Transgender

 Gender dysphoria is when a child wants to be the opposite gender.  When I was young, we had very well defined gender roles.  Girls played with dolls, wore dresses and were supposed to be dainty.   I was, none of the above.  I couldn’t see how pretending a doll was human, made any sense, I loved playing sports and with cap guns (with which my father who always wanted a boy, happily supplied me) and I hated dresses mostly because it was near impossible to ride a bike in a dress, or run around playing cowboys.  Even now at the age of 77, I always wear pants.  Of course, it’s more socially acceptable now!  As I grew older, I hated the feel of makeup on my face.  My mother tried to gently introduce me to makeup. I refused!  Even now, I wear no makeup!  When I was in the convent, I saw how lovely the Sisters looked with no makeup, so I saw no need for it.

       Finally, I told my mother I was planning to grow up to be a man.  My wise mother laughed and said, “you have no choice!”

       What the world associated with womanhood was makeup, dresses etc.  So I naturally, thought something was wrong with me.  So did my parents!  

     But when I matured, I fell in love with a super man and had a boy (who is adult now, of course).  He married and they had 4 children and we loved keeping the grandkids, overnight every weekend for many years and of course, spoiling them!  :). 

     What I had as a child, is what 80% of children get… “gender dysphoria”. It’s a stage most children pass through and probably partially due to the strict “rules” males and females are supposed to follow in our society.  Except now, should a child be suffering the very temporary condition, some parents allow the multination of their bodies and more.  It’s become a cash cow for providers of such surgeries.  But some institutes no longer do this type of surgery because studies suggest there is a higher rate of suicide among surgically altered individuals.

      Our gender is encoded in the DNA of each one of the 5 billion cells of our bodies.  That is unless the DNA can be changed, we are the gender we are born into.  Bottom line, I loved being a mother and grandmother and wife to my sweet husband (we were married 54 years until he passed away).  But I still wear pants and no makeup!  It’s called diversity of humans!

Violence in Men?

 Stephen King wrote “There is a part of a man’s soul which is stonier.”

I saw a program about a hockey player whose daughter ended up murdering him.  The jury decided it was second degree homicide and she got very little jail time which the writers of the program disagreed with, saying “he was such a nice guy, liked by everyone…” etc.

I disagree.  The most gentle man can get violent…this was even true of  my gentle husband, who on the way back from the RR museum (which was boring to our son), parked along the freeway side, ripped the 5 year old out of the back seat and gave him a very hard smack on the face, telling him to “stop crying”.  I was shocked as I totally disagree with any violence with children.  Son was fussing…well he was tired and bored at the RR museum.  I was trying to talk him out of fussing and husband lost his temper and …  And he was about the most     non-violent man I’ve ever known.  My Dad was also very non violent and yet, one day when he was verbally fighting with my mother, he came out.  I was waiting for someone to take me to an orchestra concert.  Dad asked, somewhat accusingly, “Where did you get that dress?”  (My black orchestra dress). Mom was a bit worried at what he would have said so she told me to not tell Dad about it.  Not wanting to get my mother in trouble, especially after they’d been fighting, I told him that Mom had bought it with her money.  Dad’s reaction was to slap me across the face so hard that he broke my nose.  I was in High School and that was the first time he’d ever been violent with me.  So although the hockey player was a nice guy etc., I believe he DID get violent with his SO as she accused.  The writers of the TV show didn’t agree with the verdict of the jury which gave her a short stay in jail, but I agreed with the jury.  Because even with the nicest man, as Stephan King put it “there is a part of a man’s soul which is stonier,”