Paranoia

[foxgrrl]

The morning after I made this post: http://foxgrrl.livejournal.com/50642.html I walked into work — that afternoon actually — and was making random chit-chat with a coworker — flint_otter actually — and he said that he was reading this article on C|Net about how there was some new super-exploit already for the recent Windows vulnerability, and I'm like: Yeah, the MS06-070 one, I just wrote an exploit for it last night. And he's like, No it's something really new as of Tuesday. And I'm like, Yeah, that was MS06-070, unless one of the other ones was horribly exploitable. And he's like, Well, someone just wrote an exploit for it, and it's on the front page of C|Net. And I'm like, Um, I just wrote an exploit for it… And made a mention of it in my blog… Having been around C|Net reporters before, I know that they print a lot of hearsay and rumors from questionable sources. [And as I write this, Nyah keeps trying to tickle me → Just you wait until I write about this in my LJ! I exclaim. It's making it a bit hard to concentrate…]

So, I looked the article up…

http://news.com.com/Experts+raise+Windows+security+alarm/2100-1002_3-6136310.html

Paranoia mounting… Right now, I really don't need nameless cyclopean institutions investigating me… again. Especially, if there's suddenly a huge MS06-070 exploiting-worm outbreak. You know, it looks kinda suspicious, since I told a bunch of people that I write 0-day exploits and internet worms for a living; I might be viewed as a suspect. But I quickly figured out that they were referring to this: http://www.milw0rm.com/exploits/2789 (I still haven't published my MSF3 module anywhere.)

There was a period of time when I wasn't oppressively paranoid all the time, when I wasn't incredibly uptight and stressed out… when I wasn't pretending to be normal. It was right after I transitioned (the first time). In a way, I was really going from one box to another by going stealth - But there was a time in between, when I was outside of the rigid boxes.

Oh yeah, for those of you who didn't know, I'm a MtFtMtWtF transsexual.

What with her being a genderqueer hacker and everything…
or her being a genderqueer lesbian hacker…
or her being a genderqueer lesbian furry hacker…
or her being a genderqueer lesbian pagan furry hacker…
or her being a genderqueer lesbian otherkin pagan furry hacker…
or her being a left-handed genderqueer lesbian otherkin pagan furry hacker…

…life can be pretty difficult on that young lady.

Comments

[obliviousally.livejournal.com]

It's obviously the left-handedness that's going to bite you in the ass. ^_-

[helger.livejournal.com]

Well, being a leftie is an honour, so at least in this part I only can congratulate.

I wonder if furries are a subcommunity of otherkins or is it a bit more complicated?

The same question about genderqueers and lesbians, actually...

[obliviousally.livejournal.com]

I kid, I kid. My mate's a leftie. :3

I know most otherkin/therians tend to keep away from the furries. Furry's more of a childish subculture compared to the spirituality community of the otherkin/therians. At least, that's how it's always seemed to me.

[helger.livejournal.com]

Well, that was a metaphysical question about the essence and not that much about the subcultures...

The scariest subculture may be this (search for other Russell Brand stuff to really appreciate it)

[dymaxion.livejournal.com]

Neither Genderqueer nor lesbian is a subcommunity of their other; they are two distinct sets with a non-null union. There are maleish genderqueer people, and lesbians with a wide-variety of gender identities. Furthermore, being lesbian has more to do with sex than identity, although there's obviously a bit of both; drawing exact borders around it isn't a game I'd want to play. One might offer a definition of it as "people who engage in lesbian acts, or choose to identify as such"; defining lesbian acts is easier in some ways, although depending on the definition, that can be a very important or, especially in the case of stone people.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

So, once upon a time, I was at work, chatting with ilcylic (who you met the other night), when I happened across some bit of news that had me worried. I don't even remember what it was anymore; it had something to do with the government, and I wanted to speak out against it, write and spread the word and draw attention. But I was worried about the attention it might attract and the problems that might draw down on my head.

I don't recall what, exactly, the issue was, but I remember that I asked ilcylic, "What does it mean that I'm worried about the consequences of speaking out about this?"

He said, "That you're afraid, the way they want you to be."

That's that part I'm not going to forget.

Living as oneself is hard. There are always going to be people who don't want you to be genderqueer, lesbian, furry, pagan, otherkin, or a hacker. Or left-handed. (Did you know that lefties used to be forced to learn how to write right-handed? It happened to my grandpa.) And, well, they have every right to want for you not to be these things -- but they have no right whatsoever to force you to be anything, or anyone, other than who and what you are.

(Which, FWIW, maps onto "a pretty cool person" in my own personal hashtable. So, you're not normal, whatever; we can still communicate and that strikes me as the important bit. I see it all as kind of like socket programming -- as long as we're both transmitting data in network order, we can both understand each other, regardless of what our underlying endianness is. Except, well, a lot more computationally complex.)

[ivy]

You win some sort of geek award for referencing socket programming as geekfolks communication. [grin] But the simile stands.

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

Two questions... what's the W? And does "otherkin" mean what I think it does?

I commend you for being yourself. It can be difficult a lot of the time (in fact, no matter WHO you are, it's difficult -- I'm proof of that. It took me YEARS to figure out "oh hey, wait a minute, I'm straight!" and I had to take all sorts of shit for actually... *gasp!* liking boys.) but that just proves that you're a strong person, and I respect that.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

It took me YEARS to figure out "oh hey, wait a minute, I'm straight!"

I look forward to the day when this is a much more commonplace occurrence, though minus the taking-shit-for-it part. I'm pretty much of the opinion that cultural presumptions need to be taken out back and shot.

I am curious about the story behind it, though; would you mind sharing?

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

I grew up in Amherst, MA, right smack in the middle of the Pioneer Valley, which I tend to call "Hippie Country". Here, the "norm" is gay pot-smoking neo-pagans. ("I can smell the spirits of the chickens!"-type stuff. And yes, I knew someone who said that. She claimed the warehouse used to hold chickens.) I like girls, and can appreciate their beauty, but due to both religious ideas (man and woman being two halves; yin/yang theory) and personal preference, I eventually came to the conclusion that, no, I really am straight. And then had to take all sorts of shit from kids in my high school because of it. Because being gay is the "cool" thing to do, and obviously I was "intolerant" because I prefer bananas to tacos. (I am not intolerant -- ask any of my transgendered/transsexual friends, or any of my ex-girlfriends -- but in high school, kids don't care about the truth.)

[dymaxion.livejournal.com]

the W stands for "what", as in "What the Fuck". It's an identity that I sort of like, although hopefully my route there can avoid the tM in the middle and be a little less hard in general.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

No kidding. My GF got "talked to" on the Dykes on Bikes email list because she made some vague references to me wrenching for her and being glad I was around... She was a pretty hardcore enviro-dyke for her whole life, and she maintains that she is STILL a dyke, and I'm the only male in the universe she would want... But we ARE living together, as a couple. She's still otherkin, she's still basically a dyke, and she took it VERY hard when the group that had formerly welcomed her with open arms had begun back-channel complaints about the "womyn-only space" being "violated" and losing its "safety", all because she was hinting at something important in her life without dragging anyone through it. There were people who were complaining based on WHAT SHE SAID IN HER LJ, which she has rarely even mentioned, and it was all behind her back... It's ruined her faith in the community, and she doens't know who to trust any more. All because she suddenly wasn't "dyke" enough for their personal standards.

What ever happened to tolerance? It seems like the whole concept has gone out the window. We're on the verge of a civil war here in America... Never have the two political parties felt so disenfranchised by the other (right or wrong), and never have things been as polarized as they have become. WTF is not just a funny addition to a gender label (and shit, look at me... I'm a Dom, somewhat furry, incest-survivng, masculine-leaning gender-queer, somewhat bisexual who has also submitted in a serious relationship (although I doubt that anyone else in the world could get me to sub for them) who's carved his entire career out with hard work and without education, who has a crippling case of fibromyalgia as the cherry on top. I've never fit anywhere, and I don't think I fit now, with any group, really. But I've had people and groups turn on me before... And it's one of the reasons I don't do groups, and often don't get too close to others these days. But do we really all want to live on a planet where even the "marginalized" personality and sexual indentifiers groups are at each other's throats as well? That just hurts to think about... This is when we should be UNITING, not killing each other so the social right-wingers don't have to...

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

You have worded that so brilliantly. If you don't mind, I'd like to yank the last paragraph and post that up on my journal, so all my friends can read it.

It's ironic, isn't it? They complain that the social right-wingers don't tolerate them, and bitch and moan about it, and then turn around and kick anyone in the ass who doesn't fit their nice little profiles. Why do something like that, when it was supposedly what you were fighting in the first place? Same goes for reverse racism -- You didn't like the whites beating up on you, so why the hell are you beating up on the whites?! (And why do the Latinos take such advantage of it?) I could come up with a dozen examples...

EVERYONE should be uniting. I mean, I'm not advocating a return to the days of "free love" or anything, but this is the smallest the world's ever been. My father uses AIM to keep in touch with his students. If you can dream it, you can bet someone else already has and has put it on the web. Shouldn't this all bring us closer, not give us more ways to spy on people?

Oh yeah, and could you explain "somewhat" furry to me?

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Aw, shucks. You made me blush. :"> Sure, gank away. For some value of "my living", I make my living putting words together; I'm glad that people tend to think I'd pretty good at it, even if I don't see what the big deal is. :D

Somehow, it's nothing new... Like underground bands are cool, and then get trendy, then get commercial, then are old sellouts. Politicians are elected on a platform of change, end up having to compromise, get tangled in scandal, get shat on by other politicos, and end up being "the enemy" that we need to overthrow with... You got it. New politicians.

And when a group is oppressed, and they band together and fight for their right to exist, they eventually make gains and strides... And they become more mainstream... And ultimately, they end up being "the new mainstream" and start scorning those who have different views on their "battle cry" topics than they do. And thus they become "the establishment" that's persecuting those who don't neatly fit. You'd just think that it would take longer than a dew decades for the transformation and ultimate hypocrisy.

I've been "queer" for a very long time in a number of contexts, and have considered myself a part of the LGB/T community for that same long time. I remember the "early days" of fighting for the same rights and responsibilities for domestic partners as for legal spouses, and heard the incessant chants demanding equality. It was about being able to get health benefits, being able to make decisions about medical care for a life partner, about not being minimalized and delied things that everyone should have a right to. It wasn't about what you called it, it was about power and control and moving away from having your hands tied.

And finally in most places in America, the goal is achieved. Domestic partnerships can be registered in most states, and they are accorded all the same legal rights as one gets from marrying. And what happened around the time that that had gone mainstream in America? Yep, activists suddenly started screaming about how getting the rights and responsibilities was not enough; it had to be CALLED "marriage" as well, or it was worthless. And after being given what was demanded for years and years, and having the concessions from those outside the LGBT thrown back in their faces created a huge backlash, and hurt terribly the rights of those domestic partners, the rights we worked so long and hard to get. All because some mouthy fuckwits decided that having the cake wasn't enough, and that they should scream bloody murder to eat it, too. And they fucked it up for the rest of us -- and what's worse, they created/re-awakened animosity from outside the LGBT community, and I may well end up paying for that bullshit, anything from a black eye to busted car windows right on up to lynching.

I don't "get" people. What possesses someone to pull a shitheaded stunt like that? I just can't begin to imagine, you know?

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

As to people connecting... Era is writing a paper at this moment on spirituality and its connection with nature, in particular forests. And I dug up data for her that shows a very close correlation between people losing their spirituality and losing their awe and caring about the planet they live on, the people they live with, their own lives and bodies, and so forth. And I think that's a solid chunk of it... Without spirituality, you have no picture of the cosmos, no concept of the boundaries of the universe. You have no idea where or how you fit in, and you feel like you're in free-fall in a totally unpredictable world. And it'll kill you eventually, this lack, because you'll end up isolated from everything and everyone, terrified, and living in a constant state of terror and worry. I think that's playing out in the area of people feeling connected to each other; no one knows their neighbors, much less is involved in their lives at all. People walk down crowded streets in cities without ever acknowledging another human being. People don't share their traumas, as they're afraid of being attacked or victimized, and we all walk around feeling totally isolated and frightened to reach out, because who are you reaching out to, and are they maybe falling faster than you? How can you know in advance?

And to "somewhat" furry... *laughs* I guess some would call me more therian. I've always felt connected with a "spirit totem" animal in the Native American sense -- the coyote, in case that wasn't already obvious. ;) I've made friends in the furry community, and I'm intrigued enough to be seriously considering making myself a serious fur suit. However, unlike q good number of people I have seen in the community, I have some social skills, I do not have any serious personality defects that I hide from and blame others for, and I don't need an "animal persona" to hide behind because I'm terrified of interacting with other humans and don't really know how to do it unless I'm wearing a fur suit. Granted this is not nearly a description of everyone! But there are more like that than not in my experience. Wearing a fur suit does not turn me on sexually, nor does the idea of having sex with someone else wearing a fur suit (not that it was a turn-OFF, per se, but it wouldn't make any difference to me either way). For me, coyote is a spiritual thing; while I may commune with the spirit of coyote, I don't believe I transform into a coyote, nor do I feel I have a coyote "persona" that I express when wearing a fur suit.

That was rather long-winded, but hoefully it gets my point across. I think many furries would say I wasn't a furry, and a lot of them would probably call me a therian; I think most serious therians would sneer at the idea that I was a therian. So what am I? Not Native American, but beyond that, it's difficult to label. Heh, that's sort of the paradigm under which my life operates, a Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem of a psyche. I am a true expression that cannot be proven within the system... Perhaps within any system except my own.

Whew, I feel like I just navel-gazed into solipsistic self-aggrandizement there! :D At the end of the day, I may not be a very typical person at all, in most ways... But I'm not a prophet or a messiah, I'm not a martyr or a leader. I'm just a guy trying to make sense out of his life and his experiences on the planet, and who is pursuing a purpose and a passion (if you have no dreams to chase, why waste time being in pain and worry from living on in this life?), who's human and makes mistakes and has hurts and also joys. Just another shambling hominid going about his business... And wishing that perhaps the strange circles of his Venn diagram overlapped with more people out there. Friends are in really short supply of late, and that's been extra-hard.

Pff, enough rambling about me and my philosophy. I should either go to sleep for a while or work on that article that's due next week. The only problem with working for magazines is that they actually expect you to submit a completed story with photos BY A CERTAIN DATE. That interferes with my creative process, man! ;)

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

It does get your point across, thank you, but here's my next question: What's a therian?

And in my experience, no one can ever be labelled accurately. In one of my "I want to be normal!" phases back in high school, a very intelligent friend of mine pointed out that there was no such thing as normal, because "normal" is nothing more than the concept of an average. No one is ever average.

What article are you writing? And for what magazine? *is interested*

And back to the people connecting for a minute... as an overall trend that may be, but in my experience people do connect, when it comes down to it. I helped a friend of mine move out of his NYC apartment, and while we're wrestling the couch down the narrow little stairway, a girl comes down crying... Her bunny had broken his foot. We calmed her down, and got her to the corner where the vet was. I walked down after we moved the couch to make sure she got into the vet alright, and things were being taken care of. My friend told me if I hadn't volunteered to go, he would've gone down himself.

So it may be HARDER to connect to people nowadays, but it does happen. I think the real issue is where to go from there? You can smile at someone on the street, or talk to someone in a club, but all the rules of etiquette (how to talk to someone, what to say, hell, even what to wear to a funeral!) are all changing significantly. No one knows the rules for how to interact, so they keep it to a superficial "hi, have a nice day" level.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I sometimes forget not everyone connected with these circles knows these terms; then again, I didn't know them much myself until about 8 months ago. :D The answer you seek lies here.

While I know that no one fits into neatly-defined categories, most people can get close enough to have stable friendships with a sense of significant common bond, and few misunderstandings when it comes to the whatever subject is the foundation of the relationship. OTOH, I generally feel fairly alienated from any given group; I seem to do most everything differently than others. I got a little consensus on motorcycles, but most of those friendships are fairly shallow and can't be counted on. Males socializing for the sake of socializing, they'll eat their young if they have half a chance. Forget about a wounded "comrade"; they just became lunch. On all other fronts, I'm perpetually the rare zebra; when I find other zebras, my stripes are so far out of whack from theirs that they just stare and figure I can't possibly be a zebra "like them". I dunno. I catch a trememndous amount of flak for who I am, how I think, what I feel... And it's basically always been that way. I can't really imagine that changing any time RSN.

I am currenly writing an article on the technology of waterproof clothing (in this specific case, for motorcycles, but the science works the same on hiking or rock climbing or ski gear). This is for CityBike, which is a free newsprint-based monthly motorcycling magazine available in the SF Bay area. It's amazing how poorly some of the "industry standard" things like Gore-Tex actually work, and how horribly polluting their manufacture is; I think my article is going to get a lot of critical attention (and will probably cause some outrage at some point), but I'd rather print difficult truths than sell out my ethics.

I guess maybe I somehow find myself getting the ones who expect soemthing unnnamed in return for their kindnesses, and then punish me when they don't get it. That, and I get blown off a lot. I've learned that when it comes to government and businesses, they probably don't give two shits about me anyway, so I make myself a gadfly to get what they are supposed to be giving (like warranty replacement, or food stamps, or whatever). People who get really connected never seem to stay very connected to me for very long. I wish I knew why.

I think fewer people are connecting, and that's especially easy to see when you look at a suburban community today vs. in the late 50s, as an example. Everyone knew their neighbors, doors got left unlocked, people all looked out for each other and helped each other much, much more than today. I think most people in America probably can't tell me the names of their neighbors today, have little sense of community except when it comes to things they think they're entitled to... That sort of thing. People no longer have that meshwork around them for context and a safety net like they did once upon a time. That's what Burning Man is... Sort of a once a year "neighborhood" for the like-minded to live in together. Things form to fill the vacuum...

My problem is I never know what anyone ELSE'S rules are for interacting. Which means I go by my observations and my own whims. And it's not uncommon to end up with some frowning people on the other end, for whatever reason...

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

Behind me -- They just moved in last year, and have two little kids, and a small white terrier. On my left -- the oldest daughter graduated from Harvard a while ago on a lacrosse scholarship. The mom's father passed away a couple weeks ago. Turn right out of my driveway, and my friend Simone lives on the far corner of the stop sign. (She's one of the little girls I watch out for) Take a left at the stop sign, and the older of the two neighboorhood drug dealers lives down that street. Take a right instead, and Lauren, her mom Leah, and her dad live down there, along with another UMass professor my father knows. Turn left out of my driveway, and down the next street is my brother's best friend, one of my old stalkers, and my elementary school art teacher.

When my Gatito got out of the house the other day, Pam called to let us know she saw him stalking around her backyard, and wanted to make sure he got home safe.

My point is that, at least in this part of the country, people DO know their neighboors. That's still not enough. There's gotta be something else we're missing.

... I think I forgot where I was going with this... sorry.

And yeah, I know what you mean about the rules for interactions. Whatever happened to standard etiquette? I know a lot of it's changed, but still, that shouldn't stop some kind of standard from evolving. Most people can't tell the difference between a salad fork and a desert fork, for example... but that's not usually important anymore. I keep hoping that we're just in the middle of major change... and my hope is that I live long enough to see it stabilized again. Even if it ends up being based off of things like "should I call or IM my crush?"

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

That's pretty amazing. I get the feeling that your neighborhood is maybe the exception rather than the rule any more. I've never lived in an environment like that, and I've lived all over the country, rural and urban... New York (capital city, NYC, and rural farmland), Vermont, New Hampshire, central Iowa, Atlanta area, San Diego, all over the SF Bay (mostly east bay), Olympia WA with a lot of time spent in Seattle, and now up north along the coast with the rednecks and hippies.

I try to be polite, say please and thank you, wait for others to finish speaking and apologize if I accidentally cut someone off... I get out of the fast lane to let faster cars by, and I move over to let merging traffic in on the freeway (both of those are actually required by law in California, but are never enforced). I write thank-you letters. To me, it's just a Golden Rule kind of thing, you know? As my mother (gag) always said, "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar"...

As to friendship and boundaries, communication with friends and lovers, unspoken truths, etc., I've never had a stable set of rules provided to me. Usually the rules change in what seems a random fashion from my POV, and I can never keep up, especially without communucation. And I seem to get involved with a lot of people who can communicate just fine when they are reading words on a screen and there's an intarweb between us, and then go hopelessly silent IRL. You can imagine what happens after that... *shudder*

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

Hehe, yes, I can imagine what happens after that, quite well, because I am one of those people! lol.

I live in New England, and yet, when I see "capital city of New York" I still think NYC. >.< Whoops. Actually, I was in Albany a month or so ago... when it got compared to a skyline straight out of Star Wars. Between that, and the fact that people will give you directions to go through a parking garage, Albany just confuses me.

I've been in parts of NYC where people WERE friendly and knew their neighboors. Hell, I knew some of the people around there, and I just went down for weekends and tended to stay in the apartment. Where in NYC did you live?

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

True, there are tight-knit neighborhoods still in NYC, but they are disappearing fast. There's a lot of discussion about that in NYT articles over the past 10 years or so.

Yes, Albany's state office buildings downtown are very Star Wars-ish. :) I had sex once on the groomed lawn area next to the freeway stub/parking garage, where the parking garage fan fens are. ;) I love the thrill of almost getting caught. XD

And at least you KNOW you're like that, which means you're able to work on improving it, and apologizing when it screws things up to whatever degree; most of mine never were aware, never apologized, and ultimately either ran away out of fear of facing that in themselves, or convinced themselves it weren't their fault...

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

Do you know anyone who actually transforms? Or could Therian refer to astral states as well? (I know plenty of werewolves around here, but as far as I know none of them physically transform, beyond little tell-tales like "fairy eyes" and always smelling like the forest.)

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Therians, as I understand it, range from those who feel they have an animal spirit in them that makes them part animal, but don't transform, to those who lucid dream/have sleep paralysis where they control their dreams and take animal form, to those who actually believe they transform physically, or at least that's what they tell other people. The therians I have known tend to be extremely skeptical of claims of transformation, both of the claims and the sanity of the claimer. ;) If someone was going to pigeonhole me, I'd probably come down on the therian side of things, on the moderate end (Native American-style animal totem/spirit guide). I consider therian to be a subset of otherkin, although I think there are a lot of therians who feel they are substantially different from most other-otherkin.

It's like trying to describe my sexual orientation and gender identity... It would take days, and you'd probably be more confused after than before. :p

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

The lucid dreaming... do you mean dreamwalkers, or something else? (One of my good friends is a dreamwalker -- the first time he showed up in my bedroom while I was awake he scared the living daylights out of me.)

Another question... does otherkin refer to physical attributes, (fairy eyes, natural fangs, physical signs of vampirism, mood-dependant eye color, etc) or just astral stuff? (Sorry to ask so many questions, but you're just being so helpful! And honestly, until a few months ago, I didn't know all this was so well-known -- I thought my little community of various cats, wolves, coyotes, and vampire sub-types was unusual!)

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Similar to dreamwalkers. The ones I know control their dreams as if they are conscious, and can do things and go places in the "real" world via their dreams, but it's generally a personal thing, not a "visit other people while they are sleeping" kinda thing. I dealt with a VERY curious form of that with one of my exes, in fact.

Otherkin generally have it all "internal", but if you believe in psychic energy, it is said they can "read" less as humans and more as other things. Some otherkin decorate themselves with various things (fairy wings, cat-eye contact lenses, what have you), but that's more an outward expression, I think, than a necessity or part of their identity they couldn't live without.

And those who are reading this (if anyone), jump in any time if you have a different viewpoint. My experience here is very limited, and I may not be accurately portraying the greater community as a whole.

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

... I don't think I'd think very highly of anyone who used colored contacts to identify as "other". Especially as I'll use eye color to confirm suspicions I have. (It's unusually accurate, compared to, say... asking... lol)

I doubt anyone else is still following this. Most people on LJ tend to check their friends page and then move on. (At least, that's what I've noticed)

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Well, that would separate the play actors from those who believe they are other... The play actors have nothing beyond the costume, while the "believers" might enhance their appearance to reinforce their feelings/belief or to be more readily identifiable to others. But hey, I'm not one to pass judgment on folks for how they do what they do... Only if they try to make others believe they're something that they're not.

Now you have me wanting to give you a photo of my eyes to be "analyzed". ;)

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

Heh, if you want to, feel free! My e-mail is on my profile. ;-)

[hasufin.livejournal.com]

While, yes, it can be frustratring - I think self-preservation is a good trait for you to have.

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're having a hard time. What can I do to help?

[veleda.livejournal.com]

hmm.

I mean I doubt that is the case.. but.. a little paranoia is wise..cause it could be the case.

[pazort.livejournal.com]

There's no such thing as paranoia, only caution.

- A Cypherpunk

Negative, I am a meat popsicle.

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think great strides could be made if we all started writing in 'gelatinous' on the gender/race questions.

No, I don't know what they'd be strides towards. I just say words; it's not my responsibility to make them make sense.

[sezjasaneh.livejournal.com]

LMAO. I loved that left-handed was the final, ultimate show of how weird you are. *laugh* and yeah,it is messed up - my mom was left-handed and until her early 20's was forced to write right-handed, so now she's ambidextrious. Guess it had it's pluses.

Personally, I think the whole debate is silly. Each human is different from the other - we all share some common traits, some share more common traits than other, but in the end we are all just variants of what God created. It's all about spectrum (and even that doesn't go from one end to the other, might intersect, etc). All you need as proof is to see how many different groups - that are CONTINUALLY ADDED - to try and classify people into set things are needed to keep this going. The world is fluid, we should be too.

[tlttlotd.livejournal.com]

Right now, I really don't need nameless cyclopean institutions investigating me… again.

You get used to it. Usually a credit check or two appears in your history, and then people you know start contacting you quietly asking what you did. I've been putting up with it for about three months now.

If it helps, they haven't started asking about you yet.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

I seem to accumulate random credit checks about once every two months . . .

[stillvisions.livejournal.com]

Half genderqueer...
Half hacker...
Half lesbian...
Half furry...
half otherkin...
half left-handed...

All cop! wait, that's like three of you. And you're not a cop... never mind...

Best of luck with random foo though, if it comes.