Posts categorized under: other

Interlude XIII

"Hi, my name is John, and my pronouns are he/him."

"Hi! My name is Mark, and I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient."

Interlude XII

"I can understand why you might think that there are five lights—indeed, that would make a lot of things easier—but actually, there are only four lights. Yes, it's a little bit counterintuitive, and I know I got a little bit frustrated and said some things I now regret …

Found in a University Library Copy of A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion

(presented without further comment)

Laser 2

I got my second laser treatment last week! I took the "MAX" train to the nearest stop and walked to the area where the laser parlor/clinic/salon is, but I was quite early, so I passed the time browsing the local shops.

The variety store had these little nylon …

A Common Misunderstanding; Or, The Spirit of the Staircase (24 January 2009)

I remember (and the Diary entry helps, too) there was a party/meetup at someone's place down in Sunnyvale, perhaps in honor of Robin being in town. This was a little less than nine years ago, back during the golden age when the Sequences were still being written, when the …

The Blockhead

Writing? Why, there's hardly anything to it. Writing is just a matter of thinking honestly while Emacs happens to be open: the process of refining one's own thoughts is sufficiently tightly linked to the faculty of language, that the further step of presenting the product of those thoughts to others …

Laser 1

I've decided to pull the trigger on laser beard removal. (It's less thorough than electrolysis, but cheaper and less painful, and my light skin and dark hair is supposed to be a good match for it.) My earlier fear of maybe needing beard shadow to avoid accidentally passing (and thereby …

A Leaf in the Crosswind

I cosplayed as Korra (from The Legend of Korra, sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender—see also previously) at—let's call it "Republic City" Comic-Con the other month. Saturday only—conventions are just my excuse to crossdress in public; I don't actually perceive two and a half days' worth …

Hormones Day 156: Developments, Doubts, and Pulling the Plug; Or, Putting the "Cis" in "Decision"

Still, my relationships with women were decidedly odd. "What's it like to have breasts?" I'd ask. "How does it feel?" It was a question women found baffling.

"It doesn't feel like anything," one girl told me. "It feels like having an elbow, a nose, a toe. It just is." I …

"Neither as Plea nor as Despair"

Basically the question is, do you want to be Dagny Taggart in the school play at an all-boys school, or do you want to be Eddie Willers in the school play at your actual high school

Both schools deserve to exist (I mean, your actual high school doesn't deserve to …

What's My Motivation? Or, Hormones Day 89

Why am I doing this again?

I'm not trans. At any rate, I'm not transitioning. It should be a trivial corollary of "Don't take other people's medicines": if you're transitioning to live as a woman, get on HRT. If you're not, don't. How could anyone get this wrong? Maybe the …

Memoirs of My Recent Madness, Part I: The Unanswerable Words

"Listen, what's the most horrible experience you can imagine? To me—it's being left, unarmed, in a sealed cell with a drooling beast of prey or a maniac who's had some disease that's eaten his brain out. You'd have nothing but your voice—your voice and your thought. You'd scream …

Surprise Reader Meetup

I'm planning on being at BABSCon next week! Maybe I'll see some of you there??

Hormones Reboot: Spironotacular!

Not what teacher said to do
Making dreams come true
Living tissue, warm flesh, weird science!

—"Weird Science" by Oingo Boingo

So, I took off my estradiol patch during my recent nervous breakdown. I still don't think it had much, if any, real effect. (In particular, the stress and sleep-deprivation …

Fresh Princess

(Credit assignment: Will Smith, xkcd)

Now this is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute
Just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became convinced that I share the same underlying psychological variation that motivates males like me …

Nothing New Under the Sun

Of course, "Blanchard's" typology is subject to Stigler's law of eponymy.

No, I'm not talking about earlier Western sexologists like Robert Stoller, Magnus Hirchfield, or Blanchard's mentor Kurt Freund.

I'm talking about Abu Zakaria Yahya Ibn Sharaf al-Nawawī writing in the 13th century CE:

A mukhannath is the one ("male …

Smart

"High-IQ educated people like to think we're so smart. But we're just not—at least not in a straightforwardly prosocial way. Any double-digit-IQ Trump voter from West Virginia could tell you that men who think they're women are delusional perverts.

"I know. I prefer not to phrase it that way …

"Synthesis"

I want to be a synthesis
Whimsical, passionate, liberal-arts feminist
I'll be a synthesis
Hard-headed serious reductionistic scientist
A synthesis
Free our markets with the power of the collective heart!

Cachebusters

"So, I agree that there's a potential for public discussion of certain theories in psychology to have harmful social consequences, and I agree that we should take that into account when deciding whether to discuss something publicly.

"However, I also think it's important to be specific about the putatively-harmful social …

Interlude I

"I continue to be loudly upset that people mostly use language to manipulate social reality rather than describe actual reality!"

"Have you considered ... using language to manipulate social reality to incentivize people to use language to describe actual reality?"

"What?! You can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because that's a good …