I mean, there are folks that believe that rocks and trees are conscious, why not code?

Both can be true. Though I think the norm back then was more “giant earthen pots of room-temperature beer.”

I choose to believe that this is a Ratatouille…or I suppose a Catatouille situation. The cat is the one with the real artistic mind and talent. It simply anatomically lacks the ability to wield a stylus. The cat is merely using the human’s hand as an adaptive aid. The physical equivalent of a sign language interpreter! The cat is not attempting to provide assistance to the human artist. The human is providing assistance to the feline artist. The human themselves is incapable of drawing above a kindergarten level without the assistance of the cat.

I get it. I married my partner for similar reasons. But you found love once. You can find it again. No words can make the pain any easier now. But it does get better with time.

Toilet paper in public places doesn’t suck because every building and business owner is a cheapskate. Toilet paper in public restrooms sucks because if it doesn’t, people steal it.

This your first big breakup?

The idea that you cannot find love as a trans person is simply not true. It’s not easy, and it’s harder for trans people, but it’s not impossible. I’m a trans gal happily married to a husband of eight years. I found my soulmate, so can you.

Collecting all the Infinity Stones just seems like too much effort. How many do I need to just be able to alter people’s sexual orientation as a prank or act of vengeance?

Because this person does clearly have gender dysphoria. They just have a misunderstanding of what gender dysphoria is. This whole thread is about whether someone is “trans enough.” And it helps people better understand their feelings and situation if we can discuss things with reasonable definitions. “Trans medicalism” originally meant someone who believed the only legit trans people were those that went through a formal medical process. It could also mean someone who believed the only legit trans people were those who sought medical transition. If the core defining trait of “trans medicalism” is that you need to have dysphoria to be trans, then it wouldn’t be called “trans medicalism.” It would be called “trans dysphorism” or similar.

Personally, I think you do have to have dysphoria to be trans. But dysphoria is not only a pain. It can be a longing. A desire. An inescapable yearning. It’s any feelings that push you towards wanting to alter your sex, gender, gender role, presentation, etc. People just have a very limited understanding of the true spectrum of gender dysphoria. Hell, gender dysphoria and gender euphoria are the same damn thing. Or they’re just two sides of the same coin. Gender euphoria is just the positive feelings that come from relieving some aspect of gender dysphoria. I need not cite a medical text. I know from my own lived experience that dysphoria is far more iridescent than the limited version you prefer. Dysphoria is many things, and we do ourselves a deep disservice when we do not recognize its full spectrum and color.

This person has a misunderstanding of what gender dysphoria is. You correct that misconception, and suddenly all their concerns about being “trans enough” can melt away. Sure, you can reinforce their misconception, and tell them “you don’t need dysphoria to be trans.” But that’s not the ideal way. Let’s say they stick with your definition of gender dysphoria, the limited version involving pain over physical features. So maybe you can convince this person to identify as a “non dysphoric trans person,” but they’re still going to meet trans people that say, “I experience(d) gender dysphoria.” They’re still going to feel separate in some way. Is building a wall between them and a large portion of the trans community really going to help them get past the feelings of inadequacy they’re struggling with?

No. I don’t think so. Far better to help them understand their own experiences in the broader tapestry that is gender dysphoria in all its varied multicolored hues. We’ve all felt the same pain. But we experience it a bit differently. Sometimes that pain manifests as deep physical revulsion to natal physical features. Sometimes that pain manifests as a deep longing. And people often experience both and in changing ratios over time. In my case it started as a longing and desire, but later morphed into much more physical dysphoria once I actually started really contemplating and considering transition.

The idea that you need dysphoria to be trans is the core belief of transmedicalism, which is a harmful ideology.

The biggest problem with this is that when you actually look up the definition of “gender dysphoria,” it includes things that people who say “I don’t have dysphoria” describe. Every person I’ve talked to who says, “I didn’t have dysphoria, I just had euphoria,” was simply ignorant on what gender dysphoria actually is.

From the DSM-5, the actual clinical definition of gender dysphoria, (not the one used by the “I never had dysphoria” types) is:

A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (or in young adolescents, the anticipated secondary sex characteristics) A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics because of a marked incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed gender (or in young adolescents, a desire to prevent the development of the anticipated secondary sex characteristics) A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender) A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender) A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)

That is gender dysphoria. When “trans medicalist” types say, “you need dysphoria to be trans,” this is the definition they’re using. But social media kills nuance and turns everyone into a caricature. Every community likes to have a villain, so the message “you need to have dysphoria” gets twisted by bad-faith actors into “trans medicalists believe you have to be literally suicidal with dysphoria to be trans.” Are there some fringe weirdos who think that? Sure. But 99% of the people I’ve seen slandered as “trans medicalists” were nothing like that caricature.

Most folks complaining about trans medicalists are just fighting their own imagined stereotypes. When people say, “you need dysphoria to be trans,” you need to read that as, “someone needs to have at least some desire to change their physical body, social role, or social presentation to be trans.” In other words, you have to actually have some desire to transition some aspects of your gender to be transgender. But people love to punch down on others, so they invent this version of “trans medicalism” that exists nowhere except in their own heads.

Personally, using the proper definition of gender dysphoria, I see little reason to not say you need dysphoria to be trans. If you have no desire to change your body, no desire to change any aspect of your presentation, no desire to change your social role? There’s nothing wrong with just being cis. “Trans” is not a gender. You don’t “identify as trans.” You are trans because of how you identify. (Please don’t mention inability to actually transition or get medical treatment as if that means anything here. This is about intention.)

But people get slandered as “trans medicalists” for simply saying, “I don’t know what trans is precisely, but you should at least want to do some trans stuff to count as trans.” There’s a word for someone who wants to retain all aspects of their assigned gender at birth, including body, social role, presentation, etc. That word is cisgender. And there’s nothing wrong with being cis. We use definition all the time when referring to cis people.

This isn’t gate keeping trans identities. You can be trans however you want to be. But if you literally have no desire to transition any aspect of you’re gender, you’re literally just cis. Trans and cis aren’t something you choose to identify as. Some people say even this incredibly open door to trans identities is “gatekeeping,” or “trans medicalism,” but we need to apply the same standard to the “trans” label that we do “cis.” We tell cis people all the time, “it doesn’t matter if you like the term, you’re still cis because you meet the definition of cisgender.” If we’re going to ask cis people to accept our labels of them, we need to use a consistent standard. We can’t tell cis people on one hand, “you’re cis whether you like it or not,” at the same time we tell trans people, “trans is something you can just identify as, even if you’re literally just cisgender by the definition we ask cis people to accept.”

We can’t tell cis people, “cis” is something you are just by definition," at the same time we say, “being trans means nothing. You can just identify as trans.”

So in your examples, it went from making fun of a type of men, to referring to the overwhelmingly-male owners of hobby ranches, to referring to male surfers.

When exactly was it ever gender neutral?

Comrade!

You’re confusing morals, knowledge, intent, and intelligence with capability. An atomic bomb has no will of its own either.

It may be confined to man-made infrastructure, but that same infrastructure is what keep billions of people from starving to death. At this point, computers and networked systems are so baked in to every facet of our logistics chains and government that simply shutting it all down isn’t an option. The nightmare scenario is where rogue AI escapes the lab and copies itself to so many systems that the only way to kill it is to shut down every computer on Earth.

Thanks! 😁

I looove thrifting and flea markets. But I have to say, I hit the absolute jackpot this weekend. I hit the motherload. The peak of peaks. The mother of all thrifting sales! It’s been a rough year this past year, but the Fates has some mercy and really smiled on me this weekend.

So background. I’m going through a bit of a career transition right now. Been in engineering for my whole career, but now exploring a switch to K12 teaching. I’ve become a licensed substitute teacher in my state and will be substituting as much as I can through the coming year. If I like it and thrive at it, I may pursue proper full teacher licensure and make a full career transition. I love engineering as a subject, but I struggle with really debilitating ADHD/ASD and it’s made office work very difficult. I just burned out after 9 months at the seventh engineering job of my career. And I’m just done. I can’t do it anymore. I need to make a radical career change. I need to find work that doesn’t involve working in an office. And K12 teaching is a path I’m exploring. The kind of instant feedback and meaningful work you get in a teaching position just click with me like nothing else does. I have some extensive experience in university teaching and K12 tutoring, so a switch to K12 teaching isn’t a huge stretch. But the last time I was in a K12 classroom was when I myself was last in high school. I’m really scared, nervous, excited, and looking forward to it all at once!

However, I’m in dire, desperate need of a new professional wardrobe. First, I’ve lost a lot of weight the last year and a half, both through getting on tirzepatide and starting ADHD medication. I’m 50 pounds lighter than I was at the start of 2025. BMI has gone from 30 to 22. And my partner and I started weight lifting about 9 months ago, and that’s also affected my body shape. While I feel absolutely amazing, nothing I have really fits well anymore. I’m tired of wearing loose shirts and pants scrunched tight with a belt. Depression kept me from really wanting to keep up with the wardrobe. So now I need to play catch up.

Secondly, the wardrobe I’ll want to wear in K12 teaching is very different from my engineering attire. My field of engineering is very male-dominated. And teaching is a very female-dominated field. That alone is going to be quite a culture shock. But from talking with some friends who work in schools in my area, my standard engineering wardrobe will stick out like a sore thumb. And as a trans woman who is generally stealth at work, drawing attention to myself is the last thing I want. I want to “when in Rome” this. I need a wardrobe that is typical of women teachers my age in my area. My engineering wardrobe is mostly polos, fem-cut collared shirts, and a few basic blouses. It’s mostly fem-cut versions of the same thing guys wear. Additionally, in my prior work, both in office work and university teaching, I’ve had to have a wardrobe that is compatible with industrial and laboratory environments. Dangly flowy clothes don’t work well in those environments for safety reasons. Much of it is also from my baby trans days when I didn’t know a cami from camo. So I know a lot more know about what I like and what works well on me.

So between needing smaller sizes and the need to really fem things up, I essentially need a whole new professional wardrobe. I need to replace almost everything in my closet. None of the skirts I have can stay up on their own. None of my pants fit without a belt. All my tops feel like I’m wearing a potato sack. Even my underwear doesn’t fit. To do that by buying new would cost thousands. And while my partner and I are doing OK, me being out of work right now really hasn’t been great for our finances. There simply aren’t thousands in the budget right now for new clothes.

Well, the Fates saw my plight and smiled upon me this weekend. Right at my time of greatest need, the universe came through for me. I learned of the mother of all sales. A local charity thrift shop which has an absolutely enormous clothing section decided to hold one of their rare $1 sales. Literally every item is a dollar. They hold one every 4-6 months when the clothing stock starts to get too high. and I took full advantage. I was absolutely shameless.

Most people I saw there came in, looked around a bit, and were in and out in under 20 minutes. I was shopping and trying things on for hours. I had to break my try-on sessions into small chunks just to keep from hogging the one changing room.

I literally bought an entire new wardrobe. Jeans, slacks, corduroy pants, skirts, dresses, blouses, camis, tanks, incredibly fem tops of all sorts. Long sleeves, short sleeves. Formal. Casual. Clothing for every season and occasion. Even a few jackets and pairs of shoes. All in excellent condition. I spent $87 on clothes at this sale. And literally every single item was just one dollar. I got a really cute brown pleather jacket for a buck.

I do have to buy some items new. Buying bras and panties used are wear I draw the line, so I have to get those new. But because of this one single sale, I’ll be spending 2-3x more on new underwear than it cost for the rest of my wardrobe put together. It was absolutely incredible. I felt like I was robbing the place.

Also, I have to say, the shopping was an absolute blast. I was like a kid in a candy store. Just beaming with joy. Found so many cute things. And even the appeal to my vanity was a hoot! I’ve been wearing size 10-12 for most of my post-transition life, and I was shopping sizes 6-8. I’m just finding item after item, all things I once only dreamed of being able to wear. And everything was literally just a dollar.

Sorry for the essay, but I got nowhere else to share this. And I just have to share. I hit the thrifting motherload this weekend. And it could not have come at a more perfect time in my life.

If you’re going to reply, at least address what I wrote. You completely ignored everything I wrote.

Again. you can only do so much, especially if we’re talking about buying a new vehicle today and driving that into the ground. Sure, you can keep things maintained. But even if you’re the world’s most skilled driver, you can’t control other people.

Just this last year we lost a 15 year old Corolla. We had been planning to drive it into the dirt. Driving down a side street, maybe 30 mph. Some person doesn’t look both ways properly and pulls out right in front of us from a parking lot. No time to stop. Insurance declared it a total loss. Not worth fixing. Would cost more to repair than the thing is worth.

Unfortunately, you can’t ignore depreciation. It’s rarely possible to actually drive a car into the dirt, as they can last for hundreds of thousands of miles if properly maintained.

Even if you intend to drive the car into the ground, you usually can’t. Every time you get on the road it’s a roll of the dice. Over enough time, eventually you roll snake eyes. You can be the best driver in the world, you can’t beat physics. If someone pulls out of a parking lot right in front of you, you’re going to crash. You can’t skill your way out of minimum stopping distance.

And this happens, depreciation matters regardless of your choices. The insurance company is going to offer you a settlement based on the depreciated value of the vehicle. Sure, in theory you could say, “well, they gave me the value of a 10 year old car, so I’m just going to buy another copy of the same car I just totaled!” But that rarely works in practice. Once they get that old, you really have to worry if the old owner took care of it properly or not. Driving a car into the dirt works well when you can be the original owner and know that the maintenance has been kept up with.