By Lucy

The link to my whole NZ adventure is live! Don’t forget to check out any bits you missed!

I didn’t get a lot done Saturday. Putting around, catching up on stuff. Starting to feel like I’m getting organized. The good feeling from keto continues to set in.

I did finally pop a litre of milk in the Instant pot and make yogurt. I think I should have had 2… the boiling cycle caused some of the milk to scald and stick to the sides of the pot, so I had lumps in the yogurt. Learning for next time!

These Nora nori chips are the best I have ever had. They honestly compete very strongly with regular potato chips. Why is that? They’re thicker and more robust than usual nori chips, tasty, crunchy, but with all the health benefits of seaweed. The ingredient list says they are fried in bran oil, maybe that’s the difference.

That night, I was laying in bed, on the edge of sleep, but the seam inside my shirt kept bothering my arm pit. What was going on? I sent my left arm questing against my skin; a loose thread irritating it? A bruise I hadn’t noticed?

My fingers found a hard nodule, like an olive under my skin. Feeling around, there was more than one.

I felt a sense of dread. I’d never had this symptom before, but it was unmistakable; I had swollen lymph nodes.

I mean, swollen lymph nodes can mean a lot of things. Infection, hormones. But seeing as my period had just passed and I was clearing some sort of flu, neither of those seemed like.

Which just leaves the third option.

Cancer.

Somehow I managed to drift off despite the worst-case-scenario thoughts chasing each other around my head. Awoke at 7 for my alarm. I’ve never been the kind of person to hit snooze and roll over, but I did this morning. Probably just recovering from my lack of sleep still.

I noticed a few small bumps on my hands and feet again.

My plan for Sunday was to go to the Polar Plunge at the Marina in support of Kevin. I headed out at 11:20 and parked across the road from my old place. It looks confusingly empty; no cars in the lot, but I know no one really goes anywhere there. Very few of them had jobs, only Wayne is church going.

It’s cold out. I put up both of my hoods to keep my ears warm. I head down to the waterfront and follow the loud thumping bass until I find the polar plunge crowd. I wander around, half-expecting Kevin to randomly grab my arm and exclaim “hey Lucy!”, but I never find him. Maybe he’s getting here late. The event is going ’til 2, after all. I walk until I find a clear spot to stand, behind the hole in the ice, which has the ironic effect that I photobombed a lot of shots because of my hi-vis jacket.

One of the first groups is a line-up of hunky boys, some shirtless. The announcer asked them to pose a bit before they hopped in the water and all the ladies chuckled appreciatively.

Half an hour after people start jumping in the water, I find Kevin in the line-up. I decide not to bother him now, but I pick my way to the front so I can grab some pics of him jumping in. The announcer notes that Kevin usually plunges alone but this time he joined a crew. It never fails to amuse that he’s on a first name basis with basically everyone in town.

I trail behind him up to the hot tub, unsure of how to make my presence known. “Kevin!” I call finally, as everyone pats each other on the back by the hot tubs.

An array of emotions cross his face, starting with surprise. Good to know I can still surprise! Before he can say anything, one of the women in the hot tubs jumps up and shrieks at me, “You’re back!”

“Yes, I’m back!” Do I know you? I scan the other faces… ah, yes, these are other sailors. This is the mother of that other girl… what’s her name…

“When did you get back?!”

“Saturday.” I say.

“And you’re out and about already? You go, girl!”

It occurs to me that she might think I meant Saturday as in the day before, not a week ago. I stand off to the side awkwardly as Kevin eases into the hot tub, poses for pictures, and gets out. Am I blushing? I feel like I am blushing.

“I’d offer you a hug but you’re all wet.” I say, with a cheeky grin.

He ducks into the changerooms and comes out in mostly dry clothes. Hug time.

“What’s the plan after this?” I ask him.

“Team meeting at the skippers house, but we should hang out some time this week.”

“Lame! Sure.”

Being interested in Kevin is different than my other relationships. I’m starting to realize how much energy I wasted in my early twenties on insecure men who needed all of my time. I could have been a years-long member of Rotary and Soroptimist by now, if they weren’t sucking me dry. I’m starting to appreciate having a connection based on respect and service, on less-frequent dates that have more meaning, instead of that always-on electric energy that doesn’t seem to leave anywhere good.

I had some intention of stopping to visit everyone at my old place, but no one answered the door and I was feeling inexplicably tired.

When I got back home, I could barely keep my eyes open. I crawled into bed and fell asleep almost right away, sleeping for 2 hours and still feeling groggy. What is happening to me?

I got up around 4. I went to take my socks off and noticed some small bumps on my legs. I might have missed them, but they were slightly red compared to the surrounding tissue.

“What is happening!” I ran out to the living room screaming. Emily was seated on the couch, so I put my foot on the couch and yanked up my pant leg.

“They look like hives.” Hanuman observed.

They can’t be hives, I’m not allergic to anything. I found more papules on my arms, which rules out contact dermatitis, because there’s no consistency in where the papules appear. There’s no fleas, no bedbugs, no mosquitoes, no chiggers. There’s snow on the ground and I’m sleeping on an air mattress, which rules out any bug bites. Whatever it is, is inside of me.

The easy answer would be some kind of infection. The problem is that there was no real indication of an infection. I didn’t feel sick – no fever, no body aches – and my Fitbit is usually good at catching illness before it shows, but my stats were improving day by day.

I sat at my computer for the rest of the day. The papules kept spreading; every hour brought at least one new one. They didn’t hurt and didn’t really itch, although I kept scratching at them hoping they would magically go away.

Walk-in clinic tomorrow, I suppose.

Monday morning.

I forced myself out of bed early despite the lethargy. Made breakfast. Sat with Hanuman a bit; he was having a bad day. Then my phone pinged.

Hey, it’s Eli.

Except it doesn’t sound like Eli. My suspicions were immediately roused… I hadn’t heard from Eli in 7-8 months. Much like him just popping in to the lunch room to sit next to me last year, his timing was highly suspect.

“What’s up, Eli?”

“I’m sitting across from your old man.”

You’re not my friend, are you, Eli? A cold shiver ran down my spine. I guess we are entirely dispensing of subtly, then?

I cycled through a few responses and ultimately decided not to say anything. It wasn’t necessary to respond. It was just a warning, anyway.

What does the Vagabond have on Eli? Why is Eli doing his dirty work?

It took 20 minutes to defrost the car to head to the clinic. I went to Jansen’s first.

A sign on the door told me they were closed all this week.

Oak Medical. Not my first choice as they offer chiropractic, but anything is better than nothing.

Closed today.

Dawson’s is closed today.

Christ, as there any options in this town other than Emerg?

I went back to the apartment feeling dejected. I didn’t want to go to the ER complaining of a non-specific rash, but I had limited options and my thoughts were spiraling.

Emily offered that Nor’West is open at 4PM. She convinced me to watch a movie with Hanuman to calm down, so I finally watched “World’s Fastest Indian”, about Invercargill native Burt Munro.

It was alright; there was a definite “home town movie” feel to it. Hanuman got a kick out of all the old man things Burt does, like peeing on his lemon tree every morning. Most of the movie was about Burt’s quest to reach the Bonneville salt flats, but I personally would have rather watched a slice of life in Invercargill as he worked on the bike. This was more of a series of vignettes about an eccentric old man from the country going to the big city. Maybe I should have watched “Goodbye Pork Pie” instead.

After the movie was over, I had every intention of cleaning the bathroom, but my exhaustion overcame me again and I ended up sleeping another 2-3 hours. I woke up feeling groggy and dizzy.

“Emily, can you drive me to Nor’West?” I asked.

“Sure! I’ll just pop in to Spokes while you are there.” As she drove, she commented, “It must be spring, I haven’t see this many people out and about for a long time.”

She dropped me off at the door. I went in and up to the desk.

“Hi, I’m here for the walk-in clinic.”

“Sorry, dear, no clinic today.”

Crap.

Crap crap crap.

I texted Emily to come back. Spokes was closed anyway.

“Take me to the ER.” I give up. I’ve exhausted all other options.

The Thunder Bay Emergency Room is actually pretty good. It’s not been very busy, but maybe I’ve been lucky. I waited about an hour for them to call me back. The doctor took a look at my extensive medical file and to his credit, he didn’t immediately dismiss this as symptoms of my cancer and tell me to call my oncologist. He ordered a breast exam (lymph nodes under the arm being the usual call sign of breast cancer, and my mother did have breast cancer), an ultrasound of my arm and neck in case it was a clot, and bloodwork.

“Are you sexually active?”

What an awkwardly worded question. The other option is that I am a 29 year old virgin, right? “It’s been 7 or 8 months.” I say honestly.

“I’m going to test for HIV, if that’s alright.”

“Sure.” I doubt that’s it, but it’s not outside of the realm of possibility. If I did have it, then the Vagabond gave it to me, cuz I got tested between him and the partner before him. (Spoiler; it came back negative)

The breast exam was quick. He called a female nurse back and had me take my shirt and bra off. I prefer that; I’ve had so many exams where they try far too hard to keep me covered, and you reach a certain point where dignity is too much effort. Just poke my boobs and tell me if I have breast cancer. He sounded almost surprised that there was no obvious lumps. The blood draw was quick and painless; maybe all these tattoos are teaching me not to be afraid of needles.

The ultrasound took a long time. The tech said it’s common with young women of my build, to have a hard time finding the tissue right depth.

I wait about 2 hours for the results to come back. The guy seated next to me had sleeves of tattoos and instantly spotted my motorcycle shop hoodie. We spent a bit talking about bikes. I’ve started lying that my bike was a 250; there aren’t any 150’s for sale in North America anyway.

At 9:30 the doc came over. He seemed nervous, but he just called me in to a side room. This meant it would be quick, which would mean it wasn’t anything they could treat tonight.

“Everything came back negative – no elevated white count, even – so we are referring you to internal medicine for a possible reoccurrence of your cancer.”

Excellent.

“They’ll call you in about a week for follow-up.”

Sounds good.

I texted Emily that I was free and danced past the guy with the sleeves of tattoo. “Good luck!”

Of course, this isn’t good news. An infection would be simple. Even HIV might be preferrable; HIV is very treatable these days, to the point that HIV positive moms won’t pass it to their babies through the placenta. The two obvious candidates at this point are leukemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, both incompatible with travelling as a lifestyle. But at least I knew I wasn’t immediately dying of mono or something.

Hanuman was still having a bad day. I made myself some fried bologna and chugged two tall glasses of keto-ade. I tried to sit up for a bit and talk to Hanuman and Emily, but the exhaustion was getting to me.

Tuesday I didn’t do much. Waiting, plotting and planning. Finally cleaned the bathroom. Panicked every time I discovered another papule. Still waiting for work to call.

Wednesday I streamed for most of the afternoon.

In the evening we had the Soroptimist monthly meeting. We had a second meeting before the main one, for fundraising. I ended up running it, more or less, unintentionally. They called me up to the front to discuss some of my ideas, and Melanie handed me a copy of my own email that she had printed out (I should have thought of that). I was really the only one that had even started following up on my ideas. There were some good points and some stupid points, but overall I thought it was constructive. If nothing else, it seems to be that I can run any idea I want, as long as I’m doing the organization and it actually brings in money no one has any better ones!

Thursday morning was the fateful morning. I got up early and Hanuman joined me for breakfast, as I had asked him to come with me to the surgical consult. The thoughts went over and over in my mind; simple like a wisdom tooth extraction? Or a full jaw reconstruction?

Nothing.

The surgeon is a large, jolly man, quite charismatic. He came in and stated pretty briskly that he didn’t think I needed surgery, that he sees DBI’s (dense bone islands) all the time and he doesn’t think they’ll cause a problem. I tried to explain my family history of odontomas, but he brushed it aside. He told me to come back if I developed symptoms, but declined to explain what those would be. Still wanted 200$ for the appointment that could have been a phone call or even an email!

Hanuman tried to cheer me up by pointing out no surgery is a good thing, but it doesn’t feel like a good thing. In the space of 2 years I went from no dental tumors to 4, doesn’t that seem concerning? What if it is something to be alarmed by and this surgeon is too high on his own supply to see it? I can’t afford a second opinion. I could barely afford this one.

When we got back to the apartment, I called head office to ask what the hell was going on with work. When I finally got the guy in charge of Dryden, his reply was a verbal shrug, “I just called the hall and asked for whoever was on the out of work list, sorry.”

You what? Are you daft? They keep a list of people for shut downs for a reason, numbnuts! After I finished excoriating him, I called the hall to ask if there was any way I could be put on the list, but no luck. After I got off the phone, I texted Duff in a rage, threw my phone across the room in frustration and started angrily pacing up and down the hall while ranting aloud to Hanuman and Emily.

After I had cooled down a bit, I called the hall back and asked to be put on the out-of-work list.

As I flopped across the couch in despair, Emily asked me about the meeting the night before and expressed interest in Soroptimists. I emailed Cindy to confer her interest and also to ask that I be put in for consideration at the Fundraising Chair. Might as well put a shiny label on it.

Work called back. Someone magically dropped out in the last hour and there was space for me, hurray! Sometimes calling people to scream at them does work! I had to redo my WHMIS, and the office kept sending it to the wrong email… somehow. I finally decided I’d just go in to the hall and do it there, then grab my steel toes from my locker, where Emily and Hanuman had put them, then me and Hanuman would go for a walk. Emily was out dress shopping.

Internal medicine called me. They had appointments basically every day, but always at 11. With the 4 hour drive to and from Dryden, that basically means taking an entire day off work. At least if it was something like 8AM, I could just do the appointment and then still have time to drive to work and get half a day in (Dryden is in another time zone). I tried asking if there was some option to have a telehealth appointment, and the person on the phone got all huffy and pointed out I’d had an HIV test done.

Well, that’s rude! I know it was negative, so the only reason you are pointing it out is to shame me for leading some kind of high-risk lifestyle, which I don’t. I made an appointment for a couple of weeks later, but the more I thought about it the more I thought that I might just cancel it. I can’t afford to take time off work, and after the disappointment that was my surgical consult I’m not inclined to lose money and time for a five minute appointment where I get told that I’m fine.

I might also try going to a clinic in Dryden and seeing if I could get an appointment in Dryden. A lot better than the 8 hours lost on the drive.

OW called me. They had a couple of questions, which I answered to their satisfaction. The worker asked me to upload a picture of my vehicle ownership to their website to confirm its value as an asset (sigh). Of course, do you think I could get the website to work now? No! I tried everything I could think of; clearing the cache, cookies, using a different devices, but the website just kept telling me I had an account and I should log in, which is what I was trying to do! And, of course, she had called me at 4, which left me with not enough time to call the office and tell them their website was bugging out.

After our walk, I went home to have dinner. At 6:30 I headed out; we had plans to go out for drinks tonight (I fortified myself with a couple tablespoons of MCT).

I stopped first at Howl, the alcohol-free bar. I kind of wanted to use them for the trivia night idea. I was willing to bet Jody had the most to gain out of it, plus they have a smaller, more intimate venue in which to hone my craft. Jody was 110% for it, handing me a card and telling me to reach out with the details (he scratched out the email on it and told me to text or call him).

Drinks at On Deck was nice, although the bar is still a dive. They didn’t have the ability to make an old-fashioned, which is just simple syrup and whiskey, optionally livened up with bitters, so that’s impressive in and of itself. I asked for whiskey on the rocks and got a couple of shots of Crown Royale rye. What a weird place. Kevin ordered the nachos without bacon and when I questioned it, he told me you never want to order bacon there.

Kevin showed up fashionably late and took the seat next to me. I noted everyone else had automatically arranged themselves around the table in expectation that he would sit next to me, it seems. Is it that obvious?

The curious outlier was poor Jeremy. He was very lethargic the whole time, to the point that we all wondered why he had even walked down. When we called it a night, I insisted on driving him home because I was seriously worried he wouldn’t arrive if I didn’t.

Friday I did not much at all. Thursday had been a lot!

Around dinner time, Emily asked if I would be ok with a foster dog coming to stay for a week. I shrugged. Foster dogs can be hit or miss, but it isn’t my apartment so I have little to lose. As long as it doesn’t go into my room and eat my stuff while I’m in Dryden, do what you want.

Her and Hanuman spent the afternoon dog-proofing the living room, which included taping a tarp to the carpet in case it peed or chewed it up. We didn’t know much about the dog.

I stayed up late into the evening streaming Rimworld to finish Anomaly. I thought it was a lot of fun! The dog was going to be dropped off shortly after midnight, but I crashed before then and slept through its arrival.

Around 2 in the morning I woke up and stumbled, bleary-eyed, to the bathroom. I glanced up as I flicked on the light switch and noticed the dog laying in the hallway, silhouetted by the moonlight coming from the living room.

Ah, right.

I froze, but the dog obviously wasn’t the enthusiastic sort, and it didn’t move to get up. I went to the bathroom and back to bed.

In the morning, I read thru the text Emily had sent me. No dog crate, so she had slept in the living room to make sure the dog behaved itself. Which it had, insomuch as it could because she had dog-proofed the apartment.

The dog is obviously a mutt and I’d wager it has some coyote in it, mostly noticeable in the back legs. It was calm, or at least not enthusiastic, not jumping or barking at all. It did rouse once I came out to the living room, at which point it started going around to scratch at every closed door. Emily said it hadn’t wanted to come inside last night; probably a dog that was used to being outdoors, or even forbidden to come inside. It didn’t seem to understand treats, toys, or English. While I made myself breakfast, I texted Kev, who provided me a list of common Cree and Oji-Cree dog commands, but it didn’t respond to those either. The dog didn’t have a name, hence why I keep calling it the dog, and there’s not really a point in naming it when it will be gone by next weekend and the family that gets it will probably rename it.

The papules are odd. As they “heal”, they start to flatten out and turn more red before disappearing.

As I was finishing up breakfast, I got a text from Rotary. Could I meet for 11 for coffee? Sure. I flaked on the couch and watched Emily and Hanuman try and fail to get a reaction out of the dog. We need some background on it. If nothing else, it was quickly learning “no” cuz it kept trying to paw at the doors.

We met at Calico (curse Bay Village for being closed on weekends). It took several minutes of negotiating to get the server to give me something that was sugar-free. They make their cafe mochas with chocolate milk, can you imagine? I had a tablespoon full of MCT before I left anyway, just in case.

Chris was there already, but the rest filtered in pretty quickly. There was Athena, the woman I spoke to on the phone, but also Shelley and David; half the membership committee.

Before the others got there, Chris slid a Rotary magazine across the table to me. Wow, a magazine, with glossy print and everything! I chuckled a bit that the article splashed across the front was how a third of food is wasted in the US and what you can do about it. Such a false equivalency, because you can do very little about food waste; most food waste happens on the farms or at the processors before it even hits the grocery store. Like the false way consumers have been connected with the plastic crisis and recycling, when it’s mostly the producers who bear the blame. But anyway… Rotary!

I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Was this me selling myself to the club, or the club wooing me? Part of that is, I suspect, Chris just not being very good at this sort of thing (not everyone is, no judgement), but I think another part of it was faith in my ability to keep up. Because, to be fair, I had asked very few questions about the process. “I want to join, how do I do that” is my current concern; I’m confident everything else will fall into place.

Shelley did most of the talking. Chris and Athena listened. David seemed keen on asking me questions; at one point he interrupted to express surprise that I wasn’t overwhelmed by the quantity of information. I had a little smile at that; they weren’t anywhere near overwhelming me.

We had a few little laughs. David mentioned he knows someone from the east coast with my last name; I commented they are probably related to me, as just about everyone on the east coast is, and cracked the usual joke about being inbred.

The conversation ran a gamut of opportunities, projects, meetings and associated things. At one point Shelley mentioned their fundraising regularly clears 50k a year, which SITB could only dream of. I look forward to making connections with their fundraising chairs and bringing some of that back to SI.

The conversation got really interesting towards the end, when I mentioned my dream project of founding a housing co-operative in the city. They did mention the small homes project and how that’s the subject of a meeting in town hall on Monday, but my focus is more on density and restricting urban sprawl. I also think small homes projects don’t address the reasons someone might have for not wanting to own a home at the current moment. Shelley got really excited then; that could have been a meeting in and of itself.

Of course, the problem right now is all I’ve got is an idea. I don’t have the industry contacts to start working towards that, which I might have in a couple of years once I’ve gone to some more jobsites. But I suppose Rotary can take care of that too; they have the community and the contacts.

When I got back to the house, Emily and Hanuman had taken the dog on an hour-long walk. We’ve determined the dog is probably a stray, hence why it has no name and responds to no commands; it doesn’t know any. It has no real downsides, either; it doesn’t show fear or anxiety, it doesn’t bark, it doesn’t get on the furniture.

In the evening, Emily asked to borrow the car to do a big grocery shop. Of course, no sooner had the door closed behind her and Hanuman than the dog was at the door, scratching and complaining. I decided to sit in the living room on my phone to keep it company. About ten minutes before they got back, the dog did a weird thing; it threw back its head and started howling. Which is especially odd because this dog has not barked or expressed itself verbally at all since it got here. Starting to thaw out? I panicked and threw on my jacket and boots and took it outside, which calmed it down.

Once Hanuman and Emily got back, I went inside and to bed. I had an early day tomorrow.

My trial begins Monday.

Gender-Queer

Last Week Tonight’s Season 12, episode 7 was about trans athletes in sports, which is one of those things I take personally. I’d like to start my rant with an image.

The one on the left is the orange man. The one on the right is collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines. She is 24 years old, 5 foot 9, and 136 pounds. She won gold in a 2022, 200 yard butterfly, among many, many other swimming accomplishments. But at the moment this photo was taken, Trump was on stage arguing that he could beat her in a swimming competition, merely because he is cis-male and she is cis-female.

Could he? Does anyone honestly believe the 78 year old man who eats hamburgers all day and has never worked out a day in his life could beat a 20-something swimmer who does this for a career? Just because he has testicles?

The absurd thing is that Riley Gaines was submitting to this humiliation because she doesn’t like trans participation in sports. And what was the inciting incident for this? She tied for fifth with a trans woman. Not that they were both within a hair of first place or something. Fifth. If trans women were really the terminators of women’s sports that the right likes to paint them as, wouldn’t they be hoovering up gold medals left in right? Not the pity trophy for fifth place?

It annoys me for my trans friends, but also for myself, quite honestly. I despise the implication that trans women athletes are better than cis-women just because they were assigned male at birth, because it implies that women can never aspire to the level of physicality of a man. As a woman in the trades, it implies to me that I could never be as good as a male carpenter, which we all know just isn’t true. Even as scrawny as I am, riddled with cancer and fighting my guts, I make it a policy to never say I can’t do something. I am legendary on jobsites for barking at men who try to give me a hand, and doing it all by myself. Everyone knows that I will lift anything, no matter how heavy, by myself. I might require a trick, like leverage, but I will still get it done. By myself.

And don’t even get me started on “safety in change rooms”. I have never felt unsafe in a bathroom. Hell, multiple bathrooms in New Zealand were unisex and I’ve never felt afraid there. But more to the point, considered the apologists for Trump (a rapist) and Roy Moore, it seems that the Republicans don’t so much care about protecting women as they do just making sure they are the only ones allowed to assault them. Hell, Kentucky has outlawed all two of its trans athletes, but declined to prosecute a number of male coaches accused of sexually assaulting teenage girls under their care.

One of my good friends, Luna, is non-binary, and they don’t quite look like a cis-gender woman but they definitely don’t look like a man, but they use the men’s bathroom anyway so people don’t make a big deal out of it. Can you imagine how absurd that looks? A person with heels, a pretty dress and lipstick, coming out of the men’s room? Of course, a unisex bathroom would fix all of that.

Or cis women being mistaken for trans! That’s one of the fears I harbor, quite honestly, only because people make it a problem. Multiple women in the US have been mistaken for trans and fired because of it.

I mean, the focus on “testosterone = muscles = superior athletic performance” is a equation that just doesn’t add up. Going back to Riley Gaines, one of the things that matters the most in swimming is fluid dynamics. That’s why they wear those little bathing suits and swim caps; anything to reduce drag. Women are better, faster swimmers because we pack muscle into a slimmer frame, not to mention we usually have stronger legs and core, which is where the real power comes from. Following this thread of logic, trans-female athletes – as John Oliver points out – are at a disadvantage there. They still have masculine frames – like broader shoulders – but they are no longer powered by their natural testosterone, because feminizing hormones reduce it. So, logically, trans-female athletes should be the worst swimmers, the worst of both worlds!

One of the things I think is interesting is the way “manliness” is still walled off, because manliness is synonymous with “humanity” and othering. I found this article about food and how people fear certain foods make you “queer”, whether queer means gay or trans, because it has meant either or both at various points in time. The paragraph in the article about the Spanish explorers is interesting because it just goes to show how everything other than “Spanish Man” is “other”. Even Indigenous men are looped in with women, because they aren’t Spanish men and are therefor “not men”. To be human is to be a man as defined by the times, and everything else is “other”.

The best examples I have for that is ancient Greece vs ancient Rome. Contrary to our current beliefs – Oceania is at war with Eastasia, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia – being female did not always mean being calm and sexually guarded. In ancient Greece, the belief was that you had to marry off your daughter as soon as possible because all women were uncontrollably lustful, and if you didn’t get her a husband tout-suit she’d be in the street humping anything that moves. Conversely, to be masculine meant to be above such base instincts. Men were unemotional and focused on intellectual pursuits, to elevate the mind. Sex was only to be had when necessary; to control the wife, to get her pregnant so you could continue the human race, or to unburden yourself of the distraction. Following this same thread, the Romans were looked down upon as being “womanly” or “animalistic”; overly emotional, lustful, not given to intellectual pursuits. As with the same racist trope towards black men today, it was thought that Romans had bigger penises because they were closer to animals than humans. So you can see how masculinity is the “default” human, and everything else is “other”, even as what it means to be “masculine” has changed significantly throughout time.

The article points this out as well. At the time of the colonization of the New World, hypersexuality was synonymous with being homosexual. The thought at the time was not that people were born homosexual, but made that way because their humors (read: hormones) were so out of whack that they would sleep with anything that moved, even if that thing wasn’t a woman (which makes some sense, as obviously Spanish women were in short supply in the New World).

But of course, the real fear isn’t other men being gay. The real fear is that you might become gay, that any man might be mutable, and therefor lose his power.

Which, as the article points out, is where all this panic lies. As Lord Acton said;

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority.

These guys have all the power; power is connected to heterosexual, heteronormative masculinity. But if that masculinity can be muted or changed… how concrete is their grasp on power? If a few bites of “phytoestrogen-rich tofu” can make you a sissy boy, how easy would it be for the rest of us to claim some of that masculinity and power? Like the whole concept of blood-purity – that one drop of African blood makes you 100% black – how fragile is that podium, really and truly?

I think it’s time we topple it.

Also Lord Acton;

“The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.”

All liberty is conditional, limited and therefore unequal.

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