Echo Chamber

 Hello... HELLO!! IS ANYONE OUT THERE?? .. outthere.. outthere.. outthere.. 

It has been a while since I set over 430 blogposts to 'draft' status here.. I republished one to see if anyone is out there.. In spite of the statistics, there seems to be nobody left. I might be the last of my kind. 

In 2010 finding blogs and their authors was a lifeline that told me I had family that I could get to know. I started commenting on those blogs. Soon I started my own, to give back a bit of what I could only get from reading what those other like-minded people could say. 

We read and commented. We learned from each other. 

Blogistan was a lovely place that I was proud to be a part of. I mourn its loss. But one can and should only mourn for so long. 

Nothing is New Here

The idea that some people will believe anything is hardly new. Sadly, lives can depend on getting the facts correct. 

People are being told that human gender variance is an idea that has been made-up recently and is being used to dupe the citizenry. Because some who have recently come to power need a soft target, they are making up falsehoods to justify draconian actions. Conflating gender-variant people with criminals, such as pedophiles and rapists, is the real crime here. 

Of course, the people making up stories about us don't really want to get their facts straight. We, who have to deal with gender variance and dysphoria daily, should be able to tell this important part of our story correctly to those who might care to know the truth.

We are not some new idea just made up. Further, we were not rejected or persecuted until fairly recently.

Documented references to gender variance go back to Greek and Roman times. Instead of going on and on citing references I shall let you read for yourself in this peer-reviewed article from Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 2021, Vol. 23.

The terminology, around trans-related issues, is relatively new, only about 100 years old. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935), a physician who practiced in Germany, founded two organizations committed to the support of homosexuals and sexual minorities. It was Hirschfeld who coined the term ‘transsexual’ in 1923. This word would only catch on three decades later with the publication of the groundbreaking 1966 book The Transsexual Phenomenon by Harry Benjamin (1885–1986).

Enough of the history lesson. Please be assured, we are not deluded or insane. We are a vulnerable minority - an easy target. 

Please, love yourself while doing your best to love others as well. 

Perhaps, In The Fullness of Time...

“Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”

― Alan Jay Lerner

~~~

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,


Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,


What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,


As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?


Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,


In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
’

Tis the star-spangled banner; 

O long may it wave
 O’er the land of the free, 

and the home of the brave!

from The Defence of Fort McHenry

Francis Scott Key 1779 – 1843