finish and publish "Getting It Right the First Time"

diff --git a/content/drafts/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time.md b/content/2017/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time.md
similarity index 56%
rename from content/drafts/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time.md
rename to content/2017/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time.md
index 7e0ddd9..819242f 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time.md
+++ b/content/2017/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time.md
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 Title: A Beacon Through the Darkness; Or, Getting It Right the First Time
-Date: 2020-01-01 
+Date: 2017-02-05 21:28 
 Category: other
 Tags: autogynephilia, personal
 
@@ -19,5 +19,10 @@ And:
 
 ![notebook: so why am I hurt when my word ...]({filename}/images/getting_it_right_2.jpg)
 
-My views on gender have changed a _lot_ over the past ten years—most notably, I'm not a psychological sex differences denialist anymore, so I'm afraid I can no longer endorse that "gender shouldn't exist" stance. (Given that sex differences exist and people aren't going to _pretend not to notice_, at least some social-role defaults are inevitably going to accrete around them.)
+My views on gender have changed a _lot_ over the past ten years—most notably, I'm not a psychological sex differences denialist anymore, so I'm afraid I can no longer endorse that "gender shouldn't exist" stance. (Given that sex differences exist and people aren't going to _pretend not to notice_, social-role defaults are inevitably going to accrete around them.)
 
+The funny part is that, in retrospect, it looks like a lot of the appeal to me of psychological sex differences denialism—besides its being ideologically fashionable—was an autogynephilia-inspired rationalization: _I didn't want to believe that girls were a different thing that I didn't understand_. (This theme is very explicit in my writings at the time. In the same notebook, I wrote: "Heterosexuality should already imply antisexism, as people don't generally want to slander their lovers.") And the "woman I truly am inside" gender-identity narrative that I so disdained _also_ looks like an autogynephilia-inspired rationalization, on the part of autogynephilic males (perhaps growing up in a less egalitarianist memetic environment than me) who took the _other_ route, of successfully deluding themselves into believing that they themselves are feminine, rather than my route of successfully deluding myself into believing that femininity isn't a real thing. (Contrast to androphilic "true" transsexuals who have just been really feminine their entire lives and don't need any delusions to justify their desire to be women.)
+
+Still, despite everything I've learned in the past decade, what's striking—at least, striking in contrast to the _utter raving lunacy_ I see trotted about around me in the name of transgender rights—is how much I got _right_ even then. I've had these desires since puberty, and have grown to cherish them, to let the fantasy shape my morals and ambitions. I didn't think it would be wrong to do something about it, if the costs and benefits added up. But I never took the fantasy literally, let alone expected the rest of the world to take it literally. 
+
+Ten years later, this still seems like the only sane approach.