Actually playing games during dire emotional states throws fuel unto my dissociation/depersonalization/derealization problems; but just mindfully sitting in my favorite place in the Temple of the Moon on a private vanilla WoW server works great for me. The sounds, music, colors, lighting effects, and water create a very zen space that helps me observe my thoughts and feelings without getting so tangled up in them. That kind of presence helps me better understand what is really going on and how it all happened.

If things are merely bad then maybe I’ll play some original Sims 1 or Rimworld on the coziest of settings. So long as there’s no nest of trash around then it’s probably okay. Eufloria in relaxed mode is a lovely RTS game that hasn’t ever caused me any problems.

Hopefully you find your way through this soon!

Illinois will issue trans refugees a new birth certificate! This is a recent development and the other sanctuary states will hopefully be pressured to step up and do likewise. So call your state politicians :) Make it happen!

https://www.courthousenews.com/new-illinois-law-to-assist-transgender-residents-with-updating-their-birth-certificates/

Wikipedia states that NGO Monitor’s focus is to “End promotion of ‘politically and ideologically motivated anti-Israel agendas’ by certain NGOs,” that they report “on international NGO activity from a pro-Israel perspective,” and that a former online communication editor employed with the group was indefinitely banned for biased editing. Personally I’m more inclined to trust a Wikipedia article with 75 sources unless there is substantial evidence to the contrary.

I’m a hyper-logical type, does engineering things for fun

That’s totally cool! Many so far have presented philosophical answers based more in application of reason than empirical inquiry when you might perhaps prefer an answer based in biological science.

I suppose my followup to that would be what gives someone a specific sense of gender?

As a binary trans woman my very being in and for myself imparts upon me a capacity for directly revealed self-knowledge regarding my gender, which is to say how I wish to be as a presence and present myself to others within the world.

To say ‘I am a woman’ is taking societies interpretation of woman as being right.

Perish the thought! In general however I might reveal my gender it is as an invitation to others for them to interact with me and understand me as a woman. Try to think of this as less a matter of being right or wrong and more one of how you and another might best both enjoy your interactions together.

What differentiates that from ‘I am a man who likes womanly things’?

Gender does! It is literally that simple.

What separates the ‘tomboy’ woman from a trans-masc?

They would through their understanding of their own genders which grants truth or grants falsehood to statements regarding their gender.

Binary trans woman.

Yes indeed! You might wish to look into the idea of double consciousness, the dual self-perception experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society. Its a sense of attempting to perceive yourself as both who you know yourself to be and as an oppressive other will perceive you. If you want to smash that noise then you need to learn to stop being ashamed of yourself!

Also, you definitely should be taking the self-defense class appropriate to your gender as violence is very often gendered. There’s a podcast episode of The Gender Rebels about one trans women’s experience taking Krav Maga you might want to give a listen.

Good luck and take care :)

Yeah the boot process is a mess! Debian’s noisy GRUB and unsightly boot text is an obvious and unnecessary paint point for a desktop user but very desirable for server installations. You do have some options though!

Carlo Contavalli apparently has a relatively simple work-around discussed at https://rabexc.org/posts/grub-shush. What I’ve done in the past is rebuilding Ubuntu’s source deb package for GRUB against my Debian system. You can grab it at https://packages.ubuntu.com/source/lunar/grub2. Build instructions can be found here https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/117503/how-to-compile-a-debian-package-from-source.

The great thing about Debian, Linux, and FLOSS is that you can even automate downloading Debian’s source package when it gets updated, applying the silent patch, applying Ubuntu’s compilation options, compiling the deb, and installing the deb! But yeah why can some package maintainer not provide such as an option in the repository! It’s really an annoyance for many and almost makes me feel like I’m not the type of user the Debian community desires. Like, “Wait… what? You like pretty stuff? GTFO!” Maybe its even true? Hopefully you will enjoy using Debian! Its most preferable to Ubuntu in many ways these days!

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Thank you! According to Wikipedia only 5 countries prohibit mutilation of intersex children. The other 190 countries do not. This affects as many people as have red hair. Being intersex is a normal and natural variation, not a disorder or mutation.

There are a number of nice skeuomorphic tagged themes on pling and other icons and such also are available there. The best option might be to just abandon the trendy GTK scene and embrace good old TDE! TDE has KDE3’s Plastik theme which looks great to me! (And there is a new port available for current KDE if anyone is interested.) But the early pre-gummy version of ClearLooks would be my favorite if it existed. Raleigh is pretty nice with those classic zebra stripes! Please do let us all know what you find because there are many of us not so happy with the corporate minimalist aesthetic.

While I didn’t read the politico article, the California Attorney General’s press release regarding this lawsuit is informative.

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-lawsuit-challenging-chino-valley-unified-school

“The lawsuit also asserts this the Board’s plain motivations in adopting the policy were to create and harbor animosity, discrimination, and prejudice towards transgender and gender-nonconforming students, without any compelling reason to do so, as evidenced by statements made during the Board’s hearing. In discussing the policy before its passage, board members made a number of statements describing students who are transgender or gender-nonconforming as suffering from a “mental illness” or “perversion”, or as being a threat to the integrity of the nation and the family. The Board President went so far as to state that transgender and gender nonbinary individuals needed “non-affirming” parental actions so that they could “get better.””

Its wonderful to hear some good news these days! Thanks!

Extreme Tux Racer is a nice ski racing game but tux the penguin has some aerial maneuverability for long jumps.

Psyche!

If On A Winter’s Night, Four Travelers was a beautiful masterpiece which I just finished. If you enjoy pixel art and pensive point and click narratives then you should check it out!

NEET Girl Date Night will be the next game I play.

Yay!

Wesnoth is a GPL turn-based strategy game from 2005 which has been installed on every computer I’ve owned since its debut. The pixel art, sound effects, music, and gameplay depth are wonderful yet it’s very easy to learn! There are hundreds of campaigns available for solo play and it has both local and online multiplayer. Team based multiplayer with friends against AI’s is a lot of fun and no one gets their feelings hurt if they lose!

Right now I’m playing the white chamber which is a freeware indie horror point and click adventure game from 2005 with a female protagonist. So far it’s doing really well at creating a creepy, suspenseful mystery in a foreboding environment. I haven’t finished it yet but it’s been fun!

As others have mentioned, Neverwinter Nights from 2002 is still unchallenged for community created storytelling and worldbuilding! If you haven’t played it then take a look at what’s available on The Neverwinter Vault and some of the online realms. A Dance with Rogues is my favorite module and would on its own be one of my favorite games!

Thank you to everyone else who’s shared some of their favorites!

That sums it right up I think but supposedly its for the worlds creditors who all read your local newspaper to watch for us changing our names just to get away from debts.

Yep! It’s been five years so far of hrt for me and I still haven’t legally changed my name. Most likely that’s due to having felt like names were all fake for so much of my life. Yet why was I so jealous of my friend who just picked her own new name in grade school and got away with it? My state in the us still requires running a newspaper ad for a while which isn’t something I’m looking forward to and the state I was born in requires gcs to change birth certificates. There’s a fair possibility that I’m intersex as well though which would allow me to have my birth certificate changed to reflect that with only a test of some sort. I’m definitely going to get it all done before the end of the next presidential election here since who knows what horrors might happen if the republicans won in this climate.