Random Comments/Stream of Consciousness Thread

[Dolan]

77 here on Fire Island, NY.

However the humidity is just as high of a figure.

:-(

[Merlin1958]

Bill, it's a complicated term. It might be best to do research on it.
It really isn't a gender that you would likely choose, so choose what you wish, and don't fret about what others use. After all, anyone who comes here is likely a book collector, and the rest really doesn't matter.

As usual, RF you hit it on the head. As book collectors we have the ABC's chromosomes, no? lol

[Merlin1958]

What, pray tell is "Non-Binary"?

To briefly address this, traditionally gender had been seen as binary in society: male and female. But gender has always been a spectrum. Do you honestly feel "male" accurately and fully describes every single male on the planet, from the most hugest of the body-building bro-dude types to the prettiest of twinks full a-glitter? No. So some NB people feel they're somewhere on that spectrum between male and female but not in any hard-defined place, or they may feel they're outside that spectrum altogether, and neither traditionally masculine nor feminine gender traits really apply. It's honestly not that complicated if you think about it. I can post some educational videos if need be.

Surely, that spectrum includes a little room for a little bit of humor right? Not a lot, but just a little bit is all. "Come back in ten minutes I'm still studying the menu"? was a little funny, just a little and not meant in a hurtful manor.

I get what you're saying though whether it fits my "old fashioned" idea's or not. "Don't dream it, be it". I suppose would fit right here.

Spoiler:

Hey I was young once and did the "Time Warp" at midnight while puffing on a huge blunt. lol

[St. Troy]

The ability on the part of some of us to avoid conflating compromised emotional states with biological reality is not “being old fashioned;” it’s intelligence and intellectual integrity in the face of social and political disintegration.

You’re entitled to your emotions and I wish you all well with your anxieties, but you must refrain from contaminating official documents with inaccuracies and burdening others with your illusions. The real world places enough demands on us as it is.

[mae]

I owe no allegiance to your particular insanity.

The ability on the part of some of us to avoid conflating compromised emotional states with biological reality is not “being old fashioned;” it’s intelligence and intellectual integrity in the face of social and political disintegration.

You’re entitled to your emotions and I wish you all well with your anxieties, but you must refrain from contaminating official documents with inaccuracies and burdening others with your illusions. The real world places enough demands on us as it is.

So, to be clear here, you're calling trans people, including myself, insane, emotionally compromised, unintelligent, intellectually dishonest, contaminants, and delusional? Was that all? Anything else?

[ladysai]

Spoiler:

Hey I was young once and did the "Time Warp" at midnight while puffing on a huge blunt. lol

Spoiler:

I would pay good money to see a photo of this.

[Dolan]

The ability on the part of some of us to avoid conflating compromised emotional states with biological reality is not “being old fashioned;” it’s intelligence and intellectual integrity in the face of social and political disintegration.

You’re entitled to your emotions and I wish you all well with your anxieties, but you must refrain from contaminating official documents with inaccuracies and burdening others with your illusions. The real world places enough demands on us as it is.

I get disagreement. I understand "I just don't get it." But to be so openly and unapologetically lacking in knowledge or respect for a human being makes me wonder if you have any decency or if decency is one of those things that your parents clearly forgot to teach you.

Your comment says more about you than you probably comprehend. And I'm almost positive you don't care. But I do. And I had to comment.

[Randall Flagg]

Neg rep given to St. Troy

[Randall Flagg]

On a different note, second Covis-19 test in three weeks was negative. I'm having a minor outpatient procedure Wednesday and UCSF requires a CV-19 test for it. Did the drive-though yesterday and received result in less than 12 hours.

[Dolan]

On a different note, second Covis-19 test in three weeks was negative. I'm having a minor outpatient procedure Wednesday and UCSF requires a CV-19 test for it. Did the drive-though yesterday and received result in less than 12 hours.

12 hours is a great time - esp for California. New York isn't even that quick.

Both active Covid test and antibody take a couple of days. I just ordered this at home test (insurance paid for it) and going to see how that works.

I do worry though... all these "free" tests. What my insurance is going to look like next year.

[M_O_O_N]

The ability on the part of some of us to avoid conflating compromised emotional states with biological reality is not “being old fashioned;” it’s intelligence and intellectual integrity in the face of social and political disintegration.

You’re entitled to your emotions and I wish you all well with your anxieties, but you must refrain from contaminating official documents with inaccuracies and burdening others with your illusions. The real world places enough demands on us as it is.

I can personal attest to accuracy of St. Troy’s opinion in another matter (intelligent design creation being taught in schools.)

Does it apply to the subject debated here? Maybe si. Maybe no.

But regardless of the subject we must all learn to subdue our passion before it overwhelms us to the point of ineffectiveness.

[St. Troy]

As they say, the truth is often called hate by those who hate the truth, and the abundance of negative rep for “hate” I’ve received demonstrates that this hatred for truth is the TDT orthodoxy.

Understand, I don’t hate any of the people involved, but I absolutely do hate their pernicious bullshit and its effects on women (among other problems it causes).

Asking people to accept you is one thing; insisting they accept the lies you tell yourself is another. Live your life as you see fit, but find a way to cope with your dysphoria other than by causing problems for other people.

My statements are the real world into which you keep bumping because the real world didn’t go away when you stopped believing in it.

[Dolan]

As they say, the truth is often called hate by those who hate the truth, and the abundance of negative rep for “hate” I’ve received demonstrates that this hatred for truth is the TDT orthodoxy.

My statements are the real world into which you keep bumping because the real world didn’t go away when you stopped believing in it.

Oh come off your perch dude, you're gonna get a nosebleed.

[Brian861]

As they say, the truth is often called hate by those who hate the truth, and the abundance of negative rep for “hate” I’ve received demonstrates that this hatred for truth is the TDT orthodoxy.

My statements are the real world into which you keep bumping because the real world didn’t go away when you stopped believing in it.

Oh come off your perch dude, you're gonna get a nosebleed.

Dolan would know!

Spoiler:

Couldn't resist =me

[Brian861]

I try to go along with what Paul and Linda wrote in the year of my birth.

[Lurker]

Someone may have posted this before - but I just read where DreamHaven was one of the stores looted and damaged in Minneapolis.
That's where I bought my Gunslinger from a guy named Atom. On the phone. Oh, the good old days.

[mae]

My statements are the real world

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...as-a-spectrum/

Sex and gender pervade nearly every aspect of our lives. Each time we use a public restroom, shop for clothes, or fill out a form, we are insistently reminded that we must be either male or female; men or women; boys or girls. Even things that ostensibly have nothing to do with sex or gender—what we eat, for example, or the books we read—are often sold to us as if they are necessarily feminine or masculine.

Some of these conventions currently face challenges, some more polarizing than others. On the milder end of things, enterprising online retailers promote gender-neutral clothing for babies, and city transport authorities mercifully abolish the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” from public announcements. And on the other side of the controversy scale, U.S. state legislators debate so-called “bathroom bills,” which would prohibit transgender individuals from using public restrooms corresponding to their gender identity. This dispute has prompted some venues to offer a gender-neutral restroom option, or simply to do away with gender distinctions altogether in their facilities.

Much of the public discourse in this arena centers on gender rather than sex, presumably because gender is understood to be somewhat subjective; it is a social construct that can be complex, fluid, multifaceted. Biological sex, on the other hand, appears to leave less room for debate. You either have two X chromosomes or an X and a Y; ovaries or testes; a vagina or a penis. Regardless of how an individual ends up identifying, they are assigned to one sex or the other at birth based on these binary sets of characteristics.

But of course, sex is not that simple either.

The September issue of Scientific American explores the fascinating and evolving science of sex and gender. One of the graphics I had the pleasure of working on breaks down the idea of biological sex as a non-binary attribute, focusing largely on what clinicians refer to as disorders of sex development (DSD), also known as intersex.

The project was originally conceived as a data-driven graphic exploring the spectra of sex and gender. I wondered, for instance, what data could tell us about the frequency of transgender and non-binary identities, what proportion of the population is intersex, and how that value might break down into rates of specific DSDs.

I hired the researcher Amanda Hobbs to look into these questions, and what she came back with, rather than answers, looked more like a series of new questions. The search for solid data on transgender and intersex populations proved challenging, and was confounded by a variety of factors. For example, surveys often lump transgender in with gay, lesbian, and bisexual identities. And DSDs, in addition to being variously defined by different entities, sometimes go undetected or emerge unexpectedly, either during sexual development or later in life.

The project abruptly transformed into an exercise in visualizing complexity. First, it seemed imperative to define a few terms. Sex, gender, and sexuality are all distinct from one another (although they are often related), and each exists on its own spectrum. Moreover, sex cannot be depicted as a simple, one-dimensional scale. In the world of DSDs, an individual may shift along the spectrum as development brings new biological factors into play. The density of science underlying this phenomenon compelled a shift towards intersex as the primary focus of the visualization.

Now that my task was clear, I set about assembling the content of the graphic and putting it down on paper. In part, this process clarified how much I could include, as the complete list of known DSDs and their various manifestations proved unwieldy for a single spread in a print magazine. I ended up with a visual outline of sorts depicting a diverse selection of conditions and their convoluted pathways of development over time. Although not an especially pretty sketch, it captured the sense of intricacy the topic demanded.

Next I consulted with Dr. Amy Winsiewski, a DSD specialist at the University of Oklahoma, who was kind enough to review the content of my sketch for accuracy. And finally, I called upon the visualization experts at Pitch Interactive to help bring the project to life.

Once the aesthetic of the graphic had been established, I continued to refine both the text and design elements, guided by feedback from my colleagues who helped identify areas that were unclear or difficult to follow.

The resulting visualization is a source of pride for me, as I hope it is for everyone who contributed to its development. (You can see a larger version here in the September digital issue.) Design and visual communication feats aside, I believe the content itself is of critical importance from a social and policy perspective.

DSDs—which, broadly defined, may affect about one percent of the population—represent a robust, evidence-based argument to reject rigid assignations of sex and gender. Certain recent developments, such as the Swedish adoption of a gender-neutral singular pronoun, and the growing call to stop medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex babies, indicate a shift in the right direction. I am hopeful that raising public awareness of intersex, along with transgender and non-binary identities, will help align policies more closely with scientific reality, and by extension, social justice.

Full-size.

[Aremag]

I try to go along with what Paul and Linda wrote in the year of my birth.

Live and let die?

[Randall Flagg]

Pos rep to mae for an excellent post.

[Brian861]

I try to go along with what Paul and Linda wrote in the year of my birth.

Live and let die?

Bingo.

[Cook]

Ya know, there are two blowhards on this thread that really need to get a room.

So now your thinking..

[Tommy]

Ya know, there are two blowhards on this thread that really need to get a room.

So now your thinking..

I suppose one is me. I can take a hint. Thanks.

[T-Dogz_AK47]

Ya know, there are two blowhards on this thread that really need to get a room.

So now your thinking..

I suppose one is me. I can take a hint. Thanks.

Tommy, you haven't posted anything on this thread for the past 3 pages. The chances that Cook's comment was aimed at you is effectively next to zero.

[Tommy]

Ya know, there are two blowhards on this thread that really need to get a room.

So now your thinking..

I suppose one is me. I can take a hint. Thanks.

Tommy, you haven't posted anything on this thread for the past 3 pages. The chances that Cook's comment was aimed at you is effectively next to zero.

I need to stop posting anyway. I'm deleting a lot of my old posts but it's taking time.

[T-Dogz_AK47]

I need to stop posting anyway. I'm deleting a lot of my old posts but it's taking time.

No, you don't need to stop posting. And you shouldn't delete any of your past tweets either. If you let other people compromise your thoughts or feelings in life, you will never be yourself.