Posts published by: Zack M. Davis

I'm Sick of Being Lied To

I said, "How do you lie about the world? And how do you make yourself believe it? How can you see the whole truth, know the whole truth ... and go on pretending that none of it matters? What's the secret? What's the trick? What's the magic?"

My face was already …

The Erotic Target Location Gift

My friend "Elmer" told me about this one time our local sage "Travis" was talking about the phenomenon of men who feel guilty about being male, and Elmer suggested me as an example, whereupon Travis was like, "Ooh, good one!"

I think ... I think I feel less guilty now. I …

Hormones Day 13

used Climara patches

Applied my third patch in the morning today (first patch was evening of 27 December, second patch was morning of 2 January). Still don't really notice anything—even my libido seems intact. The doctor had totally been willing to prescribe spiro, too, but I had declined because it seemed prudent …

Title Sequence

"Mark, did you really need to bring me here for this?" whispered Caleb.

"Yes! No one can do the Don LaFontaine voice like you! I said I owe you a favor!"

"Alright."

It was time for the Gender Queery discussion group at the Q Center to begin. The facilitator read …

The Counter

It's a quarter before midnight in one of the bedrooms of a two-bedroom apartment in Beaverton. There is a small whiteboard mounted on the wall in the far right corner of the room. It says:

FRIENDS LOST OVER THIS

1

The lights flick on. Mark enters, walks to the corner …

If the Gay Community Were Like the Trans Community

"I have something important to tell you. About myself."

"Go on. I'm your friend. Whatever it is, you can tell me, and I'll support you."

"I'm ... I'm a homosexual."

"That's not real."

"What?"

"Yeah, back in the eighties some bigoted Canadian psychologist made up this theory of so-called homosexuality, but …

Joined

(This post was originally published elsewhere, and has been retroactively cross-posted, with slight edits, to the Scintillating But Ultimately Untrue Thought archives.)

The morning of Thursday the eighth, before heading off to see the new LCSW at the multi-specialty clinic, I was idly rereading some of the early Closetspace strips …

Chromatic Key

I had occasion to sing a little song at a party recently, whereupon a trans woman who was present—let's call her "Deborah"—immediately asked if I was gay. (I'm not.) When talking with her later, mentioning that our mutual friend had been trying to convince me that I was …

New Clothes

If we can't have a more truthful world, I think I would prefer more lies and fewer delusions on the margin.

When the heroine of a dystopian YA novel uncovers the big lie at the center of her society, she wakes up tied to a chair in a dungeon, and …

Estranged Family

"How was your trip?" I ask.

"Ugh. The hotel I was in was hosting a furry convention. Who do those perverts think they are, parading around their fetish in public?"

"Um."

"What?"

"Alexa, you're a lesbian trans woman."

"So?"

"So, shouldn't you ..."

"Shouldn't I what?"

"... nothing."

Wish Horse

Mark sighs. "So many nice things that we can't have."

"What?" says Katherine. A beat. "... oh," she says.

"I didn't say anything."

"I know."

Editorial Process

To: Brian Goodheart <bgoodheart@ucxx.edu>
From: Emma T. Saotome-Westlake <etsaotome-westlake@ucxx.edu>
Subject: re: viewer feedback?

What do you think of my new "introduction to evolutionary biology" primer?

Attachment: evo_primer.pdf

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To: Emma T. Saotome-Westlake <etsaotome-westlake@ucxx.edu>
From: Brian Goodheart <bgoodheart@ucxx.edu>
Subject: Re: re: viewer feedback …

Exactly What It Says on the Tin

For many years I've been a fan of a certain genre of, um, adult blogs featuring captioned photographs of women, where the captions tell fantasy stories about how the women used to be men before some magical or technological intervention. The titles of the blogs often contain the word transgender …