End of the Year Retrospective

It’s been thirteen yeas since I started this blog, fourteen if you could the essay I wrote for the Transkids.us website. A lot has happened in that time. When I started researching and writing this material, my chief concern was the science denialism within the transsexual and transgender communities. Somewhere along the line two major events occurred. We saw a huge increase in the number of people, mostly young women, falsely claiming to be either “trans” or “non-binary”. The other was a horrendous increase in transphobia around the world, but especially in the Anglo-sphere. The two are likely related.

Back to the first issue. We have seen progress in that many more transsexuals are aware of and acknowledge the two type taxonomy, ironically because of the denialists being so vocally so. Which caused the transphobes to become aware of the science, but then weaponized that denial to publicize its existence, most particularly about the existence of autogynephilia. I won’t condone that weaponization, though I do approve of the greater awareness. More transsexuals are working to reduce the stigma and de-weaponize it. But the progress has been slow. And for those, like myself, on the leading edge of the educational effort, the backlash against that effort continues unabated. In fact, well intentioned, but ignorant, non-trans=allies have become our worst enemies here. They are self-righteous in their zeal to “protect” transssexuals… from other transsexuals. The irony is not lost on us.

As knowledge of our etiologies as become more well known and weaponized, there has also been in increase in flat out lies about us. The propaganda hate machine of the political right, which in 2015 or so, had lost their war against gay and lesbian families with Marriage Equality being recognized in various nations, they turned their baleful gaze on a smaller and weaker population, transsexuals, especially transkids. The number of negative articles and then legal challenges exploded. The enemy was at the gates.

Two decades ago, one would not have found very many people falsely claiming to be “trans”… and the concept of a “non-binary” individual was largely found in the male bodied non=gender dysphoric AGP (“transvestite” / “cross-dressing”) community, often calling themselves other, but similar terms like “bi-gendered” or “gender fluid”, joining others like themselves in the Society for the Second Self (“Tri-Ess”). But sometime during the early part of the last decade, I first saw on social media a feminine, heterosexually married mother of a small child, claim to be “non-binary”. She claimed to be part of the “trans” community. But for the life of me, she came across as a typical non-trans, straight, woman in her early 20s… not the least bit gender atypical nor dysphoric. She wasn’t the first woman I ever met that made such an unsupported claim, but she was soon joined by others. At first, I was more bemused by this than alarmed. But as time went on, these same people got more common and more vocal. And with it, they became openly antagonist to transsexuals, calling us “truscum” and other ugly slurs. Then, the seemingly impossible came to pass… they started to work to erase the very term, the very identity of transsexuals, claiming that it was outdated and even a slur! While we had enemies at the gates… we were too late in defending it, we had already been infiltrated and fighting a rear-guard battle for our very identity!

Where before, I had one category of hate mail directed at me, that from AGPs in denial, I now have three! But I am undeterred. After all, when I “came out” and began social transition in the early ’70s, being gay was a crime and transsexuals were known on daytime TV to be laughed at. Now, HSTS are portrayed on hit TV shows and transkids have an ever growing number of parents who support them. I will continue to write even in the face of denialism, hateful lies, and LARPing pretenders.

Fear Less Kitchen – A Culinary Intervention

Most of my regular readers know that I write on science matters. But I’m also a foodie and love cooking from scratch. Well, I just published my very own cookbook. This is a book to keep in your kitchen, not your coffee table. There are no food porn photos of impossibly difficult dishes to prepare. Instead there are chapters on buying and cooking food, real food, like our great great grandparents would have on their table. The book is all about how to save money by reducing food waste and using lower cost ingredients. You can order the book on Amazon: