*collapses, with a large sigh*

I finished, essentially, one of the ~two assignments I have remaining for this year. The substance of it was little, if tedious, but it is very relieving to have done. Enough that I am posting to celebrate, yes.

Tomorrow, another to give its final submittable form, and an end of the year party with my class to attend. Those are the only urgent things to attend to, but I do need to finalise (refine and format for submission) a third thing by the end of the week too.

Feeling good to have one done, relief that I am managing to stay on track with this. Looking forward to not having these things looming over me.

Disappointed, not surprised

That so many of the comments to this article seem to be suggesting that if only gender roles were less rigidly enforced, trans people would have the good grace to cease existing.

Fortunately, not true. I hope those people will realise this. At least the comments seem to improve further down the page.

Also very annoyed with comments indicating the commenter was dissatisfied with eir assigned gender role yet is not trans, phrased in a manner suggestive that ey believes ey was fortunate eir parents did not send em to a therapist and get em diagnosed trans, pushed into transsexuality. Mostly, because this suggests a disturbing attitude that being transsexual is something pushed on people who do not conform to assigned gender roles in order to make them over into something which fits their behaviour. It doesn't work that way, and trans people nearly always have to push to get what they want from the medical establishment - it is not forced on them - and it is unfortunately not unusual for medical professionals to torment their patients with arbitrary hoops and waiting periods more extreme than officially required.

I would find it laughable if this idea were not so pervasive, with so much social force behind it, but since this is such a common feminist criticism of the existence of trans people, I find it disturbing instead. It is not, nor should it ever be, about people being forced into something they do not wish. The issue is bodily and behavioural autonomy, and although they may seem to be, I do not think comments like this are helpful on this subject.

As a note to people who may not be aware of this, what Zucker does with the children brought to him seems to me very akin to one of the major (the major?) standard 'treatments' designed to render autistic children more normal.

I think it is bad form to quote a post / article / whatever in its entirety

(especially without commentary)

However:

Most people like to imagine themselves big novels, 800 page doorstops that include forty fascinating characters buzzing around each other, major crisis and triumphs, maybe even a world scale event like a war or a natural disaster in the background. All of this preferably described with panache and poetry by a Russian master like Tolstoy or a French wordsmith like Proust. But the truth is most of us live 243 page lives, if that. There are only a few major characters in our stories, maybe a mid-level crisis or two, certainly some triumph or tragedy sprinkled throughout, but none of it profound or interesting enough to demand more pages, more explication, more background. Thoreau famously said most people live lives of quiet desperation. He could just as easily have said most lives can be summed up effectively in 200 page novels written by adequate midlist authors.

Sometimes I just want to show people stuff.