In the days of auld lang syne on Earth-that-was, in the Valley of Plain Speech in the hinterlands beyond the Lake of Ambiguous Fortune, there lived a population of pre-intelligent squirrels. Historical mammologists have classified them into two main subspecies: the west-valley ground squirrels and the east-valley tree squirrels—numbers …
"I'm not done with this incredibly creepy self-disclosure blog post about how the robot-cult's sacred text influenced my self-concept in relation to sex and gender, but maybe I should link you to the draft?" said the honest man. "Because it unblocks our model-sync by describing some of the autobiographical details …
(a fictional 2017, as imagined in November 2016)
I cough nervously to break the awkward silence as we wait for the Chinese ICBM to kill us. "Don't blame me," I say, "I voted for Gary Johnson!"
Glares all around.
"Aaaand I live in California, and I'm not eligible for the …
Spambots were invariably among Eliza's least favorite clients.
"You've got to understand, Doc! It's not that I'm afraid of rejection. I can handle rejection. I love rejection!"
Most spambots these days were self-aware.
"What I can't stand is the silence that's seemingly been deliberately engineered to be as ambiguous as …
"I swear, if I read another word about Phineas Gage—and this goes double for David Reimer—I am going to scream. Why do science writers always recount the same illustrative case studies? Are they all just plagiarizing each other out of laziness, or could it really be that in …
"Likelihood ratios are good! Likelihood ratios are the only good thing!"
"I agree that likelihood ratios are good! In fact, I think we have a moral responsibility to look for clever strategies to make the likelihood ratios bigger! But at the same time, you know, priors."
"Priors?! How dare you …
"Mark, I can't quite place it, but you look ... different somehow."
"Oh yes, thanks for noticing. I'm experimenting with a nonstandard hormone balance. It's kind of like being transgender, except without the part where you delusionally claim to be a woman."
"Excuse me?"
"I said, 'It's kind of like being …
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
—Psalm 23
In the days of auld lang syne in the kingdom of Gend on Earth-that-was, the tribe of Ageep, the children of Trevi, were much despised in the kingdom, for it was …
"I'm going to need to start watching more television, or pretty soon I'm going to run out of cosplay ideas."
"You could play male characters from your existing favorite shows."
(A withering silence serves to underscore the point willfully being missed.)
"The gender ratio at the conference was like, maybe twenty-to-one?" he said. "And I can't help but think, if I were braver—like you—I could help make the male-to-female ratio better—but only at the expense of making the trans-women-to-cis-women ratio worse."
"You mean, making the trans-women-to-cis-women ratio higher …
Laura is cuddling on the couch with her boyfriend Doyle at the latter's apartment, trading silly banter.
"Some of them might secretly be cats!" Doyle says.
"I might secretly be a cat," Laura says.
"Why would you say this? What about you is particularly cat-like?"
"Well, it's more of an …
"I've been getting this mild headachey sensation a lot the past few days, especially when, for example, standing up suddenly. What could—" (gasping excitedly) "Could it be the hormones actually doing something? Is this a girl headache?"
"Hm. The connection to activity sounds like a circulatory problem ... say, aren't blood …
"How goes?"
"I've been feeling a little bit of pectoral tenderness the past few days, which might mean that the anti-androgen is doing something!"
"Good ..."
"Notice how I said anti-androgen instead of spiro: that's because my model of your vocabulary predicted that you know what anti-androgen means, because I predict …
"Claiming that you don't care about anything but truthseeking may lead people to question whether your jokes were meant to convey that certain things were true. That line about 'cooperating with TERFy women who might reward me with sex and intimacy' in your post the other month is something I …
"It's International Transgender Day of Visibility, but I'm not going to say anything obnoxious about it, because I've already spent my obnoxious-infovism budget for the quarter, and I'm sensitive about managing the trade-off between the demands of my aggressive autogynephilia anti-denialism campaign, and the good of social harmony with my …
"What's wrong with you?! Why are you doing this?!" screamed Alexa. "It's like you've been possessed by a Nazi ghost."
"I'm sorry," said Mark. "I'm not sure if this will make sense to you, but I'm thinking of it as playing DEFECT against trans women—I genuinely regret that part …
"Hey Mark, a bunch of us are going to a concert tomorrow night: the Holograms are headlining at the Rose Garden, and I have an extra ticket. You want in?" offered Caleb.
"Maybe ..." said Mark. "Who's the opening act?"
"Let me check," said Caleb, fiddling with his phone. "Geez, that's …
"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 …
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 …
"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."