Messages

Thank you for this.

Hiya. I don't think I ever posted in Introductions, so now seems like a good time. I was pretty depressed & burned out ~18 months ago, and if memory serves I flamed out in some inconsequential thread, had a Well, Then Stop moment & took a break from PD. I was surprised how much being able to think of myself as a minor part of the PD community meant to after I left.

Since then...

The international company I worked for laid off my entire office and all but a few of their US workers. I wasn't really able to take care of myself at that point, and with no job my parents had me move back in with them. Losing my insurance + moving meant that I had to change all my doctors, and finding good ones turned out to be an adventure. (The highlight was definitely the psych who decided that I was schizophrenic entirely on the basis that I was a male in my early 20s.)

I got seriously into Twitter to fill my social networking needs. I had mostly only followed my coworkers until then; somehow I ended up reading a lot of stuff about race, gender, and having a race and a gender at the same time. There were a lot of "oh, that's what Nigel was talking about" moments. Met a lot of transgender autistic dissociative spectrum otherkin, and felt strangely comfortable in that space? I mean everyone alternates between posting self-hatred and apologizing for posting self-hatred (or does both at once), but other than that they're really nice. Between Twitter and some other stuff, I've been practicing being sensitive, empathetic, and compassionate, which was a nice change from the sort of combative skeptic thing I had going before. Also, I might be a girl. Still working that out.

Early this year I felt up to working again, and was hired to rebuild/salvage on a local mid-size corporation's e-commerce site. About two and a half months into that, a more interesting company offered to hire me, and I went with it. I'm financially stable enough to move back out, but I've just been so busy working I haven't been able to sit down and plan that out.

I turned 25 a few weeks ago, and I think that about sums it up? I haven't decided if I'll stick around or not yet, that depends a lot on my own energy levels and whether anything I'm interested in is happening. I haven't read any threads yet, just thought I'd post this.

I never know how to end a post?

Fucking hell.  is everyone suck a precious snowflake that they need a unique classification to describe their personality?

It's a taxonomist's paradise.

Well... yeah? Once the school psychologist diagnoses you with ADHD, oppositional-defiant disorder, and dyscalcula because your math teacher is obnoxious, you might as well go nuts making up your own fake latin labels. It's absurd, but what isn't?

If any of these new-fangled emperor-kin turn out half as awesome as Emperor Norton, I'll be satisfied.

100+ young queer trans women sign a very bullet pointed open letter back!
http://freethoughtblogs.com/zinniajones/2014/04/open-letter-100-trans-women-stand-against-calpernia-addams-and-andrea-james/

Meanwhile, in Maricopa County, a black transwoman activist/protestor has been sent to a men's jail for "manifesting prostitution", which is some combination of being black, wearing women's clothes, protesting the local police department, being transgender, and being outdoors in public. https://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights-criminal-law-reform-hiv-aids-reproductive-freedom-womens-rights/arrested-walking.

Some people have managed to sign both the open letter and to agitate for Monica Lewis, but it appears there is some tension between cable-TV-affording-transwomen and people who go outdoors in Maricopa County. There are accusations of mainstream white (trans???) feminism ignoring the Monica Lewis story on account of racism, respectability politics, etc.

[A.]

A. My parents are a bit of an experiment on this. My maternal grandfather was bipolar and alcoholic, and killed himself when my mother was youngish. He may have left his body in the bathroom for one of her sisters to find, I'm not sure. Mom gets really skeevy when I ask about him, so I don't anymore. My mom, and all of her sisters (large Irish Catholic family), all have some level of depression, anxiety, and trauma. Probably at least partially genetic, but I wouldn't bet a kid on it. Don't underestimate the power of trauma on a child's developing mind.

My biological paternal grandmother was also an alcoholic, and while never diagnosed, my dad's family thinks she may have been self-treating for bipolar (also: large Irish Catholic family). She and paternal grandfather divorced after my dad's cohort was grown. My dad and all of his brothers, aside from being engineers, all seem neurotypical. We went to her house after she died, and she definitely was not - a hoarder, if nothing else.

[narrow-minded cishet men who have transformed themselves into narrow-minded translesbians]

I know, I'm unheathily addicted to this topic:

http://boingboing.net/2014/04/04/rupaul.html

It seems Ms Malloy has a real problem with Ru Paul.  And objectivity.  And drag queens.

I'm glad Andrea wrote that, and it breaks my heart to see narrow-minded cishet men who have transformed themselves into narrow-minded translesbians targeting the old guard who have worked hardest, faced the most danger from society, and done the most to promote social acceptance, for their hatred and bigotry.

I woke up this morning to my twitter feed containing a mixture of rants and discussion about that article, from the other perspective. (I didn't know Andrea or Mallory existed yesterday.) Apparently the "young guard" (??) bears a lot of resentment to the old guard, and claim the old guard is/was gender policing young trans people, e.g., that you must be attracted to men to be a real trans woman (b/c all women are attracted to men or something?)

That awkward moment when a boy comes to you to about what he thinks is rectal bleeding, and it turns out he's just having a period.

[GA, stick to white knighting for holist,]

GA, stick to white knighting for holist, I'm good.

You don't want me to use other's interactions with you as illustrations for rhetorical points. That's fair, and I'll respect that.

It's the bolded bit that gets to me. My direct interaction with holist in this thread so far as been:

Dear Holist:

Fuck you.

I don't really feel like sharing it with you, because you'll probably call me and my loved ones "sorry losers."

plus this comment:

On the other hand, I don't like holist very much.

I feel that those statements are 1) straightforward, and 2) strongly characterize my relationship with holist in this thread as antagonistic. Given later ambiguous input, they would strongly influence interpretation of that ambiguity towards one consistent with an antagonistic relationship. I don't find it plausible that you honestly believe I'm trying to champion holist.

Which begs the question of why you'd type that out. The most generous interpretation I have is that I crossed an extremely important line, and you wanted to shock me into paying attention. Least generous is that you wanted to wound me, and accuracy be damned as long as it was hurtful - but that's not consistent with earlier observations of you being generally reasonable, thoughtful, and of not being suddenly and spontaneously spiteful.

The intermediate position is that you wanted position me closer to holist in social space and distance yourself from me. As holist is wildly and deservedly unpopular at the moment, this would weaken my social standing, and to the extent that I am not part of whatever in-group you are moving towards, strengthen yours. That's behavior I associate with people insecure in their standing in an important group, which, again, is not consistent with earlier observations of you. I read the bulk of your interactions with other established members as indicative of a confident peer-to-peer relationship, and from others get the impression that you're generally well respected. You could have not posted that and been fine. Apart from holist and arguably that one comment from Roger, no one's been attacking you in this thread; to the contrary, the entire thread up to the point when I used impact font was the board broadly telling holist that trying to make mothers feel guilty about their children was misogynistic and unacceptable. So I'm not aware of anything that would cause you to suddenly start feeling insecure or otherwise begin to act out of character, which means that I have a hard time taking the intermediate position either.

Usually when I fail to understand something to this extent, it means that there's a massive amount of context I'm ignoring?

I didn't read GA's post as a "here's a chance to get a kick in" it read more to me like "this 'why do you have so many children' trope is a hot button of mine and I'm hesitant to bring it up because fuck holist" followed by "okay, actually, I can't not mention this, here are my feels."

Weird, that's exactly what I was thinking when I wrote it. It's like you have some kind of literary telepathy or something.

Here, this is a better example:

It is another form of mommy shaming. You don't know what led to them having a bigger family, and being a judgey concern troll about it isn't something to be proud of.

Birthrates in the US are well below replacement levels, even with some people having "more than their share."

You know, I just can't see myself ever sticking up for QG again.

DOUR,
Judgey Concern Troll

If you approached this with the right wrong maximally uncharitable frame of mind, and for whatever reason are compelled to throw in allegations of sexism you have prior evidence to believe are untrue, you might read that response as:

Attention weak and vulnerable female:

You appear to not be in total solidarity with tribal doctrine, as exemplified by the opinions currently held by Largest And Hairiest Male Ape-Man-Yeti-Thing Around. You will cease this at once, and return to only speaking supportively of the Largest And Hairiest Male Ape-Man-Yeti-Thing Around. Otherwise, when, not if, weak and vulnerable female next runs into trouble, Largest And Hairiest Male Ape-Man-Yeti-Thing Around might not extend his aegis of iron-haired protection to her. Largest And Hairiest Male Ape-Man-Yeti-Thing Around is stating this out loud as a warning to any other weak and vulnerable females who might be thinking of stepping.

Ook, ook ook.

You'd have to go through some mental gymnastics and willfully forget a lot of things to arrive at that interpretation, but you could do it if you were sufficiently motivated. I don't know why anybody would, though.

Wow, I really didn't expect that to be controversial. Have none of you ever seen people making snide remarks in grocery stores about people who have more children than they can control? If that's the kind of shit you say, then yes, sooner or later a child of a large family will overhear you. Maybe not directly, maybe it's just your kid going up to their kid on the playground and saying "My mom said that your mom has more kids than brains." While we're grossly exaggerating what people actually said, saying it's okay to think of human beings as wastes of space as long as we don't tell them to their face is like saying "Being racist is fine, as long as you're tactful about it. What they won't know won't hurt them."

It all comes back to the old game of controlling reproductive rights. If you're saying that only wealthy people whose philosophies you agree with should have more than N kids, then you're saying that those other people - the ones with the wrong values and inferior lifestyles - shouldn't. If God wanted them to breed, he'd have given them a four bedroom house and your enlightened opinions on everything, right?

QG is right, it is judgey concern trolling. If you want to go shit on overweight people because it's socially acceptable to do so, go ahead, but don't try to kid yourself that you're being a crusader for social justice by redirecting food from people that overeat to people that are starving.

If you were actually seriously concerned that someone had more children than they could provide for - you'd offer to help provide for the children. If your concern only extends to mocking the parents, that's not concern, that's being judgmental.

Frankly, it makes more sense to mock people for promoting the paradigm of "children are entirely at the mercy of they're biogenitors' ability to provide for them" in the first place. Why don't we offer universal childcare, give parents both maternity and paternity leave, and extend school breakfast to school dinner?

The next time you feel the need to tell someone off for having so many kids...

I feel like this attack is aimed at me ... I never feel the need to tell someone off for having many kids.

-2 points for reading comprehension.

Furthermore, why would anyone talk to a child about the parent's parenting skills? I cannot see a possible reason for that. Even when your intent is to hurt the child that is not a very good technique. Not even psychotics would do that.

Man we go to different grocery stores. Of the top of my head, evangelicals tend to gravitate towards this sort script:
"Is that a lip piercing? You're going to hell. Stop trying to be punky rebel and go to church like your parents."
"My parents said it was okay."
"Your parents are AGENTS OF SATAN."

Furthermore, why would anyone talk to a child about the parent's parenting skills? I cannot see a possible reason for that. Even when your intent is to hurt the child that is not a very good technique. Not even psychotics would do that.

Hey, he's been waiting WEEKS to spring that line, most likely.

Can we analyze this comment? There's no knowledge transfer - all you've got is vaguely derisive speculation. It's pure phatic communication. Not that there's anything wrong with that, phatic communication is really important in building relationships and communities. It's just that with this post, I get the feeling that you're trying to build relationships at my expense. Like trying to build an in-group out-group paradigm.

[LISTEN UP SCHMUCKS:]

On one hand, I feel like I ought to say something about criticizing someone on how many children they have is a form of mommy shaming / slut shaming in itself.

On the other hand, I don't like Holist very much.

Sometimes you just have to dive in the gutter and wallow.

Oh, definitely. I don't think I'm in the mood tonight, though. I *might* be able to push some new content out over in TFY;S if I try, but don't hold your breath.

Is this thing on? Good, now
LISTEN UP SCHMUCKS:
The next time you feel the need to tell someone off for having so many kids,
I want you to imagine walking up to their youngest daughter,
four years old, and telling her:
Your mommy and daddy are bad parents because they chose to have you.

Quite honestly though, I'm  missing the joke there.

(babies by yourself -> asexual reproduction)

On one hand, I feel like I ought to say something about criticizing someone on how many children they have is a form of mommy shaming / slut shaming in itself.

On the other hand, I don't like Holist very much.

As for my angry daughter, some people simply have more fiery personalities than others. She is a passionate person who is quick to anger and passionate about social justice. She is certainly, compared to the sanguine personalities of my other children, an angry person, but she isn't angry all the time or without reason. She is angry in bursts, when she perceives that someone is suffering a social wrong. She was like this even in pre-school, when she would defend smaller kids from bullies, and rage about how unfair it is that some kids were mean to or didn't want to be friends with the disabled child in her class. I am incredibly proud of her passion for justice and certainly don't appreciate the implication that she's been abused.

I am certainly not happy about being stressed and poor and struggling. That wasn't my favorite turn of events in my life, that's for sure. But I also am, in fact, completely certain that being in school right now IS the correct choice for me, and for my kids, and I am proud of myself for accomplishing what I have so far in life, even if it might not equal the kind of sheltered, comfortable complacency others consider "success". I'm proud of myself and of my kids, and of the job I've done raising my kids despite hardships and disadvantages.

So, Mr. Comfortable, you can just go fuck right off.

If only you'd thought to sell your frontal lobes instead of educating them. Then you could have afforded better childcare than your frontal-lobe-damaged-uneducated-brain could have provided!