more light heated next week.

why I should never write fan fiction

2010-04-24T18:38:00.000-07:00

ok I'll skip how and why but a little while ago I was tryin to think of my favorite fictional female charecters, my first response was my version of commander Shepard from the mass effect games, but as anyone who's played the game will tell you who shepard is is left largly up to the player so I didn't really count it, shortly afterwards I came to major kusanagi from ghost in the shell. the following random brain wave is what lead to the title and should not be read by people familer with both works of fiction and wish to keep their sanity

"if my version of commander shepard and major kusanagi were to ever meet, all war and violent crime in the galaxy would be eradicated in about two months"

yeah, that bad. the worst part is that I've actually been trying to keep the fantasies of them meeting out of my head and I promise you there is no way a story like that could work out well. granted I think it works out better than most of what fanfiction.net has. (has an experiment I poked around there for less than two minuetes and found a mass effect starcraft cross over) but if I were to start infulging in my fanfiction thoughts it would probably get a lot worse, in fact I'll leave you with one more brain melt moment.

it would probably only be a matter of time before I wold write one were link from legend of zelda and kenshin from ruroni kenshin fight over me. and yes that would horribly kill both characters.

incase of zombie, I may be screwed aka the zombie plan

2010-04-10T17:57:00.000-07:00

ok if you hang out with a bunch of nerds long enough a few subjects are almost guranteed to show up, being the nerd I am I decided to bring this one up myself so without further ado.

what's your zombie plan?

truth be told in that respects I'm probably fairly screwed, I have a small apartment with only three areas that can be sealed off from the others, two of those areas have huge windows that could easily fit three people walking through without real crowding, and given that I'm on the first floor they would be a defenante entry point for zombies locked or not. so if I'm caught suddenly my bathroom is the only safe place. but I don't fair much better if I have some time I live close to a school and practically on a major road that would fill up quickly. I think my best bet would be to grab my wooden practice sword (just as useful as a baseball bat) and oddly enough go to the building i work in. it's a reasonably sturdy building that has a few different rooms I could retreat to in case of breach, most of which have food supplies, even if I'll have to break a vending machine to get it (most more than just candy as well). it even has back up generators that kick in automatically and according to the management can last 24 hours. not sure how long I would be able to last but I think that's probably my best bet.

though I'm glad i'll never have to put that too the test it is a fun little thought experiment to go through every one in a while. so anybody else care to share their zombie plan.

burden

2010-03-13T17:45:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to compose some of my more intamate thoughts down into a more coherent narative, unfortunantly I haven't really been sucsessful in that but here's here's a breif sum up

am I a burden?

sorry I can't give as much detail as I'd like but that question, tends to be the ultimate question that pops up during the worst of my depressive phase and ultimately I can't stand the thought that the answer may be yes, that to all the people in my life and everyone I care about that I am somehow a burden to them, financially emotionally, etc etc. the thought that I might be taking more happiness out of there lives then I'm adding is frankly too much for me to handle. I already learned that was the case during my last romantic relationship and since I doubt I could do any better is the reason why I gave up on such relationships.

updates are coming

2010-03-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

just when I think I might be out of my motivational slump it seems to come up again, but this time I promise you I'll have at least one update by the end of the week, other then this one of course, I'm actually working on two, and just to give you a heads up, one of them is fairly self indulgent, I've learned in the past that sometimes putting the negative thought that flair up during my depression on paper (or computer file) and trying to properly compose them can help, and if for no other reason that to give those interested a better look into my thoughts (kind of what I promised with the title of the blog). the second should be much more interesting, I'm not sure how successful it will be but i'm hoping to take a close look at the deeper meanings that attract people to certain types of fiction, just to give a few brief examples I plan on talking more about how cyber punk offers a freedom of the mind that I'm attracted to, as well as how some people found hope for the future in the original star trek and i've heard people say that super hero comics give the sense of the strength of the human sole

feeling down

2010-01-31T17:38:00.000-08:00

sorry for the lack of updates, been feeling down, I know most of you are probably tired of hearing about this but my depression is flaring up again, so every time I try to get the energy to do something more involving than video games my enthusiasm just dies down, I know that probably doesn't make since to a lot of people. but when my depression flares up it really does take away my motivation to do anything, even things I really want to do and enjoy doing, I've slowly started up a number of small creative projects, no idea how many will stick but I hope it will help me pull out of this, and among the projects is trying to get my blog up and running again.

An in-depth look at gaming habits from an odd perspective.

2010-01-16T17:47:00.001-08:00

A young woman walks in front of the crowd of people, if someone were to take a very short look they would assume her to be in her mid twenties, however any one taking a glance at more than just the figure beneath the lab coat would see things differently, mainly her pale blue skin and small antennae coming out of her head. "good evening everyone I am Dr. Farallon, as you all know I've been conducting an in-depth study of the human species and peculiar behaviors of theirs, particularly odd habits concerning their forms of entertainment, today I will be detailing several habits in a hobby called gaming, now the interesting thing to keep in mind is that all of these seem to be universally despised yet almost every gamer falls into at least one of them regularly"

"First up is I might need it later syndrome. This seems to be most common in the first person shooter genre, but can be observed in any game were offensive abilities is depleted with use and must be gathered on the field. Primary symptoms ate using the weakest offensive abilities availed while fighting off large and/or hordes of creatures, usually prompted by the fear of worse enemies coming. To borrow a description from an internet celebrity 'so we have scenarios were players are sitting on a nuclear stock pile that would shame north Korea and are throwing peas at a giant robot crab on the off chance there's a bigger robot crab just around the corner' it's best to cross reference this with the next subject

Stocking, this habit like the previous one involves building up a large cache of powerful offensive or defensive ability, the primacy difference however is that this one is about actively building the stock pile in preparation for a fight, were this starts becoming a negative quality though is that it usually involves replaying previously beaten missions or going back to easy sections of the game in order to maximize the amount gained and minimizing the amount of recourses spent

Grinding. This habit is mostly scene in RPG or RPG like games, it is a very close cousin to stocking, in that it requires replaying previously played sections and minimizing the use of recourses, but is different mainly in the fact that it is usually done to 'level up' aka increase the base of abilities of the character.

next week, something entertaining (hopefully)

2010-01-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

ok today I was hoping to have a somewhat entertaining post on some gaming habits I've observed (including in myself) but I keep getting new ideas for it so I'm no were near being ready to post it, admittedly dragon age isn't helping either. so I'll work on it over the weekend I promise you I'll have something nice next week in the mean time if any of you have any gaming behaviors you'd like to submit feel encourage the more the better, and I'll probably use every one I can find. and just as an example of what I'm looking for the examples I have not using your best abilities due to worrying something worse might be coming up, grinding, stock piling weapons, needing to grab every little item before you can continue the main story.

christmas/quite

2010-01-02T14:06:00.000-08:00

first off, I hope everyone out there had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope all of you are doing well

second is that I'd like to apologize for being so quite for the last couple of weeks, I wish I could say I've been busy but as odd as it sounds the problems nearly the oppisite of being busy I've had some time off work, and while not as bad as it was a few weeks ago I still seem to be in my depressions cycle, so I've been spending most of my time marred in escapisim, bad I know, I learned a while ago it's just "self medicating" but it's really is one of the few things that keeps the depressive thoguths from taking root when I'm not on the meds for it.

any way to make a long story short (and significantly less whiny) now that I'm going back to my normal work routine I should be back to the update schedule I've had

Twitter

2009-12-22T17:03:00.000-08:00

this may seem odd to you but I finally broke down and signed up for twitter, I have no idea how often I'll update it since I mostly signed up to follow flecia day (codex from the guild) but you might see a few random thoughts, after all since it only allows 140 charecters it seems perfect for something that crosses my mind but doens't feel blog worthy

Links highlight: there will be brawl

2009-12-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

this has been one of my favorite web-series for a majority of the year, it only been updating once a month but it's well worth the wait, they have amazing scripting acting and the costumes are incredible plus they have just about every character from super-smash brothers brawl. be warned though the charecter have little in common with there video game counterparts, the story the writers have constructed a very dark story, involving a city that is tearing itself apart as crimlords are involved in a bloody territory war. I know that so far I may not be doing a good job of selling this show but that's mostly since I don't want to give up the surprises it has, but I still encourage you to check it out, they have nine episodes has of this post plus some filler, the series finale should also be posted soon (in fact that one is running behind, it should have been up yesterday) so you'll be able to enjoy the whole story at pretty much your own pace)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/there-will-be-brawl

depression

2009-12-15T15:21:00.000-08:00

ok just thought I'd give my small group of readers a head up. for those that don't know, I have depression, diagnosed and previously medicated (an knowingly I should get that prescription renewed) , I cant' say how it works for everybody but mine goes in cycles, and as the evidence of my previous post and my one on love, I'm kinda moving into a pretty big low at the moment, the chance to express myself was part of the reason why I made this blog, but I don't want this to be come the kind of thing that live journal was made a joke for, until I'm out of this I'll try my best to keep the Saturday updates fairly light hear ted, but unfortunate i can't speak for any others I might make.

Characters

2009-12-14T19:23:00.001-08:00

I'll warn you ahead of time, I have no idea were I'm going with this posts, just one of those things I felt the need to get out but didn't know the best way how

So a little earlier today I got in a brief discussion about RP characters that are a lot like the player, or specifically characters that are the person the player thinks of as the real them. The person I was talking to has a character like that she regularly uses, I had one that I've used in one RP. And while I'll admit I learned a lot about myself from that RP (one of her arguments why I should bring her back) but well to be blunt, I have something of an epilogue for that RP that ended very happily to her, and when I started thinking about it, I honestly think that's the closest I'll ever get, so despite the benefits of learning about myself, I can't really stand the thought of pulling her out of that.

I think I’m a fangirl (please read that in weird al’s “I think I’m a clone now” tone)

2009-12-12T15:49:00.001-08:00

Alright my mom surprised me by popping in last night and having car trouble, so this blog post is already a little later than normal and I don't have

Now this was something I've had on my mind for a while, even before I was thinking of myself has a woman. But when it comes to fiction I enjoy, particularly anime I have, the fan tendency's of a stereotypical fangirl with the exception that I don't shove my fandom in other people's faces, well that much. Many of my friends know I'll be obsessed with the legend of Zelda and link once I get the latest iteration (Jaime be warned I'm likely to get one for Christmas) and a large part of it is my rabid obsession about link as a character, who is just above L from death note in my absolute favorite fictional characters of all time). Also at the risk of embarrassing myself, I'll admit I've thought about ending up with kenshin from rouni kenshin on more than one occasion.

You take all those three together and you could probably make an airtight argument that I am indeed a fangirl, especially if you've seen me in one of my more obsessive bouts, and while I'm no longer bothered by this, I still find it fairly odd what do you all think, am I really just a soft spoken fangirl or am I probably

STORIES

2009-12-08T18:08:00.001-08:00

Well my normal end of the day chit chat seems to be gone, so I'm left to talk with myself, which now that I have this lovely blog to post two means you get a few more snippets of what's inside my head.

I like to "imagine" short stories, I always intend to write these down and I believe some have reasonable potential to be entertaining for a few people, but usually I lack the motivation, for the last few years one of the recouping themes in these stories were character that started off in various stages of self denial and over the course of the story, were forced to confront their inner demons and as they learn to accept those accept of themselves they eventually become more at peace with themselves and grow stronger (what can I say the fiction I imagine tends to involve a lot of actual fights). for those of you about to point out some parallels between the struggle of my characters and some of the struggle outlined in my post titled "repost" yes, as a matter of fact most of my characters seem to go through metaphorical struggles that mimic my own in a few instances before I even realized it myself. Now while I knew I wasn't the first person to do stories like that I didn't know of any main stream media examples that really fit that description, so I felt it was a somewhat new and "fresh" concept. Then I played persona 4, which was a fantastic game and handled that theme fare better than I ever could have hoped to, as well as found a better way to fit it into the narrative.

Of course I know I shouldn't feel threatened that a professional entertainment group handled a fairly broad theme better than I think I could have. But now that I'm hoping to actually complete a cyberpunk story I started writing last month I can't help but feel that it too may end up as a weak copy of something else popular that already out.

LOVE

2009-12-05T14:05:00.001-08:00

I don't' know why but I've been thinking a lot about this lately, maybe it's the season finale of monk that aired yesterday or maybe it's the fact that my last relationship started January about two years ago

either way it seems pretty odd since I had thought I did a good job of getting that stuff out of my head quite a while back, when it seemed clear that I wasn't really fit for a relationship like that, I'll admit every once in a while I'd like to fantasize about it but for the most part remembering how bad I was in my last relationship ultimately led such fantasize into depression

I think I've always had a bit of a co-dependent/over romanticized ideal of love. Even long before I realized what I was (transsexual just to be clear) I would actually devote a good portion of my time fantasizing about the kind of person I'd end up with and about my wedding (though the second one might be more the fact it was one of the few fantasies were I permitted myself to play the girl role. So maybe no matter how hard I try these thoughts are just too much a part of who I am

robots will rule

2009-11-30T19:01:00.000-08:00

well thanks to my wonder friend Jennifer (see previous post for her blog) I should have a pretty new design this weekend along with at least one big post. in the mean time I've just been handind the responsibility of doing an AI goes nuts type story in a super powered RP, the RP I'm doing it for as been a bit slow so I plan on taking my time to be sure to give everything plenty of charecterization, so naturally I've started looking for ideas. I barely remember the orginal ghost in the shell movie and it has a few good ideas that I might throw in but I want my killer AI to be more of a bad guy than the one in that turned out to be. which leads me to eagle eye and terminator, eagle eye has a lot of potential and I'll be sure to use but skynet in terminator is never really explanied (I'll admit I havent' seen the latest yet) just that it kinda took over. then there's the matrix, which if you haven't' seen the animatrix could fit into the unexplained portion to, but with the animatrix, well I'll be blunt I don't have a few hundred years of game time to develop the AI's motivation

off the top of my head those are the most promenint examples I can think of I aslo decided to read through I have no mouth and must scream http://www.surfturk.com/endoftheworld/ihavenomouth.html I don't know much about it but being a horror story that focus on (I think) 5 humans being torchered by an AI that's gone nuts it should have a few ideas, but how about you my two or two and silent readers, any advice you can give on this or any otherwise of fiction you can point me to for ideas?

links highlight: jennifers TG caps of defiance

2009-11-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

well I just got home from a lovely thanksgiving so I have less time to make this blog than most of the ones I do on the weekend, and I want to do my best to post a blog at least once every Saturday, I'd figure I'd start off with what will probably be a reoccurring feature were I go through the links I have posted and highlight some of my favorites, now the link I am highlighting is run by some one who probably accounts for 50% of my readership I might have to come back to it later but for now

http://jenniferstgcaps.blogspot.com/?zx=969c747ed2d40d3a

this is a blog devoted to TG caps and as you might gather from the title most of the caps are about forced transformations, and in my opinion some of the web but I'll admit that it's a pretty subjective term at that point, since some people don't like forced transformations, but if you do and you dont' mind adult content check it out.

now like all of my adult content links I don't comment there as much I have a touch and go relation ship with my sexuality and my sex drive, but that's a subject for another blog, in the meantime just take it on faith that even if I don't comment on the adult content sites much I still love them.

Isabelle

2009-11-24T15:59:00.001-08:00

Ok once again a bit of a repost. in this case it's a character I made to be used in RP's, I really ended up liking her, she was primarily made as a way for me to play the dominate character in transformation RP's without having to go down into aggressive or downright evil characters I have difficulty connecting with. I start off her original profile, then a few things about how I play her, and then I'll end with a bit of a joke based off of what I had to deal with at work today

Name: Isabelle

Age: approximately 1300 years

Appearance: she appears to be in her early 20's and has long dark hair and green eyes, she's a little short for the age she appears but not enough that anyone would describe her has short, otherwise she has a good but modest figure, and while she may appear wearing any number of outfits she likes to make her first impressions wearing a knee length skirt and a black tank top with a purple butterfly pattern across it.

Bio: Isabelle isn't her real name just the most recent one she's adopted, she tries not to change her name too often but from time to time she feels it necessary to adopt a common name for the world she's in.

She originally started learning magic when she really was 20, back then she had not aspirations of becoming someone powerful her only goal was to try to learn a few spells to try and protect her first husband (she's lived 1300 years and has had about 6 significant others in that time) but her natural talent and the fact that she wasn't significantly changing the world around her disturb fate caused her to be joined with one of the natural pools magic in the world, which not only increased her abilities but is also responsible for her life span.

She's since interpreted that has an act of fate and as such spends most of her life trying to figure out what purpose she's suppose to fulfill, currently she lives in a big mason which is hidden deep in a forest (which forest is prone to change) and surrounds it with statues, each statue depicts a previous visitor to her place and they include plaques at the base

Characteristics: Isabelle's mansion is hidden from all technical means but she's woven hints into the threads of magic in the world so that anyone in this day and age that pokes into the hidden magical world can eventually find their way to her

Isabelle has incredible power, but mostly uses it to help out people who come to her mansion. People who find the place on purpose and weren't motivated by greed will find her incredible helpful and always willing. Those who find the place by accident have a much more mixed experience, while she tries as gentle and caring as she can in those scenarios she interprets their visits as acts of fate and will try to figure out why fate would bring the visitor to her, and usually her interpretations go along the way of them needing to expand their horizons or understanding in a way only she could provide. She doesn't inherently know what brought someone to her place (she's capable but in general avoids that kind of magic considering it an invasion of privacy. And has such will usually directly ask a visitor what brings them there, though she'll often try to make the question seem mysterious, one method she's used a few times is to appear directly behind the visitor when the knock the door and state "welcome visitor what brings you to the place that few seek and fewer find"

play styles: she generally wont' say who she is unless her visitor was seeking magic, but after she's transformed them she'll open up, her guest room is predominately pink while her room is powder blue. there's also a room next to the guest room with statues of her significant others, the door is never locked, secretly she's always hoping her guest will find it hoping it will honor there memory. and while I haven't' always been successful in this I try to use it as an opportunity to show her being more venerable than normal, after all let's face it, she's nearly omnipotent as is.

And now for a joke. The line from the caller is exactly what they said, my response is what I wish I could have said the only context you need to understand is that I had to send the info about his problem up to another group that would be able to help him, and I had already told him they'll call back.

Caller: "well do to the shortened week it would be great if they could call so… you know what I'm saying"

Me: "Sir if I knew what you were saying I'd be making millions has a physic

repost

2009-11-23T15:27:00.000-08:00

OK being a little lazy on this one, this is a year old re-post of one of my more intense blogs I posted on Rachel's haven, feel free to comment or ask me about anything you think will help you out, but for the record most of what I bring up I'm still dealing with in one form or another and just bringing it up in the form of "that's long gone now right" will only dredge up the negative feelings associated with it.
and most of all I promise I'll have something more light hearted tomorrow

OK, First off I know that nobody here is a medical professional or a therapist but I’m trying to find one in some form but so far I’ve been unsuccessful but right now I could really use some advice even though I hate to bother all of you like this, especially since I’m sure this may be hard to make sense of sometimes, it was fairly difficult to write but even harder to sift through it looking for grammar errors, if any body needs anything cleared up or spots an error tell me I’ll fix it or explain it the best I can as soon as I can.

Further more I’d like to apologize I imagine that this is going to be fairly wordy and long with several parts that were awkward to write and I imagine even worse to read but I didn’t want to leave out anything that might be relevant.

(this part was written after I finish the rest of the blog, I think the time I spent thinking through everything and putting it all down in one place made the things that never quite fit the pattern seem a lot smaller, though I would still appreciate any advice anybody would be willing to give)

   Alright first off I don’t know how old I was but in some of my earliest childhood memories I can remember fantasies about becoming a woman. I can’t remember them too well but admitting they were fairly childish, there were two large themes among all my fantasies. One was being changed into a girl and becoming popular at school, the other was more about becoming a bride. These fantasies mostly happened when I was trying to go to sleep, a part of the day were I would let my mind fly to wherever it wanted to go. Outside of the fantasies I do remember on several occasions just wishing to be a girl, it never took the form of prayer or on a star but it was there, however I also remember justifying all this as mere curiosity. My memories from that part of my life are hazy at best so it’s hard to say how much of that is truth, or how much is me fooling myself to try to fit my own deep seated religious beliefs or because I knew right from the get go that my family wouldn’t look to kindly at it.

   Puberty came late for me, but wasn’t as traumatic as in most of what I read for transsexual people, for the most part it only carried the annoyance of pimples the thing between my legs seeming to grow a mind of it’s own. There was also the fact that I was no longer made fun of for my voice (when I say late I mean the summer between eight and ninth grade, yeah it didn’t hit until basically high school). During high school my religious conviction was at a high point, looking back I realize I repressed many parts of my own psyche in order to best conform to what the Ideal LDS male should be ( I never hit it of course but it was the prime motivator in how I acted). Naturally a lot happened to me in high school but the I don’t know how much would be relevant but here’s what comes to mind I joined choir and for the most part enjoyed it, but I was constantly envious of that wonderful singing voice that a lot of the woman had, looking back at it we had several great male singers but I never cared much to sound like them. The other thing occurred when I got a copy of never winter nights gold, there were probably similar instances but right now this is the only one that comes to mind, there was a picture of an elf girl wielding two swords and I remember looking at it trying to resist the temptation to make a character like that, in the end the first character I made was male, but I made two female characters after that and justified it with the thought that it was to see how differently the game treated woman.

Patterns like that continued until around when I turned 18, I’ll spare you the details but suffice it to say that around the time when I turned eighteen I started exploring my religious philosophies, and once I changed to something more open I began to explore many other aspects of myself, I didn’t consider anything really strange at that point the change in religion really involved something of a preliminary shredding of identity in the first place. It wasn’t until this point in my life that I started to explore the TG aspects of myself with anything resembling an open mind, though in retrospect I know full well that it was still far from one (like many people on this site I tried to purge myself of all my TG interest a few times and on top of that I’m fairly certain that I wasn’t open to myself about it when I thought I was). Naturally my first recourse for exploring myself was the internet, the first thing I found were transvestite sites that were more fetish oriented, for a brief amount of time I thought this was enough but I was always looking for more, the role-play boards on this site being the only thing I’ve settled on for this long. Sometime in between finding this site and my initial discovery of the sexual based sites I got the idea to choose a female name, honestly I can’t remember exactly were it came from but I’ll admit I know I got it from somewhere, it took me a while to come up with one cause I didn’t want to pick one that I associated with somebody else which ruled out most of the names I could think of, but one night I remember settling on the name Cindy, I remember the moment fairly clearly, though it is hard to explain, there was a small physical tingle that went through my body the moment I mentally proclaimed that my name was Cindy.

   Shortly after I wrote my last blog (I accidentally deleted it when I was getting ready to post this, it was on December 2 and it was little more than me venting my frustration) I was growing frustrated with the fact that I could never express this large side of myself out side of fantasy, I had tried to work up the courage to take any step before but I was always falling short and chickening out. In this particular case I decide that I had to find something, anything, and if I couldn’t even do that most simple of task then what’s the point of even trying any of it any more, as a result I shaved my legs in the evening. I spent some time in my room reviling in them smooth and soft. The problem came the next day, it’s winter time here and that frequently means snow, so there was almost no chance of being discovered but still I walked around with them all day able to feel them, I was feeling constantly ashamed of them as well as embarrassed, I’m not proud to admit it but at that point I had planed out my suicide, fortunately I had a very good friend that managed to talk me down and cheer me up even though she never knew that I was actually considering sluiced at the time, I also believe she is one of the very few reasons why I fell it’s finally safe to explore myself now as she is the first person that I have ever had the feeling that I’ll be accepted no matter who I turn out to be.

OK now I didn’t know were to put this and I have no idea of it’s relevance but the incident I just talked about wasn’t the first time suicide had been on the table, just the first time it had been directly connected to anything TG, it’s been on and off my mind for many years now, usually clinging to any number of things, including curiosity as to what would happen after, the only reason why I bring it up at all is that with that one exception I notice that it comes up significantly less the more open with myself I am.

   This next part is the one that I feel awkward about writing and I’m not sure were else to put it either. One thing I’ve read about a lot of people who end up going through transition is how much a lot of them hate the, parts, that they were born with. I myself never had a down right hatred or disgust for it, but I certainly never liked it. Usually my feelings about it vary between non-caring and very annoyed at what it does, even when what I’m thinking about doesn’t even have even the slightest of erotic undertones. There are a few scenes in the role-plays that have yielded a response from it, the types of one that come to mind the most are ones like in the magical school RP were my character Cindy is with her boyfriend who is typically holding her and promising to keep her safe, or like a date scene in the super hero’s RP were my characters boyfriend would but his arm around her and won her a prize at the carnival. For the record I have used it for, self satisfying but overall I find it unfulfilling and a bit more bothersome than is worth it, though I noticed I still do it when something in life is stressing me out.

   That’s all I can think about at this point, if you have any questions feel free to ask, no matter how personal they may seem if they can help me figure myself out I will gladly answer it to the best of my ability.

ghost in the shell

2009-11-22T11:32:00.000-08:00

OK first things first, anyone actually checking out this site be sure to check out my expanding links section I spend a lot of rime online so I'm sure to keep adding to that regularly for a little while.
second I know there's no way I'm going to be able to keep up daily updates for very long.

so not having a better idea of how to transition i'll just say I've been watching a lot of ghost in the shell stand alone complex lately. it's an anime with a cyber punk setting, it takes place in an alternate universe from the first two ghost in the shell movies (same settings but those events didn't take place), and it's all based off of the original manga, though I have no idea how closely based or which one follows closer.

the story folows a group known as section nine, who primarily seem to be the "eleite police force" kind of unit common in fiction, though I can't be sure since they seem pretty lax with what would nomrally be strict police procedure. with the exception of two members the active members of the squad are all effectively cyborgs. the group is led by major kusanagi (the one in the picture) and chief aramaki. the major is the one that feels like the leader through out most of the series, the chief being more of the kind of leader that's at the police station and pulling strings in the political department. so far I'd have to say that major kusanagi and batou are my favorite characters with the major making a solid run towards being among my favorite fictional characters, though cyborgs always have an advantage in that department she's a good charecter. she's a very strong a good leader, that typically as high understanding of the situation around her, even though a few surprises pop up frequently (inevitable in a world were a battle equipped robot can look perfectly human until it attacks). And most of all she manages to pull that off without falling into the "I'm a badass bitch who resents everyone else" or the "I'm so overcompensation famine in my off time" that seems to be the only way that most big productions can pull of strong female characters now a days. overall I'd highly recomend this to any one who enjoys cyberpunk fiction

one more awkward transition later.

now to over analyze my interest in cyber punk in general. I must admit I have very little experience directly with this genre, which is more than a little surprising because even playing make believe in early grade school most of my characters came off as cyborgs or the like, so it seems like a natural fit. maybe it's just the fact that I didn't know it had it's own name until recently and if not searching for it by that name actual cyberpunk fiction seems to be pretty rare
but what I have seen I truly enjoy, and usually for more than just my normal escapist fiction. and I can think of a few reasons. one is the freedom of the body that seems to be the undertone of such fiction. in the case of ghost in the shell it's strongly implied if not down right stated that most members of section 9 have entirely synthetic bodies with only there brains still being human and even those have some augmentation, and being able to jump into the internet, no matter what names it's given, with an avatar of your choice. this sort of freedom of the mind is a wonderful concept to me allowing the characters to experience the world as they wish. another is the inevitable examination on life and human nature, that seems to come with it, ghost in the shell doesn't' dwell on it too long but there is an episode were they present the idea of what qualifies as life when you have humans that are mostly machines and computer programs that very closely mimic real human intelligence.

well as long as it is I thought I'd have a few more ideas for my analyzing of me and cyberpunk but I seem to have pretty much run dry at the moment . so what are your thoughts. any one else here enjoy cyberpunk and have a few ideas why, or maybe just a few titles you'd recommend.

a little about me

2009-11-21T12:08:00.000-08:00

I figured I'd make a post of some basic information about who I am before I started delving into some of the topics I'm likely to get to

first off the title I threw it together before I changed my mind about this blog, and it is some what accurate. I consider myself to be a woman, though admittedly my body currently contradicts that fact, I haven't yet started trying to correct that, I plan to some day but there are a few obstetrical in my way that I'm working on getting through.

I'm a fantasy/sci-fi geek emphasising the fantasy part, I spend a lot of my spare time playing video games, gravitating towards RPG's or anything with a heavy story basis (yes I love the bio-ware games) after that it's anime then books, and I've only recently started into comics.

I'm an avid pen and paper RPG gamer when I can find a group and I'm almost always involved in a few play by post or IM RP's

I currently work IT and I hope to become a computer programmer some day and would be ecstatic if I could be a game programmer and dip my hands into design.

and that's about all I can think of now, if anyone ever asks I'd be willing to list some of my favorite titles in any genre, but if I were to get into any more detail it would probably remove material for future posts. I just thought it would be a good idea to have some basic info up front

the first post

2009-11-20T14:06:00.000-08:00

well here's the first post, I suppose I should try to explain what this blog will be about. which will be kinda tough since I don't exactly have a plan for this. I'll be posting some old posts I had on a different blog that's no longer available. giving some random thoughts, some on my condition some on things I like (I'm a pretty stereotypical nerd in my interests so be warned) and some perhaps some random thoughts.

some of those posts can get a little personal but most shouldn't. I hope that some of my more intense posts might help some one out there and maybe the rest can at least mild entertain a few. and hopefully I'll be finding a satisfactory way to express myself in the process.

so yeah, I don't have a lot of thoughts for this blog at the moment, and no idea if anyone will ever even see it. but hopefully I'll stick with it and hopefully some good will come of it.