Waterloo CANADA - on the Haldimand Tract, land owned by the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg and Chinonton peoples, the latter of whom were wiped out by the European settlement of the land.
Time for a fresh #Introduction post. Been 18 months since the last one.
I'm Cait, late 50s, GenX, transitioned at 26 in 1992. I used to translate (not interpret) French, German, and Russian to English, for 23 years. I'm now retired due to disability (I use a cane for mobility), and my primary occupation is activism for the queer community.
I am comfortable (to a greater or lesser degree) conversing in French, German, Russian, or Spanish (in decreasing order of ability to speak well), and I can converse in basic Japanese too.
I am autistic and have ADHD, making me neurospicy to a degree that makes my white ass somewhat uncomfortable, just because of the word spicy.
I don't identify as having been an egg; my trans is more of a bulb, sending up shoots repeatedly to try and blossom, only to be cut down again and again. I always knew, as far back as I have memory, that I was a girl. I was genuinely confused why other people couldn't see it. I believe gatekeeping is fundamentally immoral, and should be resisted.
I post a lot about trans stuff, and some about political stuff. I support radical bodily autonomy, police and prison abolition, Marxist mutual aid, and anti-racism.
I do not maintain my passing privilege, so that I can be a visible trans person in my safe community, so that people know we live among them, and we're just ordinary, green-haired, tattooed, anime-loving, weed-smoking senior citizens like anyone else.
I have an abiding love for football ( ), Tottenham, music from Jamaica, and being part of the trans and autistic communities.
I live in the colonial power known in the West as Canada, on stolen land. And I have a #PrivilegeJar.
ACAB; Black Lives Matter; Trans Lives Matter; Black Trans Lives Matter!
I am also a Major in the 3rd Battalion, 10th Division of Antifa International, with command of a thousand hardy antifa superwarriors, ready to infiltrate your right-wing protest at any time.
Just noticed that my introduction post has slithered off the site somewhere. Might as well make a new one.
I'm Cait, late 50s, GenX, transitioned at 26 in the early 90s. I was a self-employed translator of French, German, and Russian to English for 23 years. I am comfortable conversing in any of those languages, or Spanish as well, and Japanese to a less comfortable extent.
I post a lot about trans stuff, but also other things. The trans stuff is because as a too-rare trans senpai, it's been made clear to me that I've got a solemn responsibility to my kouhai.
To get the stereotypes out of the way: no, I was never an egg, always knew, dressed as myself all the time growing up. I fit the classic narrative of the trans person, because that was the only way to access trans healthcare in those days, was to fit the narrative. The ways in which I didn't, I faked. Remember: gatekeeping is just cookie-cutting applied to people. It is wrong and unnecessary.
I believe in radical bodily autonomy, prison and police abolition, Marxist notions of mutual aid, and anti-racism.
I voluntarily cede my passing privilege to live as an out and public trans person in my community, so that people know that we live among them, and that we're just ordinary, green-haired, tattooed, anime-loving, and weed-smoking senior citizens like anyone else.
These days, I do activism as my main keep-me-occupied thing, as I have retired perforce from translation due to disability. I use a cane in everyday life for mobility.
I love football*, Tottenham, Jamaican music, having ADHD, and being part of this amazing Fedi trans community.
I live in the colonial power known as Canada, on stolen land.
Simple. You've heard of a Swear Jar, yes? If you say one of a set of predefined "bad words", you put money in the jar, which then gets put to some good purpose periodically.
Well, I do the same thing with showing my privilege.
It works like this: I encounter some post or statement made by a group I'm not part of. From it, I learn something that, but for my privilege, I should have known already.
When I encounter such a situation, I make a note to myself about what the learning was, who did the teaching, and what groups they might belong to - Black, disabled, women, trans, nonbinary, Indigenous, whatever.
At the end of the month, I assess my finances, to determine what I can afford this month. Then I take each instance and drop an equal amount of money in the rhetorical jar.
Once the jar is filled and the month over, I give the money to an organization doing direct work in the community with the group that did the most emotional labour that month.
It has win-win properties, as far as I'm concerned. Orgs get a little financial bump, I learn a bunch about my privilege and the world outside it.
A repost to bring it out of a thread. The offer at the bottom applies to anyone - if there's enough interest, I could write up a procedure that covers how I did it.
-=-=-
One of the best bits of activism I've done in recent years was convincing the cities locally to provide trans/nb swim times every couple of weeks.
I saw a poll a few years back, a Twitter poll, to be fair, but it asked trans people, "what would you do if you had a day without cis people?"
The response was heavily skewed to one answer: "go swimming".
Because we avoid it. Change rooms. Bathing suits. Topless or not (for any trans person!). Random normies staring.
There are so many issues, that most of us just never do.
But a trans-only swim avoids pretty much all of that. Everyone in the change room will be trans or nonbinary, or their close friends. Everyone has to sort out the bathing suit issue for themselves, and all solutions are on the table. Toplessness is up to you. The only random normies are the lifeguards, who are a small enough group that they can be trained before the program starts.
I would be happy to walk anyone through the process of getting such a swim instituted in your city, if you think there's any chance (I mean, Miami? Rapid City? probably not; NYC? should be already).
I've done this twice now, with two local cities, so I know whereof I speak in offering this.
Post something opposing AI? Get mansplained that Yes, you have fallen for it over and over again, and the proof of that is that you think you haven't.
π
No, dude. That you are that credulous does you no good service, but it means shit about how credulous I am. I have yet to see or hear a deepfake that wasn't immediately apparent within about ten seconds. I don't watch YouTube videos made by AI; I watch those made by human creators, who are onscreen, and whom (in general) I have watched for years, longer than LLMs have been a nuisance.
So no. Miss me with your mansplaining, dickhead. Not everyone is as...unable to do critical thinking as you are.
One of the hidden gems of being on Fedi is that people here are, generally, not falling for the LLM hype.
So we don't get much in the way of deepfake videos, or other AI slop, coming down our timelines (or at least, I certainly don't; no one I follow is making or boosting AI slop).
I was just watching a video warning about this, and the creator said "we've probably all been swarmed by those ads using deepfakes to push dodgy financial schemes" - I'm like, what? we have? - "and further, deepfakes of politicians all over social media, being pushed in front of us". Again, I"m thinking "Wow, that's not my experience of social media."
But this is my only social media site, really. I don't count Discord; those are basically closed systems. They don't push anything in front of you you didn't already want there.
Which just struck me as interesting. Throw in a really good ad-blocker, and I just don't see any of this shit going around.
And, Γ propos de rien, I use a web client for Fedi. Which means I get to see my adblocker adding up all the ads it's blocked at the top of each page.
I love coming over to the Fedi tab, because the adblocker counter remains firmly locked on zero.
So...you're still on Facebook. And maybe Threads. Because all your old friends and family are there. And Meta's not so bad, right?
Meta is systematically suspending the accounts of people who tell the truth about what Israel is doing in Gaza. That it's a genocide.
So in what way are they less complicit than Israel? They're actively trying to hide the truth from the world of a genocide. They're like the anti-press. Suppressing information flow.
But y'know, you do you. Enjoy your Facebook, and your Insta, and your Threads account.
Surely they'll never censor anything else for a fascist government, right?
One of the things I often say when I help someone is, "pay it forward when you can."
And I want to just open that tin up a little, and have a peek inside, because I think it's more sneaky good than people think it is.
So, for those who haven't encountered it before, the idea is that if I help you, but there's nothing I need from you in return, then you feel a debt. Pay it forward says "Your debt is to our shared community." And it means you can pay off that debt whenever you have the means, *even if the original favour came from someone no longer around.*
In this way, this behaviour sneaks in community building in a long-term way. Because while I'm only one elder among a few here, doing my best to be a help to as many as need me, the odds that any of these people I'm helping will be in a position to help with something I need is rather slim. For one thing, the odds are good that my remaining best-before time is about 30 years. In the scheme of things, when many of my friends are in their 20s and 30s, this means I may well be gone when they are in a place to help the way I have. And I won't need the help anyway.
But if they all remember to pay it forward...then they in turn create a generation that owes them a debt of gratitude. Which makes them want to give back.
And slowly, a community grows, that supports one another the way they were supported earlier.
So when I say that, I'm not just tossing a slogan at you without thought. I'm telling you my piece of how we make a community for our people. Take that piece, and use it when you build something for our community. And so on.
Y'all are my people. Just as I am your people. And if we work together, we can only get stronger as a group, a bouquet of identities, and as a community.
Time for a fresh #Introduction post. Been 18 months since the last one.
I'm Cait, late 50s, GenX, transitioned at 26 in 1992. I used to translate (not interpret) French, German, and Russian to English, for 23 years. I'm now retired due to disability (I use a cane for mobility), and my primary occupation is activism for the queer community.
I am comfortable (to a greater or lesser degree) conversing in French, German, Russian, or Spanish (in decreasing order of ability to speak well), and I can converse in basic Japanese too.
I am autistic and have ADHD, making me neurospicy to a degree that makes my white ass somewhat uncomfortable, just because of the word spicy.
I don't identify as having been an egg; my trans is more of a bulb, sending up shoots repeatedly to try and blossom, only to be cut down again and again. I always knew, as far back as I have memory, that I was a girl. I was genuinely confused why other people couldn't see it. I believe gatekeeping is fundamentally immoral, and should be resisted.
I post a lot about trans stuff, and some about political stuff. I support radical bodily autonomy, police and prison abolition, Marxist mutual aid, and anti-racism.
I do not maintain my passing privilege, so that I can be a visible trans person in my safe community, so that people know we live among them, and we're just ordinary, green-haired, tattooed, anime-loving, weed-smoking senior citizens like anyone else.
I have an abiding love for football ( ), Tottenham, music from Jamaica, and being part of the trans and autistic communities.
I live in the colonial power known in the West as Canada, on stolen land. And I have a #PrivilegeJar.
ACAB; Black Lives Matter; Trans Lives Matter; Black Trans Lives Matter!
I am also a Major in the 3rd Battalion, 10th Division of Antifa International, with command of a thousand hardy antifa superwarriors, ready to infiltrate your right-wing protest at any time.
Just noticed that my introduction post has slithered off the site somewhere. Might as well make a new one.
I'm Cait, late 50s, GenX, transitioned at 26 in the early 90s. I was a self-employed translator of French, German, and Russian to English for 23 years. I am comfortable conversing in any of those languages, or Spanish as well, and Japanese to a less comfortable extent.
I post a lot about trans stuff, but also other things. The trans stuff is because as a too-rare trans senpai, it's been made clear to me that I've got a solemn responsibility to my kouhai.
To get the stereotypes out of the way: no, I was never an egg, always knew, dressed as myself all the time growing up. I fit the classic narrative of the trans person, because that was the only way to access trans healthcare in those days, was to fit the narrative. The ways in which I didn't, I faked. Remember: gatekeeping is just cookie-cutting applied to people. It is wrong and unnecessary.
I believe in radical bodily autonomy, prison and police abolition, Marxist notions of mutual aid, and anti-racism.
I voluntarily cede my passing privilege to live as an out and public trans person in my community, so that people know that we live among them, and that we're just ordinary, green-haired, tattooed, anime-loving, and weed-smoking senior citizens like anyone else.
These days, I do activism as my main keep-me-occupied thing, as I have retired perforce from translation due to disability. I use a cane in everyday life for mobility.
I love football*, Tottenham, Jamaican music, having ADHD, and being part of this amazing Fedi trans community.
I live in the colonial power known as Canada, on stolen land.
Simple. You've heard of a Swear Jar, yes? If you say one of a set of predefined "bad words", you put money in the jar, which then gets put to some good purpose periodically.
Well, I do the same thing with showing my privilege.
It works like this: I encounter some post or statement made by a group I'm not part of. From it, I learn something that, but for my privilege, I should have known already.
When I encounter such a situation, I make a note to myself about what the learning was, who did the teaching, and what groups they might belong to - Black, disabled, women, trans, nonbinary, Indigenous, whatever.
At the end of the month, I assess my finances, to determine what I can afford this month. Then I take each instance and drop an equal amount of money in the rhetorical jar.
Once the jar is filled and the month over, I give the money to an organization doing direct work in the community with the group that did the most emotional labour that month.
It has win-win properties, as far as I'm concerned. Orgs get a little financial bump, I learn a bunch about my privilege and the world outside it.
Just noticed that my introduction post has slithered off the site somewhere. Might as well make a new one.
I'm Cait, late 50s, GenX, transitioned at 26 in the early 90s. I was a self-employed translator of French, German, and Russian to English for 23 years. I am comfortable conversing in any of those languages, or Spanish as well, and Japanese to a less comfortable extent.
I post a lot about trans stuff, but also other things. The trans stuff is because as a too-rare trans senpai, it's been made clear to me that I've got a solemn responsibility to my kouhai.
To get the stereotypes out of the way: no, I was never an egg, always knew, dressed as myself all the time growing up. I fit the classic narrative of the trans person, because that was the only way to access trans healthcare in those days, was to fit the narrative. The ways in which I didn't, I faked. Remember: gatekeeping is just cookie-cutting applied to people. It is wrong and unnecessary.
I believe in radical bodily autonomy, prison and police abolition, Marxist notions of mutual aid, and anti-racism.
I voluntarily cede my passing privilege to live as an out and public trans person in my community, so that people know that we live among them, and that we're just ordinary, green-haired, tattooed, anime-loving, and weed-smoking senior citizens like anyone else.
These days, I do activism as my main keep-me-occupied thing, as I have retired perforce from translation due to disability. I use a cane in everyday life for mobility.
I love football*, Tottenham, Jamaican music, having ADHD, and being part of this amazing Fedi trans community.
I live in the colonial power known as Canada, on stolen land.
Cait the Proud Trans Woman
), Tottenham, music from Jamaica, and being part of the trans and autistic communities. 
