xkcd

by **sophyturtle** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 11:10 pm UTC

natraj wrote:Sometime in the not-too-distant future I am planning surgery as my Surgery Savings Account is nearing a point where it is feasible to do so. This means I need to be researching surgeons and making decisions about where to go though and I am totally unsure about this. I have been reading lots of other people's experiences with various surgeons but it is all so varied! I don't know how to best decide. It is kind of nerve-wracking.

Wicked late on this, but yay for healthy SSA!

by **Carnildo** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:10 am UTC

This post had objectionable content.
Yeah... not the right place for violence-orientated jokes.

by **Aaeriele** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:12 am UTC

Carnildo wrote:...

That is really not appropriate for a safespace thread.

by **Jessica** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:17 pm UTC

I tried creating an SSA, but it failed utterly.

I hope that you can find a reasonable counselor natashatasha. It sucks having to go from person to person. Especially when you have to reexplain everything each time. I'm pretty sure I've told my life story half a dozen times this year alone.

A friend of mine recently came out to me as possibly trans. They're questioning their gender. I hope I could help them. They said talking to me helped a lot. Just knowing someone else also feels this way can be such a relief.

by **podbaydoor** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:44 pm UTC

Felltir wrote:I'm even LESS gay that I thought.

I might just have to admit that I am homoflexible.

*H-flexible high-fives*

by **Jessica** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:48 pm UTC

Awww. It's sad that you've left the exclusively gay fold. At least you haven't declared it a phase yet.

by **felltir** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:13 pm UTC

podbaydoor wrote:
Felltir wrote:I'm even LESS gay that I thought.

I might just have to admit that I am homoflexible.

*H-flexible high-fives*

Woo! ^5

by **Brace** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 6:33 pm UTC

Good news: I could transfer to CU Boulder into the Arts and Sciences department, knock out the pre-reqs necessary to be accepted to engineering, then transfer into engineering.

Bad news: The debt ceiling for federal undergrad loans, $57,500, isn't actually enough for me to go to CU Boulder for 4 years. That is assuming I continue to make $5 a year, and without scholarships. Enrolling directly into it would therefore be a gamble.

Ok news: If I can do a transfer agreement with a different community college which allows an associates degree to count for the first two years of credit at a CU Boulder Engineering program, then I can still afford to get a Bachelors strictly using federal loans. This would only allow me to get one degree, instead of doing the triple degree madness I had wanted to do, and I would have to work all through college, but it is possible. I'm looking at the transfer agreements right now... I'm pretty much getting forced into either Electrical and Computer Engineering or Computer Science, lol. I'm going to aim for the former since it's more intense, and the latter will be my backup if I can't handle differential equations I guess. It's also a good thing I'll have all my humanities and social sciences stuff taken care of already, that's an 18 credit discount in terms of price and time. So, four semesters or less more at a different community college. Ok. Kind of disappointed I can't go straight to Boulder, but that's ok. If I do end up getting a scholarship I am going to take the EMT program still since it's only 11 credits total and I think I am good with 15 credit semesters these days, plus it would potentially give me a decent paying job I could work through college which would definitely offset the cost. (I hear part time EMT is a thing, dunno how accurate that is).

Edit: Bad news again: Except it might end up being more than 4 semesters because everything is a pre-req for everything else ;_;

Edit: ok new again: I can do it in exactly 4 semesters due to the pre-req, and the course load is pretty ridiculous, with an average of roughly 15 credits a semester and that being all math, physics, etc. Whatever, I can do it. I even found room for the EMT training. This is what I'm looking at atm:

Code: Select all: Semester 1: Calc 1 - 5 credits General chem - 5 credits comp sci - 4 credits 14 credits Semester 2: Calc 2 - 5 credits Comp sci 2 - 5 credits Physics 1 - 5 credits 15 credits Semester 3: calc 3 - 4 credits intro to engineering - 1 credit linear algebra - 3 credits Physics 2 - 5 credits 13 credits semester 4: differential equations - 3 credits first year engineering projects - 3 credits EMT basic - 10 credit EMT practical - 1 credit 17 credits

by **Carnildo** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:08 am UTC

Carnildo wrote:Yeah... not the right place for violence-orientated jokes.

Sorry about that. "You just need to <insert action that won't help at all>" from a supposed authority figure is one of my triggers, courtesy of nine and a half years of public schooling.

by **Brace** » Sat Oct 29, 2011 10:10 pm UTC

The Denver round of the OWS police crackdowns is occurring now, just 6 blocks or so from my house...

by **ShootTheChicken** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 2:41 pm UTC

Lock your doors, and hope they don't have blasters.

by **Hawknc** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:01 pm UTC

Don't worry, if the door is locked they'll just move on to the next one.

by **Wyvern** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:58 pm UTC

Hi! My face... has rounded out quite a bit. It used to be soooo gaunt. The magic of girl pills <3

by **Shivahn** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 8:10 pm UTC

Wow, Wyvern, you look amazing. That's absolutely incredible! You're so pretty it's kind of making me tear up a bit.

by **podbaydoor** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 8:24 pm UTC

Earrings always set off a face so well.

by **Monika** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:55 pm UTC

Cuteface

by **Jessica** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:59 pm UTC

You really do look fantastic, Wyvern!

And magic girl pills are so awesome!!!

by **Wyvern** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 10:00 pm UTC

d'awwwwwwwwwe. Thank you <3

by **Brace** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 10:57 pm UTC

I'm jelly

by **rath358** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:47 pm UTC

You look wonderful!

On an unrelated note, I seem to be officially out as a crossdresser to my fraternity. I came in a pretty fairy costume, someone asked me directly, so it came out. Not that I mind, everyone here is pretty chill about this kind of stuff. But anyways, SUCCESS!

by **TaintedDeity** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:30 am UTC

Glad it was that easy

by **Cathy** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 2:05 am UTC

Wyvern wrote:Hi! My face... has rounded out quite a bit. It used to be soooo gaunt. The magic of girl pills <3

You look so cute!

by **FreyasSpirit** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 5:33 am UTC

You look incredible Wyvern!

I'm a bit jealous.

by **natashatasha** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 5:39 am UTC

Wow, Wyvern, you look amazing.

And congratulations to you, Rath ^_^

by **Zeroignite** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 5:57 am UTC

I just designed some shirts I'm rather proud of.

Spoiler:

That store also has queerish buttons/pins.
</selfpromotion>

by **FreyasSpirit** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:10 am UTC

Good news for me! After having a horrible day on Sunday, days have progressively gotten better. Today, I had my first visit at the Tuesday Night Clinic. Everything went fine and although they don't prescribe hormones on the first visit as a policy, assuming everything goes well, 4 weeks from today, I should have my prescription.

Just having a date to look forward to feels incredible. Thank you to everyone who helped encourage me not to stick around the therapist using standards from ancient history.

^_^

by **Brace** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 10:32 pm UTC

I'm freezing up. I feel like I can't move.

by **Monika** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 11:01 pm UTC

*gives a soft push*'

by **Brace** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 12:49 am UTC

I feel like my brain is leaking

Edit: I am now two-thirds of the way finished with something I should have done yesterday and won't finish until tomorrow. Yay.

Thank you so much for the push. I really needed that :3

Morning edit: 5/6ths done, but the 1/6th I have left to do is the most annoying. Oh well. Heck, if I turned it in now I would get an 83%, and only lose .7% of my grade in the class. Still, I should probably actually do it.

Afternoon edit: Finished. I had another loss of motivation for a few hours, which I used to install a memory upgrade in my laptop. Now on to *nix homework!

Evening edit: *nix homework finished! Finally I am back on schedule!

by **Bassoon** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 1:00 am UTC

I found this blog post through Stumble Upon and it made me feel really happy. It's a transgender person posting hir transition from male to female with periodic photos through the transition process. I though you all would get a kick out of it.

by **lysithea** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 3:37 am UTC

Bassoon wrote:I found http://www.mdolla.com/2011/02/morphing-int-woman.html through Stumble Upon and it made me feel really happy. It's a transgender person posting hir transition from male to female with periodic photos through the transition process. I though you all would get a kick out of it.

Best you link this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_7iKfWu2Oc instead as thats the video most of those images were ripped from, and its probably better not to give the blog that ripped them ad revenue.

Note: it won't let me use [url=] tags, but I thought we no longer used the welcomethread? Is there something else I need to fill out? This is a relatively new account, though I've been around on another for awhile.

by **yurell** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 3:41 am UTC

It won't let you until you've made five posts, unfortunately.

by **Brace** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 4:37 am UTC

Those things always make me feel bad because I've been on hormones for almost two years now with no apparent consequence

by **Wyvern** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 1:44 pm UTC

awwwwwe, I'm sorry.

That really really sucks.

by **Brace** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 7:18 pm UTC

S'ok. Sorry. I'm definitely happy for that person and everyone like her and I'm not trying to attention whore. I guess it just comes naturally.

It looks like the rest of the semester is going to be relatively easy going from here on out, which is very good. I've been having stress related outbursts and breakdowns recently. It hasn't been good. Things seem more spaced out now. More tests and fewer written assignments, and the written assignments I do have are much fewer in number, even if they are larger and account for more of my grade in each class. The exception is my *nix Scripting class, which basically just started, but that's ok because I love both *nix and programming.

by **Cathy** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 2:48 am UTC

My school's GLBTQ does a table outside every Wednesday mid-day when I'm between classes. I went over and signed up for email updates and felt really really welcomed. It was wonderful. I said I was bisexual and joked about my family and getting married and they were so friendly.

I was really nervous about talking to them because I appear very cis but they were really welcoming. <3

by **Metaphysician** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 4:56 am UTC

Ok um, bear with me here. I'm not sure if this is precisely the right place to do this so I'm going to try not to take up too much of your time. I've been lurking in this thread for a really long time. I'm heterosexual and, historically I've passive about lgbt rights and I really want to change that (spoilered the rest of the post so anybody not interested in dealing with this sort of post can just ignore it).

Spoiler:

If this is the wrong place to be posting something like this please let me know and I'll take it down. I love all of you and I really am not looking to make your life more difficult or stressful than it already is.

by **Amie** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 8:42 am UTC

Metaphysician wrote:Ok um, bear with me here. I'm not sure if this is precisely the right place to do this so I'm going to try not to take up too much of your time. I've been lurking in this thread for a really long time. I'm heterosexual and, historically I've passive about lgbt rights and I really want to change that (spoilered the rest of the post so anybody not interested in dealing with this sort of post can just ignore it).

Spoiler:
I've started vocalizing more and more against the oppression of lgbt people that is so rampant in our culture. I find myself wanting to speak out more on these issues but I have a problem. I'm not very socially adept and I really don't want to step on people's toes, particularly the lgbt community which I've really come to love (if from afar). I know that many, maybe all of you have been put through hell in some way or another, and I want to make sure that when I speak and interact with people that have shared similar life experiences to you I am mindful and sensitive in how I say things. Language is important to me and I value the meaning of words and recognize the power they have. My problem is, not having experienced what you have experienced, I do not know what particular words, phrases, points of view etc. act as triggers. I've seen many posts in this thread where somebody talks about being triggered by somebody that they know doesn't even mean ill but it still makes them feel like shit and I really want to avoid that if I can because nobody in the lgbt community needs any more pain and difficulty than they've already had to deal with. So I guess what I'm asking is if there is somebody here that might be willing to engage me in a private conversation about this sort of thing. Also, I'm not just interested in ways to avoid hurting or offending you, I also want to know what you've been through, the reality of it. I want know your story. Not what is presented in the media, not what you see depicted on television, I want to know what the day to day reality is like, the struggle. I want to find some way to relate to that. That's what I'm looking for. I'm not a tourist here, this is something I've started to become very passionate about.

If this is the wrong place to be posting something like this please let me know and I'll take it down. I love all of you and I really am not looking to make your life more difficult or stressful than it already is.

Spoiler:

by **PM 2Ring** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:43 pm UTC

Yay! to Cathy.

Fortunately, people working such tables tend to be broad-minded and diplomatic. OTOH, it's easy to understand why many LGBTQI people are not so broad-minded, and can be suspicious or downright hostile to people with whom they have philosophical or political differences. My attitude is that it's easy to be negative or bitter, especially when you or your loved ones have been victims of the prevailing social attitudes, but it's more constructive to focus on the positive.

Some lesbian, bi and feminist people take a very dim view of behaviour that they see as upholding traditional binary gender roles. But binary gender roles etc can be fun. They are only evil when they're used to hurt and trap people. Unfortunately, it's very easy to take all this stuff way too seriously, it's not easy to chill out and realize that it's really all just a big game.

By calling it a game I'm not trying to make light of the situation, far from it. It takes a very enlightened being to not get caught up in this game, whether you're "straight" or LGBTQI. It's to the advantage of people with straight privilege to convince the rest of us to play the game according to their rules, and for many of us that's just not feasible, even if it were desirable.

Metaphysician wrote:If this is the wrong place to be posting something like this please let me know and I'll take it down. I love all of you and I really am not looking to make your life more difficult or stressful than it already is.

Greetings, Metaphysician. Allies are always welcome. And thanks for doing your utmost to be sensitive. But yeah, this safespace thread might not be the best place to have the sort of discussion you're wanting, since it could trigger too many people. OTOH, I think an open discussion about such matters would be more valuable to you than private tuition, since you really need input from a broad spectrum of people to properly learn the stuff you're wanting to learn about.

Maybe this could be a suitable topic for another thread on this board, either in General or maybe in Serious Business (if you want to focus on the political aspects rather than the personal ones)? (Thoughts, anyone?)

In the mean time, may I suggest that you have a look at various LGBTQI blogs, if you haven't done so already. I'm sure that you'll get some good information from such sites, since ranting about injustice / insensitivity to LGBTQI people & issues is more acceptable on a blog than it is in this thread.

* hugs to amie *
I guess you're still living in the Mother country...
My advice is to choose your battles. It's possible to educate some people, but others will resist all attempts, since their attitudes to matters of sexuality & gender expression are just too rigid. If you try too hard with such people there's the danger that you'll simply reinforce their faulty mindset.

Here's something that you might like to meditate upon: the truly greatest of teachers are those that lead by perfect example, not those that are merely skilled debaters.

by **joshz** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:55 pm UTC

Metaphysician wrote:Ok um, bear with me here. I'm not sure if this is precisely the right place to do this so I'm going to try not to take up too much of your time. I've been lurking in this thread for a really long time. I'm heterosexual and, historically I've passive about lgbt rights and I really want to change that (spoilered the rest of the post so anybody not interested in dealing with this sort of post can just ignore it).

Spoiler:
I've started vocalizing more and more against the oppression of lgbt people that is so rampant in our culture. I find myself wanting to speak out more on these issues but I have a problem. I'm not very socially adept and I really don't want to step on people's toes, particularly the lgbt community which I've really come to love (if from afar). I know that many, maybe all of you have been put through hell in some way or another, and I want to make sure that when I speak and interact with people that have shared similar life experiences to you I am mindful and sensitive in how I say things. Language is important to me and I value the meaning of words and recognize the power they have. My problem is, not having experienced what you have experienced, I do not know what particular words, phrases, points of view etc. act as triggers. I've seen many posts in this thread where somebody talks about being triggered by somebody that they know doesn't even mean ill but it still makes them feel like shit and I really want to avoid that if I can because nobody in the lgbt community needs any more pain and difficulty than they've already had to deal with. So I guess what I'm asking is if there is somebody here that might be willing to engage me in a private conversation about this sort of thing. Also, I'm not just interested in ways to avoid hurting or offending you, I also want to know what you've been through, the reality of it. I want know your story. Not what is presented in the media, not what you see depicted on television, I want to know what the day to day reality is like, the struggle. I want to find some way to relate to that. That's what I'm looking for. I'm not a tourist here, this is something I've started to become very passionate about.

If this is the wrong place to be posting something like this please let me know and I'll take it down. I love all of you and I really am not looking to make your life more difficult or stressful than it already is.

First off, you're doing it right. Thank you.

Secondly, there's no way to tell in advance what someone's triggers will be. They vary from person to person massively. You will accidentally trigger someone at some point, and that's OK, provided that you apologize and remember that trigger so that you don't do it again. In general, you want to use proper pronouns and not be a dick in general.

You'll mess up at some point, because everyone has different triggers. Just keep that in mind, and make sure you support people to the extent that they want your support when you do mess up. Total prevention is impossible. Work towards it, but don't be too hard on yourself if you do mess up, as long as you make every effort not to make the same mistake again.

And welcome!

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