Maybe you should consider that asthma is on the rise, and that people with asthma are like the "canary in the mine shaft".
It showed that just two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust fumes led to biological changes that meant some genes were switched on while others turned off.
So, how much exposure before it happens to the rest of us? What can we do to lessen the effects? There are relevant questions.
We know that at least one gene controlling the ability to use testosterone is slightly longer than it should be, so the "key doesn't fit the lock" at all times during gestation. The body recovers later on, but it's too late for the brain to be fully masculinized. The 12th week is critical.
We also see other physical consequences beyond the brain. The 2d4d digit ratio (the difference between the length of the index finger vs. the ring finger) is also controlled by prenatal testosterone. Men generally have a ring finger longer than their index finger. Women generally have the reverse - the index finger is either the same length or longer than the ring finger. Many m2f transsexuals, such as myself, have the female configuration.
So we don't even have to wait until we die to have someone open up our brain and look - we can see the physical consequences just by looking at our hands.
And then there's women who have AIS or CAIS. They often only find out that their genes are XY when they fail to have a period. Only an idiot would call them men.
You completely missed my point. What's between the ears is what defines us, and no amount of transplants will change that. And that the tests that have been done on m2f transsexuals show that the structure and function of the brain is closer to female than male. It can't be changed to be male, so why not just adapt the body to what is really inside the brain? After all, our best guess at this point is that we are born this way (one gene that fails to react to testosterone properly at certain stages of the development of the fetus) and, as you point out, that is a big part of what creates a female brain.
The default configuration of the human is female. Without testosterone producing effects at very specific times, the brain doesn't masculinize. This leads to brains that are closer to female than male, and some of these can be observed in post-mortems. You might no like it, but that's the way it is. All those complaints about "female brain trapped in a male body" actually have a biological basis.
If we transplant a woman's heart to you, you're still a male. If you lose all your limbs and we replace them with a woman's limbs, you are still a male. If we replace every single organ in your body with those from a woman except the brain, you're still a male. If we nuked your bone marrow and replaced it with a woman's, you're still male, even though a blood test would now say you're female.
In fact, if one day we took a man's brain and transplanted it into a woman's body, they would still insist that they are male. What counts is what's between the ears, not what's between the legs. And postmortems show that what's between a male-to-female transsexuals ears is closer to a genetic female than a genetic male. It's not a "masquerade", no matter how much it challenges your idea of how things should be.
This is why giving estrogen to Alan Turing to "treat his being gay" didn't work - he was male in both mind and body. It's also why attempts to treat m2f transsexuals with testosterone mostly ended up in suicide or jail. The brain is the fundamental organ of our existence. It defines who and what we are.
It's there for historical reasons. Historically, the T in GLBT represented transsexuals, who are a very very small minority of the transgender population, with radically different needs and goals. GLB are about sexual orientation, not gender identity. When people started using LGBT instead of GLBT, they also included all transgendered, of which transsexuals again are only a small part, and with different needs and goals - we need medical help to turn our outsies turned into insies or vice versa. Nobody else in the LGBT needs medical help to be who they feel they are.
There's been some debate inside the transsexual community as to whether we should or should not tie our cause to the greater LGBT community because of the this; I have always been of the opinion that we're all in this together, and we all have an overarching goal to be free to live as who and what we are, and I don't see that changing any time soon, especially since transsexuals can be straight, gay or lesbian, or bi. It's complicated:-)
If we can't make the mind match the body, let's make the body match the mind. And once it's treated (one or more of hormones, surgery, therapy) then they're no longer dysphoric.
Here's the problem. We can't make the body match the mind. We literally cannot do it. We don't have the technology. The very best we can do is a skin-deep, non-functional mask.
For instance, if you're male, we can lop off the genitals that grew naturally; we can probably dig a pit into your groin; we can plastic up some lippy-looking things to go around it; we might even be able to leave enough of your penis to kinda-sorta give you a little stimulation where the clitoris raises its cute little head. We can't give you an actual clitoris, though.
Non-functional? 85% of male-to-female transsexuals are fully orgasmic. That's better than genetic women. Yes, the orgasm is different - it's better:-)
Also, estrogen (usually in the form of estradiol) promotes breast growth.
You're a man with surgical modifications. You're not going to have periods. You cannot bear children. You will not lubricate correctly.
There are plenty of genetic women who no longer have periods, and cannot bear children. Are you going to claim they're not women based on that criteria?
As for lubrication, there's a surgical technique that uses a portion of donor tissue from another site in the patient to allow them to lubricate, but most don't opt for it. And there are plenty of women who don't lubricate, no matter how much they're stimulated.
You won't share the same disease risks, and you won't share the same disease immunities. Your chromosome configuration will be wrong. Your pheromone emissions will be off. Your sweat will smell wrong.
Estrogen provides the same protection from diseases in both transsexuals and genetic women. And with the removal of testosterone, the sweat smells the same as a genetic woman (actually, because there's less testosterone floating around in a transsexual woman than a genetic woman, we actually smell better). I noticed my dogs became more protective because I smelled different.
Your skeletal structure will be wrong. Your walk will be wrong, because your pelvic geometry is different
My walk is just fine according to all the genetic women I know (and the men who have hit on me must think the same way).
It's not a question of "wearing a mask." The "mask" was trying to live as something I felt I was not. You need to realize that gender identity is not sexual identity. And there are hundreds of thousands of us for whom this is the right thing to do. Plus, legally, it DOES change our sex, so since we don't live in isolation on a desert island, this allows us easier social interaction.
Even your mind, identity crisis and all, probably won't work even remotely like a woman's actually does -- likely you will continue short on multitasking and long on aggression, among many other things.
All I can say for that is [citation required]. I've never been "short on multitasking and long on aggression." But thanks for continuing to reinforce gender stereotypes. I'm sure there are many people (of both genders) who would disagree your statement.
Look, I'm just trying to get you to see that gender is more than XX or XY. Talk to a few of us, and our friends, and you might be pleasantly surprised to find that you don't have to continue to discriminate between "real women" and "transsexual women."
Because nerds are (generally) supportive of nonviolence and tolerance for unpopular ideas to promote intellectual and creative freedom, and these mindless idiot fundamentalist thugs are the enemy of that and will destroy it if they can. Is it clearer now?
Looking back upon Slashdot history (you know, back when it was News for Nerds), I'd say it's about as clear as fucking mud.
You're forgetting the rest: News for nerds, stuff that matters. This is stuff that matters. As another example Osama Bin Laden Reported Dead, Body In US Hands got 1,855 comments, the most for any story I've submitted. Stuff that matters is subjective, but obviously a lot of people thought this mattered.
Face to face is the only way, and even that's not completely secure if you haven't met the person before (it could be someone else). But at some point, we have to just stop "giving a sh*t" over whether we're being spied on or not, because it's happening.
Let me get this straight: if someone wants to be Napoleon - let them and buy them bicorne as part of the treatment?
I would first ask them "Which Napoleon?" (No, that's not original, one of my friends asked that to someone who was delusional, with interesting results).
If someone wants to go around dressed like Napoleon, what's the big deal as long as they're not doing anyone any harm? So sure, by them the funny hat if you wish.
I would say these are two ends of the same basic problem. I can comment, at least when I was in school, standing up for oneself did not do much good and often resulted in getting pushback from the 99% for being 'mean' to the bully.
I can't count the number of times I got "the beats", at school, outside of school, at home, just for being perceived as a bit different... it was wrong, and we have to stand up against it because it's still happening. I think part of the problem is that many people who know someone who is a transsexual don't know that person is a transsexual, so they can't put a face to it when they hear about some stranger being harassed.
People who know someone who is trans are usually more tolerant, even encouraging, because they know that someone who is trans is still a human being, not a freak. I've gotten some criticism (and some hate) over my.sig, but someone has to stand up. Browse this thread at -1 to see just a small sample of what APK has been the last week.
The problem there is that while it is only the 1% that is doing the beating, they have tacit social approval from the other 99%. Sadly most of the population is not really 'ok' with TG issues, they are just not actively nasty about it, but nor do they provide any social repercussion for those who are. Bullies bully the people they can get away with bullying, and what they can get away with is defined by the majority.
One of the problems is that when we experience "negative reactions", we don't stand up to defend ourselves. It's not reasonable to ask others to take a stand for you if you, as the victim, aren't willing to take a stand yourself. Society has put into place mechanisms, laws, human rights tribunals, and courts to address this, but most transsexuals don't use them because of a very valid fear of further repercussions, embarrassment, and physical harm. I've had to use the tribunal twice to drag public apologies from people. I figured written apologies in the largest newspapers was the appropriate "punishment", but I understand that most transsexuals and other transgenders would be reluctant to have their name and trans-ness mentioned in print.
And this is the real problem. We act like we're ashamed, and that gives permission for others to take advantage of that. They KNOW that we won't complain, that we're reluctant to seek support from the community at large. Our silence is part of the problem. We need to lose the embarrassment and get a heaping helping of PRIDE. It's very liberating, and every person who refuses to keep quiet helps those who are still living in the shadows out of fear.
The major negative impact from TG people is only that which society places on them and thus an unnatural impact.
I've heard a transperson dispute that, saying that even where people are 100% cool with them, they still feel awful about the mind/body mismatch, to the point of depression, self-harming etc. Gender dysphoria can still be a mental illness even if transsexualism per se isn't.
Though of course, not in any sane jurisdiction should that prevent you from driving.
Would you be happy with yourself if you had the wrong body parts? There is so much negativism about transsexualism from a minority of the population that it tends to drown out the fact that the majority are okay with it. After all, it's the same with the bullies back in school - sure, 99% of the kids don't beat you up, but that 1% makes a lot of kids not want to get up in the morning to go to school. They can actually become physically ill from the stress. Would you say that they had a mental illness?
Obviously the correct course with any medical problem is effective medical treatment. If you had, say, a cleft palette and couldn't get treatment, you'd be pretty depressed too, no? Maybe to the point of self-harm by trying to fix it yourself?
Now, I'm not disagreeing totally with what you're saying - the negative reactions of others don't help, and the removal of transsexualism as a mental disorder was a big step towards normalizing the situation. Is gender dysphoria a mental illness? I'm okay with that. After all, if it's classified as a mental illness, then that opens up the path to treatment. If we can't make the mind match the body, let's make the body match the mind. And once it's treated (one or more of hormones, surgery, therapy) then they're no longer dysphoric.
Of course, one big problem with saying that it's a mental illness is that a lot of people think "it's all in your head, yo should just pull yourself out of it." The same way that they treat people with major depressive disorder or ptsd or anxiety disorder. The other big problem is that transsexuals themselves delay seeking help because in many cases we've also bought into the myth that we can "pull ourselves out of it" because we're afraid of the negative reactions from family, friends, coworkers, etc. Can't be done, and you will lose some friends - but with friends like that, who needs enemies:-)
(me gets ready to be flamed by those in the community who refuse to accept gender dysphoria as a valid diagnosis / disorder)
In a nutshell, Rightscorp and BMG are using the notice-and-notice system to require ISPs to send threats and misstatements of Canadian law in an effort to extract payments based on unproven infringement allegations.
It is not illegal to lie - except under oath.
Try that with the cops next time they question you and let us know how it works out. Oh, and don't forget your "soap on a rope."
Come on, they're claiming it was their petition to the FDA - "Fast track Drug and vaccine research for Ebola Hemorrhagic fever" - that did it?
I think what they're claiming is that the desired outcome was reached and the petition was pushing in that direction. The degree to which any one petition took a lead or decisive role might be unknown, however, any assertion that all those petitions were simply ineffective noise is ludicrous. Clearly, looking at the individual cases, there are some where the petition would have been a very significant form of pressure (to which electing one legislator does not favorably compare.)
Some of these petitions deliver nearly half a million signatures to the decision makers engaged with a specific problem. When the target is a corporation or some other entity that is actually concerned with public opinion, any thesis that the petition is inherently ineffective is about as dubious as anything gets. Particularly in light of the outcomes often going the way the petition was asking for, whereas prior to the petition, these same conditions were not extant (obviously that is why the petitions arise in the first place.)
They got 19,000 signatures. That's nothing. There was an international race to get control over Ebola. This petition had ZERO effect.
Slacktivism is for slackers - those who are too lazy to get their butts out of a chair.
Gratuitous, research-free, unjustified name-calling is for the ignorant, the disingenuous and the propagandist. I wonder which of those you represent.
Research-free? The term has been used repeatedly in news reports to deride the people who think that signing a petition or clicking on like will mean something - usually when comparing slacktivists to the people who are in the streets marching, protesting, resisting police, or actually doing something. Besides, how can you say it's research-free when I provided a link to slacktivism, or unjustified name-calling when it's a recognized phenomenon and wikipedia uses onchange.org petitions as an example of slacktivism?
Here are some more definitions of theterm, which has been in general use for years, and is often defined as useless actions such as signing online petitions or buying a bracelet.
Also implying that I'm either ignorant, disingenuous , or a propagandist is either ignorant, disingenuous, or the mark of a frustrated slacktivist.:-)
That's a pretty bizarre rationalisation. You don't care if your phone runs out of power potentially hours earlier because you charge it at night? Wow.
How many times have you heard people complain that their phone is dying (esp. when you're talking to them on the phone), and you find out that they don't make a habit of plugging it in when they have down time? "Well, I didn't use it much the last few days so I thought..." Kind of like people who are astonished that the car won't go another 30 miles when the gas gauge is below the Empty mark.
It's issued the "below 15% warning a couple of times" after very heavy use, but never had it die from the battery being too low. And no, Lollipop won't save me an extra two hours of use - Kitkat 4.4.4 already comes with the ART runtime. Settings - Developer options - Select runtime.- and it asks if I want to use Dalvik or ART (Android RunTime, which does AOT - Ahead-Of-Time compilation).
Come on, they're claiming it was their petition to the FDA - "Fast track Drug and vaccine research for Ebola Hemorrhagic fever" - that did it? That's a joke. And Des Hague being given the boot for giving a dog the boot had much more to do with the millions and millions who saw the video on TV.
There's a name for these meaningless gestures - slacktivism
Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism or slackervism) is a portmanteau of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little physical or practical effect, other than to make the person doing it feel satisfied that they have contributed. Slacktivism can be defined as the act of showing support for a cause but only truly being beneficial to the egos of people participating in this so-called activism. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. The underlying assumption being promoted by the term is that these low cost efforts substitute for more substantive actions rather than supplementing them
anti-scam crusader Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes.com: "It's all fed by slacktivism... the desire people have to do something good without getting out of their chair"
Micah White has argued that although slacktivism is typically the easiest route to participation in movements and changes, the novelty of online activism wears off as people begin to realize that their participation created virtually no effect, leading people to lose hope in all forms of activism. [19]
Malcolm Gladwell, in his October 2010 New Yorker article, lambasted those who compare social media "revolutions" with actual activism that challenges the status quo ante. He argued that today's social media campaigns can't compare with activism that takes place on the ground, using the Greensboro sit-ins as an example of what real, high-risk activism looks like.
Dunning... cites Change.org as an example. The site is full of hundreds of thousands of petitions. A person signing one of these online petitions may feel good about himself, but these petitions are generally not binding nor lead to any major change. Dunning suggests that before donating, or even "liking", a cause one should research the issue and the organization to ensure nothing is misattributed, exaggerated, or wrong.
Slacktivism is for slackers - those who are too lazy to get their butts out of a chair.
So what? People who develop for the iPhone already knew this, went into it with open eyes, and if they're not happy, they can switch to something else. Personally, I don't have much use for the EFF because they take the position of zealots, and as we saw with the 12 dead yesterday, zealotry is for dummies. Open is going to have to continue to coexist with closed, and no amount of hand-wringing is going to change that.
For those who care about this, why are they worried about what's happening in someone else's walled garden? And for those who don't, well, they don't.
if they wont allow "breaking" of DRM, they need to allow devs more access to the device. its really that simple
The apps in their store didn't need "more access" to be developed. The clauses against reverse engineering are also the norm. Sometimes, if you want something, you (or someone else) has to pay for it.
One of the things the EFF wants changed is that the developer agreement prohibits breaking DRM. Now without DRM most app developers won't even be able to make the pittance they make now.
Slashdot Mirror
It showed that just two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust fumes led to biological changes that meant some genes were switched on while others turned off.
So, how much exposure before it happens to the rest of us? What can we do to lessen the effects? There are relevant questions.
We know that at least one gene controlling the ability to use testosterone is slightly longer than it should be, so the "key doesn't fit the lock" at all times during gestation. The body recovers later on, but it's too late for the brain to be fully masculinized. The 12th week is critical.
We also see other physical consequences beyond the brain. The 2d4d digit ratio (the difference between the length of the index finger vs. the ring finger) is also controlled by prenatal testosterone. Men generally have a ring finger longer than their index finger. Women generally have the reverse - the index finger is either the same length or longer than the ring finger. Many m2f transsexuals, such as myself, have the female configuration.
So we don't even have to wait until we die to have someone open up our brain and look - we can see the physical consequences just by looking at our hands.
And then there's women who have AIS or CAIS. They often only find out that their genes are XY when they fail to have a period. Only an idiot would call them men.
You completely missed my point. What's between the ears is what defines us, and no amount of transplants will change that. And that the tests that have been done on m2f transsexuals show that the structure and function of the brain is closer to female than male. It can't be changed to be male, so why not just adapt the body to what is really inside the brain? After all, our best guess at this point is that we are born this way (one gene that fails to react to testosterone properly at certain stages of the development of the fetus) and, as you point out, that is a big part of what creates a female brain.
The default configuration of the human is female. Without testosterone producing effects at very specific times, the brain doesn't masculinize. This leads to brains that are closer to female than male, and some of these can be observed in post-mortems. You might no like it, but that's the way it is. All those complaints about "female brain trapped in a male body" actually have a biological basis.
If we transplant a woman's heart to you, you're still a male. If you lose all your limbs and we replace them with a woman's limbs, you are still a male. If we replace every single organ in your body with those from a woman except the brain, you're still a male. If we nuked your bone marrow and replaced it with a woman's, you're still male, even though a blood test would now say you're female.
In fact, if one day we took a man's brain and transplanted it into a woman's body, they would still insist that they are male. What counts is what's between the ears, not what's between the legs. And postmortems show that what's between a male-to-female transsexuals ears is closer to a genetic female than a genetic male. It's not a "masquerade", no matter how much it challenges your idea of how things should be.
This is why giving estrogen to Alan Turing to "treat his being gay" didn't work - he was male in both mind and body. It's also why attempts to treat m2f transsexuals with testosterone mostly ended up in suicide or jail. The brain is the fundamental organ of our existence. It defines who and what we are.
It's the knock-on effects that are important. As you can see from browsing the comments, people HAVE left their field because of age bias.
It's there for historical reasons. Historically, the T in GLBT represented transsexuals, who are a very very small minority of the transgender population, with radically different needs and goals. GLB are about sexual orientation, not gender identity. When people started using LGBT instead of GLBT, they also included all transgendered, of which transsexuals again are only a small part, and with different needs and goals - we need medical help to turn our outsies turned into insies or vice versa. Nobody else in the LGBT needs medical help to be who they feel they are.
There's been some debate inside the transsexual community as to whether we should or should not tie our cause to the greater LGBT community because of the this; I have always been of the opinion that we're all in this together, and we all have an overarching goal to be free to live as who and what we are, and I don't see that changing any time soon, especially since transsexuals can be straight, gay or lesbian, or bi. It's complicated :-)
Here's the problem. We can't make the body match the mind. We literally cannot do it. We don't have the technology. The very best we can do is a skin-deep, non-functional mask.
For instance, if you're male, we can lop off the genitals that grew naturally; we can probably dig a pit into your groin; we can plastic up some lippy-looking things to go around it; we might even be able to leave enough of your penis to kinda-sorta give you a little stimulation where the clitoris raises its cute little head. We can't give you an actual clitoris, though.
Non-functional? 85% of male-to-female transsexuals are fully orgasmic. That's better than genetic women. Yes, the orgasm is different - it's better :-)
As for the clitoris, both the female clitoris and the male penis start out as the same organ in the fetus.
Also, estrogen (usually in the form of estradiol) promotes breast growth.
You're a man with surgical modifications. You're not going to have periods. You cannot bear children. You will not lubricate correctly.
There are plenty of genetic women who no longer have periods, and cannot bear children. Are you going to claim they're not women based on that criteria?
As for lubrication, there's a surgical technique that uses a portion of donor tissue from another site in the patient to allow them to lubricate, but most don't opt for it. And there are plenty of women who don't lubricate, no matter how much they're stimulated.
You won't share the same disease risks, and you won't share the same disease immunities. Your chromosome configuration will be wrong. Your pheromone emissions will be off. Your sweat will smell wrong.
Estrogen provides the same protection from diseases in both transsexuals and genetic women. And with the removal of testosterone, the sweat smells the same as a genetic woman (actually, because there's less testosterone floating around in a transsexual woman than a genetic woman, we actually smell better). I noticed my dogs became more protective because I smelled different.
Your skeletal structure will be wrong. Your walk will be wrong, because your pelvic geometry is different
My walk is just fine according to all the genetic women I know (and the men who have hit on me must think the same way).
It's not a question of "wearing a mask." The "mask" was trying to live as something I felt I was not. You need to realize that gender identity is not sexual identity. And there are hundreds of thousands of us for whom this is the right thing to do. Plus, legally, it DOES change our sex, so since we don't live in isolation on a desert island, this allows us easier social interaction.
Even your mind, identity crisis and all, probably won't work even remotely like a woman's actually does -- likely you will continue short on multitasking and long on aggression, among many other things.
All I can say for that is [citation required]. I've never been "short on multitasking and long on aggression." But thanks for continuing to reinforce gender stereotypes. I'm sure there are many people (of both genders) who would disagree your statement.
Look, I'm just trying to get you to see that gender is more than XX or XY. Talk to a few of us, and our friends, and you might be pleasantly surprised to find that you don't have to continue to discriminate between "real women" and "transsexual women."
Because nerds are (generally) supportive of nonviolence and tolerance for unpopular ideas to promote intellectual and creative freedom, and these mindless idiot fundamentalist thugs are the enemy of that and will destroy it if they can. Is it clearer now?
Looking back upon Slashdot history (you know, back when it was News for Nerds), I'd say it's about as clear as fucking mud.
You're forgetting the rest: News for nerds, stuff that matters. This is stuff that matters. As another example Osama Bin Laden Reported Dead, Body In US Hands got 1,855 comments, the most for any story I've submitted. Stuff that matters is subjective, but obviously a lot of people thought this mattered.
Face to face is the only way, and even that's not completely secure if you haven't met the person before (it could be someone else). But at some point, we have to just stop "giving a sh*t" over whether we're being spied on or not, because it's happening.
Let me get this straight: if someone wants to be Napoleon - let them and buy them bicorne as part of the treatment?
I would first ask them "Which Napoleon?" (No, that's not original, one of my friends asked that to someone who was delusional, with interesting results).
If someone wants to go around dressed like Napoleon, what's the big deal as long as they're not doing anyone any harm? So sure, by them the funny hat if you wish.
I would say these are two ends of the same basic problem. I can comment, at least when I was in school, standing up for oneself did not do much good and often resulted in getting pushback from the 99% for being 'mean' to the bully.
I can't count the number of times I got "the beats", at school, outside of school, at home, just for being perceived as a bit different ... it was wrong, and we have to stand up against it because it's still happening. I think part of the problem is that many people who know someone who is a transsexual don't know that person is a transsexual, so they can't put a face to it when they hear about some stranger being harassed.
People who know someone who is trans are usually more tolerant, even encouraging, because they know that someone who is trans is still a human being, not a freak. I've gotten some criticism (and some hate) over my .sig, but someone has to stand up. Browse this thread at -1 to see just a small sample of what APK has been the last week.
The problem there is that while it is only the 1% that is doing the beating, they have tacit social approval from the other 99%. Sadly most of the population is not really 'ok' with TG issues, they are just not actively nasty about it, but nor do they provide any social repercussion for those who are. Bullies bully the people they can get away with bullying, and what they can get away with is defined by the majority.
One of the problems is that when we experience "negative reactions", we don't stand up to defend ourselves. It's not reasonable to ask others to take a stand for you if you, as the victim, aren't willing to take a stand yourself. Society has put into place mechanisms, laws, human rights tribunals, and courts to address this, but most transsexuals don't use them because of a very valid fear of further repercussions, embarrassment, and physical harm. I've had to use the tribunal twice to drag public apologies from people. I figured written apologies in the largest newspapers was the appropriate "punishment", but I understand that most transsexuals and other transgenders would be reluctant to have their name and trans-ness mentioned in print.
And this is the real problem. We act like we're ashamed, and that gives permission for others to take advantage of that. They KNOW that we won't complain, that we're reluctant to seek support from the community at large. Our silence is part of the problem. We need to lose the embarrassment and get a heaping helping of PRIDE. It's very liberating, and every person who refuses to keep quiet helps those who are still living in the shadows out of fear.
No, it's not "in development". It's there for anyone to use. I even gave you the instructions for how to use it as the default runtime.
Russian gays can just ride a bear instead of driving. Like Putin does!
woohoo! Giddyap, cowboy, er, bearboy, ride that barebear
Adds a whole new meaning to the term "bare-back/bear-back".
And yet the russians are using the ICD-10 codes. Quit trying to defend the indefensible.
I've heard a transperson dispute that, saying that even where people are 100% cool with them, they still feel awful about the mind/body mismatch, to the point of depression, self-harming etc. Gender dysphoria can still be a mental illness even if transsexualism per se isn't.
Though of course, not in any sane jurisdiction should that prevent you from driving.
Would you be happy with yourself if you had the wrong body parts? There is so much negativism about transsexualism from a minority of the population that it tends to drown out the fact that the majority are okay with it. After all, it's the same with the bullies back in school - sure, 99% of the kids don't beat you up, but that 1% makes a lot of kids not want to get up in the morning to go to school. They can actually become physically ill from the stress. Would you say that they had a mental illness?
Obviously the correct course with any medical problem is effective medical treatment. If you had, say, a cleft palette and couldn't get treatment, you'd be pretty depressed too, no? Maybe to the point of self-harm by trying to fix it yourself?
Now, I'm not disagreeing totally with what you're saying - the negative reactions of others don't help, and the removal of transsexualism as a mental disorder was a big step towards normalizing the situation. Is gender dysphoria a mental illness? I'm okay with that. After all, if it's classified as a mental illness, then that opens up the path to treatment. If we can't make the mind match the body, let's make the body match the mind. And once it's treated (one or more of hormones, surgery, therapy) then they're no longer dysphoric.
Of course, one big problem with saying that it's a mental illness is that a lot of people think "it's all in your head, yo should just pull yourself out of it." The same way that they treat people with major depressive disorder or ptsd or anxiety disorder. The other big problem is that transsexuals themselves delay seeking help because in many cases we've also bought into the myth that we can "pull ourselves out of it" because we're afraid of the negative reactions from family, friends, coworkers, etc. Can't be done, and you will lose some friends - but with friends like that, who needs enemies :-)
(me gets ready to be flamed by those in the community who refuse to accept gender dysphoria as a valid diagnosis / disorder)
Can't do that with the FBI — that's illegal, but with local cops — sure.
It varies by state, but you're still committing at least a misdemeanor. Washington State is one example.
It is not illegal to lie - except under oath.
Try that with the cops next time they question you and let us know how it works out. Oh, and don't forget your "soap on a rope."
Come on, they're claiming it was their petition to the FDA - "Fast track Drug and vaccine research for Ebola Hemorrhagic fever" - that did it?
I think what they're claiming is that the desired outcome was reached and the petition was pushing in that direction. The degree to which any one petition took a lead or decisive role might be unknown, however, any assertion that all those petitions were simply ineffective noise is ludicrous. Clearly, looking at the individual cases, there are some where the petition would have been a very significant form of pressure (to which electing one legislator does not favorably compare.)
Some of these petitions deliver nearly half a million signatures to the decision makers engaged with a specific problem. When the target is a corporation or some other entity that is actually concerned with public opinion, any thesis that the petition is inherently ineffective is about as dubious as anything gets. Particularly in light of the outcomes often going the way the petition was asking for, whereas prior to the petition, these same conditions were not extant (obviously that is why the petitions arise in the first place.)
They got 19,000 signatures. That's nothing. There was an international race to get control over Ebola. This petition had ZERO effect.
Slacktivism is for slackers - those who are too lazy to get their butts out of a chair.
Gratuitous, research-free, unjustified name-calling is for the ignorant, the disingenuous and the propagandist. I wonder which of those you represent.
Research-free? The term has been used repeatedly in news reports to deride the people who think that signing a petition or clicking on like will mean something - usually when comparing slacktivists to the people who are in the streets marching, protesting, resisting police, or actually doing something. Besides, how can you say it's research-free when I provided a link to slacktivism, or unjustified name-calling when it's a recognized phenomenon and wikipedia uses onchange.org petitions as an example of slacktivism?
Here are some more definitions of the term, which has been in general use for years, and is often defined as useless actions such as signing online petitions or buying a bracelet. Also implying that I'm either ignorant, disingenuous , or a propagandist is either ignorant, disingenuous, or the mark of a frustrated slacktivist. :-)
That's a pretty bizarre rationalisation. You don't care if your phone runs out of power potentially hours earlier because you charge it at night? Wow.
How many times have you heard people complain that their phone is dying (esp. when you're talking to them on the phone), and you find out that they don't make a habit of plugging it in when they have down time? "Well, I didn't use it much the last few days so I thought ..." Kind of like people who are astonished that the car won't go another 30 miles when the gas gauge is below the Empty mark.
It's issued the "below 15% warning a couple of times" after very heavy use, but never had it die from the battery being too low. And no, Lollipop won't save me an extra two hours of use - Kitkat 4.4.4 already comes with the ART runtime. Settings - Developer options - Select runtime.- and it asks if I want to use Dalvik or ART (Android RunTime, which does AOT - Ahead-Of-Time compilation).
"Cutting off their nose to spite their face?" I think a more appropriate phrase in this instance is RMS Syndrome.
Come on, they're claiming it was their petition to the FDA - "Fast track Drug and vaccine research for Ebola Hemorrhagic fever" - that did it? That's a joke. And Des Hague being given the boot for giving a dog the boot had much more to do with the millions and millions who saw the video on TV.
There's a name for these meaningless gestures - slacktivism
Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism or slackervism) is a portmanteau of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little physical or practical effect, other than to make the person doing it feel satisfied that they have contributed. Slacktivism can be defined as the act of showing support for a cause but only truly being beneficial to the egos of people participating in this so-called activism. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. The underlying assumption being promoted by the term is that these low cost efforts substitute for more substantive actions rather than supplementing them
anti-scam crusader Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes.com: "It's all fed by slacktivism ... the desire people have to do something good without getting out of their chair"
Micah White has argued that although slacktivism is typically the easiest route to participation in movements and changes, the novelty of online activism wears off as people begin to realize that their participation created virtually no effect, leading people to lose hope in all forms of activism. [19]
Malcolm Gladwell, in his October 2010 New Yorker article, lambasted those who compare social media "revolutions" with actual activism that challenges the status quo ante. He argued that today's social media campaigns can't compare with activism that takes place on the ground, using the Greensboro sit-ins as an example of what real, high-risk activism looks like.
Dunning ... cites Change.org as an example. The site is full of hundreds of thousands of petitions. A person signing one of these online petitions may feel good about himself, but these petitions are generally not binding nor lead to any major change. Dunning suggests that before donating, or even "liking", a cause one should research the issue and the organization to ensure nothing is misattributed, exaggerated, or wrong.
Slacktivism is for slackers - those who are too lazy to get their butts out of a chair.
So what? People who develop for the iPhone already knew this, went into it with open eyes, and if they're not happy, they can switch to something else. Personally, I don't have much use for the EFF because they take the position of zealots, and as we saw with the 12 dead yesterday, zealotry is for dummies. Open is going to have to continue to coexist with closed, and no amount of hand-wringing is going to change that.
For those who care about this, why are they worried about what's happening in someone else's walled garden? And for those who don't, well, they don't.
if they wont allow "breaking" of DRM, they need to allow devs more access to the device. its really that simple
The apps in their store didn't need "more access" to be developed. The clauses against reverse engineering are also the norm. Sometimes, if you want something, you (or someone else) has to pay for it.
One of the things the EFF wants changed is that the developer agreement prohibits breaking DRM. Now without DRM most app developers won't even be able to make the pittance they make now.