Sex And Violence on the Brain!

Close My Eyes! It's All Pink!

I'm just gonna link to it because Hilzoy deals with it better than I could. NPR has been running a series on Gender Identity Disorder (the predisposition to identify personally with the sex your body is not), and it's been hard to listen to the anti-trans side argue that children with "mild" GID should not be allowed to choose their own clothing, their own toys, their own peers, but should instead be forced to live a "gender appropriate" life.

It was heartbreaking to listen to the family that chose anti-trans therapy describing just how unhappy their kid still was, how much he was still fighting who he was. It's moving and terribly sad stuff and I hope the world for these kids and their families.

Hilzoy brings us really bad news. 35 years ago, the APA decided that homosexuality was not pathological. They would stop trying to "cure" homosexuality. Now comes word that the APA is revising the DSM, and the chairman of the sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group will be the leader of the anti-trans kid movement.

( Phyllis Schafly, Hillary Clinton, Talking Back To Anti-Gay Religious Types, Another 'Pro Family' Republican Caught With His Penis In The Pie, and A Cultural View of Linux vs. Windows )

Another episode of "Did Everyone Drop Meth This Week!?"

Earlier this week I got on the bus to head home and sat in the back on one of the side benches. The back of the bus is a U-shaped compartment with five seats across the back, and three seats on each side above the wheel wells. Across from me are two pretty high-school girls sharing an I-pod. Next to me is a typical ponytailed software geek. He's reading a book on COBOL. On the back seat scrunched into the corner is a single woman, heavyset, mid-twenties, scowl.

Another office worker gets on, late 20s, lanky guy with reddish-blond hair and beard. Kinda cute, in my opinion. He sits on the back seat, leaving two empty seats between him and the woman with the scowl.

"What the Hell are you doing, sitting next to me!?" she shouts at him. "Don't touch me! Don't you fucking get near me!"

He startles, understandably-- I think we all did. He gets up and sits on the seat across from me, giving the rest of the room a nervous grin and swallow. The woman continues, "Yeah, you wanna sit next to the underage girls, doncha! Probably like it. You look at 'em and see all that skin! You're probably a rapist, aren't you? Goddamn, the world is full of perverts like you! Can't go anywhere without running into perverts like you!"

Holy Shiznit, this went on for the entire ten minutes it took for the bus to reach downtown Seattle.

This morning, when I went to get onto the bus, the woman behind me was drinking from a Starbucks cup. After I got on, the driver takes a look at her and says, "Ma'am, you can't get on the bus with that."

The woman, understandably, protests. Of course she can. The driver, to everyone's discomfort, immediately turns her volume to eleven: "You can't bring that drink on my bus! The rules say you can't! No, Ma'am, the rules are clear! You aren't bringing that drink on my bus!"

I'm looking at the rules for Metro Transit. They're posted right over the driver's head. Rules five and six read: "No eating, smoking or littering," and "No alcoholic beverages." This would seem to imply, pretty strongly, that non-alcoholic beverages like, uh, Seattle-brand Starbucks, are kosher.

The poor woman eventually dumped her coffee on the sidewalk before boarding.

Grief, is everyone dropping meth this week?

Brain, by Godwin

Okay, I try not to do this twice a day, but if I don't do it now, by tomorrow you will have seen this in a thousand different places. Ever seen the fabulous WW2 film The Bunker? This is hilarious, violates Godwin's Law, and rated NSFW for adult language. Hillary's Downfall: