Many Democrats are celebrating the defeat of the Republican's attempt to "repeal and replace" Obamacare this morning. What the hell are Americans celebrating?
I'm an American ex-pat working for the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom. I've been a health care provider in the US system for 29 years before coming to the UK. If you're a citizen here, you get free healthcare at the point of service. It's true that your hospital may not have:
The genesis of this post is from a comment I left on The Thinking Atheist Podcast page. The host, Seth Andrews, invited various people on his podcast to talk about "Trigger Warnings and Safe Spaces." One of the guests was Bill Ligertwood, a conference organizer with the Imagine No Religion conference
So here's where I come from. I'm a white trans woman. I'm middle class. I went to college before transition and have a decent life making decent money.
I’ll say it up front, I’m a Bernie Sanders supporter that:
thinks Sanders has a very narrow path to the nomination (almost impossible). will vote for Clinton if she's the nominee. thinks Democrats and the Clinton campaign are setting themselves up for a massive defeat in the fall. The Democratic Party seems to want to have a fight with Bernie Sanders. Today's post from the Hill: Bernie’s not a Democrat.
Listening to the podcast of the Thursday edition of LBC's James O'Brien's radio show, I was surprised that he'd admit that he might be wrong about The Labour Party's leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Previously, he'd said that Corbyn supporters were akin to people who “believed in faeries.” He's repeatedly said that Corbynites were not pragmatic that Corbyn isn't electable, and the end of the Labour Party was near if he wasn't put down.
Recently I read the en(Gender) post,"Guest Author: Zoe Dolan, When Political Correctness Hits Below The Belt." Helen Boyd states in an introduction to the piece:
"Here’s a controversial piece from Zoe Dolan, lawyer, author, and friend, in a smart piece about why, when it cones to dating – amongst other things – talking about genital surgery is important."
If this piece was a post strictly concerning intimacy and talking to a potential partner in frank terms about sex with a trans person, then I'd agree it was a "
This morning I decided to watch a Ted Talk that featured Martine Rothblatt. Martine’s life story is incredible. The Washington Post said of her:
Let’s be clear: Martine Rothblatt is just plain more of a lawyer than anybody else in this town. The 60-year-old grandmother and CEO of United Therapeutics, the Silver Spring-based biotech she founded to help save her younger daughter’s life, banked $38 million last year. It made her the nation’s highest-paid female executive.
If you listened lately to people who have well established media outlets to speak from, pitchforks and torches are out of style. They would have you believe that the @ and # of Twitter are the new implements of mob justice.
Concerning the Twitter outrage over newly designated Daily Show Host, Trevor Noah, comedian Jim Norton said:
“[Noah] also neglected to take into account that Western culture as a whole has become an increasingly reactionary mob of self-centered narcissists who all have their own personal lines drawn in the sand.
Recently I was involved in a discussion with Twitter user @schnookiekins concerning people who publicly name people they say raped them. He supports Michael Nugent’s statement that:
“allegations of rape should be reported to the police, not to bloggers.” as if it's an either/or situation. I don't know of a requirement that compels victims of rape, by the state, to report their perpetrators to the police. Many people have written about why victims don't report rape, so I'll leave that there (*smirk* though I do wonder why men don't report domestic violence?
I have to admit, self identified trans women who want to have a “world without gender” really do confuse me. Below is one such transwoman:
If there is no gender, how can one identify themselves as trans anything? And if you do and you see sex as an unmovable binary, it would seem to me that you’d have to say that you’re a male trans woman. If you say that, aren’t you implying that gender and sex are different and that “woman” is your gender identity?
This morning I read an excellent post over at Crossdreamer's Tumblr blog about transition regret (also a great post by Brynn Tannehill). I'll say upfront that I don't regret transition, but I understand those who do. From the post:
"Some of the male to female regretters have clearly been caught up in some very restrictive ideas of what it means to be a woman."
and:
"I should add that this does not mean that all regretters detransition because they believe in sexist stereotypes.
I’ve kept quiet much for the last few months because I’ve been mourning a loss, the equal I can only compare losing my father at age 11. I’m not going to share the particulars of this loss because it doesn’t really matter in the context of this post, and secondly because it’s extremely personal. But emotionally I’ve been hampered a bit in just getting by day to day. I’m just trying to work out a plan for my future and try to do all the things people do when they’re mourning a huge loss.
I’ve recently (since June) started putting back money for my retirement both in a 403b and a bit of money in some individual stocks. Seeing my portfolio see-saw back and forth, and at best maybe breaking even, I have to wonder who makes money in this market? I’m not moving what I have, but it all makes me wonder if the stock market hasn’t fundamentally changed in the past 15 years.
Apparently the media think it’s news that Roseanne Barr has made some rather lewd comments about Bill Cosby, who:
"Several women in recent weeks have come forward to claim the comedian drugged and raped them or touched them inappropriately in past decades." But when Roseanne saidsome really horrible stuff about trans people? The media was and is silent. What did I learn today? The same thing I learn most days. Trans people’s lives aren’t worth much at all.
So I thought I’d spruce up (and help the air quality) of my apartment by buying a houseplant. So I traveled down to my local store and bought this:
There have been a few problems with this plant (right now I’m not sure what type of plant it is):
the previous occupant of my apartment put hooks in the ceiling next to my windows (6 windows, a hook in front of each one):
In a Twitter discussion with LBC radio presenter, Julia Hartley-Brewer asked me:
@Martiabernathey that's a LOT of money and a BIG %. What are you so angry about? — Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) October 29, 2014 I AM angry. I'm angry because corporate conservative media outlets are engaging in a propaganda war against the poor. She and her station posted this: A single mum of 5 says she shouldn't be forced by benefits cap to leave Westminster to move to Milton Keynes.
This morning I was listening to LBC radio and the radio presenter, John Stapleton (who was sitting in for James O’Brien), took a call from someone that said the Tories don’t care about benefit cuts and people in poverty: [soundcloud url=“https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/174327300” params=“auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=“100%” height=“450” iframe=“true” /] Stapleton called the caller “harsh,” then parroted the government line. I had a brief conversation with him on Twitter, of which there was little response.
Now that I’m almost a year into fixing my credit, I’m starting to get a lot of offers for credit. Well sort of. Most of the loans in being offered are really absurd; a loan for $1000 that will cost $500?! I’ve also received a lot of credit card applications. Many of these offers say “pre-approved” or “prescreened.” I’m finding that what that means is that they’ve realized my credit is improving, but this doesn’t mean they’ll approve me.
Wading through all the comments on Facebook about Renee Zellweger’s “new look” have made me think a lot about a common thread between abortion rights, trans bodies, and body modification through surgery. The common issue is between them all is bodily autonomy, the right to make choices about what happens to you your own body.
"But she looked good/better/different before the surgery!" “She looks ok, but I think she was more attractive as a guy!
When I was married, I had the car (the car loan), the house payment (the mortgage), and the credit cards. We spent all we made, and put a lot of things we needed on credit. So much so that even though we were making close to $80k together, we were living paycheck to paycheck (in 1996).
After the marriage fell apart, I really stopped caring about ever having credit again. If I got a medical bill that I didn’t feel like paying, I didn’t.
My mind has been in a million different places today. I read this thoughtful post by a doctor about a patient that committed suicide. I saw this today on dying with dignity:
[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPfe3rCcUeQ) I come at this from the perspective of a medical professional that has seen death and dying up close and personal for almost thirty years. I come at this from the place of a person with a history of persona trauma and loss.
I took this blog offline for a while and I’ve deleted a lot of the posts that don’t make sense being here, but I still feel the need to write. I look back over my writing and my life and see and feel where I was at the time.
In this life I’ve experienced a lot of pain, heartache, and disappointment. But I’ve also loved, and been loved in return. That’s probably the one thing in life that I value most.
Tonight is an anniversary for me as well as Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving 2003 was one of the lowest points in my life. I had recently moved to Washington DC and had a one bedroom apartment that was baren. It had a bed (from the previous owner), a small kitchen table, and that was all for furniture. The previous year had seen me lose visitation to both my son and my daughter because I was trans.
Growing up in a super dysfunctional household, I had very little in the way of nurturing. Between working full time and regularly engaging in marital battles, my mom had little quality time with us kids. I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandmother and grandfather (who we affectionately called "Granny" and "Poppy"). Pop was a very mean man. I can remember times he would come home for supper, and if Granny didn't have the food on the table, he'd call her every expletive in the book (with "
A friend of mine moved to Indianapolis, Indiana from New York because in his words, “Indianapolis feels like home.” As someone that’s always hated living in Indianapolis, I couldn’t understand how someone would WANT to move there. There are people I miss in Indianapolis, but I don’t miss the place itself. A year ago I moved to Wisconsin to be near my best friend. I now know what Danni was talking about.