Random bit of trans vocabulary as I've recently seen people rejecting a phrase because they were confused by it.
"Socialized male" and "socialized female" aren't synonyms for someone's sex, they are experiences and culturally relevant.
People are confused because the term "socialize" has multiple meanings.
One is something done by you: "I was socializing with my friends"
One is something done to you: "I was socialized as a man"
To summarize Webster respectively:
The first is "to participate actively in a social group"
The second is "to fit or train for a social environment'
We say someone is "Socialized Male" or "Socialized Female" not to indicate what their sex is, but to indicate that in their formative years they were saddled with the expectations and treatment associated with "male" or "female" in our society.
The trans women getting confused think it means something like "grew up as men" or that our social groups were men, and that's not at all it.
It means we were treated as men.
We usually grew up with more women in our social circles than men, even if we didn't know we were trans yet. We were often seen as an exception, which means even our acceptance was flavored by it.
What "socialized male" means to me is that I grew up being labeled a predator and a threat by default.
Even if I wasn't specifically raised such, I was still affected by the fact that so many men were raised to believe it was okay to lie, cheat, and manipulate to abuse women. And because of that there was literally nothing I could say or do to convey that I was being genuine because far too many were dishonest about it.
I had to build entire patterns and routines of behavior around how to behave around women to make them feel safer, almost always to my personal detriment.
I to this day am still anxious and hesitant in so many interactions because for decades of my life they were forbidden to me because they were far too likely to make someone I care about feel unsafe.
When I say I was "socialized male" it means that was something done to me. I had to figure out how to navigate life and survive while being forced into a traumatic box by society that didn't remotely fit me.
This is a good and useful reminder: the word "socialize" is context-dependent. Would it be productive to try and use "enculturate" instead for the second meaning (training somebody in acceptable social behaviour)?
@Charlie Stross enculturate might be more accurate in some ways, but it feels much less familiar which means it requires more explanation.
But I do think the lack of context is probably what's throwing people off, particularly in that they're so many steps removed from the definition.
"Socialized male" is basically shortened from "they socialized me male" (transitive verb form) vs people are confusing it with "I socialized with men" (intransitive verb form)
"Indoctrinate" is a pretty good word and pretty close, but I honestly think it's too dramatic and is way more active than what we're talking about.
"Socialization" in general is a process we all go through in which we're introduced to and steeped in our cultural norms and values. Not all of it is accepted, not all of it takes, but it all affects us. Like how as an american I was steeped in US propaganda far more intensely than someone in the UK.
The term is talking about how during socialization we were also immersed in the expectations of manhood and masculinity.
@cstross Off-topic, but this reminds me of the way you sometimes hear younger journalists confusing “this is in the public interest” with “the public will find this interesting”.
@Tattie That's why I pointed out that it's non synonymous with assigned sex and is a perfect example!
Most trans women unfortunately are, at least in western society. Many if not most of us don't even realize we're trans until adulthood, so we grow up being treated as men by society.
For those like yourself who were treated otherwise, I'm grateful knowing that not all of us did.
This is in response to people who were interpreting "socialized male" as them socializing as men or primarily socializing with men, neither of which being the meaning of the term. If it meant that, it would be accurate to push back against it as we were never men and we very often socialize primarily with other women.
In it's accurate meaning, it's an important term and important to understand especially for cases like yours to define what makes your experience different. But also so that between our two experiences we can highlight what parts of our experience is inherent to being a trans woman and what parts are specific to being socialized male.
ok but I'm confused why you're grateful I wasn't socialized male? Being treated as a girl is grim. Being talked over, expected to do emotional labour for your male peers and for adults, having to work harder for less recognition. Being sexualised by adults at a young age. Being denied agency.
there was like this pattern where I'd go somewhere new and for like half an hour people would treat me as a boy, and it would be weird and confusing for everyone, and then there would be this "click point" and they'd switch to the way that everyone always treated me, as a strange boygirl creature.
I think maybe I went thru a phase of "male socialisation" for a few years during university? And it didn't bring me any more happiness than my childhood had. But then slowly I started hanging out with more and more woman-dominated friendship groups and being treated as an "honourary" one of them. And then I transitioned.
@shiri, this looks very much like “$ITEM is releasing on $DATE” vs. “$ITEM will be released on $DATE” to me. I'm quite sure that people just don't see or possibly even understand the difference.
I'm never quite sure why, exactly, $ITEM is holding on to $DATE, and I'm never quite sure what happens if $ITEM doesn't release $DATE – do we just skip that day?
@shiri, … hmm. Rereading, I see that I didn't properly account for having put “on” in both. Too used to Americans (in particular) omitting it, I suppose… regardless, it's intended to show doing vs. being/having done to.
@shiri, ah. No subject (or object; I always get the two labels confused). “With others” doesn't half do a good impression of being one, though… IT'S A TRAP!!!1!!one
I don't think people reject that phrase because they misunderstand it. One big reason to reject it is because transphobes, especially the TERFy sort, use it as a way of saying that trans women act like men, particularly that they are entitled, violent, and dangerous. More broadly, socialization is not a simple unidirectional process. Not just how society treats you and what expectations it has, but also how you respond to that treatment, and how society reacts to your upholding or failing to uphold those expectations. Trans girls don't have the same socialization as cis boys. They don't have the same socialization as cis girls, either. You could say that we are "socialized trans female", I suppose. Of course, no two people have identical socialization, so we are talking about consistent patterns of similarity. Are there similarities between trans female and cis male socialization? Certainly, but I believe there are also consistent differences that make it worth drawing a distinction there. The end result, at least, is very different.
@Juniper 🏳️⚧️ In regards to the transphobes, any term or phrase about our experience will get used in that way. Not because the term in any way implies it, but because they will bend over backwards to make that claim about us any way they can.
So I don't see any point in dancing around transphobes, all we get down that road is a semantic treadmill.
And yes, how we respond to it varies greatly. The term is unidirectional because it refers only to what was done to us, not how we responded to it.
We all have wildly different responses and experiences, same as anyone else.
The phrase is talking about how we were treated and what expectations were put on us by society.
And "Socialized Trans Female" is a step backwards because not all trans women dealt with male socialization, just the vast vast majority. (Example: a girl who transitions at a young age and is supported in her transition is socialized female)
This is an all too frustratingly common case of people complaining that a simplified phrase doesn't perfectly encompass a whole paragraph's of concept.
If we throw out this term we simply lose a tool to explain and describe our experiences, nothing gets improved.
If someone can come up with a better term to mean "Grew up with society/guardians treating you with the expectations it associates with <gender>" then we'll all hop on board.
you are writing as though this phrase is commonly used by trans people in this sense. That has not been my experience. I have known far more trans people who actively reject the idea that they are socialized as their AGAB. Your experience may be different, but that is where I am coming from. And I don't think that this is dancing around transphobes; in my experience it is primarily used in a transphobic way, so that is the first way I expect it to be understood. My objection is not that the phrase is insufficiently descriptive, but that it is actively inaccurate.
I was not socialized male. Coming to understand that has been a significant part of my transition. I spent a long time with the self-conception that I was "not like other guys". Realizing that I am actually a pretty standard trans woman has been a trip. And I've also come to realize that I was not treated or even seen on the same way as the cis boys around me. I remember my mom saying once (not to me), after she had babysat her nephews for an afternoon, that now she understood what it was really like to have boys. This fits a pattern that was present throughout my childhood: people did not quite see me as a boy, even though they thought they should. And consequently, they didn't quite treat me as a boy, though they certainly didn't treat me as a girl.
I don't entirely understand your objection to using " trans female socialization". Certainly it is true that trans girls who have their gender recognized young will have a different experience of socialization than those who do not. But trans girls also have a significantly different experience of socialization than cis boys, and putting them into that box is more harmful than having a concept of trans female socialization that is not 100% universal. (No such concept will ever be completely universal. It will certainly differ along other axes like race, region, and socioeconomic status.) 1/2
So overall, saying that trans women have male socialization is inaccurate and harmful. It ascribes a similarity to the experience of cis boys that does not exist, and it gives license to treat trans women as being really or essentially men. I think that what you are talking about fits better under what I understand as gender assignment rather than socialization. I think it is common to treat gender assignment as something that happens in the moment when an M or an F is recorded on our birth certificates and then is done. But really in just about every social interaction we have (there may be some spaces, particularly queer ones, where this happens less), the people around us will try to figure out what gender box we fit into. They assign us a gender. From that assignment, they will derive expectations of how we will act and how they should treat us. Because most people's gender boxes are a strict binary, many trans girls will have the experience of being assigned male across many interactions, same as cis boys. But they will often not react to this assignment in the way that cis boys do, so they will not receive the same socialization as cis boys. 2/2
@Juniper 🏳️⚧️ ugh... socialization has absolutely no reference to how we respond to it.
This is an actual academic sociology/psych term and is entirely about the environment we were raised and the expectations we were raised with.
For instance, someone who grows up in a conservative household and community is socialized conservative, this is regardless of whether they ever accepted any of it.
If you're assigned male across the majority of your interactions growing up, that's what this means. It doesn't mean you are a man, it means you had to deal with the traumas of being treated as one.
And yes, this is something that's shared with cis boys, because it's not about how we responded to it.
Like I've said elsewhere, if we transition early and are accepted then we don't deal with it because we get socialization that matches our real identity.
Saying trans female socialization literally means that we were raised with the expectations that we would act and behave as other trans femmes.
I'm American, I was socialized hyper-capitalist... does that make me a capitalist? No. It means I dealt with the expectations and trauma of hyper-capitalist expectations being put on me.
What about being socialized Christian (which basically means growing up in a Christian, even non-practicing, home), does that make me not Jewish? Nope. Do I get "Christian Privilege" for it? Hell no. Does that mean people can call me Christian? Still no.
And we do end up with many of the traumas of cis boys/men, the difference is for us is that it's in stark relief as we move away from those expectations and re-socialize ourselves.
Socialization is explicitly the expectations that were put on us and not how we responded to them.
If you want to talk about socialization specifically in how we responded to it? It's failed socialization, they wanted us to be men and we rejected it, they failed. But failure doesn't mean we didn't deal with them trying, it just means it didn't take.
Samsung makes ads on $3,499 smart fridges official with upcoming software update Update introduces two ways for the fridges to show ads. arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/1…
Hey, the Python Software Foundation (the people who make the Python programming language and the standard interpreter for it) just took a big hit to support those of us being targeted by hate.
If you're in a position to do so, maybe consider giving them a donation for being apparently one of the few tech organizations that have our back: psfmember.org/civicrm/contribu… (if you want to verify the link it's the donate button on python.org/)
I almost cried given how many brands and organizations turn their back on us when they're not even standing to lose money.#FOSS #LGBTQIA #TransRights #Trans
Dear god my life is cursed with technology right now...
Brand new bullshit issue: my android phone refuses to accept that the wifi is connected to the internet, I can open up pingtools and confirm the dns and ping work fine, even check the URLs it uses to check access and those are fine...
But it won't accept that it's connected and as such tells all the apps there's no connection... despite it being confirmed as working.
This morning I had intermittent network issues on my phone, but my laptop has been fine all day... and now my laptop is still fine but I'm getting this nonsense with my phone...
I once had a router that did a horrible job of automatically managing 5ghz and 2.4ghz home Internet. The advice given was to have the router treat them as separate wifi connections.
@Arcanasphere (Andrew Arcana) it's openwrt, I've got a second SSID that's only 2.4ghz and it still does it on that one... no joke I can't even figure out why it's saying it's limited... I use ping tools and test everything and it's all working, but because Android throws up the flag saying there's no internet access then practically all the apps fail
Suggestion, seeing someone on youtube talk about adding an anti-ai logo on their product:
Someone needs to set up a non-profit org to just to have these logos be a reliable thing.
For those unaware, a lot of certification logos are not governmental, they're organizations licensing the logos (in many cases for free) and defending their usage via trademark law.
Basic gist of the process: * You design a logo * You establish the terms under which the logo can be used (ie. has a basic audit trail to prove that no AI was used) * You trademark the logo * You advertise the certification * You start suing people who misuse the logo
It's not a nothing process... but it just takes time (paperwork, court cases, but also just accepting and dealing with reports) and money (money primarily for registration and legal fees)
If someone does do this, I honestly suggest multiple marks for best effect: * No AI - everything is generated by them from scratch * Best Faith No AI - you may have used stock images or the like and as such can't guarantee they didn't use AI * AI assisted - as much as people complain, it helps to have because it increases adoption and recognition, basically they can prove that all important bits of the content are human created (ie. maybe they used AI for a texture or a background in images, or they wrote most of the text but used AI to fill in small portions) * AI edited - provably human generated content, but then it was fed through AI to modify it (ie. hand drawn art cleaned up and colored, or written text that used AI literally as an editor) * AI content, while there's all sorts of ethical debate, many who use AI do believe it should be labeled. And a recognizable label of such could help with recognition of the no AI label
And then a sort of secondary mark for those who pay this org to proactively verify the work (good way to generate funds for the lawsuits against those who falsely label)
Ugh... media server died again... at this point it's a money issue more than anything else, the hardware I have just isn't handling it. Pretty sure the drive arrays are failing, and the drives themselves aren't doing great as well...
Whelp, server is back online with only one tiny hitch... for some reason my router (OpenWRT) isn't sharing IPv6 addresses and I've literally changed nothing in the move...
Sharing this story from @Cory Doctorow because it's so much of what I've been saying.
Shipping a model that runs badly – that needs more data-centers and energy to run – is a way to convince investors that it's doing something really advanced (after all, look how much compute and energy it's consuming!).
I'm on the last leg of preparing, apartment is nearly finalized and booking travel arrangements.
Unfortunately that's pretty much everything that's been donated so far by itself.
I can't do a flight mostly because my cat can't safely fly, and to a lesser degree to keep at least some of my things.
My current car can't survive the trip and the option we settled on is I'm going to rent a car and my beloved sister Chelsie is going to drive me up, then take a flight back.
We've got a wonderful friend covering hotel stays, but even then a flight and a cross country car rental is over $1000 combined... that's before we even get to gas.
I also still need some more funds for gas and deposits (because of credit issues my current place took a bond instead of a deposit, so I get nothing back, I almost didn't get an apartment at all because of those issues), plus any setup fees for utilities that come up.
When I'm past my move and once I have enough headspace to handle the frustrating conversion period... I think it's time for me to switch my phone to a secure ROM.
Things are getting bad enough that my baseline trust is quickly disappearing (baseline in the sense of "it's not in their interests to do this... yet").
I think when I have the space to handle the setup I'm going to switch my Pixel 8 over to Graphene, especially since their Google Play sandbox will allow me to continue accessing things like my banking app without giving Google total control over my phone...
For anyone thinking the setup is not a big deal, I'm constantly on the verge of tears and/or meltdown right now with the stress of moving cross country away from the people I love for safety...
I don't think I can commit to the frustration of spending so much time re-setting up apps, little oopsies here and there where I lose and have to recreate data, adjusting workflows, etc etc...
Like TTRPGS? Like supporting people who are trying to get back on their feet? How about prestigious names who are also leftist?
Friend of mine just released the FREE quickstart for their new RPG.
Want more reason to dive in and give it a try? This is Malix Nystul... a name that might sound vaguely familiar to those who played 2nd and 3rd edition D&D as dozens of spells bore his name (before 4th genericized all of them). The Archwizard Nystul in Greyhawk is named after him.
So do my wonderful friend a solid and download this, every download helps him out even if you're not spending any money!
Basic gist: the NSA, FBI, etc are now actively targeting anyone expressing leftist sentiments or even just being pro-trans rights even if they haven't committed a crime.
It directs them to "investigate, prosecute, and disrupt", again regardless of whether we've committed a crime.
They can't jail everyone who believes in human decency. The worst thing anyone can do - for themself or for others - is to clam up now and stop talking so the pool of people brave enough to express their non-fascist views gets smaller.
@PedestrianError Jailing us isn't the only thing they can do, this is mostly going to target shutting down civil rights organizations, media organizations that share dissenting views, protest organizers.
For smaller individuals it'll be things like cutting government benefits, pressuring our employers to fire us, pressuring our landlords to evict us.
It's important that people be prepared for the outcomes of their speech so they can be strategic about it. Speak where it matters.
I'm willfully open because I'm a trans-woman, I'm high up on the list of targets to punish regardless so there's little I can do to make it worse.
And be careful with "they can't jail all of us"... the nazis already answered that problem and it's likely the US is going to do the same in the future...
An update on my request for help. It looks like the move is set, just got to get some final numbers for budgeting. At this point every little bit helps drastically in making sure I don't run face first into another roadblock.
To be honest, this is something I see constantly around the fediverse of people shooting themselves in the foot over high minded ideals, choosing the sacrifice the now for an ideal future that won't happen because they're sacrificing it.
Favorite example here is the people that complain about corporate networks but then get angry at and shutdown anyone trying to make it easier for people to leave those networks.
Someone was making the "rapture pet insurance" joke (which entertainingly enough such businesses do exist and aren't scams)...
But it randomly made me think of a business idea that I think would be incredible:
Death and Incapacitance Pet Insurance
Basic gist is it's a digital dead-man's switch service, you routinely check in to establish you're still there taking care of your pet. If you stop checking in, then someone reaches out, if they can't get ahold of you they come out and take care of your pet.
One thing I've been worried about for ages is what will happen to Lizzie if something happens to me... With how isolated I am most of the time, it could easily be days or weeks before someone came around to check on her... she could easily die of starvation or dehydration before anyone even knew I was dead.
... It honestly terrifies me.
So the idea of a service with someone in the area who has a copy of my key, and if I stop responding they'll come out, make sure she has adequate food and water for a while, notify family, and eventually take her to a foster or shelter if no family can take her (it'd be truly awful, but it'd be better than her just dying slowly as no-one cares for her).
It strikes me that it would be a pretty easy business to make profitable given that it would so rarely be used. Most customers would never use it given that we typically outlive our pets.
It would just need a retainer paid out to contractors in the area to handle check ins if the automatic check in fails, then if they have to go take care of a pet they get a reasonable payout for the work involved. (If someone just uses it as a sitter for a vacation then they get a significant bill)
american venting about undiagnosed chronic pain and zero pain management
Being disabled without any answers, tools to management, and watching it slowly degenerate is... truly awful...
I don't talk about it much because it does little good and usually it's best to just not think about it as much as possible...
I have no diagnosis, no real clue even what is going on... but over the course of two decades my muscles have gotten stiffer and stiffer. It takes more and more effort to move every muscle in my body as time passes, and the muscles move less and less... they even stretch less and less, my range of motion is drastically reduced...
And it hurts... literally constantly all the time... every muscle is constantly strained, and my legs are the worst of the bunch, but I don't know if I can say any muscle is really excluded...
It hurts when sitting, laying down, standing... just existing hurts because there is no position that puts my muscles at rest anymore...
And it's so damn exhausting... even typing this right now I feel it in my fingers...
And I have no idea how bad it's going to get, just that it's still getting worse... I have to wonder if it'll eventually end up in paralysis... (even worse, is it affecting muscular organs like my heart and lungs?)
I've got no idea what it is, and absolutely nothing to address the pain or exhaustion...
And worse yet, pain management isn't a lack of access right now... it's a lack of anything functioning because my body doesn't really respond properly to pain medication.
I have to turn up my apartment temperature as high as I can tolerate to just loosen up my muscles a little bit, and I still have to throw an electric blanket over my legs often, regardless of my sensory issues...
... and that's not even the only thing wrong with me...
just going to say I can't believe this book has fucked me up... a trans magical girl story should not have me processing so much self-worth and self-hate trauma... this was supposed to be lighthearted comfort read dammit...
content warnings: big big trauma feels, parental emotional abuse (low detail), internalized transphobia, very mild external transphobia (one character intentionally misgenders), some suicidal ideation, and abuse of power by a mental health professional
Add this to the pile of ideas I'm unlikely to ever make, not because it's super hard but just because I'm so constantly exhausted and out of spoons... steal away if you want to make it:
There's basically the "big server" problem on the fediverse, where a super large open registration server has so many people on it you don't want to block it and lose all those people... but it inherently is less effectively moderated. Or even on smaller instances there's so many cases of "this wouldn't be acceptable on my instance, but isn't bad enough to defederate a whole instance over".
It's manageable, but has limitations that get worse as the network grows. It's even one of the concerns people have with bridges and corporate platforms adding support (ie. bluesky and threads respectively).
But there's an idea in Bluesky I kinda like that feels like it could be tweaked and imported over here. Which is subscribable moderation.
I'm not proposing just subscribing to all sorts of block lists from strangers, but a way of having shared moderation that people can team up on.
Basic idea I had was an open source platform (so others can run it for both redundancy and cutting down on smaller censorship disputes). On that platform, someone can create and become the admin of a moderation group. Then they can invite other people to that group as moderators (or in the case of private groups, members).
Then basically have auditable moderation lists made by the groups (showing which moderator took which action and when... especially good for undoing things if problems arise, but also for checking the list before you import an update), then server admins and users can follow a list and subscribe/import it.
Was even thinking this could be improved with things like public reporting, where reporting it to the server would send the report to all lists that haven't already blocked them (servers could even share this between eachother easily enough). Additionally admins could piggyback their list off of others (basically lists that are less restrictive than yours, so you might pull from "We only block Nazis" because you know anyone they're blocking isn't going to be in question).
Yea I have a prototype of this built. The annoying thing is unsubscribing from blocklists means undoing blocks and those don't always federate cleanly.
Yea, part of the AP protocol is you have to tell the server of the user you are blocking. When you unblock you have to also tell the server as well. If those messages are not processed correctly the block isn't lifted.
Now normally, you'd just manually block and unblock again to send a fresh message. But when you are dealing with lists there are UX challenges there. How do you communicate to the user that a block/unblock didn't go through and they need to retry? Or do you just keep retrying with exponential backoff? None of this is insurmountable, but distributed networks are hard 😅
I’m now at the point where I’m satisfied with my main features and almost ready to make my first release. Though in order to be a feasible fediverse server, I need to implement some sort of user blocking. So here goes.
@ראַף 🟣 I honestly wasn't imagining integrating with the protocol itself at all, I was just picturing it exporting an importable block list and leaving it to the platforms to support importing it, or other tools to handle importing and applying it.
Well right now at least on GTS and Mastodon you can import block and mute lists. But it's a one-off. There isn't what I think we both want which is a subscription to a block list where we can periodically diff against and undo/redo blocks and mutes.
@ראַף 🟣 I definitely agree that there isn't an explicit subscription option, and that's entirely down to toolkits on the instance side imo.
I imagined manual imports, but with convenient links for those who might want to build tools to automate those imports. Maybe an option to also email updates as a way to notify, but that's kinda secondary imo.
Then others can build tools to handle much of it, (like on friendica it would take barely any effort to write such a tool for server admins).
And basically just take unix methodology for the tools that import into other instances, focus on providing the list and a separate tool can be used to automate it.
Long, Talking about the shooting, Lessons from Judaism not involving faith
Note: Also posted to Facebook, so some of this is worded carefully and using stories and references to avoid getting censored.
Something that comes to mind every time a high profile death like this happens...
And to be clear, this isn't a condemnation, but food for thought:
In Judaism there's a relevant lesson, that we're guided not to celebrate death but to celebrate the diminishment of evil.
It's such a tiny difference, but I think it does make worlds of difference in our lives and in how we behave down the line.
I'll spare the talks of faith or divine judgement, but I'll speak to the practical effects I think are in play.
The risk in celebrating the death itself is that you start finding joy in the death of those you see as wrong or evil... and that joy can turn into a lowering of standards, in finding excuses to celebrate death. Eventually you start saying "But that man was evil so it's a good thing he died".
But what does it mean to celebrate the diminishment of evil? It means seeing what harm they would have done, and celebrating the end of that harm.
It's not enough to just say "there's one less bigot and evil person in the world", it's to ask how many lives do you think will be spared from harm?
The reason my celebration at this will be muted is because I honestly don't know if his voice was unique enough, or that it will take any time at all for him to be replaced and echoed.
It's not as simple as the United Healthcare death, where there was an immediate (but unfortunately temporary) change, that for a while after people got healthcare that would have otherwise been denied... without a doubt, many lives were saved.
In cases like this I especially think back to the story in my faith of the drowning of the Pharaoh's army in the Sea of Reeds. To the fact that a single soldier's death would have done little to diminish evil on it's own... but that single soldier's death is a necessary part of the greater whole that greatly diminishes evil.
Everything is just too much, every minute feels like an incredible struggle both physically and mentally...
To start, I'm disabled, not that the government cares. My ADHD is really bad, especially when I'm exhausted and/or stressed (which is all the time), it's beyond incredibly difficult to start tasks let alone focus on them...
After that is my physical issues, of which there's little even figured out because the healthcare system is hell... I'm in constant pain, especially in my legs, moving or not. But when I move, every muscle has more and more over the years started to feel less and less flexible. My range of motion is shot, and every single movement takes more and more effort. (last suggestion from a doctor right before she left the practice, and I have no idea if it's at all accurate is she was thinking it might be fibromyalgia).
I'm not even sure if it's just an extension of that or something else, but I'm also constantly exhausted no matter how much rest I've had.
... and that's my fucking baseline...
I'm trans, not only in the US but in fucking Texas... so I'm dealing with all this government bigotry increasingly bearing down on me... and the knowledge that it's only a matter of time before they start arresting us just for existing.
I'm barely afloat financially, just short of a living wage... but after so long in poverty and so many instances of getting financially screwed I'm pretty much drowning in debt... Worst of all is the $5k a previous apartment complex wants because I was living with a sibling who had an emotional crisis, to the point of being institutionalized, and I have to leave because I couldn't remotely maintain the place by myself.
Thanks to the support of kind strangers and the people who love me I've got plans to get out of Texas to Washington state to be someplace safer... but the prospect is still incredibly difficult and painful because it means leaving behind the people I love and my support network...
The raw stress of all of this has me to the point where it's a major accomplishment to just do the fucking laundry...
Oh, and get this... the apartment complex I was looking at rejected my application because of that aforementioned landlord demanding $5k from me... because of course our lovely society thinks someone who has to leave a place because of poverty just miraculously has many times the rent to just hand over while they still try and find a place to live...
I've been crying and sobbing for weeks... even before this rejection...
And before anyone mentions: roommates just don't work out... I have only ever had one house where things have been remotely comfortable and stable with other people. Most of all because my mix of disabilities and autism causing conflicts with people... I can only really live alone it seems. (Those same problems that have made me struggle with employment my entire life)
... I'm just so tired of clinging on to life by my fingernails... I don't want riches and luxury... I just want to fucking exist...
I honestly wish giving up was an option on days like this...
I could probably use some words of encouragement right now... I don't even know if I'm able to process them... but I need something...
With the nonsense about gup.pe getting hijacked, honestly has me thinking again about secondary tools for the network...
Bright spot is that they probably can't imitate the server, as far as I understand it AP has keys for the servers to prevent that (which is also part of why you can't readily swap platforms, want to run something different you need to use a different domain).
Still, it has me thinking about maybe some secondary registry to track instance information. Maybe make these sort of events less disruptive.
This is entirely off the cuff idea, so think of this as spaghetti at the wall:
I was just imagining a signed file on servers that gave extended, non-platform specific, meta for the server, kinda like robots.txt.
I was just thinking information like: * My IP is static, so if the IP changes without an updated signed file, then it's not safe (or it's dynamic, so don't worry if it changes) * Remember my nameservers and do the same if the nameservers change * Here's a moderator email for reporting posts (because the system mastodon has for sending reports to other servers is non-standard and not universal... I have to find moderator emails on about pages when I need to report something...) * Maybe some tags if someone wants to make non-platform specific server directories * Some flags like robots for nicer more compliant services, like bridges allowed/denied
And then maybe a dns middle-man service to toss on your server that checks these things periodically. So if something happens like with gup.pe there's a notice to admins and maybe it doesn't get cut off immediately, maybe letting admins give some final notices in more permanent situations.
The U.S. Department of Justice is looking into ways to limit transgender people's right to possess firearms, @CNN reports. This would be predicated on the idea that trans people are mentally ill. The idea has gained currency in conservative media since last week's school shooting, which police say was carried out by a trans woman, but the vast majority of mass attacks have no connection to transgender people.
Resharing this again, because I need the help and it's what it takes to get it.
Current update on things is that I've just gotten over nearly a solid week of sobbing... I'm struggling hard physically and mentally just to function at a base level right now.
The state I live in is just about to pass a bathroom bill, and it's a minor miracle that the drastically worse bills didn't move forward this session, but they're coming.
Until I have enough funds to feel remotely confident that I can afford the costs of the move all I can really do is just keep putting one foot in front of another.
They're trying to spin a version of things that suddenly claims that most or all mass shooters are trans, despite zero evidence of that fact. And why are they doing that? Because it gives them an excuse for platforms like this...
This asshole is literally calling for me to not only be arrested, but experimented on!
Note: this is a copy/paste because I am so incredibly worn out emotionally I've been sobbing since Sunday over the whole situation. But what use is having a gofundme if I don't get it in front of people.
I hate spamming this out, but it's the only way this works, especially on AP-Fedi.
Gist is I need to get out of the state for my safety, and that's easier said than done with my disabilities, debts, and other limits.
My lease is up in mid-October, I really want to be able to just go straight from here to Washington State and even 2/3rds of this goal will make that happen... but the clock's ticking.
I've got to move to someplace safer, but it means leaving behind most of my chosen family.
I know we'll stay in touch... but with everyone being poor that means the vast majority of them I'll never see again.
I don't want to fucking go... but I see the writing on the wall, and I remember all those stories from Jewish history of people who thought "It's not going to get that bad" right up until the gestapo kicked down their doors.
A part of me just wants to say "fuck it all" and stay, let them strip me down to nothing and kill me slowly and painfully... but for just a few more days with the people I love... but I also know they worry about me and it'll break them if I don't try to keep myself safe, so I've got to push through this.
I rely on them to push me to take care of myself often, I trust them and I know the urge to give up is partially rooted in my own fatalism toward my life... but dear god if this doesn't feel like preparing to amputate a limb...
If anyone wants to help make it a little easier... can't change the pain but can change how difficult the task is that I'm dealing with alongside this pain...
@cstross I was a student network tech at university and was helping a new student name T. Este get networking setup. Once successful, they asked if I could also do anything about their unfortunate email prefix, teste2 (they weren't the first teste!). I told them that I could not, but they were welcome to take it up with the university president, David Hardesty. Or... dhardest.
@justindz @cstross our student logins at my middle school were the first letter of your first name plus the first three letters of your last name, which was very unfortunate for C. Unterberger
@potpie @cstross @justindz In undergrad the default was first initial, last name, and you couldn’t change it. Poor T. Watkins went a couple weeks before someone told her. She ran into the IT office just bawling (I knew people there). They made an exception and changed it.
@justindz @cstross we did first initial last name, falling back to first two if there was a collision. There was already a cjones, so Ca... Jones got the fallback.
She did manage to convince them to use another username, though.
in the UK civil service, documents were changed/approved with the initials of the first two Christian names and surname. So my Dad (Henry William Preedy) signed HWP. His friend, Peter Ian Gowans, wasn't so lucky...
I hate spamming this out, but it's the only way this works, especially on AP-Fedi.
Gist is I need to get out of the state for my safety, and that's easier said than done with my disabilities, debts, and other limits.
My lease is up in mid-October, I really want to be able to just go straight from here to Washington State and even 2/3rds of this goal will make that happen... but the clock's ticking.
Since this is spreading pretty aggressively, just going to stick my gofundme here. I hate spamming it but I really need to get out of Texas for my safety: gofundme.com/f/assist-a-jewish…
Shiri Bailem
in reply to Shiri Bailem • •For those familiar with dog training:
Your dog socializes with other dogs.
You socialize your dog to teach it how to behave in public.
One is something the dog does, the other is something you do to the dog.
Quixoticgeek reshared this.
Charlie Stross
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •Shiri Bailem
in reply to Charlie Stross • •@Charlie Stross enculturate might be more accurate in some ways, but it feels much less familiar which means it requires more explanation.
But I do think the lack of context is probably what's throwing people off, particularly in that they're so many steps removed from the definition.
"Socialized male" is basically shortened from "they socialized me male" (transitive verb form) vs people are confusing it with "I socialized with men" (intransitive verb form)
reshared this
Charlie Stross and Elyse M Grasso reshared this.
Charlie Stross
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •Shiri Bailem likes this.
pixelbandito
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •Charlie Stross reshared this.
Charlie Stross
in reply to pixelbandito • • •Shiri Bailem
in reply to Charlie Stross • •@Charlie Stross @pixelbandito I mean I think more people than can spell socialization correctly...
"Indoctrinate" is a pretty good word and pretty close, but I honestly think it's too dramatic and is way more active than what we're talking about.
"Socialization" in general is a process we all go through in which we're introduced to and steeped in our cultural norms and values. Not all of it is accepted, not all of it takes, but it all affects us. Like how as an american I was steeped in US propaganda far more intensely than someone in the UK.
The term is talking about how during socialization we were also immersed in the expectations of manhood and masculinity.
Isaac Freeman
in reply to Charlie Stross • • •Shiri Bailem likes this.
Tattie
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •in no context or meaning was I socialised male.
I accept that some trans women were. I accept that you may have been.
But I was treated closer to a girl than a boy, growing up.
Shiri Bailem
in reply to Tattie • •@Tattie That's why I pointed out that it's non synonymous with assigned sex and is a perfect example!
Most trans women unfortunately are, at least in western society. Many if not most of us don't even realize we're trans until adulthood, so we grow up being treated as men by society.
For those like yourself who were treated otherwise, I'm grateful knowing that not all of us did.
This is in response to people who were interpreting "socialized male" as them socializing as men or primarily socializing with men, neither of which being the meaning of the term. If it meant that, it would be accurate to push back against it as we were never men and we very often socialize primarily with other women.
In it's accurate meaning, it's an important term and important to understand especially for cases like yours to define what makes your experience different. But also so that between our two experiences we can highlight what parts of our experience is inherent to being a trans woman and what parts are specific to being socialized male.
Tattie
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •Shiri Bailem
in reply to Tattie • •@Tattie I'm not grateful that it sounds like you were socialized female, tbh it kinda sucks for everyone all around.
But at least it sounds like you were socialized in a way that aligns with your identity.
Also I'm just generally grateful that it's not a uniform experience.
Tattie
in reply to Tattie • • •there was like this pattern where I'd go somewhere new and for like half an hour people would treat me as a boy, and it would be weird and confusing for everyone, and then there would be this "click point" and they'd switch to the way that everyone always treated me, as a strange boygirl creature.
I think maybe I went thru a phase of "male socialisation" for a few years during university? And it didn't bring me any more happiness than my childhood had. But then slowly I started hanging out with more and more woman-dominated friendship groups and being treated as an "honourary" one of them. And then I transitioned.
lp0 on fire
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •@shiri, this looks very much like “$ITEM is releasing on $DATE” vs. “$ITEM will be released on $DATE” to me. I'm quite sure that people just don't see or possibly even understand the difference.
I'm never quite sure why, exactly, $ITEM is holding on to $DATE, and I'm never quite sure what happens if $ITEM doesn't release $DATE – do we just skip that day?
Shiri Bailem
in reply to lp0 on fire • •@lp0 on fire ... that's the most confusing way I could imagine someone saying "I can't tell the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs"
merriam-webster.com/dictionary…
"socialize" in this context is definition 1 of the transitive form of the verb. People are confusing it with the definition of the intransitive form.
Or if you want to dive specifically into the word socialization itself: merriam-webster.com/dictionary…
They're confusing 1a with 1b.
lp0 on fire
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •Shiri Bailem
in reply to lp0 on fire • •@lp0 on fire transitive/intransitive is not about the relationship to the subject.
Both "doing to" and "being done to" make a verb transitive. Which is the what you were showing.
Intransitive on the other hand is simply "doing" with explicitly no subject beyond the person doing it.
lp0 on fire
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •Juniper 🏳️⚧️🌲 (baking?)
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •Shiri Bailem
in reply to Juniper 🏳️⚧️🌲 (baking?) • •@Juniper 🏳️⚧️ In regards to the transphobes, any term or phrase about our experience will get used in that way. Not because the term in any way implies it, but because they will bend over backwards to make that claim about us any way they can.
So I don't see any point in dancing around transphobes, all we get down that road is a semantic treadmill.
And yes, how we respond to it varies greatly. The term is unidirectional because it refers only to what was done to us, not how we responded to it.
We all have wildly different responses and experiences, same as anyone else.
The phrase is talking about how we were treated and what expectations were put on us by society.
And "Socialized Trans Female" is a step backwards because not all trans women dealt with male socialization, just the vast vast majority. (Example: a girl who transitions at a young age and is supported in her transition is socialized female)
This is an all too frustratingly common case of people complaining that a simplified phrase doesn't perfectly encompass a whole paragraph's of concept.
If we throw out this term we simply lose a tool to explain and describe our experiences, nothing gets improved.
If someone can come up with a better term to mean "Grew up with society/guardians treating you with the expectations it associates with <gender>" then we'll all hop on board.
Juniper 🏳️⚧️🌲 (baking?)
in reply to Shiri Bailem • • •you are writing as though this phrase is commonly used by trans people in this sense. That has not been my experience. I have known far more trans people who actively reject the idea that they are socialized as their AGAB. Your experience may be different, but that is where I am coming from. And I don't think that this is dancing around transphobes; in my experience it is primarily used in a transphobic way, so that is the first way I expect it to be understood. My objection is not that the phrase is insufficiently descriptive, but that it is actively inaccurate.
I was not socialized male. Coming to understand that has been a significant part of my transition. I spent a long time with the self-conception that I was "not like other guys". Realizing that I am actually a pretty standard trans woman has been a trip. And I've also come to realize that I was not treated or even seen on the same way as the cis boys around me. I remember my mom saying once (not to me), after she had babysat her nephews for an afternoon, that now she understood what it was really like to have boys. This fits a pattern that was present throughout my childhood: people did not quite see me as a boy, even though they thought they should. And consequently, they didn't quite treat me as a boy, though they certainly didn't treat me as a girl.
I don't entirely understand your objection to using " trans female socialization". Certainly it is true that trans girls who have their gender recognized young will have a different experience of socialization than those who do not. But trans girls also have a significantly different experience of socialization than cis boys, and putting them into that box is more harmful than having a concept of trans female socialization that is not 100% universal. (No such concept will ever be completely universal. It will certainly differ along other axes like race, region, and socioeconomic status.) 1/2
Juniper 🏳️⚧️🌲 (baking?)
in reply to Juniper 🏳️⚧️🌲 (baking?) • • •Shiri Bailem
in reply to Juniper 🏳️⚧️🌲 (baking?) • •@Juniper 🏳️⚧️ ugh... socialization has absolutely no reference to how we respond to it.
This is an actual academic sociology/psych term and is entirely about the environment we were raised and the expectations we were raised with.
For instance, someone who grows up in a conservative household and community is socialized conservative, this is regardless of whether they ever accepted any of it.
If you're assigned male across the majority of your interactions growing up, that's what this means. It doesn't mean you are a man, it means you had to deal with the traumas of being treated as one.
And yes, this is something that's shared with cis boys, because it's not about how we responded to it.
Like I've said elsewhere, if we transition early and are accepted then we don't deal with it because we get socialization that matches our real identity.
Saying trans female socialization literally means that we were raised with the expectations that we would act and behave as other trans femmes.
I'm American, I was socialized hyper-capitalist... does that make me a capitalist? No. It means I dealt with the expectations and trauma of hyper-capitalist expectations being put on me.
What about being socialized Christian (which basically means growing up in a Christian, even non-practicing, home), does that make me not Jewish? Nope. Do I get "Christian Privilege" for it? Hell no. Does that mean people can call me Christian? Still no.
And we do end up with many of the traumas of cis boys/men, the difference is for us is that it's in stark relief as we move away from those expectations and re-socialize ourselves.
Socialization is explicitly the expectations that were put on us and not how we responded to them.
If you want to talk about socialization specifically in how we responded to it? It's failed socialization, they wanted us to be men and we rejected it, they failed. But failure doesn't mean we didn't deal with them trying, it just means it didn't take.