Decidedly Obscure Human Complaints.

This is going to be a difficult post for me, as I'm not sure how to articulate any of this. But I will try. Essentially, it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to function with breasts. With each year - and each day - my dysphoria is more easily triggered by them. Once triggered, I spiral into feeling really hopeless and trapped. Relaying this reminds me of a psychologist in 1952 named John Money. He developed a 'theory of Gender Neutrality', which promotes the idea that gender identity develops primarily as a result of social learning from early childhood and could be changed with the appropriate behavioral interventions. He argued that everyone was born "psychosexually neutral". One day a baby named David Reimer was born. By way of a medical accident at 8 months, his penis was burned beyond surgical repair. Worried about the gender development of their son, Reimer's parents brought their baby to Dr. Money. As per his recommendation, Reimer...

I attended a " Bi-Sexuality 101 " panel discussion last night. Apparently January is Bi-Sexuality Awareness Month.  And Utah is the first state in the nation to have a Bi-Sexuality Awareness Month. Neat. A significant portion of the panel addressed a list of Bi-Sexuality Myths, like the myth that all bi-sexuals are promiscuous; or that if a bi-sexual individual is with a man (s)he will inevitably leave him for a woman at some point. And so on. Various panel members shared their experiences with discrimination, feelings of being invisible to their communities, being misunderstood by people within and outside of the LGBQT community, and with feeling disconnected from a sense of community or unwelcome altogether. I was most interested, of course, in the whole gender component. I pondered about how gender relates to sexual orientation and how both relate to my perspectives on the world as a whole. As I've rambled on about in previous posts, since I believe that there ...

I dropped my foster puppies, Puck and Thebe, off at the No More Homeless Pets kennel last night to be on a "we're looking for homes" TV bonanza til' Wednesday. Despite my severe case of empty nest syndrome waking up this morning to silence instead of the sounds of excited puppies, I do hope that this helps them to find permanent homes. Little baby Puck, who has the most cuddly shy temperament ever!

I haven't been to the gym for almost 2 weeks due to having no idea how to navigate the locker rooms. Since I'm no longer able to use the women's locker room I've been in a state of gym limbo, where I developed a temporarily satisfactory go-to-gym-IN-gym-outfit plan. But that plan doesn't always work out. For instance, if I'm out somewhere where I can't just hang out in my gym outfit, I need to pack my outfit and having somewhere to change is important - or at the least having somewhere to put my stuff. I have walked into the men's locker room twice now - once with my dad - and only made it as far as the restroom before I backed out with my heart thudding in my chest. NOT having a locker room to go to at the gym - or somewhere to safely change - is a problem. I keep meaning to bring myself to get the manager's attention and talk to him privately about my situation and if they have a restroom somewhere I could use to change. But every time I get ...

The majority of my day-to-day existence currently is spent taking care of these three wonderful puppies I'm fostering: Puck, Thebe, and Petey. They all went to adoptions for the first time this weekend. Petey was adopted immediately. No matter how much I foster, it never gets easier. I always end up bonding and falling in love and my brain starts to try to trick me with little snippets like, "This is your little soul mate dog...". But I remind myself that fostering in and of itself is vital. And because of fostering, these puppies have a chance to find their forever homes. Before I was able to foster them, all three were at the shelter and had no chance at survival. Two in their litter had already passed away. Their mom was all skin and bones, and in turn couldn't care for or nurse them. They were all extremely underweight and had worms. After turning my upstairs bathroom into a sweltering puppy incubator, they are now all really plump, healthy, and playful. To...