It was pretty huge, but it was part of a larger D&D golden era. Forgotten Realms was also surging at the time, despite having been around for longer.

Novels, computer games, Tanis, Raistlin, Drizzt, there was just a lot of excitement

For me at least, even though it was a niche hobby, it was the first time I felt that might actually change one day.

That sounds like my kind of world

For what it’s worth, I’m a late transitioning trans woman that speed ran my transition and has a semi antagonistic relationship with femininity.

Nearly 8 years in, I still wonder if I’d identify on the binary if I’d have been born a generation or two later than I was. I still don’t really understand my sexuality and romantic attractions.

All I can tell you though is that even without all of the answers, I’m more me than I’ve ever been :)

your either targeted by the system, or you benefit from it,

And either way, you think about the system in question, but your original post still says that the only people who think about race are racists, ignoring the reality that people targeted by racism have no choice but to think about race. Thinking about race because racist systems target you does not make you racist, and disempowers the targets of racism trying to address the issue. Downplaying that experience is a racist dogwhistle. I need you to edit/clarify that post to include some of the context you’ve provided in your later posts, to make it clear that it’s not a dog whistle, otherwise, I will have to remove the post

All I’m saying is that trans people would still exist in one form or another in a genderless society. The words might be different, and we might conceptualise ourselves and the context we exist in differently, but we would still be here.

To use your wording, I’d still have to have “picked a camp”, because the one I was placed in to by biology was a source of distress, and for many of us, that distress would still exist in some form even in a genderless society

Yes, I do tend to think of the trans label as a diagnostic category that if I’m in it, I should do certain things,

That’s because of generations of transphobic gatekeeping shoving that down our throats. They hide the people who don’t fit the acceptable narratives, and deny them care and invalidate them.

That is absolutely not what being trans is about.

Being trans is about taking the steps to live your life on your own terms. If you don’t know what your own terms are, then its giving yourself permission to explore and find out, because even that is living your life on your own terms.

It was only by realizing I was essentially living with a condition and not medicated that I was being irresponsible, and that was being a burden on others because I was living this way.

The reality of living with dysphoria is real, but it’s important that you don’t equate dysphoria and trans identity. One can be trans without dysphoria, and whilst there is a relationship between the two, they are distinct, and one doesn’t automatically flow from the other.

You don’t need to know all the answers. You don’t need a diagnosis. You don’t need a permanent and forever label that you are 100% certain of, because honestly, none of those things will give you what you want. If you’re chasing them, it’s because you are trying to validate who you are to yourself and to others. And that self doubt is a real thing, that so many of us struggle with. But we don’t solve it by finding labels and saying “See, I’ve got proof”, because the self doubt doesn’t care about that, and will still sneak through the cracks.

We disempower self doubt by living our lives on our own terms, and over time, the truth of our lived experience starts to undo the lifetime of self doubt we’ve been taught. Of course, it’s much harder than a single sentence makes it sound, but just be careful not to fall in to the trap of chasing labels and identity as the answer to the doubts you have, because they’re not. The labels help you understand more about yourself and the people around you, but they’re tools, not answers

Removing gender from society would resolve much of my dysphoria, but not all of it.

I’d still have struggled with the body I was born with, and I’d still have needed to deal with that reality, even in a genderless society.

To put it another way, I think there would be no dissonance between people wearing frilly dresses and practicing Jiu-Jitsu

This is a huge misunderstanding of trans identity.

Trans people aren’t trans because “dresses” or the like. If we’re able to come out trans and deal with the reality and harassment that brings, then we could also simply have dressed in a way that society doesn’t like, or broke other gender norms, without coming out as trans if that’s all it took, because those things are nearly always easier than coming out as trans.

unfortunately that institutionally racist system is society, and most people don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions, and non participation in society isn’t the answer.

This directly contradicts your first reply, in which you say the only people who care about race are racists. If are part of an institutionally racist system that targets them (which they are), then they are going to think about race, because it impacts every aspect of their life, and saying that it’s only racists that think about it completely erases that reality.

Like saying the only people who think about gender are transphobes and sexists. It’s just blatantly incorrect, and erases the lived experience of many people who are actively targeted by institutional bias against them

The ideal world you’re talking about in your first reply is made actively harder to achieve by denying the reality in which we’re currently living, and it comes across as a racist dogwhistle. The only reason I haven’t removed it is because your later posts make it clear that it isn’t intended that way, but I am going to need you to edit your first post so it doesn’t come across as erasing the experiences of people targeted by racism

I don’t use Google either

You absolutely do not. Implicit and unconscious racial bias is a huge part of the issue

My experience of gender is not purely internal

Aside from the transphobia and crypto shilling, I’m sure they’re great

It’s both. They’re the same trains in Sydney. It’s mostly an overground network with several underground parts in the city centre

There are double decker subway trains in Sydney, Australia

No one, including the trans fem users of this instance or of 196 are reporting the issues you’re describing, and I haven’t encountered them myself (though I rarely use 196). So yes, if it’s happening, I do need help identifying the cis folk objectifying trans folk.

I can’t solve a problem I can’t see.

If the issue isn’t explicitly the cis folk responding, but more the trans folk themselves choosing to put themselves out there, then that’s not really something that can be addressed. I’m not going to decide for them what’s appropriate for them to do with their own bodies and lives.

I also remember the admins here “forgave” an admin named snow or something (from programming.dev, I think?) for his transphobic responses to a hexbear user

That’s a really interesting spin on the issue. The admin in question posted transphobic comments regarding a hexbear user, and called blahaj.zone the “good” kind of trans folk.

As a response to that, we made a public announcement that we were defederating from programming.dev unless the matter was addressed, and ultimately, it was addressed, so we didn’t defderate.

Which is to say, an admin on an instance that wasn’t ours, directed transphobia against another instance that wasn’t ours, without really involving us, and we made plans to defederate as a result.

It amazes me, that somehow, blahaj.zone is in the wrong for “forgiving” programming.dev when hexbear not only “forgave” the admin in question, but never planned on taking action regarding the issue in the first place. hexbear did the same and programming.dev is currently listed on their white list of federated instances

I ban transphobes when I see them, even if the post has been up for a while before I see it. As you say, there is zero point in just deleting a post after it’s been up for days, because the damage has been done. The post gets removed, and the person gets banned.

That being said, the source of the the transphobia the federates to us is external instances, so it’s not a problem with “this site”. It’s a problem with other instances, ran by cis folk, who don’t see or understand dog whistles and the harm of “just asking questions” type transphobia. And for posts like that, a DM to me is useful, because it can get the account generating the content removed.

Nope.

Not real.

Similar to me! OM-1 MkII here, and unless I’m going out specifically to go birding, I’ll just leave the 12-100 on it.

I use an Olympus OM-1 Mark Ii, mostly for bird photos. It’s easily the best birding camera I’ve owned