I used to have clarity: do as I am expected. Now that I’m resigned from that game, I have to sort out who I am and what I want.

One benefit of doing what you’re told is you never have to figure out what you want. There are plenty of scripts we can follow, from our family’s expectations to norms enforced by our patriarchal society, and each promises to release us from the responsibility of shaping our own life. That responsibility is a heavy burden — for many it is too much, and they never act out of line.

I…

It’s the small things in life that often bring the most happiness moment-to-moment.

In some ways I feel like one of those research monkeys that spent a lifetime in a sterile cage doing nothing but whatever experiment was demanded of me. My life pretending to be a man was sparse and focused on work without much else. Now that I’m stepping into myself and my trans-ness I have a whole collection of new worlds open to me, and it is delightful even as it is challenging. What is most joyous is little day-to-day things that I never got to enjoy…

There is work to be done for a better future.

We can all take a moment to feel relief at the end of the most wretched presidency in modern history. Just a moment, though, since nothing is over and all the work remains to be done. For the left and for everyone who cares about a better future there are still ongoing crises to address. Biden will not do much of anything — he has promised this. The most urgent issues facing us will not be addressed by him. We cannot grow complacent.

The US is still sinking. The pandemic…

We can either benefit from the system or attack it, but not both.

If we speak against power — or worse, act against power — we will be punished according to the caprice of the powerful. In our time this can mean loss of job, homelessness, social isolation, hunger, violence, and death. It’s not something to take lightly or think you can dabble a bit in on the weekends and then return to your normal life. …

To keep living we’ll need to change this thing we’ve been taught to serve called ‘the economy’.

The economy is destroying the planet and threatening all of humanity. That is a matter of fact. The ecological and human disasters of the economy are too many to list in full but among them are lost of topsoil, climate change, and ocean acidification. …

Or maybe I was. Or maybe I changed along the way, or maybe I decided to live like this. It doesn’t actually matter, though.

I know I’m supposed to say I was born this way. That is the party line for LGBTQ people, and I understand why, but I can’t in good faith stick to that line. For more, I don’t actually know if I was born this way. More importantly, however, it doesn’t matter whether I — or anyone — was born this way or not. …

Answering a question I’ve received from a surprising number of people.

Since coming out a lot of people I know have asked how I knew I was trans, so it must be a common curiosity. The complete answer is, of course, both beyond my own understanding and also kinda messy, but here is a sort of metaphor to illustrate the symbolic process I went through.

Imagine two empty fish bowls. Fill one with everything masculine, the other with everything feminine — everything, from clothes to roles to attributes, all possible gendered things are separated out. …

The ability to help ourselves doesn’t mean we’re to blame if we try and fail to do so.

There’s a common sentiment — usually uttered with good intent — that goes something like this: it isn’t their fault because they couldn’t help it. That by itself is true enough;. if you are powerless then you have no culpability — you’re blameless.

What if you do have power, though? It’s easy, common, and false to think that having power implies blame. Having agency — and the power to act on it — does not mean that we are necessarily to blame…