Sam

@spamwise
16 Followers
29 Following
62 Posts
Birds fall from the window ledge above mine
Then they flap their wings at the last second

I read my 2yo daughter "The Giving Tree" tonight, for the umpteenth time. When it was over she was uncharacteristically quiet, and when I looked at her face she was teary. I thought she might have bitten her cheek or something, and then she said in a shaky voice "Pop, the tree BROKE!" This was the first time she'd really understood what was going on in the story.

We did a lot of talking and hugging, and she bounced back fast and is now sleeping peacefully. I'm still recovering. 😭

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The state then reissued my birth certificate, correcting the "mistake" it had originally made when it recorded me as male, "by the book".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

Another recent read I feel the need to recommend: https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/

I was introduced to Robin Sloan via multiple people recommending "Sourdough" to me (because the two things that everyone knows about me are that I code and I bake sourdough). I loved "Sourdough," and then I circled back to "Mr. Penumbra" and loved that too, but this latest one elevates to the realm of mild obsession. WTB a "friend of Clovis" t-shirt.

Last week I read @annaleen's fun book about robots making noodles, and they helpfully recommended Terra Cotta Warrior as a local place to get lamb cumin biang biang noodles like in the book, and I'm surprised I'm just now discovering these because they're pretty much everything I want in a noodle. 10/10, would biang again.

Many of you know that the administration is trying a lot of fuckery with US Passports and gender markers right now. They violated the Administrative Procedure Act by doing this without a comment period.

Right now, they are trying to cure the APA violation by having an after-the-fact comment period...

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/14/2025-02648/30-day-notice-of-proposed-information-collection-application-for-a-us-passport#open-comment

... you can go there RIGHT NOW and make your voice heard. The comments currently are overwhelmingly negative, opposing the administration's bigoted and harmful rule changes.

If you can, please go add your voice. You may think it will make no difference, but the courts can and will look at all of this. Your comment RIGHT NOW opposing passport sex marker nonsense can make you a part of yet another inevitable Trump loss in the court systems soon.

Federal Register :: Request Access

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Ever since I started hearing stories of salmon returning to Redwood Creek, I've been hoping to catch sight of them, and yesterday my dad and I were in the right spot at the right time.

I was peering at this nice quiet pool thinking it would be a good spot for salmon to hang out, and right as I thought that, a big SPLASH drew my attention, and there was a big fishy that had just jumped over a log dam to get there from a lower part of the creek.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/uo9lt3e97r4t5bc32dbr1/2024-12-18-16.41.14.mov?rlkey=nc6tv6n66h7rrezr2y141wdrk&st=d44f8ank&dl=0

2024-12-18 16.41.14.mov

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Coho salmon spotted yesterday in Redwood Creek.