I'm glad to read these experiences. I have had terrible insomnia for years and have been reluctant to take anything other than unisom but I'm wondering now if I should try trazodone. I know one of my doctors mentioned it once.

Unfortunately there are lots of incompetent therapists in the world. A friend experienced two separate therapists pushing her to identify as trans. Friend is very open minded and leans heavily progressive, but she's not a teenager--she has enough maturity and self-awareness to judge for herself and determine that her mental health struggles have nothing to do with being a female in a male body. These things ARE happening--not to everyone, not every therapist, not everywhere--but they are real experiences.

And: it is doing the opposite of breaking down stereotypes. It is reinforcing stereotypes.

I never mentioned any trans hegemony. But a movement, yes--the movement that has a huge percentage of teenage girls especially obsessing about identity and turning all their angst to discussions of identity-- their own and everyone else's. It's absolutely pushing boxes and stereotypes. I'm very, very unimpressed by gender stereotypes. I'm a female who never cared for fashion, can't be bothered with makeup, and has rarely had interest in anything typically associated with femininity. I was one of 9 female cadets in an ROTC corps of over 200 in college and definitely preferred combat boots and short hair (so much more convenient, except for the annoyance of having to get it cut frequently!) I've never owned a pair of heels. I do wear dresses of the comfy variety because comfort is about the only thing I care about in clothing. None of which has anything whatsoever to do with whether I am male or female.

The current trans movement has absolutely moved us backwards when it comes to gender stereotypes. Young people are in some cases being explicitly taught that how male or female they are depends on which stereotypes they identify more with--remember that gender spectrum graphic with Barbie on one end and G.I. Joe on the other? If you're a female who would rather wear combat boots than high heels, you must not really be a girl. I hear young women in my sphere bemoaning the fact that if they try a pixie cut people will assume they identify as something other than a woman. They tell me it's fine for me as a middle-aged woman but that among their own peers choices of dress and hairstyle are seen as identity signals.

I've encountered them at rest stops along freeways. Can't say exactly where--my roadtripping experience has criss-crossed the country, but definitely a few times. Cold but far easier to clean than a standard toilet.

I think this assumes way more thinking-through and rationality than most people put into their decision-making process. It also ignores the fact that we're stuck in a two-party political system. If one side is actively promoting things like drag story time and school curricula that teach first graders that anyone can grow up to be a man or a woman or a neither with zero correlation to biological sex, people who don't want those things will tend to support the party that isn't promoting them. Bathroom bills represent a "look, we did something!" opportunity for that party.

We can't protect beliefs from criticism without completely doing away with freedom of speech, and we don't want to do that. As for harmfulness--that's the rub, isn't it? In so many cases, people on each side of a belief divide see the other side as actively harmful.

This is similar to other subjectively experienced and understood truths. From my perspective, trans identity probably needs to be treated similarly to the way we treat religions. We try to make room for people to live in accordance with their internally experienced realities and beliefs, without demanding that everyone else recognize and accept those beliefs as absolute reality. That will require compromise. Interacting across belief boundaries always involves compromise. It has to somehow be OK for a person's subjective experience and belief to be real and valid to them, and for it to be not real or valid to others who don't share that subjective experience or belief. Respect and understanding need to be extended on both sides.

An eclipse can be pretty neat even with clouds. If you get thin clouds you can see the sun through them with eclipse glasses--that happened here with the partial eclipse last fall. With thick clouds you will at least get the sudden falling of night effect.

We drove from Utah to Idaho for the last one. The drive up in the morning was fine, and our viewing location (random empty lot we decided to stop at) wasn't super crowded; but the traffic on the drive home was completely insane--what should have been a three hour drive took nine hours! It's the ordinary problem--people trickle in over time in advance of a big event, then once the event is over everyone heads home all at once. I'd take that into account in making travel plans, and if possible plan to not head home immediately after the eclipse.

It's very, very worth going to an area of totality if you can. I drove a few hours for the last one and it was by far the most awe-inspiring thing I have ever experienced. Totality is an entirely different experience from a partial eclipse.

Murphy's Law

My guess as to what could be driving the bottom surgery thing is not wanting penises in the women's restrooms. Remove that and you can come in. Add one and you have to go elsewhere.

My post was actually sparked by the post before yours that claimed that bathroom laws aren't really about wanting safe spaces for women but about wanting "to make it illegal and unsafe for trans people to exist in public." There's something that happens on both sides of the political aisle in the US: demonize the opposition, claim they don't really care about the things THEY say they care about, make them out to be fundamentally ill-intentioned people who want to hurt their countrymen. Turn them into bogeymen to fight against. It's an effective way to leverage fear and create momentum for one's chosen side. And it's absolutely toxic to the overall culture and any hope of productive political dialog and compromise. Neither the half of the population that might vote conservative nor the half that might vote progressive (nor of course the overlapping parts in the middle) is evil. Painting them and their intentions as such is never helpful. Is there an occasional genuinely bad apple in the lot? Sure. Are there lots of folks who don't often think deeply about stuff and are primed and ready for manipulation (such as the afore-mentioned fear-mongering...)? Sure. Are there politicians pragmatically manipulating and pandering and eagerly pointing the finger of blame at the other side? Sure. Most people, however, are truly not motivated primarily by desire to hurt someone. Fear of BEING hurt or of their loved ones being hurt...yes, that's a big factor on all sides. If we ever want someone to listen to our perspective, we have to start by listening to theirs. Not by telling them "you don't actually believe what you say you believe." And if we want compromise--and yes, we should almost always be seeking compromise, not my-way-or-the-highway--we need to start with the assumption that they are coming to the table in good faith. Someone has to start.

Demonizing half the population of the country-- regardless of which half it is in our polarized system--is never helpful. People are complex. Demonization is often an effective way of rallying people for a cause, but it ultimately undermines community--locally and nationally. I'll always argue against such.

I've said it before: the simplest, least expensive, easiest to implement resolution to bathroom concerns that both allows females a reserved space where they can feel safe and ensures bathroom availability for everyone (while simultaneously mitigating the perennial problem of long lines for women's restrooms) is to have designated female bathrooms and unisex bathrooms. Anyone and everyone can use the unisex restrooms without raising eyebrows, and women who need a female-only space to feel safe and comfortable have access to one. Doesn't require significant new infrastructure.

@Drama Llama I think you are doing a fantastic job. It honestly doesnt matter whether anyone thinks you are providing the most ideal situation possible under the circumstances for your children. Life isn't about ideal. It's not even about trying for ideal. I had to come to peace with that a long time ago, out of necessity. We all lived in clinging-on-by-our-fingernails survival mode for most of two decades, before things started to turn in a more manageable direction. I've only barely gotten to a place where I'm up to trying to work with a therapist to address trauma from twenty-one years ago. I'm not at all ready to work on more recent or ongoing trauma. Every step of the way, I've done what I could. I doubt most people looking in from the outside would ever have thought I was doing enough. That doesn't matter. I did what was possible. I'm still doing what is possible. That is going to have to be enough because it's the only actual option. Have I given my kids as good a childhood as I dreamed and hoped? No. But I've given what I had to give. As my parents gave me. And...there's a lot of good. It IS enough.

Some do and some don't. Honestly lots of people dont. I've only had a couple of friends as an adult. One died only a few months after we met, and one moved out of state after a couple of years. I've had lots of friendly acquaintances. I call them friends but I'm not actually close to them. I'm trying right now, I'm part of a book club that is a pretty neat group of women some of whom seem to have genuine friendships with each other and I think there is some potential there, but it's hard to actually break through that border between friendly acquaintances and someone I can actually share my deeper self with. I'm fortunate to have a sister who, although not local, is a good friend and someone I can talk to.

That doesn't sound like health hazard dirty. Pet hair, dust, and grease buildup don't make people sick (absent specific allergies). So--it's just cosmetic. Doesn't meet your standards, but not dangerous.

A giant spider might make me crash my car! I actually had a car spider encounter last year--I got bit by a black widow spider while driving. It was dark and my eyes were on the road; I felt the thing bite my arm and slapped it, didn't actually know what it was until I got home and discovered the rather flattened critter down by my feet. My arm was all achy and tingly so I had the joy of spending an evening in the ER but fortunately it didn't get worse than that.

I don't kill harmless bugs if I can possibly avoid doing so. I wouldn't kill a beetle ever, though if I knew it was upsetting someone I would likely be willing to relocate it outside. Most spiders I prefer to just leave alone where they are found; killing them seems like such a gruesome, unnecessarily violent thing to do. They tend to be more beneficial than not. If it's a black widow I will squish it. Someone demanding that I kill a bug for them would bother me and I would definitely refuse *see the exception above regarding genuinely dangerous types. Someone politely explaining they have a phobia and asking me to relocate the bug I would accommodate. Oh, and I don't at all mind swatting mosquitoes.

Toes were my key to rope climbing! I have a rather wide space between my big toe and second toe (makes most shoes unwearable...) and a rope fit between them--I could grip it and use leg strength to climb. Knotted ropes were especially easy this way. When I was in the Air Force doing training obstacle courses I would take off my boots and hang them around my neck to climb the ropes with my toes. The only other people I know who climb ropes this way are some of my own children 🐒

It is very, very rare for a woman to be able to do 100 pull-ups, even a very fit woman! Kudos to you--and yeah, definitely unusual genetics at play!

Yes, there are many women who can't do standard push-ups. We don't have the natural upper body strength of males. Knee push-ups let us build more strength when we're not up to standard push-ups. For women who can do a couple of regular push-ups but not more, working on upper body strength with knee push-ups is also helpful.