My Deepest Trans Lesson

I recognized I was trans at the age of 15. But I spent a decade after that being "not 100% certain". I tried in that time to think my way to certainty. I had a psychologist who I thought was helping me to find certainty (but she was actually treating me for a personality disorder). Around and around I went, and I got nowhere.

Then I read a book called In Search of Eve. It was 1990, and I don't know how a copy of that book ended up in my university library in South Africa. It changed my life because it destroyed the certainty delusion. The book presented transition as a ritual that didn't simply express an identity--instead, the ritual shaped and reinforced the identity. I could think till my brains dripped out my ears and it wouldn't help. I had to DO.

It's like a seed can only find out it's a daisy by growing and flowering. Or it can sit in the seed packet forever, wondering.

And this is why I am so angry with the transphobes and their "reasonable people" enablers, throwing obstacles in the way of trans kids to grow and learn and reinforce their identities. Transition is a positive feedback loop that saves people's lives.

Disclaimer: I am autistic and struggle to interpret my internal state. Other trans people have different experiences.

#trans

Day 2 of #nixcon and I'm waiting for the train.

I'll be presenting at 15:00 CET a high level overview of the systems that build #nixos, so if you're interested in that drop by the Aula room or view it live at https://2025.nixcon.org/live/!

via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16eDx3zoA2/

NPR - The year red-blooded patriotic American high-school jocks replaced migrant farm workers!

The year was 1965. On Cinco de Mayo, newspapers across the country reported that Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz wanted to recruit 20,000 high schoolers to replace the hundreds of thousands of Mexican agricultural workers who had labored in the United States under the so-called Bracero Program.

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