A reminder that you can still just sit down and write software. Or stand up and write software if you prefer.

The key point is that *you* can *write software* and you don't have to let other software write software for you.

Out here in rural USA, joining any new group requires so much initial teaching from me, it's daunting every time. I have to do all the little social dances to slowly reveal that, yes, I am married to a man, and we even raised children together!
No, my son is not adopted just because he's brown, actually, my white daughter is the one that's adopted.
No, I don't work, I'm a homemaker, but please don't do that heteronormative thing where you think that means I'm "the girl" in the relationship. I don’t care about fashion, and please don't complain to me about your husband. No, I don't know your cousin/hairdresser just because they are also gay.
No, I'm not wearing a mask because I have cancer, but thanks for noticing my thinning hairline and inability to gain weight.

I'm exhausted already.

The thing that keeps me going is that they *can* be taught. I've learned that a majority of cishet white people will wake up if they just make one friend who isn’t exactly like them. Being that friend is an extremely difficult chore and takes an enormous amount of patience, but it works.

This is my contribution to the resistance. Protesting is way too dangerous for us out here, and calling local right-wing representatives who won by a 20+ point margin is an exercise in futility.
But through joining local groups and volunteering, I have changed a handful of people's minds and flipped them from right to left. I have to believe that this is worth something.

I remind myself how the only reason the National Parks Service was created by Roosevelt was because his conservationist buddy took him camping and convinced him to do it. Sometimes all it takes is one good friend to change the course of history for future generations.

This statement about the entitlement of privilege mindset floors me every time it shows up. Must pin.

#tumblr #philosophy #mindfulness

I want to explain a few things and then it might be clearer why UK trans people are upset.

In 2001 I married my wife, Sylvia.

In 2005 I started medical transition. For the state to recognise this I had to submit to standards of "care" which were humiliating, degrading and which placed me at risk of violence.

But I did it "by the book"

As I did it "by the book", the NHS agreed to reregister me as female, which makes sense because my anatomy now is.

In 2007 I had sex reassignment surgery. This had to be signed off by two mental health professionals, "by the book", and it was.

In 2008 I applied for gender recognition. This involved signing a statutory obligation, stating that I promised, BY LAW, to live fully as female for the rest of my life. As this was done, "by the book", the government promised that it would treat me as such.

Its first act as treating me as female was to annul our marriage because it was a same sex marriage and those were not allowed.

The state then reissued my birth certificate, correcting the "mistake" it had originally made when it recorded me as male, "by the book".

In 2009 Sylvia and I married for the second time, in a same sex civil partnership, which was done "by the book", because the state regarded me as female and I was bound by law to be female.

In 2013 we married again, because the state decided that same sex marriage was in fact allowed after all. This was done, "by the book". Despite having been married for 12 years, we had to submit ourselves to individual questioning to prove our relationship was genuine, "by the book".

In April of 2025 the state turned round and told me that I had been mistaken. That it never regarded me as female. That I was male the whole time. That the marriage it annulled because it was a same sex marriage was never a same sex marriage (but it stays annulled). That the civil partnership in 2009 never really happened because "opposite sex" civil partnerships were not allowed in 2009.

And that the legal obligation I have to live as female for the rest of my life, which I signed and gave up my marriage for, is still in effect but also if I keep following it, I am breaking the law and subject to arrest. As it's still valid, presumably if I don't keep following it, I am also breaking the law and subject to arrest.

The law of the land simultaneously requires me to be both a man and a woman and if I do either then I am breaking the law and subject to arrest.

At every stage I did what the state asked me to, even though it was humiliating, degrading and cruel.

And it kept moving the goalposts, and reneging on the agreements it made, whilst continuing to hold me to them even when they are now mutually contradictory.

Apparently this is "all my fault" and I should have known that this would be the consequences of my actions when I started medical transition 2 decades ago.

Perhaps you can now appreciate why we are upset?