It's a week later, but I'm still off my regular routine. It's frustrating, but I just can't get back into the proper swing of things. I keep missing my pills, or not eating breakfast, or not doing my exercise, or missing an important hygiene practice. This happens every time I travel, to some extent, but it's particularly bad if the travel lasts more than a couple days. So given the entire month of October...
It's just really hard to give myself a pass for taking at least as long to return to normalcy as the travel itself took, I guess. It seems so inefficient and so unhelpful, and the longer it takes to get everything back as a habit, the more I suffer in the meantime. It would be so much better if I just immediately returned to my routines... But apparently that is not my lot in life.
On a happier note, I did spend a few hours with my grandmother a few days ago. She'd been feeling down lately due to a close friend passing away, so between that and my travelings, I hadn't seen her for a while. So it was nice to eat lunch together, then go shopping at Meijer and Aldi. I'd sort of forgotten Aldi existed, as a grocery store, and so was pleasantly surprised to explore their stock. We also stopped by a party store, where she picked up some greeting cards and I mused about the frivolity of the various party supplies. The prices at the store weren't bad, mostly. You could put together an acceptably decorated room in any of the major colors of the rainbow, rainbow itself, or red/white/blue. Streamers, wigs, party favors, hats, chocolate coins, makeup, body spray, hair dye... all of it could be found in those colors. And that was only the stuff near the greeting cards. Anyway, we had a nice time chatting, and I picked up some relatively humane tilapia filets for dinners-soon.
The last thing of note is that I've been chewing on an encounter I had with a trans woman recently. While we were visiting CT, we met the girlfriend of a friend of one of Chris' brothers. We spent a good few hours in proximity during a social event. She is... singular. She's had a pretty rough life, which I heard some about. That was interesting, but the reason I've been chewing on the encounter so hard is that it taught me something rather important about how I instinctively categorize people.
You see, other than her clothes and her pronoun, this girl did not particularly appear or sound "feminine." She had only discovered/recognized that she was trans less than a year ago, so perhaps that had something to do with it... but a person's gender identity shouldn't be judged by their appearance anyway, kind've the way you shouldn't judge someone's personality by their face. I mean, people do anyway: celebrities and attractive people are assumed to be good and virtuous people until proven otherwise, and ugly people are presumed to be evil, pathetic, cowardly creatures until proven otherwise. But it hadn't occurred to me that I might have distinct difficulty referring to someone as "she" if she didn't appear at least somewhat physically female.
But I did have difficulty. I managed to not screw it up out loud, but it took a lot of purposeful effort, literally every time I referred to her in a sentence, to manage that. And that bothers me, because it tells me that I still adhere to categorizing people by their appearance. In an age where gender identity is divorced from biological sex and AIs are becoming more sophisticated (to the point that they may be sentient soon) it's best to have practice referring to someone by a non-intuitive pronoun, particularly if you want to be supportive and accepting of such people.
After all, while many trans people choose to make changes to their bodies and lifestyles and mannerisms in order to better align with their gender, there are plenty of folks that don't fit their chosen gender well because of factors out of their control, or are in transition and so don't look the way they want, or don't feel the need to make those changes in order to be who they want to be. But no matter what the case, it's common courtesy to use the correct pronoun when addressing someone. In addition, trans people already have difficult lives, so it bears making the extra effort to be respectful. (Also, as a Christian, I am called to treat all people, particularly minorities and other marginalized people, with kindness, empathy, and respect. But I digress.)
I like to think of myself as an ally to the LGBTQIA+ groups, but every now and then something like this just comes along and blindsides me. Guess I'm not done learning how to do social things and interact with people...
It's just really hard to give myself a pass for taking at least as long to return to normalcy as the travel itself took, I guess. It seems so inefficient and so unhelpful, and the longer it takes to get everything back as a habit, the more I suffer in the meantime. It would be so much better if I just immediately returned to my routines... But apparently that is not my lot in life.
On a happier note, I did spend a few hours with my grandmother a few days ago. She'd been feeling down lately due to a close friend passing away, so between that and my travelings, I hadn't seen her for a while. So it was nice to eat lunch together, then go shopping at Meijer and Aldi. I'd sort of forgotten Aldi existed, as a grocery store, and so was pleasantly surprised to explore their stock. We also stopped by a party store, where she picked up some greeting cards and I mused about the frivolity of the various party supplies. The prices at the store weren't bad, mostly. You could put together an acceptably decorated room in any of the major colors of the rainbow, rainbow itself, or red/white/blue. Streamers, wigs, party favors, hats, chocolate coins, makeup, body spray, hair dye... all of it could be found in those colors. And that was only the stuff near the greeting cards. Anyway, we had a nice time chatting, and I picked up some relatively humane tilapia filets for dinners-soon.
The last thing of note is that I've been chewing on an encounter I had with a trans woman recently. While we were visiting CT, we met the girlfriend of a friend of one of Chris' brothers. We spent a good few hours in proximity during a social event. She is... singular. She's had a pretty rough life, which I heard some about. That was interesting, but the reason I've been chewing on the encounter so hard is that it taught me something rather important about how I instinctively categorize people.
You see, other than her clothes and her pronoun, this girl did not particularly appear or sound "feminine." She had only discovered/recognized that she was trans less than a year ago, so perhaps that had something to do with it... but a person's gender identity shouldn't be judged by their appearance anyway, kind've the way you shouldn't judge someone's personality by their face. I mean, people do anyway: celebrities and attractive people are assumed to be good and virtuous people until proven otherwise, and ugly people are presumed to be evil, pathetic, cowardly creatures until proven otherwise. But it hadn't occurred to me that I might have distinct difficulty referring to someone as "she" if she didn't appear at least somewhat physically female.
But I did have difficulty. I managed to not screw it up out loud, but it took a lot of purposeful effort, literally every time I referred to her in a sentence, to manage that. And that bothers me, because it tells me that I still adhere to categorizing people by their appearance. In an age where gender identity is divorced from biological sex and AIs are becoming more sophisticated (to the point that they may be sentient soon) it's best to have practice referring to someone by a non-intuitive pronoun, particularly if you want to be supportive and accepting of such people.
After all, while many trans people choose to make changes to their bodies and lifestyles and mannerisms in order to better align with their gender, there are plenty of folks that don't fit their chosen gender well because of factors out of their control, or are in transition and so don't look the way they want, or don't feel the need to make those changes in order to be who they want to be. But no matter what the case, it's common courtesy to use the correct pronoun when addressing someone. In addition, trans people already have difficult lives, so it bears making the extra effort to be respectful. (Also, as a Christian, I am called to treat all people, particularly minorities and other marginalized people, with kindness, empathy, and respect. But I digress.)
I like to think of myself as an ally to the LGBTQIA+ groups, but every now and then something like this just comes along and blindsides me. Guess I'm not done learning how to do social things and interact with people...
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