memoir: Sophia correspondence

diff --git a/content/drafts/blanchards-dangerous-idea-and-the-plight-of-the-lucid-crossdreamer.md b/content/drafts/blanchards-dangerous-idea-and-the-plight-of-the-lucid-crossdreamer.md
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@@ -375,7 +375,17 @@ I wrote about my frustrations to Scott Alexander of _Slate Star Codex_ fame (Sub
 
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-A trans woman named Sophia [commented on one of my real-name blog posts](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2016/09/wicked-transcendence-ii/), thanking me for the recommendation of _Men Trapped in Men's Bodies_. "It strongly spoke to many of my experiences as a trans woman that I've been treating as unmentionable. (Especially among my many trans friends!)" she wrote. "I think I'm going to start treating them as mentionable." We struck up an email correspondence.
+A trans woman named Sophia [commented on one of my real-name blog posts](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2016/09/wicked-transcendence-ii/), thanking me for the recommendation of _Men Trapped in Men's Bodies_. "It strongly spoke to many of my experiences as a trans woman that I've been treating as unmentionable. (Especially among my many trans friends!)" she wrote. "I think I'm going to start treating them as mentionable."
+
+We struck up an email correspondence (Subject: "Re: [An Algorithmic Lucidity] Please moderate: 'Wicked Transcendence II'"). She had found my blog from the _Slate Star Codex_ blogroll. She had transitioned in July of the previous year at age 35, to universal support. (In Portland, which was perhaps uniquely good in this way.)
+
+I said I was happy for her—probably more so than the average person who says that—but that (despite living in Berkeley, which was perhaps uniquely in contention with Portland for being perhaps uniquely good in this way) there were showstopping contraindications to social transition in my case. It _really mattered_ what order you learn things in. Because the 2016 _Zeitgeist_ had the back of people who model themselves as women who were assigned male at birth, if you _first_ realize, "Oh, I'm trans," and then sucessfully transition, and _then_ read Anne Lawrence, you can say, "Huh, seems plausible that my gender identity was caused by my autogynephilic sexuality rather than the other way around; weird," shrug, and continue living happily ever after. In contrast, I had [already been thinking of myself as autogynephilic (but not "trans") for ten years](/2017/Feb/a-beacon-through-the-darkness-or-getting-it-right-the-first-time/). Even in Portland or Berkeley, you still have to send that coming-out email, and I couldn't claim to have a "gender identity" with a straight face.
+
+She said she would recommend _Men Trapped in Men's Bodies_ on her Facebook wall. I said:
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+> You're very brave! (Well, we already knew you were very brave because you _actually transitioned!!!_) Maybe wait till [October 11th](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Coming_Out_Day) ([October 11th](http://zackmdavis.net/blog/2015/10/october-eleventh/))?
+
+She wrote an analysis of the information theory of passing, which I would [later adapt into a guest post](/2018/Oct/the-information-theory-of-passing/).
 
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@@ -411,7 +421,23 @@ I messaged her, ostensibly to ask for my spare key back out of security fastidio
 
 She sent me a photo of the key snapped in half (proving that it was unusable, to satisfy my security anxiety) and told me to go away.
 
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+I made plans to visit Portland for the weekend of 18 February 2017, for the purpose of meeting Sophia, and two other excuses. There was [a fandom convention](http://wizardworld.com/comiccon/portland) in town, and I wanted to try [playing Pearl from _Steven Universe_ again](/2016/Sep/is-there-affirmative-action-for-incompetent-crossplay/)—but this time with makeup and breastforms and a [realistic gem](https://www.etsy.com/listing/236067567/pearl-gem-cosplay). Also, I had been thinking of obfuscating my location as being part of the thing to do for keeping my secret blog secret, and had correspondingly adopted the conceit of setting my little [fictional](/2017/Jan/the-counter/) [vignettes](/2017/Jan/title-sequence/) in the Portland metropolitan area, as if I lived there.[^portland-vignettes] I thought it would be nice to get some original photographs of local landmarks (like TriMet trains, or one of the bridges over the river) to lend versimilitude to the charade.
+
+[^portland-vignettes]: Beaverton, referenced in ["The Counter"](/2017/Jan/the-counter/) is a suburb of Portland; the Q Center referenced in ["Title Sequence"](/2017/Jan/title-sequence/) does exist in Portland and did have a Gender Queery support group, but the vignette was inspired by my attendance of a similar group at the Pacific Center in Berkeley.
+
+    I would later get to attend a support group at the Q Center on a future visit to Portland. I snuck a copy of _Men Trapped in Men's Bodies_ into their library.
+
+In a 4 February 2017 email confirming the plans with Sophia (Subject: "Re: February??"), I wrote:
+
+> (Thanks very much for your promise not to be offended by things that I might say, which I am interpreting literally, and without which I wouldn't _dare_ meet you; unfortunately, I kind of feel motivated to generally avoid trans women now, because the conjunction of validate-everyone's-identity social norms and my continuing obsession with last year's shocking mega-update make me feel like I'm made out of social antimatter: better to quietly (except for pseudonymous internet yelling) stay out of everyone's way rather than risk the temptation to say the wrong thing, mutually annihilating me and my interlocutor and killing everyone in the room in a shower of gamma rays.)
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+... the "quietly stay out of everyone's way" policy lasted about 3 days.
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+
 
 [TODO: the story of my Facebook crusade, going off the rails, getting hospitalized