A Blast from the Past

In 1982, I was at a high school basketball game, and ended up getting my picture in the newspaper.  We happened to be sitting behind Johnny Cash, whose son went to the same school.  On a whim, I went searching through the newspaper archives and found the photo.

You can see me on the left, sitting next to my dad.  Unfortunately for my brother, he was sitting directly behind Cash, so you can't see him at all.  But you can see his friend sitting next to him.

From The Tennessean

Monday, March 22, 1982 

Page 15

Gender Check-In

Just an observation.  

When I make a lot of transgender-related posts in a row, I hear rumblings of, "That's all he ever talks about!  He just keeps saying the same thing over and over!"  Some of that might be my own inner voice, but other people have commented on now and then.

But when I go a long time without mentioning gender at all, I hear rumors about myself from the grapevine.  Musings along the lines of, "Well, it looks like he's given up on his dream of wanting to change his sex... I guess it was just a phase after all...  He finally came to his senses..."  This gossip mostly comes from family.

Trust me, gender is still the one thing I think about more than anything else.  I make daily visits to transgender message boards.  I fall asleep at night imagining life as a woman.  I play The Sims and D&D just to live vicariously through female characters.  

No matter how bad things get in my life, if you were to ask me to list all my problems in order, gender dysphoria would always be at the top of the list.  If I were in a plummeting 747, mere minutes from crashing, and suddenly a genie's lamp bounced into my hands from an overhead compartment, I'd still use my first wish to change my sex.

But just as you're probably tired of seeing similar posts over and over, I get tired of writing about the same subjects.  If I don't post about my gender issues for a while, it's usually because I don't have anything new to say about it.  I mean, if I wanted to post the same blog over and over, I'd just copy and paste it.

Heck, I'm pretty sure even this blog is something of a repost, so I'll stop right here.  If you're just stumbling across this blog for the first time, here's some of my more relevant entries on my relationship with gender:

What Cis People Need To Understand

I Know.  Still.

Doing The Math

...But The Math Is Irrelevant

You Can't Make An Omelette...

Redundant Data Phenomenon

I wonder if there's a word for when two things you think you know actually turn out to be the same thing.

For example, my office has about fifty employees, which is just enough people that when a new person starts working there, I don't meet them so much as I gradually become aware of them.  A few years ago I started interacting with two new employees.  First was Mikey, with whom I sometimes made small talk in the break room.  The other was Micaela, who I never met in person, but who would sometimes send me e-mails when she needed information from my department.  (Note, I've changed the names for privacy reasons, but you get the idea.)

One day I passed Mikey in the hall, and she asked me about an e-mail she'd sent earlier.  I couldn't remember her sending me any e-mails that day.  I'd gotten one from Micaela, but I couldn't remember seeing one from Mikey.  Actually, I couldn't remember ever having received an e-mail from Mikey.  So she described the contents of the e-mail, and that's when I put two and two together.

Another example - back in high school, I had a friend who wasn't into wrestling.  However, enough of his friends were fans that he knew a lot of the names.  He was aware that there was a wrestler named Hulk Hogan, because he'd seen that name in print, but he'd never heard anyone talk about him out loud.  

But there was this other wrestler - that guy with the shoulder-length blonde hair, balding on top, handlebar mustache, wears bright yellow shirts that he always rips off before a match...  Yeah, his friends wouldn't shut up about this "Hull Cogan" guy.  When I told him the truth, he didn't believe me at first.

It sounds ridiculous, but it makes sense.  I've never played a Pokemon game or watched the cartoons, but I bet I can name at least fifty of them thanks to pop-cultural osmosis.  But the names are still vague enough that I wouldn't notice if there were both a "Voltorb" and a "Vull Torb" in my mental pokedex.  If my friend had cared enough about wrestling to ever think about Hulk Hogan and Hull Cogan within five minutes of each other, he might have put it together himself.  

It's almost like that bit of trivia is taking up two slots in your brain, and realizing they're the same trivia is like discovering your best friend Clark Kent is also your boyfriend Superman.

Though I also have an opposite story.  I might have already posted this one in a blog, but whatever.  Back in college, there was this student I used to see around campus.  She dressed in punk outfits, and had a neon colored buzz cut.  Some days her hair was bright orange, other days it was bright green.  I thought it was weird that she recolored her hair so often, but I figured it must be that Halloween hair color that washes right out.

After months of passing her on campus, seeing her hair change color a couple of times a week, I finally saw both twins together.  Neat.

Don't Fear The Reaper

We have a three-foot Grim Reaper hanging in our upstairs hallway.  Last October we had it hanging near the front door, but after Halloween we suspended it from the attic door to remind us to take it up there.  Except we haven’t been in the attic since October, so he’s just hanging out for now.  Sometimes he taps me on the shoulder when I walk by, which feels like a bad omen.

It’s a little disconcerting whenever I wake up in the middle of the night and see Death floating there in the hallway.  It’s even more disconcerting the times I wake up and he’s not there.  I wonder where he goes.

Wanna Feel Old?

So, I already felt old from seeing Star Wars fans refer to episodes 1-6 as “the original six”.  But today, some of my coworkers were talking about Opry Mills, and which stores never came back after the 2010 flood.  One of my coworkers started talking about the stores they used to have there when she was a kid. 

When she was a kid.  I wonder if she even knows it used to be a theme park.

(For the record, Opry Mills originally opened in 2000.)

JT: Leaders and Followers

I want to talk about a childhood friend of mine, let’s call him JT.  I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about him, and he doesn’t overlap with any of my other friends.  He didn’t live close by, we went to different schools, and I only knew him because our parents were friends; so I’m not sure any of my other friends ever even met him.

JT was probably the most redneck friend I’ve ever had.  His dad was a mechanic, and JT grew up around cars.  My parents went through an outdoorsy phase, joining a Jeep club and occasionally going camping, and JT’s parents were part of the same activities.  One time JT showed me how to catch crawdads in his creek and cook them on the grill.  So I have a tendency to associate JT with “manly” things, even though he was just as much a dork as I was.

He was a good guy, at least he was when I was around.  I like to think I was a good influence on him.  The problem was, he was like this blank slate with no strong opinions of his own.  He had this older stepbrother who was extremely misogynistic and racist.  JT didn’t actually live with his stepbrother, in fact he probably saw his stepbrother about as often as he saw me.  But I could always tell when he’d recently spent time around his stepbrother.

The first few hours of our visits together often felt like a deprogramming session.  It occurs to me now that his stepbrother probably felt the same way.  I remember one time talking about Scarlett from GI Joe, and he said, “You know that’s all wrong, right?  Women can’t actually do all that stuff.”

“All what stuff?”

“You know, all the running and jumping and firing guns and driving tanks and stuff.”

Now, GI Joe really wasn’t the most realistic cartoon in the world, and the characters probably did do a few things that were impossible in real life.  And at that age, I probably didn’t know the difference.  But I did tell him that he was wrong, and that women could do anything men could do. 

Looking back, I’m actually not sure why I was so enlightened at that age.  Not trying to toot my own horn or anything.  Seriously, I was wrong about a ton of other issues.  And I’m not saying I was a born feminist, either; believe me I had plenty of sexist opinions.  But I really did tell JT he was wrong on this one.

I’ve always thought of myself as wishy-washy and indecisive, and to some extent it’s true.  But the truth is, I really do have strong opinions on a lot of issues, and right or wrong, I’ve been that way my entire life.  Even today, I have some friends who only seem to parrot the opinions of whoever they’ve most recently spoken to, and other friends who are quite secure in their beliefs and opinions.  I’m definitely the latter, but I do wonder if that’s how others see me.

It's weird.  "They say" that people are either Leaders or Followers.  I am definitely not a leader.  I will never consider myself a leader.  But I also do my own thing. I rarely follow the same path the people around me.  I identify more with the Followers than the Leaders, but I don't really follow anybody.  I can't decide if I'm actually a Leader with no Followers, or a Follower without a Leader.

Murphy’s Law in Action

My first job was at a toy store.  One time, a coworker and I were adding up the checks for the day.  I came across a surname I thought was unusual, “Elfrink.”  I showed the name to my coworker, mocking it a little.  She replied, “Hey!  That was my maiden name!”  Whoops.

That was nearly thirty years ago.  In three decades, I have yet to see the name Elfrink anywhere else.  But that’s my point.  It would be my luck to make fun of a name, to someone who happens to have that name.  Even if it’s the only two instances of that name I encounter in my entire life.

It's probably better just not to make fun of anyone's name.

Grammar and Punctuation

If I could contribute a new punctuation mark to society, and force it into acceptance, it would be a quotation mark with a period directly beneath it.  I’m so sick of trying to decide whether it looks weirder to have the quotation mark before or after the period.  At this point I really only care about the look of it.  I don’t give a hoot about which one is technically correct.  Those rules evolve, and some of the world’s greatest books are full of misused punctuation.

People already complain that I put two spaces after a period.  But that’s how I was taught, and it’s too difficult to change that now.  If I ever publish an actual book, I will attempt to find software that removes the extra space, but I refuse to actually type differently.  It would take me months to unlearn that habit, at which point the Powers That Be would suddenly declare two spaces to be the official norm.  The people who think they’re in charge of grammar are a bunch of stuffed shirts, anyway, with no vision of the future.

If you’ve read a lot of my blogs, you may have noticed that I rarely indent paragraphs, and just put an extra space between them instead.  This is how I prefer to write, and for me it’s easier to read as well.  Before the invention of computers, the extra spaces probably would have been considered a waste of paper.  But now, when so many people are reading their books on tablets?  I honestly think this is the future of writing.

Anyway, hi.

This Is My Brain On Bills. Any Questions?

I got paid today.  As usual on payday, the first thing I did this morning was log onto my bank account to pay some bills.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had more money left over than I thought I would.  Then I went through my stack of paper bills to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.  My heart jumped when I found a plate renewal notice for my Mazda.  Apparently the plates had expired two weeks ago, at the end of September.

I remember receiving the notice back in early August.  At the time, my wife had a bonus coming up, and I remember thinking, “Well, I guess part of that bonus will have to go to the tags.”  I remember sticking the renewal notice on the shelf, and I don’t remember thinking it about it since.  But, it was morning, my brain was still fuzzy, and I couldn’t be 100% sure if I’d renewed it or not.  I decided to go outside and look at the plate, but I wasn’t dressed yet.  So I made a mental note to check the plate before I got in the car to drive it to work.

It didn’t occur to me that there were at least three ways to check it from the computer I using at the time.  I always keep the receipts from electronic renewals in a folder on my hard drive.  I also have a spreadsheet I use as a checkbook, that would have had the listing for the tags.  If all that fails, I could always log onto my bank account and look for the transaction there.  But no, my brain decided that the only way to know would be to look at the tags.

Except I didn’t.  I didn’t even think about it again until I was already driving, halfway to work.  So I told myself, “When you get to work, check the tags before you go inside.”  Of course, I could have waited until the next stop light, and grabbed the registration out of the glove compartment.  But my brain was still stuck on the idea that my only option was to look at the plate.

Aaaand once again, I forgot to look at the plate when I got to work.  I remembered as soon as I sat down at my desk.  I decided I would check the plate at lunch, and if it was expired, I would get my emissions tested on my lunch hour.  I even told my supervisor I might be a few minutes late getting back from lunch.

Lunch came around.  If you think I remembered to look at my plate before driving off, you haven’t been paying attention to this story.  I was halfway to the emissions place when I thought, “Wait a minute, I seriously can’t go there without checking first.”  I have a very close, personal relationship with Murphy’s Law, and it would be just my luck to pay for an emissions test and then find out I hadn’t needed to.

So I looked for a parking lot to stop in.  I’m oddly picky about that; you know, it can’t be a busy lot, it has to be on the right-hand side, it can’t be a business where the employees can see you through the window because I don’t want them to see me park without buying anything, and did I mention I’m neurotic?  I finally stopped at a bowling alley and got out of the car.  September 2020.  I couldn’t believe it; I honestly have no memory of getting the tags renewed.

Just to be sure, I checked the glove compartment for the registration.  Yep, it even told me when I renewed it, back on August 18^th.  To be fair, I do sort of remember renewing it.  It’s just that I renewed both cars within four months of each other, so the memories are kind of overlapping.  When you’re younger, four months is a long time, but I’ve hit the age where two similar events in that time span just sort of merge into one memory.

So the good news is that I have an extra $100 grocery money to get me through the next two weeks.  The bad news is, well, that they let people like me drive.

Another Video Game Dream

I had another video game dream last night.  Okay, I dream about video games a lot, but they’re usually either based on real games, or just generic zombie games. 

The game I dreamed about last night was like a cross between Final Fight and Tapper.  The game was probably inspired by the recently released “River City Girls” game, because the main characters were teenage girls in school uniforms.  Like most of my video game dreams, my point of view would switch back and forth, from being a character in the game, to playing the game on a TV with a controller.

In this game, you walk through the streets, getting in fist fights with gang members.  So far, that describes half the games Capcom made in the 90s.  However, you’re also pushing a food cart.  It’s about the size of a hot dog cart, but full of cupcakes.  Your character parks the cart by the sidewalk, and customers start lining up.  You have to serve each customer, occasionally putting cakes in the cart’s little built-in oven.

Meanwhile, gang members walk up and start harassing your customers, so you have to beat them up (the gang members, not the customers).  If you ignore the gang members, they harass and scare off the customers.  But if you spend too much time beating up the gang members, your customers starting leaving because they had to wait too long.  If you forget to put more cakes in the oven now and then, you run out of cakes and more customers leave.  If the oven timer goes off, you only have a certain amount of time to get the cupcakes out of the oven before they burn.

Like any Final Fight style game, once you beat up a certain number of gang members (or in this case maybe sell a certain number of cakes), an arrow flashes “GO” for a few seconds, your character pushes the cart down the street to the next stopping point, and the whole process starts over.  When I played with two players, there was still only one cart, but there were twice as many customers and gang members.  But I think there was also a competitive mode where you each had your own cart.

Some customers would stand at the cart for a few seconds making up their mind.  I don’t remember the exact “serving” controls, but I think it was pretty simple.  Just make sure you’re standing at the counter when a customer is ready to order, and press a button to serve them.  The serving and paying animations took a couple of seconds, so you really had to manage your time between serving, fighting, and baking.

I also vaguely remember a bonus level that involved decorating the cakes, which reminded me a little of Overcooked.

9/11 Memories

I will always associate 9/11 with Gallagher.

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of the comedian Gallagher.  I loved prop comedy, so his Sledge-O-Matic routine was especially hilarious to me.  I also loved how he made fun of words and pronunciations.  Some of his content wasn’t really appropriate for children, but my parents were cool with it.  We didn’t have cable growing up, but we had several of his specials someone had taped off of Showtime for us.   Some of his jokes were mildly racist, but I didn’t get the impression he was racist himself, so much as he just saw the humor in everything and loved having fun with stereotypes.  Which was typical for comedians, really, both then and now.

In August of 2001, I found out he would performing in downtown Nashville the following month.  It was the same arena where I used to attend wrestling matches as a teenager.  My wife had never seen his routine, so I hoped she was in for a treat.  We also brought one of my high school friends.  I wondered if Gallagher was still as funny as he used to be.  His signature act was so full of energy, I wondered if he’d slowed down as he got older.  Plus I was older and wondered if my tastes had changed.  But good or bad, the three of us looked forward to a night out.

So… between the time we bought the tickets and the night of the concert, 9/11 happened.  I was on my way to work when I heard about it on the radio.  They said an airplane had hit the World Trade Center.  I didn’t realize it was a passenger plane yet; in my mind I was picturing a private, one-person plane, maybe an amateur pilot who got off course.  When I got to work I immediately turned on the radio, and soon heard about the second plane hitting.  Now we knew it wasn’t an accident.

It was hard waiting to get off work that night.  I wanted to get home so I could e-mail a friend who lives in New York, and make sure he was all right.  He was fine.  He’d made a lot of posts about it on a message board I frequented at the time.  I found out that somebody had already posted a T-shirt in an online store that said, “I flew into the World Trade Center, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”  The seller’s location was NYC, and (supposedly) the shirt had already been posted before the second plane hit.  People on the message board were furious, but my New Yorker friend advised them to let that one go.  “This is how New Yorkers grieve,” he said.  “We make jokes.”  I guess I’m not cut out for NYC.

It was a while before anybody was in the mood to laugh again.  A lot of sitcoms didn’t air that week.  When time for the Gallagher concert came around later that month, I almost wanted to give away the tickets.  In retrospect I wish I had.  But just enough time had passed that I was ready to see if I could laugh again.  I should have realized that 9/11 affected comedians too.

Gallagher was not funny that night.  He was angry.  He told a few jokes, but he spent the majority of the time making racist rants about people from the Middle East.  He must have been funny to someone, because he did get some laughs.  There was an extremely drunk woman behind me who spent the concert laughing so loud we could barely hear Gallagher.  But I don’t remember any actual jokes.  Several times he mentioned wanting to bomb the Arabs back to the stone age.  By this time, the world knew that the attack was the result of terrorists, rather than a government, but he was still happy to imagine an entire country being bombed to rubble.  He didn’t even do the Sledge-O-Matic bit.  He got the hammer out, and then let audience members line up and smash things.

I don’t blame him for being angry; we all were.  I’m not even sure I blame him for the racist bits – everyone was hurting at the time, and wanting to retaliate against someone, anyone within reach.  I’ve seen the same misaimed anger on crime shows.  The family of the victim often wants to convict the first guy the police catch, even when it becomes obvious they’re innocent.  Because it’s easier to punish the target in front of you, than to come to terms with the killer still being on the loose.  And it’s easier to say “Let’s blow up the continent these bad guys might be on” than to accept that it might take years to find the terrorists.  People think they want justice, when they really just want closure.

So I don’t blame Gallagher for feeling the same.  But I do blame him for not simply cancelling the concert.  He had to know he wouldn’t be funny, he had to know he wasn’t in the mood for comedy.  Maybe it was therapeutic for him, getting to air his grievances in front of an audience.  But it’s not our job to pay for his therapy.  I’m not mad – How can I be mad about a stupid concert when so many lives were lost earlier that month?  I’m hardly the first person to have to sit through a disappointing concert.  I was lucky to be alive and attending bad concerts; too many people weren’t.

But for me, Gallagher and 9/11 have a permanent connection in my head, and I can no longer look at him without thinking about the tragic event.  Maybe he doesn’t deserve it, but he will never be funny to me again.

I'm Not Perfect Either

Just the other day my wife said something like, "Remember that episode of (some sitcom) where they met a doctor that was wearing (some odd outfit)?"  I racked my brain trying to remember this doctor, and couldn't.  Then she added, "You remember, she had that (further description)?"  Upon hearing the word "she" in that last sentence, I immediately remembered the episode and character my wife was referencing.

When she'd said "doctor", I'd immediately pictured a man, and trying to match up a male character with the rest of her description kept me from remembering the character.  It was an instinctual, sexist moment on my part.  It wasn't intentional, but it's one of those little bits of internalized sexism that says a lot about our society.

To use someone else's example, it's like when a someone says, "Bob killed his neighbor's wife" instead of just "Bob killed his neighbor".  It's a distinction that's difficult for most people to notice, including myself.  Both phrases are technically accurate, but the former shows how deeply ingrained sexism can be.  The wife is Bob's neighbor too, why does she have to be identified by her relation to her husband?  It describes the wife as if she's not her own person, but someone's possession.  If it was the husband that was killed, you would probably never hear "Bob killed his neighbor's husband."

I'm afraid that my blogs come across as I'm holier-than-thou.  But a lot of the sins I point out in society, I'm guilty of as well.  That's how I know them so well.  I identified them in myself first.  Remember, I was born in a Christian Republican family, and kept those values until after college.  I might be evangelistic about my liberalism, atheism, and gender issues, but I'm not saying you're stupid for disagreeing with me.  I'm saying I used to think that too, and here's what changed my mind.

But more importantly, I'm not saying I'm never wrong.  To this day, I still say and do little things that are racist, sexist, or homophobic.  Identifying these mistakes is part of the journey to being a better person, and I'm still on that journey.  I don't hate people for making mistakes on their own journey, I'm just disappointed with people who refuse to take the journey at all.

No one is perfect, especially not me.  I'm trying to be a better person, and I hope you are too.

Cheers and Tears

Do you ever lie awake at night berating yourself for things you said more than thirty years ago?  Sometimes it helps to purge those inner demons by writing it all out. 

In sixth and seventh grade, I was kind of a jerk.  I don’t think I was a horrible person, but I was extremely full of myself, and I always thought I was the smartest person in the room. 

Let’s look at the TV show “Cheers”.  If you watch the first episode, it looks like it’s going to be the story of Diane Chambers.  She’s framed as the “Only Sane Person” in an environment full of kooks, kind of like Dick Loudon in Newhart.  When she got a job at the bar, it was like Dian Fossey doing research by living among the apes.  At least, that was my interpretation at the time.  It didn’t take the writers long to realize that the audience was identifying more with the lowbrow characters than with the intellectual Diane, who many viewers found annoying.  The focus shifted appropriately, and Diane’s intellectualism was treated more like a character flaw than an advantage.

But not for me.  I continued to identify with Diane, because that’s how I saw the world.  I was the only smart person in a school full of idiots, the only nice person in a school full of jerks, the only refined person in a school full of lowlifes.  I would use words like “au contraire” because I thought it made me sound smart, when I actually just came across as pompous.  I still remember the first time one of my classmates called me “conceited”, and while I took offense at the time, he was definitely right. 

Pop psychology often suggests boosting your child’s ego.  “You should constantly tell your children how smart they are, to build their confidence and make them more self-assured.”  It sounds like good advice, but the problem is, the kids who need it don’t get it and vice versa.  It seems like behind every raging egomaniac, there’s a parent who won’t stop gushing about how smart their child is.  My own parents ran hot and cold on me.  I can remember specific instances of them bolstering my ego (and sometimes even seeing through it as empty praise), but they (well, my mom) also tore me down a lot too.  It’s a wonder I’m as well-adjusted -Cufflinks! Nostrils! –as I am.

I don’t know at what point I grew out of my conceitedness (not that it’s completely gone of course), but I imagine the stresses over the next few years changed me a lot.  Not just the migraines and related problems, but I actually started to fail at things for the first time in my life, and it was a huge blow to my ego.  Today… well, I’m not good at self-awareness, so I’m not sure how other people see me.  Nor do I think I want to know.  But internally, my self-confidence is shot.  If I say anything egotistical, it’s either a joke or an act of self-preservation, because in my head I’m worthless.

I’ve never been accused of being the sharpest tool in the shed, but I have been accused of being a tool, so at least that’s progress.

Gamergate, SJWs, Sexist Comics, Blah Blah Blah...

Of course by the time I report on something in this blog, it's long past being old news.

Gamergate was a controversy that started in 2014.  You can read the Wikipedia article here, but here's my completely biased summary:  A bunch of male gamers got offended when women pointed out that a lot of video games were sexist.  In order to prove that the gaming community wasn't sexist, these guys threatened to rape and kill several famous female gamers.

This movement spawned (or at least popularized) a few new internet terms, such as Social Justice Warrior and White Knight.  For the uninitiated:

Social Justice Warrior (SJW):  Anyone who isn't a misogynistic, racist asshole.  Or from the Gamergater point of view, an SJW is someone who won't stop whining about sexism, racisim, and other social issues.  It's basically a more modern variation of "politically correct."  For some reason SJW is considered a pejorative, even though both sides believe SJWs want to wipe out sexism and racism.  I guess if you're proud to be sexist and racist, SJWs represent a challenge to your worldview.

White Knight:  A male who believes in equality.  Or from the Gamergater point of view, a male who rushes in to defend a female in an internet discussion, who doesn't really believe what he's saying, but pretends to be a feminist because he hopes to get laid.  A Gamergater doesn't believe that any male could ever actually be a feminist, so any time someone with a male avatar speaks against Gamergate he must be doing it to impress the ladies.

All I want to know is:
What happened to geeks?

Seriously, guys, what is wrong with you?  When I was in high school, we wanted there to be more female geeks.  We loved our geek media, and didn't want to give it up, but we wanted girls to share it with. Girlfriends or platonic female friends, it didn't matter, we just wanted more acceptance of our hobbies.  Geek didn't become mainstream until years after I graduated.

Young geeks today just don't appreciate how well they have it.  In my high school, liking Star Trek immediately put you in a special category of students, the lowest end of the social totem pole.  When I think about how things have changed, I want to believe that things have gotten better.   I want to picture kids walking around openly wearing their sci-fi shirts.  I know there's still bullies, but when that bully is also wearing a Game of Thrones shirt, he's probably not picking on them for enjoying fantasy.

Girls are finally openly into video games. Now to be fair, when I was in high school back in the early 90s, I did know several girls that liked video games.  But they weren't into them.  The played them as a pastime, but they didn't talk about them or read the magazines or wear the hobby on their sleeve the way boys did.  But now girls are proud to wave their geek flag high.

Guys, this is what we wanted.  This was our goal.  We all hoped to one day marry a woman who would play video games with us.  So why are you trying to scare them off?

Look, guys, if you ever want to have a relationship with an actual woman, here's a tip:  Be a feminist.  And by feminist, I don't mean your uninformed misogynistic definition of the word.  I mean the real definition of feminist:  Someone who believes in the equality of the sexes, and recognizes that society makes life easier on males.  And when I say be a feminist, I don't mean just saying the words.  Research it.  Believe it.  Recognize your own privilege.  Don't get offended when people point it out to you.

But don't expect your feminism to make you special.  That's like wanting special treatment for not murdering someone.  Feminist is what you're supposed to be.  Don't tell women you're "not like those other guys".  Those "other guys" are assholes, and not being like them isn't some grand accomplishment that should immediately get rewarded with sex.  Not being a jerk is just the start of the journey, not the end.

What are you so worried about?  What do you think you're going to lose if video games become a little bit more feminist?  Are games going to be that much less fun just because the women wear more realistic armor?  Do larger breasts and g-strings really enhance gameplay?  Does adding the option to play as a female character lessen the experience, even when you're still allowed to play as a male character?

Look, I've never been a fan of censorship.  But we're not talking about censoring games, so much as enlightening programmers.  They have to realize that half of their target audience is female.  Making games that appeal to a broader audience can only increase their sales.  There's no downside here.  It's just a simple matter of adding more options.

More games should allow you to select your character's sex and skin tone.  If they want to include skimpy outfits, fine, but make them optional.  Give players more choices in customizing their virtual avatars, even in single player games.  A good game will draw players regardless of character design, so there's no reason to alienate half your audience with hypersexualized avatars.

I'll let you in on a secret - while my gender may be questionable, my sexual attraction is not.  I like women.  I appreciate nudity.  I'm not offended by skimpy outfits or sexual themes or even full-blown pornography.  But I don't need to see it everywhere I look.  In fact, nudity is actually sexier if I haven't been looking at it all day. 

Disclaimer:  I don't claim to be an expert on feminism, and the following paragraph is based solely on my own experience, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.  But most feminist women I've talked to still like feeling sexy.  They enjoy playing attractive characters in video games.  They still like reading comics with sexy superheroines.  Most of them aren't even offended by nudity.

For many, it's just the amount that's the problem.  Let's look at comic books for a minute.  I'd say about 90% of female superheroes wear ridiculous outfits that would never be comfortable in real life.  They stand in positions that aren't humanly possible, and have body shapes designed more for porn than athletics.  Does it have to be 90%?  What if we invert that?  We can still keep the sexy women in skimpy outfits, but let's make them 10%.  Let the other 90% be a variety of body types, in a range of clothing styles.  There, you still get to see a little skin, and female readers have more characters to whom they can relate.

It seems like most of these artists really only understand how to draw one female body type.  They can draw all kinds of men, but every female is just Superhero Barbie in a different tight outfit. If I were in charge, every comic book artist would be required to read "Escher Girls" regularly.  They would also have to print out these two Shortpacked strips, poster size, and hang them on the walls of their office.

Good: Batgirl's 2014 Redesign

But the main thing is I want to see more female programmers and comic book artists. I want women involved in all aspects of design.  I want new female heroes designed with more practicality in mind - not at the cost of pizzazz, mind you, they are still super heroes.  But their suits would be more befitting of the athletes they are, instead of everyone looking like supermodels.

A lot of existing female costumes would get redesigned, but the ones for whom "sexy" is part of their main theme would stay sexy.  Catwoman would keep wearing slinky outfits, as sex is her theme almost as much as cats.  Poison Ivy might still wear skimpy foliage, since she's more into nature than modesty.  Power Girl would still have the biggest breasts in the DC universe, as that's part of her character and all body types should be represented.

Bad: Harley's Cheerleader Lingerie

But Harley Quinn can bloody well go back to her much superior original costume, so she actually looks like a harlequin again. Batgirl can keep the practical outfit she started wearing in 2014, the one that got caused such an uproar among misogynists.  I'm a little torn on Black Canary's stockings - they're kind of a signature for that character, but they're also very silly.  And Wonder Woman... well, she's had a ton of different outfits over the years, both good and bad.  Just pick one of the ones that doesn't look like a swimsuit.

But that's just if I was in charge.  Someone more feminist than me might come up with even more conservative designs.  We'd all object at first, but only because we're hardwired to hate change.  In a couple of decades, we'd be so used to the new outfits that the old ones would look ridiculous.  Heck, I was raised on Superman comics in which he wore his underwear on the outside.  It's only been a few years since they updated it, and I'm already so used to it that I wince when I see the older costume.

The bottom line is, it's not all about you.  You're not the only one reading these comics or playing these video games.  Making a few small changes to a product can double its audience.  Personally, I'm twice as likely to buy a comic book or video game if the main character is female, and I know I can't be the only one.  If the creators of media would just pay more attention to the world around them, they'd know how to increase sales and make the world more inclusive at the same time.

Ain't No Party Like A Pity Party

When I first came out as transgender, about 10 years ago, I coped with it several ways.  I went to two psychiatrists, two psychologists, and a support group.  The psychiatrists prescribed me drugs for social anxiety.  This first pills I tried worked great, but had terrible side effects.  The next pills I tried did absolutely nothing, except more side effects.

The psychologists gave me someone to open up to, but never really gave me much advice.  It was helpful to get things off my chest, but for those prices I might have been better off telling my problems to my cats.  I finally stopped seeing the professionals when my insurance changed its pricing, making my copay too expensive to continue.  I guess the insurance companies think mental health is a luxury.

I only went to a few sessions of the support group.  They were good people, but the environment was just too depressing.  You put that many depressed people in the room, and the depression takes form, hanging in the air like a cloud.  I'm usually not very empathic, but just entering the room felt like walking through a mood-lowering fog.

But more importantly, there weren't any geeks there.  The other transwomen I spoke to only seemed to care about hobbies that are traditionally held by women.  That was so odd to me.  Geekdom is gender neutral these days (even if there are a lot of sexist geeks), but the local trans community only seemed to draw people who cared about clothes and knitting and such.  So while I could open up to people about my problems, I never found anyone with whom I could really connect.

Eventually I started playing D&D, and that became my therapy.  Playing a female for a few hours each week took place of dressing en femme, and while it wasn't much, it kept me from suicide.  But lately it just hasn't been enough.  Last night I couldn't sleep because I just kept thinking about... well, trans things.  I can picture myself as a woman walking around inside my skull, banging on the walls wanting to escape.  Wailing to be heard.  Collapsing in a heap, defeated.

My insurance has changed two or three times in the past 10 years; maybe it's time to look into whether psychology is once again viable.  But I don't know, it just didn't do much for me last time.  I could try the support group again, maybe there's geeks there now.   But sometimes dressing up just depresses me more...  I never found a look I found acceptable, and when I look in the mirror I just see a guy in drag.  All that does is makes me realize I'll never be where I want to be.

I think it would help if I had a friend to talk to, but none of my friends understand trans issues.  When I bring up these things in conversation, I can feel them getting uncomfortable.  Maybe I'm imagining that part, but I can tell you for sure that they don't understand what I'm going through.  The concept is alien to them.  But when I talk to other trans people, I just don't connect to them the way I do with my geeky friends.

I need to meet more trans geeks.  I need at least one really geeky transperson as a friend.  Hopefully one who shares my specific geek interests - Star Trek, Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, DC comics, Nintendo, etc.


The part the bugs me most is that even if I found the perfect friend to confide in, I don't have the slightest idea what I want to say.

Where I Am Today

I don't talk about my gender issues as much as I used to.  No, I haven't been "cured" by any stretch of the imagination.  It's still the last thing I think about before falling asleep, and the first thing I think about when I wake up.

But as a topic of conversation, it's gotten stale.  There's nothing new to say on the subject; if I still talked about it I'd just be whining about the same things over and over.  Some of my friends are sick of hearing it, though most have been polite enough not to say anything.  I doubt my friends were very comfortable with the subject in the first place, and I don't want to make them uncomfortable.  I can't afford a psychiatrist any more.  I don't like talking about it with my wife, because it makes both of us sad.  I don't really even have any other transfolk to talk to.  Yes I know a few, but we're not close enough that I'd feel comfortable venting about something so personal.

And so, I resort to what is probably the most psychologically unhealthy solution: I keep things bottled up inside.  At least I can still make the occasional blog entry.  Since no one reads this thing, I can vent all I like. 

Okay, fine, it's been a while, so for those of you just joining us...

Hello, my name is Matt.  As of this writing, I'm a 41-year-old male who identifies more strongly as female.  If you want to catch up, click the GLBT tag on this blog and start with the oldest.  But to sum up:

I've known I had female tendencies all my life, but I've only recognized myself as transgender for about 10 years.  Before that, I had some serious misconceptions about gender and the people who got the surgery. Specifically, I thought that all gay people eventually wanted to get sex changes.  Since I wasn't attracted to men, obviously I wasn't in the wrong body.  I don't think I even heard the word "transgender" until around 2005. 

If I hadn't been raised Christian, I might have done more research.  If I the information that's out there now had been available to me when I was growing up, I might have figured out my problem early enough to do something.  If if if but but but.  It's not worth dwelling on.  I can spend all my time wishing I'd had an earlier start on the trans journey, but if I'm going to blow a wish, I'd rather just wish I was born female.

That first year was the hardest.  When I first had my trans epiphany, I was both elated and crushed.  I knew my life was going to change.  I knew there was a path I could take that would make me feel like my true self.  But I also knew that path was dangerous, difficult, and destructive. I was sure I was headed for a disaster.  Maybe I'd get a divorce, maybe I'd kill myself.  In my moments of weakness, I made some bad financial decisions that I'm still paying for today.

I spent a few years seeing psychiatrists and psychologists.  I tried a few antidepressant meds, some of which worked better than others.  Unfortunately the one that worked best also had the worst side effects.  I can't say the psychologists helped much, but it was nice to have someone to whine to.  And then my work's insurance changed, and suddenly I couldn't afford psychiatry any more.  Seems the insurance companies now consider mental health a luxury. 

I was about as low as I've been in my life.  Oddly, what really saved me was Dungeons & Dragons.  I would play female characters in NeverWinter Nights online games, and it was like scratching an itch in my head.  Getting to live a virtual life as a woman for a few hours now and then... well, it wasn't totally satisfying, but it kept me from slitting my wrists.  Eventually I sought out a real D&D group, and I've been playing ever since.  For me, playing a female character for a few hours every Saturday satisfies the same needs some transpeople get from crossdressing.

And that sums up the last 10 years.  I've been out of the closet so long I'm pretty much back in it.  In the past decade I've made several new friends who may or may not know about my issues.  It's been so long since I've mentioned my problems to my older friends and family, that some of them probably think I've "gotten over it".  But no, I'm not "cured", it's more like I'm in stasis.  If I found a magic lamp tomorrow, my first wish would still be a female body.  But I love my marriage, D&D is a fun hobby, and this solution keeps my depression at bay.

I've recently become acquainted with another MtF transperson.  She and I are very similar and very different.  I look at her and I see the road not taken.  She is estranged from her family, and has made plans to move out of this bigotry-infested cesspool called the South.  She's a lot more outgoing than I am, and on the surface seems to be very proud of who she is today.  I don't know how far along she is in her transition (nor am I likely to ask), but as far as I'm concerned she's a woman.

Like I said, the road not taken.  She seems to be so much more comfortable than I am.  She doesn't really dress en femme, and yet her appearance is obviously female.  I never figured out how to do that.  I don't feel I pass even in makeup and a dress, but she pulls it off in jeans and a T-shirt.  She seems so self-confident (though who knows what's going on inside).  So in some ways I'm very jealous.

But at the same time, she's lost her family and probably a lot of her older friends.  She feels so little connection to Nashville that she's about to move across the country.  I just don't know if I could do that.  I'm too full of fear and I just don't have the motivational energy to start a new life.

But it's a moot point anyway. I don't want to transition.  I don't want to be a transsexual.  I want to be a woman, but I want the whole package: to grow up as a girl and experience all of it, good and bad, without resorting to hormone pills or surgery.  Obviously that's only an option if I subscribe to some very specific religions.  But I'm an atheist, and no matter how much I'd like to believe in reincarnation, I can't make myself believe something I don't.

So I will take the next best thing.  Stay with the body I've got, live vicariously through my D&D characters and digital avatars, and continue to take advantage of my white male privilege.  I will enjoy my continued marriage to my wonderful wife, for as long as she'll have me.  I hate that I have to refer to her as my second choice.  It's demeaning.  But since my first choice involves reversing time and believing in magic, that does make her my first realistic choice.  I can only hope that's good enough, and that I can make our marriage worth it to her.  In a world without magic, she is everything to me.

Reorganization

I'm reorganizing my blog a little bit.  From now on, blogs about movies, books, video games, and other entertainment will go here:
http://1958fury.blogspot.com/

Blogs about GLBT issues, politics, and other serious matters will go here:
http://1958-fury.blogspot.com/

Some older blog entries may appear on both pages for a while, but going forward I'm keeping the fluffy stuff away from the serious stuff.

My blog about Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs remains here:
http://1958fury-campaignjournal.blogspot.com/

The Flamingo Analogy

"The world's toughest flamingo is still a flamingo."

Sometimes when I stop by the flamingo pen at the zoo, I'll see two flamingos fighting. This always makes me laugh, because really, what's this fight going to prove? Sure, you might be the strongest, but you're still a skinny pink bird with a crooked beak and a wormlike neck. When you're one of nature's silliest animals, there's no extra prestige in being the biggest and baddest one. Just picture a flamingo in a leather jacket and shades, sporting skull tattoos.  Intimidating, no?  No.

This analogy comes to mind whenever I see two "silly" groups fighting with each other.  For example, Twilight fans had "Team Edward" vs "Team Jacob".  No one ever wins these arguments, but even if you did, you'd still be a loser.  So if you ever hear me dismiss an argument as a "flamingo fight", that's what I mean.

It's hard for me to say this without insulting my more reverent friends, and so I apologize for this in advance.  But I also consider this analogy whenever I see two religious groups attacking each other. It doesn't matter if it's Christians vs Muslims, or Baptists vs Presbyterians, or Jehovah's Witnesses vs Mormons. From an outsider's point-of-view, all these religions are equally unlikely.

Lest you think I'm being snobbish, I'm not immune to the flamingo analogy. Everyone has their own flamingo threshold.  I've argued with my fellow geeks on many subjects that ordinary mortals would find pointless.  I've participated in internet flame wars over the best edition of Dungeons and Dragons.  I've been involved in heated discussions over the greatest Star Trek captain. 

So if I ever dismiss a battle you believe in as a flamingo fight, well, I'm sorry.  I know these things are important to people, and I should respect the believer if not the belief.  On the other hand, if you laugh along with me while I make fun of arguments between Twilight fans, Mormons, or rap artists, but suddenly get offended when I include something you like, then we're probably headed to the same hell together.

Stowaway

For the past few days, a stray kitten has been wandering around the neighborhood. Despite my objections, KJ's fed it a few times, so of course it's been hanging out at our place a lot. No, we're not keeping this one; we're well above our limit already. So if anybody wants a cute little black kitten, we can probably catch it for you.

This morning was interesting. I usually leave for work at 10:30 AM. We knew they were repaving our road this week, but we didn't know which parts would be which day. But Murphy's Law has never been very subtle in my life, so I was hardly surprised when I saw the paving truck pass my driveway at 10:28. I drove to the end of my driveway anyway, rolled down my window, and asked the workers how long it would be. They said it would be safe in about five minutes. No problem, I'm usually 10 minutes early to work anyway.

While I sat there, KJ came outside to talk to me (well, to make fun of me), and we heard a meowing. KJ thought it sounded like the meowing was coming from the truck. We searched the truck all over, as well as the surrounding bushes, and we finally found it in the spare tire underneath the truck. I couldn't get my hand in there, and I didn't really have the time to detach the tire from the truck. We tried to coax it out with tuna, but that didn't work, so we had to spray it with a water pistol. That worked. Within seconds, there was a little black blur darting across our lawn.

By that time the paving had dried enough for me to cross, and I still got to work a couple of minutes early. I hate to think what would have happened if the pavers hadn't stopped me, though. She might have stayed in the tire the whole way, crawling out later to find herself in a brand new neighborhood. But I think it's more likely she would have gotten scared and jumped out on the way. So the pavers might have saved her life. Hopefully she won't get run over by the paving truck later today.