There are 10 kinds of people in the world...

those who understand binary and those who don't.

(for those who don't get the joke, binary is a computer code made up entirely of ones and zeros. Ten doesn't exist in binary only 1/0.)

Gender is also a binary equation. There are two possibilities, male and female. While much has been written recently within the trans community about the terms transgender and transsexual, the emotional component of that debate can be summed up easily in the above joke. There are two kinds of people in this world, those that are comfortable with the gender binary and those that aren't.

This can be seen readily in most walks of life. Straight people aren't immune from the gender binary. There are those that fit easily into the correct classification, girly girls or manly men. There are those that don't. Amongst those that don't there are those that are quite comfortable with themselves and those that aren't. I have straight male friends that are very comfortable with their feminine attributes. The majority of straight people however hide or are uncomfortable with any significant gender variance.

Gay people too struggle with the gender binary. There is a long and ongoing debate about gender variance in the gay community. Many gay men argue that they are “just like other men” and that any real or perceived gender variance is a stereotype. Others continue to insist that gay men show a much higher level of gender variance.

Trans people struggle the most openly with our societies binary. It might be easy for an outsider to assume that all trans people fall into the “uncomfortable with the gender binary” group, that we are the ultimate gender outlaws. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I would say that the trans community is just about evenly divided between those that can't understand the gender binary and those that are quite happy with it, with the sole exception of where they have personally been placed in it.

One group, typically associated with the word Transgender, views gender as a spectrum. For them there are 10 (ten) kinds of people. Everyone has a gender that falls somewhere on a scale of one to ten. One is male, 10 is female. Not all women score a perfect ten nor do all men score a one. Instead our gender is somewhere near one side or another and we live with the sex we are born as. Or it doesn't and we are transgender. If a male is a four on the gender scale he may be happy living as a man, but occasionally feel the need to express his feminine side through crossdressing. A born male who scores a 7 might live as a woman but not feel the need for SRS, whereas an nine or ten on the same scale might need to fully transition to be happy.

The other group, typically associated with the word Transsexual, views gender as a binary. For them there are 1/0 kinds of people, male/female. Gender expression may be on a spectrum, but gender is not. A woman might be “butch” and gender non-conforming but she's still a woman. A cross dresser might have a feminine side but this does not make him a woman. You are one or the other. From the perspective of a gender binary, transition is going from one binary to the other. Stopping in between simply doesn't compute.

One of the greatest gifts I got from the LGBT community is the idea that you are who you are. There is no point arguing about it, just deal. This is true if you born gay, straight or Trans. It's also true if you were born comfortable with the binary or not. The Transsexuals need to stop referring to (and preferably stop thinking of) Transgender as freaks because they (the transsexuals) can't comprehend living inbetween genders. The Transgender for their part, need to stop implying that transsexual are not as enlightened because we are happy within the binary. We have enough real world issues in common to work on, we need bury the hatchet on this one.

I am discovering through my transition, that I am more of a binary person than I would have thought. While I support the transgender umbrella, and want us to be a whole community, I identify myself as a woman first and a transsexual second. I support the rights of those who are gender variant, but now that I have transitioned my own behavior doesn't qualify. I am pretty much a normal woman, the only variance is my history.

Biking for the economy

Gas prices are through the roof right now. Thanks to shipping costs, high gas prices are pushing up the price on just about everything else. As far as anyone can tell, high prices at the pump are likely to continue into the foreseeable future.

Those prices are threatening to sabotage the economy. It's not exactly been at its strongest the last couple of years as it is, and it doesn't take much to knock it back down. The average family is spending a larger and larger chunk of their income on gas, and that means less for any consumer spending that might actually help the economy.

I have a simple solution, bike commuting. Bike commuting has numerous advantages, but what I like best is that it works on so many possible levels.

On an individual level bike commuting can reduce how much we spend on gas. How much we can save depends on how much we can bike. Everybody's life is different and how much one can do will depend on their level of physical fitness and on how far they live from work, etc. But at nearly four dollars a gallon, I figure I can save about 22 cents for every mile I am on my bike, and it adds up pretty quickly.

The thing about gas is that it's a prime example of a consumable expense. Once you buy the gas and drive around, you have nothing left to show for the money spent. It doesn't increase your quality of life in the long term at all. Any money you can save on gas is money that can potentially be spent on something that will increase your quality of life.

There are also a number of indirect savings that can be gotten from bike commuting. Cars don't just burn gas, they break down. They require maintenance. The less you drive the less you spend on these things too. Our sedentary lifestyle is slowly killing us. Obesity is out of control in our society and it comes with many health problems. Bikes burn calories, not gas. The potential health care dollars saved by the occasional bike ride is a definite plus.

All that's on an individual level. What about society and the economy? They benefit too. High gas prices benefit a handful of large corporations in the oil industry. They weren't exactly hurting to begin with. Now they are posting record profits.

Only is some Republican voodoo economic dream does money in the hands of a rich corporation equally economic growth. The rich spend their money on big bonus to themselves, and corporate take overs. The only sure way to get economic growth is consumer demand. When people start buying things, industries start making more things, and they have to hire people to do that. If people are spending all their money on gas, they aren't buying things. No matter how many tax breaks the Republicans push through, until there is a demand no business is going to start hiring.

Bike commuting would create an immediate demand for bikes and a number of bike accessories. Many people have recreational bikes in their garage or basement. The difference between a recreational bike and commuter bike is a rack or basket. A rack runs forty dollars or so, basket about that much each. Given what I've already said about gas, bike commuting could increase almost any sort of consumer spending by reducing how much we are wasting on gas right now.

The indirect benefits to society are immense as well. Imagine the health benefits and health care savings if a sizable percentage of U.S. Population started exercising five days a week. Then there are the benefits to our roads if we reduced the amount of traffic. It would add up quickly. There is also a substantial benefit for the planet in lower emissions.

Bike commuting would help small business. Since I have made it my goal to bike as much as possible I look at shopping differently. I am not going to bike or drive several miles to the edge of town where Walmart is, nor do I wish to load my bike down with too much stuff. Short trips to the local market is good for small businesses.

The benefits of bike commute are incremental. We don't have to have a hundred percent commitment from a hundred percent of the population. Anyone who is capable of riding their bike for even a portion of their commuting can immediately start saving money. If even a small percentage of the population would do this, the benefits for society would quickly materialize as well.

The Bodhisattva work in mysterious ways

According to Buddhist philosophy we are all enlightened being, bodhisattvas; we just don't know it yet. We are also all simple human beings, fragile and precious. Our conscious minds are clouded with delusions, delusions which prevent us from seeing either end of this paradox. Which is why the second precept, or noble truth, is some times put like this; ignorance is the root of all evil. When people do bad things, they have either forgotten that they are perfect souls, or have forgotten that the other is a fragile and precious human being.


I know this consciously, and much of the time I can live within this understanding. However, watching the video of Chrissy Lee Polis being beaten at a Baltimore McDonald's sorely tested me. My initial reaction was one of anger. When asked to sign a petition my first thought was; “can I write my name on my shoe and stamp my signature on one of those girl's forehead?”

As if to add insult onto injury, one of the McDonald's staff recorded the scene with his cellphone and posted it on line. Chrissy asked him to stop, but like the girls he was indifferent to her suffering. Now the video has gone viral, being viewed by thousands around the country. For his indifference he may face charges, and probably he should.


I wrote a blog about this a few days ago on Xanga. I got several dozen of comments, on Xanga and Facebook. They expressed shock, outrage and disgust. “I felt sick to my stomach” one Facebook friend told me. My readers saw Chrissy's humanity, saw her frailty and her preciousness. It's a shame the girls didn't.


Bodhisattva means compassionate warrior. According the American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, a bodhisattva goes to the heart of suffering without flinching and without reservation. It means to do what we can to alleviate the suffering of others, but more importantly we go even when we can't do anything.


Watching that video is an act of Bodhisattva. We can't change what happened to Chrissy. Boycotting McDonald's, bringing the girls, or the man, to justice won't undo the assault. Chrissy will have to live with what happened to her. It would easy to sweep it under the rug. It would be easy to look away, to click the x and pretend the assault never happened.


We don't. We watch, and watch. Why? Because we see her suffering and our hearts go out to her. It is an act of compassion. Chrissy may never know or benefit from our compassion, but we do. Compassion is like a muscle, one we use too little in our society, it needs exercise.


The assault was an act of indifference. The girls were capable of such brutality because they did not see Chrissy as fully human. They couldn't connect to her suffering, couldn't feel compassion for her. The guy who did the taping? I can't say what was in his mind at the time. Perhaps he too was indifferent and insensitive. Maybe all he could think about was how many hits this would get on line, not how many hits Chrissy had to endure. Or perhaps his higher self, his Bodhisattva held the camera there because we all needed to see. We needed to have our compassion tested in this way.


If we can build our compassion, we can learn to see everyone as human first, and black, white, gay, straight, trans, Muslim, etc. second or not at all. If we build our compassion, then the next time something like this happens compassion might overcome fear, like the one elderly lady who tried to help. Maybe next time everyone will step forward. Maybe it won't happen again. I would like to think that, but my mind says its unlikely. More likely we will have to witness acts of brutality again and again.


In fact in the few short days since the assault happened we have seen other acts of brutality, against other trans individuals, against gay men, against American Muslims, against blacks, pretty much against anyone that is viewed as different, outside the norm. Faced with these acts it would be easy to give into despair and inaction. Instead I choose to view each act as another chance to exercise our compassion, both as individuals and as a society.


I hope that we can let the Bodhisattva in all of us grow until such acts are truly unthinkable. It will be the work of many lifetimes, but a work that is worthy our lives.

Regional Stability

A quick president's day thought for you, what would the founding fathers have thought about "regional stability"?

I am thinking about the Middle East as I ask this question. Right now it seems like the entire region is engulfed in protests. There is a massive movement underway to oust dictators that have held power for thirty plus years. Dictators in Tunisia and Egypt are already gone, Libya appears to be next. Time will tell if this leads to a better, more democratic government, or to a new dictatorship.

In the mean time the U.S. state department is doing a delicate little dance. You see we've supported most of these regimes for a long time now. We have accepted that a dictatorship in Egypt or a Monarchy in Bahrain was the best government we were going to get. They were at least stable governments that we could deal with, and trade with.

What if, instead of Obama and Clinton, we had say Thomas Jefferson doing this dance? Or how about good old Ben Franklin? Would they be talking about regional stability? Or would they be talking about principles, like freedom and democracy?

It took our country a long drawn out war to achieve our independence from a monarchy. The men and women who fought that war risked and often gave their lives for our freedom.

We talk about this all the time. It comes up regularly in political discourse. Every war we have fought since has been justified by some threat (real or imagined) to our freedom. But when it's somebodies else's freedom we are quick to throw them under the bus in the name of stability.

Instability in the Middle East is particularly threatening to Americans because of our addiction to oil. Every episode of unrest in that region leads to higher prices at the pump. That makes Americans jumpy.

Maybe it's time to change the nature of this whole discussion. Maybe we should focus less on current politics, stability and the free flow of oil. Instead let's talk about the big principles at stake here; freedom, democracy, the right to self-government, all the freedoms we have had for over two hundred years in this country. It's worked well for us, why not let the Arab world try it out?

Hey Wikileaks, want to impress me? Dish on China

Like many, I have been following the wikileaks saga for many weeks now. And like many, I am sitting on the fence about a lot of it. I agree with their underlying principle of freedom of the press and with the need for transparency in government. But I also worry, like many of their critics, about the fate of the informants and agents that might be revealed through their work.



There is something about the whole saga that I find disingenuous. They broke one relatively minor story in Africa, otherwise their targets seem to be almost exclusively in Europe or the United States. The big leaks, the ones that have gotten the majority of the attention, have been about the U.S. war in Iraq and our diplomatic politics.



On one hand I can see the argument that these countries, particularly the U.S. tend to take the moral high road in political discourse, and as such should be held to a higher standard, a higher standard in both conduct and transparency. If we say America does not condone torture and someone has evidence that we did in fact condone torture done by local police in Iraq, that evidence maybe should be brought to light.



The thing that keeps bothering me is this; our long tradition of freedom of press and due process means that for Julian Assange pointing a finger at the U.S. and saying "they condoned torture" contains far less risk than pointing a finger at Iraq and saying "they tortured". The U.S. has done things since 9/11 that I for one am not proud of. I hate the fact that we decided waterboarding was not torture. I hate that we hold 'enemy combatants' for extended periods without charging them with a crime.



But I know there are countries far worse then mine. Where are they in the wikileaks files? Why hasn't there been a big data dump about China's more than speckled human rights violations? What about Iran's crackdown on free speech during the last elections?



It strikes me that the U.S. is a pretty safe target for the likes of wikileaks. Sure we have sent an extradition request for Julian. If it's honored, which is highly unlikely, he'll face a huge public trial (thanks to due process) where he can argue for freedom of the press. If that doesn't get him off, its jail time. He's never been personally violent, so he'll probably go a minimum security jail at that.



Taking on China, Iran, Al-queda, or any of a hundred or so organizations or governments with long standing human rights violations, and no freedom of speech might prove a little more dangerous that Mr. Assange cares for. But it would impress me a heck of a lot more.