Thanks for checking in; I always wonder how you're doing when we don't hear from you for awhile. I'm really sorry to hear the ED is being so difficult and stubborn. I'm glad you have a good team working with you. Keeping milk next to your bed and switching to something more boring when you're awake in the night both sound like good strategies. Try not to fret about your dh helping you with your meds right now. We have the same arrangement with one of my adult kids. Is your work environment making things better or worse for your health at this point? So happy to hear about how well your son is doing!

Thanks for doing it. I imagine it must be difficult under your circumstances, and I respect and appreciate your integrity.

How does that work for dating? Is the thought that parts shouldn't matter for that, or that you would figure that part out before it mattered? Yes to the bolded. I have always been super aware about my circumstances when I visit restrooms, for whatever reason, since I was a young teen. I don't like the ones that are down long back hallways, and I always wonder why they put the women's ones farther away than the men's--is it so that there is no good reason for a man to be down at that end? With gender neutral bathrooms, I would want them to be single person for sure. As it is, if I have to go in a sketchy restroom that seems empty, I have a compulsion to check each stall to be sure first to be sure there is no one lurking 😳. I agree with it being ridiculous/wrong for a woman to have to wear a dress if she prefers pants. I didn't interpret evening gown the same way though, though from Faith's follow ups, sounds like she thinks of it the same way. I am not a dress person, but from the dresses I have worn in my life, I have never worn one that showed off my chest in any way. That's not my thing, and I've never worn off the shoulder or strapless or anything like that. So I was picturing a musician's evening gown totally differently--something like a long sleeved black velvet dress. Still shouldn't have to wear it if not desired. Really? With kids being raised right now? I haven't seen this in any of my friends, and it's definitely not the case in our family. That's disappointing to hear if that's still common. I'm thinking this is more a function of the female body shape than with male sizing being an advantage. I do think the measurement based sizing makes good sense, but if I chose a pair of men's pants with my waist and inseam measurements (which wouldn't be possible to find in an adult men's clothing department), they would definitely not fit my hips. I can't even fit in junior girl's pants for that reason, and I don't think of myself as curvy. I think female bodies are just harder to get a good fit for in structured pants (I have to alter the waist or wear a belt in order for them to fit usually). All this said, I do think it's good to have gender neutral clothing available as well. Particularly from a style standpoint. I just do find mens vs womens helpful from a fit standpoint. THIS! My nb kid has a definite male-as-netural default, though they acknowledge one could be non binary and present in a feminine way. For them though, it has meant a masculine aesthetic. It seemed to me that top surgery shouldn't be a necessity for a nb person, as it suggests male as default. But, I think that goes back to wanting a more childlike body. They actually are quite fortunate, as I think they have somehow achieved their goal of being very ambiguous and not clear to identify either way, which is what they wanted. Their small size is the only real tip off, in my opinion. Thanks for this link! I hadn't heard of it. I love that they make leakproof underwear in boxer styles. I think getting at what is different and what that explanation is would be really helpful. I believe there would have been some of this throughout generations, but I really don't believe that it's likely that this represents numbers that were always there and are only just now given language and action. I think this represents a clear change in something. I think that for many, the name and pronoun change is a prelude to the desired body changes. That is the route that allows them to change their body. My nb kid acknowledged early on that the gender part didn't really matter to them, but it was the way that they would qualify for surgery. Which was true. I think the gender part has now become part of their identity, but initially, it was a path to address the body dysphoria that caused them such distress.

I posted this in a different thread a couple days ago, but seems relevant to this one: WHO urges fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks as delta Covid variant spreads Hopefully delta vaccine breakthrough cases don’t result in many serious cases.

It’s looking gorgeous! Did I miss what color you settled on for the walls?

I'd be curious if most Republicans think that's a good thing to get behind. It sounds very un-Republican to me (like legislating what virus control measures businesses are allowed to enact). Seems like there's a new political party that has co-opted the name "Republican" 🤷‍♀️. That's fair, presuming you have an idea of something else that would be a more effective way to address racism. What do you propose instead? What do you think of the bans that have been enacted or proposed so far? (I don't actually agree that most people complaining about it are doing so because they independently think it's a racist theory. That's one of the primary talking points on right wing talk shows right now, so I think that's the reason people are complaining and why they use that as one of their talking points. I don't think CRT is the answer to combating racism and I don't agree with the methods in the egregious examples given, but I also still don't think this argument is primarily about CRT. Incidentally, I spent many most of today in a meeting for an organization I'm involved in that involved some moderated debate on an issue unrelated to racism. Somehow, multiple people managed to bring CRT into the debate, and hit multiple of the exact talking points being run down by Tucker and friends. It's most definitely the pet issue of the day for conservatives the past couple weeks.)

I kept thinking this all through the discussions about lining up by sex, but didn't bother saying. I'm another that doesn't ever recall kids being lined up by sex. I liked your Henry/Julia examples. I think that's a perfect way to handle it. I've been trying to think how your paragraph above would work. Are you meaning sex would be known but gender identity would be personal, or are you meaning sex would be private? It seems like gender identity is the part that most people are trying to outwardly project, with sex becoming more private. Or maybe you mean that would change under this future system, and people wouldn't feel a need to project any gender identity. Though that also brings us to the above point that it's really sex that seems to be at the root of gender discrimination, so would that even help?

I agree with this. That starts getting at a thought I alluded to earlier, but still don't have fully fleshed out. I find it interesting that opposite "sides" seem to be for color blindess/against sex blindness and against color blindness/for sex blindness. But when I think about it, I think the views align if you switch the word to gender rather than sex. Which means one view wants sex blindness but gender awareness, while the other wants sex awareness but gender blindness (though I think a lot of that latter group doesn't actually want gender blindness, but it helps their current talking points to pretend they do). I don't expect anyone to be able to follow this post as these are half-baked thoughts, poorly stated 😂.

I've seen this more and more lately as well, including stores like Old Navy and Target having some online clothing sections labeled "Gender neutral". That's pretty helpful. The idea of trying to buy my jeans or a button up shirt off a gender neutral rack gives me pause, though. I'm unlikely to fit in any jeans that a man would fit in, for various reasons. Some button up shirts would work, but not others. And the same would go the other way for a man. So, I guess I'm not one who would like all clothing to go this direction, just because it would take a lot longer to to find things that fit. My trans dc and I have not been able to understand each other's perspective on this part. They don't understand why I would have a preference either way if their younger siblings have gender affirming surgery in the future (none are trans at this point, this is hypothetical). And on the other hand, I don't understand why they don't see that given a choice, I'd rather my kids be able to keep their bodies as healthy and whole as possible and not undergo major surgeries. I can see that it truly does seem like a neutral decision to them though, and they don't see why it wouldn't be just as good for someone to have a bilateral mastectomy as not to do so. It's interesting. I'm a little confused here how we could be swinging too far against sexism? That suggests some degree of sexism is good. Which, in following with your second point, would make it sound like some degree of racism is good.

Not that I know of. I haven’t seen my eye doctor since I started doing it this way. I’ll have to see what he thinks of it. It’s been almost a year though, and no problems.

This is what I do (maybe I got the idea from you?). I started with both multifocal, but kept having a problem with one contact and remembered someone saying they did one of each, so tried a regular one in the problem eye and it worked great. A bonus is the regular contact is much cheaper, so it's not costing me as much. I never had a sense of my eyes needing to learn where to focus. I just suddenly could see well both near and far without needing to use any readers. I still don't understand how they work so well, but for me, they do.

I think it's complicated, because sometimes that's what's happening, but other times it's just true. So many people seem to have lost their capacity for nuance. It's not always all the way one way or all the way the other, and people are so defensive that few people stop to really consider why they might be coming across as racist to some people and if there might be something they should change there. eta: I want to make clear that wasn't a veiled way of calling you personally a racist. I don't know if there has been anything that would make you come across that way, or not. I only see your last couple posts here right now and don't remember if you participated earlier in the thread.

Between this and the lower side effects, I think this one should get more attention and get approval as soon as is prudent. Maybe this is the one people would finally feel comfortable enough with to get. Especially people who think there's something woo about mRNA vaccines.

I can’t remember where you are anymore and if you’re someone that shares location (Virginia??), but I didn’t know there was anywhere in the US without Delta. Speaking of Delta: Citing Delta Variant, WHO Urges Mask Use Among Vaccinated

I hadn’t watched, but looked it up, and it doesn’t read that way to me. I don’t know what he meant, but it sounded like in his mind, something that hasn’t come out yet is something he thinks will be of some comfort to them. No idea what that would be, but I don’t see why it would be him dying in jail. That seems like a strange leap. I could throw out ideas, but they’d all be wild guesses. Who knows. It’s most likely that he will get back out of jail and be able to live a decade or more free after that, which I would think is his goal. It’s not like the Epstein situation where there was all kinds of awfulness that had yet to come out.

Why?

Like dmmetler, I don't think there is any intention for it to solve any societal problem. On an individual level, it will work to solve the sexism problem for some people, especially those who "pass" well. (Are there studies yet on whether women or trans men earn more or advance more quickly in their careers? That would be interesting to know. To soon for much data from this current crop.) The child-bearing aspects of sexism will be side-stepped for an awful lot of the young people who are medically transitioning. While one can take testosterone for awhile and still have a chance to go off of it and be able to get pregnant still, after several years on testosterone, a hysterectomy usually becomes advised or necessary, so many of the kids and young adults starting testosterone therapy now will never have the opportunity to bear children. Which I know is an appealing side effect to many of them right now, when they're young and certain they would never want to have children, or that they can "just adopt."

That looks interesting. I've opened it to read later, since Atlantic articles tend to be pretty in depth.

People keep agreeing with that, but when the discussion moves on to the blanket bans of race discussions, others want to bring it back to these fringe cases where students say they were required to personally identify as oppressor. Why focus on that when we agree on that and the bigger problem is the people trying to legislate us away from schools being able to discuss racism at all? I don't know why we keep returning to talking about students being made to personally identify as victim or oppressor. It can't help but feel like deflection in this context.

Good question. I'm sure most would still think we continue the fight, but I understand the question and have wondered sometimes if there's a thought that those of us who continue to identify as women must be fine with the stereotypes.

Like Tap said, I’m thinking Covid plus cooling shelters is a really unfortunate combination, especially areas with low vaccination rates. What causes a/c to freeze up? Are there things people can do to prevent that from happening?

Your son sounds very similar to the patterns I’ve seen in two of my kids regarding math. You say math facts aren’t the only thing, and it made me wonder if you mean not the only math thing, or if you see some other learning things. Sometimes dyslexia comes along with this kind of thing in math. One of my kids like this is dyslexic and one is not. The one that isn’t would do exactly the same thing with not easily adding ten to a number long after being able to do multi digit multiplication (with a multiplication table, because she can’t retain the facts) and long division. I really would recommend evals if you are able. I think the primary reluctance is price. It’s very expensive. I’m about to undertake it for the third one of my kids, and I’ve had to space them years apart, because it’s so expensive. Mine have all been 2E (and I’ll be surprised if this one isn’t as well), and I just don’t think the free evals through the school are likely to pick up issues as well in these kids. All mine would have flown under the radar in school, because they are very bright and that covers well for their fairly significant difficulties.

So far, no cases, right? And the window should be closing for when they should have started showing up, assuming a high level of testing. Hopefully this turns out to be a lucky near miss.

But all the bans being brought up and enacted in response to the amplified stories of personalizing oppressor and oppressed (which I think the majority agree are not helpful or appropriate) are acting on the much wider scale of prohibiting all kinds of discussions about racism and definitely about ongoing systemic racism. The focus on the specific most egregious cases is to distract from the actual goal.

I read earlier today that 2/3 of people in that area don't have a/c. I'm very, very worried about what those kind of temperatures are going to be like in an area that is not at all built or prepared for it. It's like the opposite problem of what happened in Texas with the freezing temps. I remember growing up in house with no a/c, how hot the house would get at night just when it was 80 degrees for several days in a row. I feel a bit panicky at the thought of what temperature people's houses will be with temps over 100 and no a/c 😢. Adding my prayers as well.