Rear Guard Action

As a friend pointed out in a comment elsewhere, the Halle household is on holiday at the moment. As you will likely know, this is often the hardest situation for someone who is transsexual and non-transitioning. 

The non-transitioning part has been under attack from within, as chemical warfare against it seems to have lost effectiveness over the past six months (yes, that is how long). 

This morning, waking with the usual unwelcome sensations a strange phrase was playing on my mind: 

Rear Guard Action.. 

I needed to be certain of a vague feeling this was very bad:

Definition of REARGUARD ACTION
1
:  a defensive or delaying fight engaged in by a rear guard (as in covering the retreat of an army or the evacuation of a besieged garrison)
2
:  an effort put forth by means of preventive or delaying measures or tactics and usually against great odds in defense of a threatened existing order or situation or in opposition to a proposed new departure
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rearguard%20action)

Hmm, that just about says it all. 

Soldiering on folks...

Wish You Were Here

Hello from "The Great White North" of North America; Canada. Apologies to Cassidy and others who are also unexpectedly in the white this year, with none of the joys of being in Canada. Wish you were here!

Here in the land of ice and snow, we have a radio and television institution: CBC ~ Radio Canada. After last week's post, so down on the media, it is pleasant to be able to provide a contrast.

This past Thursday, the CBC program DOC ZONE aired Transforming Gender. If you missed it and live in Canada, the wonderful news is, you can link here and watch it anytime you like.

Transforming Gender is a fine documentary, that shows male and female transsexuals of varioius ages, and some parents of very young transsexuals telling their own stories. No narrator telling us what to think.

If you are not in Canada, you can still follow that same link to read about the documentary, and by following the links on the upper right of that page, under MORE ON THIS STORY, find out many of the details about those who spoke.

The review in the Toronto Star is not only about that documentary program, but about some other real change happening and being noticed here in Ontario. The columnist, Venay Menon begins with a story of the newly issued, and it seems, controversial Health and Physical Education curriculum from the province of Ontario. It seems that changes there intend that sex education in Ontario should reflect the real world, and in Venay's words:

"This new Health and Education curriculum is striving to make our children - wait for it - healthier and more educated."

Venay then goes on to call the CBC documentary "required viewing for everyone on either side of this week's sex-ed debate."

Right now I couldn't be prouder of that publicly funded old lady of the Canadian broadcasting world, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.