Something has happened

[conuly]

I don't know what precipitated this, but the dogs have started playing together. This is a huge step from treating each other like roommates. I'm very carefully watching them out of the side of my eye and not interacting at all.

Edit: It gets better. Moonpie, ever the quieter dog, started barking wildly a little while ago. At first I thought it was Finn, then I thought it must be some outside animal! Eventually I realized who it must be, and when she came up the stairs I hugged her. She barked some more, ran downstairs, and practically gave me her leash. This marks the first time she has ever used barking OR running ahead of people to communicate a wish or desire. Good girl, Moonpie! (Finn does it all the time, but he's starting to figure out that he doesn't always need to bark to get our attention. And he's finally stopped howling. Good boy, Finn! It's funny, but I want each dog to be more like the other one!)

******************

Harry Potter and the Neural Network fan fiction (Sample - Birds of a Saturday: Harry Potter is drunk and discovers he is an alternate universe.)

Cockatoos make their own lil drumsticks to play music

At Tom Thumb Weddings, Children Get Faux-Married to Each Other

This Secretive Billionaire Makes The Cheese For Pizza Hut, Domino's And Papa John's

The Pyramid Builders

Jellyfish use high-powered 'syringes' to shoot venom into your skin

40 Percent of the Buildings in Manhattan Could Not Be Built Today

The Quest to Make Vertical Living Family-Friendly

A Year Gardening the Grave of a Stranger

Can America's Farms Survive the Threat of Deportations?

Trump’s Deportation Surge Is Harming Domestic Abuse Survivors

Grasping At Straws

A Modest Proposal For Separating Blue States From Red

Confronting the Myths of Suburban Poverty

Shunned by the rich, Cairo's subway speaks of economic woes

What “The Merchant of Venice” taught me about ethnic hatred and the literary imagination.

When It Comes to Historical Markers, Every Word Matters

Under pressure, Western tech firms bow to Russian demands to share cyber secrets

Sheriff won't let his deputies carry overdose antidote

The Detransitioners: They Were Transgender, Until They Weren't (Interesting article, not sure what I think about it. The profiled people say they're just fine with transgender people, they just realized that they aren't. I suppose it would be stranger if that never happened. The comments are about 75% productive conversation, 25% transphobic and terfy trolling, but at least even they can form coherent sentences, so, you know, it's high quality.)

The Republican Backlash Against Trump's Vote-Fraud Commission

Voter fraud commission may have violated law

These Three Lawyers Are Quietly Purging Voter Rolls Across the Country

Trump's Master Class in Tax Deceit

The Heroin Crisis in Trump’s Backyard

Scientists are starting to clear up one of the biggest controversies in climate science

Meteorologists are running out of colors to map extreme heat

How the Death of a Muslim Recruit Revealed a Culture of Brutality in the Marines

Does the Militarization of Police Lead to More People Killed? Research Says Yes

Comments

[alatefeline]

Awwww! Good dogs!

[cosmolinguist]

I would be wary of that detransitioners piece. Not only have trams people said it was harmful (some detail on thst here from Julia Serano), but it seems that The Stranger had threatened a trans activist, Danni Askini, with publishing this as a hit piece on her if she didn't tone down her comments. She did, but they published it anyway. Ijeoma Oluo has details in a twitter thread, which also includes the author of that piece being blithely uninterested in stopping transphobia in the comments, dismissing it as "Facebook drama", when I know people can be really hurt by Facebook comments!

Being interested in the phenomenon of detransitioning is fair enough. But Julia Serano links in that blog post to a piece she wrote on the subject that I'd recommend as not being so ill-intended, or so unconcerned about the effects it would have, or so unpopular among marginalized people, as this recent one.

[springviolets]

katie herzog responded to danni's claims and some other stuff here. it seems what actually happened is danni agreed to talk to the stranger about the piece if they published it after a certain date. katie herzog said she would try, but it wasn't up to her. she didn't get any further comments from danni, and danni was never quoted in the article; despite that, danni was upset that they did not publish the article after the date discussed. ("I know now that it was a shock for Danni to see the article published before the Initiative 1552 deadline, and for that, I am truly sorry. I hate that this has caused her distress. But not only did I not mislead Danni or anyone else, I contacted her multiple times while I was working on this piece and she never responded. I tried to get her perspective and her voice and—had she called me back—I certainly would have told her the publication date.")

i don't disagree that some people use detransitioners as a weapon against trans people (which is also not fair to detransitioners) but as someone who knows detransitioned women, i thought the stranger piece was well balanced for the subject matter, which is usually extremely divisive.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm cis; I know some people who have detransitioned too, and plenty of trans people, and none of them have a good word to say about any of Herzog's writing here. I'm just going by that, the yardstick I'm most interested in is the harm caused to the groups of people most directly affected. Balance isn't always best for people on the short end of a power imbalance.

The fact that the only person she asks here about James Cantor being discredited is...James Cantor himself, would make me wary even if I weren't aware of him as one of about five "experts" that turn up in practically every TERFy article or argument.

[conuly]

I'm cis; I know some people who have detransitioned too, and plenty of trans people, and none of them have a good word to say about any of Herzog's writing here. I'm just going by that, the yardstick I'm most interested in is the harm caused to the groups of people most directly affected. Balance isn't always best for people on the short end of a power imbalance.

The comments to the article from transgender people aren't all negative, but still, that's concerning :(

[conuly]

Being interested in the phenomenon of detransitioning is fair enough. But Julia Serano links in that blog post to a piece she wrote on the subject that I'd recommend as not being so ill-intended, or so unconcerned about the effects it would have, or so unpopular among marginalized people, as this recent one.

Thanks, I'll link to it later. It's not a subject I know all that much about, and honestly, the subject of "detransitioning" is not one I want to google either. You're bound to get mostly garbage websites from horrible people.

[batwrangler]

Yay, Moonpie and Finn!

[smile_n_cuddle]

Awwwww! I'm so happy to hear that Finn is coming around and that they might actually be friends someday!!! You're such an amazing owner!

[conuly]

It's the other way around! Finn was always more interested in being friendly than Moonie, but she was cool to him, with occasional bouts of treat hoarding.

[smile_n_cuddle]

Awwww :) Gotcha :D

[conuly]

(To be fair to Moonpie, I'd be a little put out if somebody brought a strange human into my home, cuddled my family, and expected me to share my snacks with them.)

[smile_n_cuddle]

Hehehe, of course :D

[bibliofile]

It sounds like they're both learning from each other. Excellent developments.

[conuly]

I'm thrilled as can be.

[flexagon]

Shouldn't it just be "transitioning again"?

I do know one of these de-transitioners, sort of. I know a person, assigned female at birth and who married a man, who transitioned socially to "they/their" a couple of years ago. Recently, they/she has gone back to "she/her". According to her husband, her feelings were largely based on her desires to be really strong physically, and thinking that was not a feminine trait; then, deep involvement with my circus community showed her that women CAN be physically super strong and still present (and identify) as female, and she decided that she could consider herself female after all, on those terms.

I THINK this is a big win for my circus community and a sad commentary on the world.

[conuly]

Shouldn't it just be "transitioning again"?

Maybe. Though, as the comments pointed out, some of them are still non-binary. They just don't identify as transgender, exactly.

[kengr]

I knew someone who "detransitioned". We were both in severall overlapping parts of local "scenes", and they'd been presenting as female for years, then they went back to presenting as male.

Unusual, but I don't think it's a biggie. More concerning would be if it never happened.

One reason I think you don't hear a lot about it is that folks fear that it'll give ammunition for one of the "gatekeeper" arguments. Namely that they are worried about people changing their minds after it's too late.

Funny how they don't do that with folks wanting other sorts of plastic surgery...

"The Quest to Make Vertical Living Family-Friendly" links to a story about frogs.

[randomdreams]

There was/is still a contingent of "what if you change your mind" as regards tattoos, although in many cases I still think there's a slight underlying moral censure issue. I've also heard some undertones of that for breast augmentation surgery, albeit not so much of the "what if you change your mind", more of the straight-up censure. But of course never any for braces or dental implants.

[randomdreams]

I have never heard anyone respond to a "man, she has great teeth" with a "well, those aren't real, you know."

[kengr]

Want some fun? Try having a rational discussion regarding male circumcision...

[conuly]

LOL, been there, done that. There's always some doofus who starts in on how circumcision is child abuse and circumcised men are mutilated and I just feel like saying - look, I get that you feel that way, doofus and I'm not saying you're wrong, but this sort of thing doesn't exactly help the conversation.

[springviolets]

Namely that they are worried about people changing their minds after it's too late.

Funny how they don't do that with folks wanting other sorts of plastic surgery...

i think it's most common with types of surgery/body modification that challenges our gender expectations. people definitely do it to trans people in general, as you mention, but also for things like voluntary hysterectomies and breast reductions in women.

[conuly]

Oh, yes. It can be extremely difficult for women to have hysterectomies. (Unless they're criminals, in which case, it's still sometimes done against their will....)

[flexagon]

Forget hysterectomies, it's hard to even get sterilized! Huge amount of "what if you change your mind" there.

[conuly]

I KNOW.

[kengr]

Well, the hysterectomy bit seems to be more a combo of fear of lawsuits later plus an unhealthy dose of "must control women's bodies".

BTW, oddly enough, I know someone male who got breast implants to aid his crossdressing. Only had to ask three different surgeons before he found one who'd do it.

[conuly]

Is he happy with the results?

[kengr]

Well, he was nationally famous for a while as the first openly "trans" mayor. :-)

The surgery was a long time ago 80s or 9-s. The mayor bit is even a while back.

[conuly]

One reason I think you don't hear a lot about it is that folks fear that it'll give ammunition for one of the "gatekeeper" arguments. Namely that they are worried about people changing their minds after it's too late.

Yeah, and that's a valid worry, given how gross transphobic people can be.

"The Quest to Make Vertical Living Family-Friendly" links to a story about frogs.

Shoot, fixing it.

[randomdreams]

You're forming a pack!

[springviolets]

yay, moonpie! ♥

re: "A Modest Proposal For Separating Blue States From Red": disclaimer, i did a speed-read, and i know, obviously, this is not a dead-serious proposal-- but i checked on the author and... yep, he's white. i find that people who say things like this are always white people who have no clue (or just don't care) that red states generally have a higher population of people of color. there's only one mention of people of color ("white and black alike") in the entire article, and it's about blue states "absorbing" them lol.

[conuly]

i know, obviously, this is not a dead-serious proposal

One can only hope. I've met people who thought Jonathon Swift was actually in favor of babyeating.

i find that people who say things like this are always white people who have no clue (or just don't care) that red states generally have a higher population of people of color.

Well, it's a better plan still than mass revolt. I don't mind paying extra taxes to subsidize rural areas. I just hate being treated like the bad guy for doing so!

[eleventyone]

I keep typing up comments to the detrans article that I am considering going the Samwise Gamgee route ("it would take a week's answer, or none at all"). I had too much intensely weird and horrible experiences from my parents in youth--my sister and I are mid-fifties and don't drive, I just had a flashback last year to a time when my dad said women shouldn't drive, he was violent to the point we've never talked about it as a family, and we were so scared of dad we just did what he said and never questioned it. Even long into adulthood.

I had thought many times about surgery & hormones, but I think I remembered enough to know it was just going to be me cutting myself up and changing all kinds of things that might be impossible to change, just out of fear of his hatred of women.

My mother was equally abusive if not worse, and it was much harder to remember. They were both college educated, and churchgoing at various times in their lives (including old age). But they were lukewarm churchgoers, so they never changed.

Okay, that didn't take a week, quite.

Lol at the knock knock jokes.

[archangelbeth]

Hooray for dog playing, and may they teach each other their good habits!