Not Neurotypical

Just my 2 cents...and YES I KNOW YOU DON'T AGREE and that neither of us will change our minds on this.

To answer your question from my perspective...I feel that allowing trans people to compete as their chosen identity is simply more important than taking into consideration any of the points you may bring up about hormonal/biological/muscle mass differences. Especially considering the unique struggles so many trans people have endured just to be able to publicly identify as their authentic selves.

I get that some people feel that trans women (who were born biologically male) will have physical advantages over those who were born biologically female...and, personally, I don't think we should care. Sports are just not that important in the grand scheme of things. Are sports going to get us off this planet when our sun starts to die? No. Are sports going to lead to world peace? Probably not on their own, the Olympics are tentatively peaceful at best. Sports are games, and sure, they showcase physical human excellence, but to what all-important 'future of humanity' altering end?

I just think it's more important to preserve the dignity of all individuals and their right to participate in gender divided professional sports as comfortably and as appropriately as they personally see fit. Supporting individual rights along those lines is just more important to me than the risk that you're proposing some trans people present to the authenticity or fairness of women's sports, in particular.

This is not to say that I don't see what you're saying as a real possibility, that people not born biologically female could end up "dominating" women's sports, but, honestly...maybe that will get more women to focus on the sciences or medicine....on fields that actually have a calculable impact on the future of humanity/human lives. I know that heads on another topic, but I just think we should stop glorifying and overpaying people who choose sports as a profession so maybe more people could be working on helping manage and solve more important human problems.

On a similar note...gender reveal sonogram posts freak me out. They feel like a violation of baby's privacy to me, I mean, imagine if my child was born biologically one gender but transitioned in early adulthood. How would he/she/it/they feel about people seeing publicly available pictures of them from before the transition when it's 18+ years later?

Suboxone is an opioid partial agonist = does the same thing opiates do while containing naloxone to keep patients from overdosing. Calling yourself clean or sober while taking Suboxone is inaccurate. Your addiction is managed, and by no means over. Fight me.

Normally, I'm fine with being supportive and having a "whatever works for you" mentality towards personal progress in fighting addiction, but I was addicted to Suboxone (amongst many other things.)

Stepping stones are important, but don't mistake a step in your journey for a life long answer, especially when that answer involves pharmaceutical management of addiction via taking daily narcotics. Suboxone was meant, as methadone was initially too, to be a short-term step down, only to be prescribed to those who are tapering down with a finite and time sensitive goal of getting off all opiate agonist medications.

This harm reduction model doctors have adopted, seemingly with open arms, over the past 10-15 years enables addicts to stay "acceptably addicted" under the care of providers who get a new patient pool: addicts, the most loyal of patients, people who will pay, do and/or say anything to keep getting prescribed addictive meds legally. The current substance abuse treatment model reinforces the concept that it's socially and morally ok for addicted people to be given addictive medications simply because those medications, which have the same effect as the offending narcotics and are also addictive, are labelled as recovery-assistive.

Many patients taking these medications even believe themselves to be "cured" and cite miraculous changes in their lives due to medication management (most commonly on Suboxone in particular.) I'm not saying personal progress isn't likely to be more attainable for patients while under medication maintenance, or that life victories while on these meds are anything less than praiseworthy, but I am saying that the goal should be freedom from the addictive cycle, not just legal and managable substitution of one addictive substance for another.

Regardless of whether anyone else cares to notice or say it, there's a problem when meds are administered by doctors who do not understand or do not care about the addictive mentality and physical addiction they keep going strong in their patients through long-term use of 'step down' agents such as Suboxone or methadone.

There is no magic pill, and many of the patients on these opioid replacement meds long term will never know full freedom from the addictive cycle. Why do I say that? Consider the following.

If you can't go without your narcotic medication for a few days, then you know what dependence and withdrawal are, and you may be addicted. If a doctor prescribes a med that does the same thing as the offending substance and says it's ok to take it indefinitely, are you not just dependent on a prescribed version of the same thing now? Paying a doctor to keep you in an ongoing cycle of dependence and withdrawal. You are still addicted.

There is full and complete freedom from that cycle, but it's so much easier to stay addicted to a legal prescription, and more profitable for your doctor too. I speak from my own experience when I say that most people who are truly addicted to substances (addicts) will choose never to break the addictive cycle because it's the only way they know how to live, high to high, pill to pill, feeling like they have an incurable plague, like a hole they have to fill day after day, nothing but the comfort that the euphoria brought on by use of addictive substances suffices to fill the hole. They simply do not know any other way to live, to be ok, to feel good.

So, of course replacement therapy is a highly popular alternative to sobriety from all addictive substances, and it's preferred by opiate addicts precisely because it's not alternative to the addictive cycle, it switches the addiction to something more acceptable and less risky to take. It demands no changes, it just suddenly becomes ok to be an addict once addicts admit they have a problem and start on medication management. Nothing changes except where and how they get the high, and how others treat them. When everyone around them, including society and their doctor, says it's alright, even praiseworthy, to switch addictions to a legally prescribed replacement med, why choose freedom from all substances?

Breaking the addictive cycle hurts, why else would anyone keep using addictive substances despite knowledge of their dangers, even up to and including the point of actual death. Addiction is not a choice, it is as natural and essential a process to the addict as breathing is for people without the addictive propensity. Until you take away the addictive substance entirely, I would argue, there is no sufficient chance for addicts to step back and see that a happy, meaningful, and productive life is possible without having to take any addictive substances. I know from my own experience that there's hope for a whole new kind of freedom in sobriety, but most real addicts, given the choice the harm reduction model would have us present them, will choose rather to use replacement narcotics until death than to break free of the addictive cycle altogether.

Medication management and the harm reduction model are depriving some addicts of potential lifetimes of freedom from the addictive cycle. Sometimes the truth hurts and we need a push to move forward, this goes for all humans. Especially when moving forward means changing an entire mentality and physical dependence for the chance at a better future for ourselves, as addicts, and everyone around us.

I am not without compassion, PLEASE take sobriety in steps if you need to, but don't pretend to have the answer when nothing about your relationship with addictive substances has changed. The harm reduction model would be as aptly named the freedom reduction model, from my point of view.

I know way too many people who've died of overdose. If you know anyone with a serious alcohol or addiction problem, you can help them infinitely more by doing the tough thing and cutting them off if they refuse help, than you ever could by loving them to death.

I know it's not a pleasant thing for non-addicts to do, to say no to people you love who are "in need" to feed their addiction or alcoholism.

We don't choose to be addicts just like you didn't choose not to be one. It's not a moral dilemma that can be solved by doses of compassion or empathy from loved ones, it's a disease, a disorder of thinking and physiology that can become our entire mindset and way of life.

If you love an addict or alcoholic and want to help them, I recommend Al-Anon, so you can meet and speak to others with real experience living with and loving addicts before, during, and after their recovery. Real problems require real solutions, and no one changes their whole life overnight.

I just don't understand how people can think it's so important to 'protect our borders' from immigrants. We're so lucky to have been born here instead of in a country that punishes people for being different.

Who are we to deprive anyone else of their freedom simply because they weren't born here? Oh wait, those same people who are against immigration are also the ones STILL punishing people for being different here in America, victims of racial/sexuality/gender profiling are robbed of their freedom and rights to a peaceful and happy existence every single day right here in our own country.

We are all human. I don't see why invisible lines between traditionally differing cultures or societies are more important than the fact that we ALL have to share this planet with each other if we want to survive with any diversity and chance of keeping our genome from degrading into true idiocracy. The earth has limited resources as it is, why are we wasting so much time fighting each other?

We need each other to find solutions. But I guess some people are so busy making up problems based on perceived differences betwee. themselves and 'others' that they just can't grasp the concept that LIFE IS IMPORTANT, if you let it be. Everyone deserves a happy and meaningful life, free of fear and hatred.

It bothers me driving around and seeing fearmongering and hatemongering propaganda. I saw a lighted sign by the hospital that said something to the effect of 'fear God and you shall no longer fear any [hu]man.' Really? Can we as humans not get beyond this hatred of other people? Do we still need to use fear and hatred as primary motivations for unification? Religions are particularly bad about this 'us vs. them' or 'us vs. the world' mentality.

When are we going to grow up as a society and culture and realize that kindness APPLIES TO EVERYONE. Organized sports for kids have one thing right, at the end of the game everyone gets high fives and celebrates having a good game. I see the main underlying goals of sports as the following, give or take a few: to stay healthy, to practice socialization and communication, to learn problem solving and how to work towards a common goal...all ideas that ultimately lead to the expansion of universal consciousness, the sharing of thoughts and ideas for the good of all people involved. Real athletes that the goal is not to win. I hate sports, but sportsmanship could be such a universally important concept.

Let's talk about this cause I'm asking. I for real want to know what both religious and non-religious folks think about this.

My concern is especially about those who say this type of stuff at work. I realize that the vast majority of people who ask for prayers don't realize how exclusionary this is to us non-religious folks.

Religuous people seem to use it as a colloquialism, under the assumption that people who care about them will reflexively offer prayers and be thinking of them, and, of course being willing to offer prayers in return when/if requested. At no point is there any acknowledgement that people who don't believe in prayer might also like to offer their care, concern, and assistance if possible.

I've tried substituting "thinking about you or hoping the best for you" in whatever variation fits the situation, but saying something like that when prayers are specifically requested, especially in public at work, literally places a target on my head here in the south. All because I'm not willing lie and say "praying for you" when that doesn't really mean to me what it means to you.

Religious people I've encountered on a less than personal basis though work seem to me to be quick to judge, distrust, and immediately treat non-religious people as outsiders, excluding us from group gatherings like we did something wrong.

I'm not sorry we don't have the same beliefs, and I never will be, nor should you be, but that doesn't mean that we can't still treat each other as equals...we don't have to agree on everything...life would be pretty boring if we did.

Religious beliefs don't define people in my mind any more than the shoes they're wearing do. People are complicated, you can't just judge them based on one thing you don't have in common....or can you?

That's some seriously sexist bullshit. Women with experience are better at all things sexual.

Slut shaming makes women fucking prudes and perpetuates the fact that so many women view casual sex as 'taboo'. When societies hold double standards like this for sex, putting the whole experience on a pedestal and adding increased pressure on each gender to achieve opposite goals (i.e. women to have the least partners possible and men to have the most), we are causing unrealistic and unhealthy relationship goals.

This is the same logic that perpetuates men idolizing "virginity" and, since it causes men to seek more and more sex with younger less experienced women while women to seek the least amount of sex possible, it's no wonder so many men find themselves engulfed in pedophilic fantasy, potentially ruining others' and their own lives in that pursuit.

My philosophy is this, as long as you're safe about it and both adult parties consent, everyone should fuck everyone they want to fuck. No regrets, enjoy each other and stop treating sex like it's some sacred rite of passage when it's really just a biological function that's also quite pleasurable. I can't say I don't understand why other women "hold back" on sexual pursuits, but I can say that I don't agree with the vast number of reasons they give for it....the type of double-standard sexist slut shaming in this meme being one of the core reasons why many women don't engage in casual sex.

The type of men who share and feed into the slut-shaming stereotype are much more likely to engage in unhealthy sexual practices and relationships. Not to mention that I doubt any of them have ever experienced tantric sex or any other truly mind-blowing sexual experience. I doubt any man who slut-shames has ever shared sexual experiences equally with any woman who had the experience, practice and working knowledge to enjoy some of the best overall sexual experiences they'll ever be a part of, the shit fantasies are made of, only real.

This post is ignorant bullshit, pure and simple, and it makes me sad that men think that they should be experienced and women shouldn't, because that is the very essence of gender inequality, and it creates so many problems in out society and culture....wanna know why most men couldn't possibly hope to ever have casual sex with nearly as many women as I have men? Shit like this. And sharing shit like this just keeps you all in the fucking doghouse or sleeping on the couch...whatever the case may be.

My parents are both white and my dad is pretty well off, his thoughts are partly in line with what certain people keep saying when it comes to privilege. I keep hearing white people talking about how they don't understand why black people are so angry. Many honestly believe that, no matter what, if you work hard and do good, you will be rewarded, but amongst black communities in America, this couldn"t be farther from reality.

If you can't see your privilege, I can't blame you for that, but I can share my experience on how I see it. I can ask you to open your mind for a moment and just imagine what it might be like to walk in someone else's shoes. How would your life be different had you been born black?

When I worked minimum wage deli jobs at several different stores, 9/10 of the people who had been working in the lowest level positions with me were POCs. And those who had been there over 2 years and were STILL in the lowest positions were even more likely to be POCs, in fact, I only met one white person who had been there longer than that and was still at minimum wage and she was disabled and could only work limited hours. And I struggled to keep up with most of those POCs work ethic bc before that, I had been used to getting paid more to do less. I pulled my back out and lost use of my left leg for over a week trying to keep up with the speed, volume, and variety of tasks these people made look almost easy.

The people I worked with were ALL hardworking adults, many of them middle aged, some just mid 20s. Many of them had prior drug or other minor charges from when they were younger, much like how rich white kids get DUIs in college....kids are young and reckless, there's no way to prevent that altogether. But the difference here is that employers that offer 401ks, pension and retirement plans, adequate life and health benefits will hire you if you have a DUI, but not if you have a felony, and sometimes not even if you have a misdemeanor. I'll talk more about that disparity shortly, but that's why many POCs are stuck in low paying jobs. There would occasionally be a "token" POC in management, but all other managers were white, and they usually hadn't worked as long as POCs in the department they oversaw.

I read heavy undertones in anti-BLM posts suggesting black people are somehow inherently more lazy, disruptive, or violent than other races, but I don't see where anyone buying that stereotype has ever lived with, loved, or actually spent a decent amount time working alongside a typical minimum wage/dead end job with POCs and actually getting to know them as people? Do people perpetuating these stereotypes even know what they're talking about? I'm willing to bet they don't because they don't have any real experience living with and around people of different races and cultures.

So, what on EARTH gives anyone the right to disparage entire races of people by labeling them as lazy, disruptive, or violent? If you're basing your evidence toward that effect on the actions of a few radical protesters, or the few rowdy young bucks you've come across, you're probably taking their actions out of context. Many young people of all races exhibit those behaviors just because they're young and reckless.

That is to say, there are many reasons to consider about why people could act the way they do, before we even start to think about how POCs might actually have some pretty good reasons on top of just being young to "act out". Many of them very well may be facing a future that's been significantly limited financially, professionally and personally, by the systemic racism in the flawed system you're trying to defend. I think that's a pretty good reason to be angry. No government is perfect. Period. But if we can't look at the way we treat our friends and neighbors and try to fix things when they aren't right, what are we doing? Defending antiquated systems that just aren't right for us as a society anymore is wrong. So many people in this country are suffering; so many feel trapped and doomed to a life of poverty.

Many POCs don't have college degrees to fall back on, and they didn't even fuck up their college like I did because of my alcoholism and addiction, they just never got a chance to go because culturally, it's gotten so bad that many POCs can't even push to expect their children to get into college because there's no way they could pay without a scholarship or financial aid that could indebt them for 10 or 20 more years down the line.

SO PLEASE tell me how alcohol, a traditionally white culturally normalized relaxation commodity, is legal despite the insanely high rate of alcohol related deaths that occur in this country, when weed, a traditionally POC culturally normalized relaxation commodity, is STILL NOT LEGAL when the number of deaths caused by or related to its use each year is so much lower (some gang deaths if you want to include those, and presumably those would be less if it were legal).

Oh yeah, could it be that we as a society just like to arrest and incarcerate POCs for minor and major drug charges so they can get felonies and white people can find excuses not to pay them more, promote them, or hire them into higher level positions, to prevent them from pursuing higher education....cause drug charges from marijuana use/posession/distribution do ALL of those things while drunk driving white alcoholic buisness leaders abuse and endanger their families and businesses with just a slap on the wrist for drunk driving that could potentially kill other people.

Please explain to me how addictive substance legislation is "fair" to cultural norms for POCs. How a rich white kid's DUI gets expunged if he agrees to do some classes and community service, but a POC found driving while smoking a joint, in possession of a week's worth of weed gets a felony that prevents him from job and education opportunities for the rest of his life. They're both kids, but one kid gets his chances at financial success in life effectively extinguished and the other gets away with it with no lasting repercussions.

Privledged people (we're seeing a lot of white people like this) just want to protect and preserve the system the way it is because it benefits you. Your life isn't limited by social and cultural injustices so there "must not be a problem at all." You can't step outside your own shoes for one second and see that maybe not everyone else has the same experiences as you. Maybe not everyone is treated equally.

This is just one example of systemic injustice, for more, listen. Step back from what people are telling you to think for a moment and just consider what's being asked. Most BLM supporters are not asking for anything crazy. They just want fair and equal justice for all, no matter what that takes. Apparently asking for it isn't enough, or we wouldn't be at this point. We need to talk to each other. To find some sort of compromise that ensures TRUE EQUALITY for all races by the Department of Justice and other governmental departments engaging in systemic racism by choice or without even having noticed what they were doing.

ALL RACIST PEOPLE AND POLICIES should be unwelcome in government, but that's a story for another rant.

Step 1: Anti-BLM person cites statistics he doesn't understand

Step 2: He misinterprets them.

Step 3: I explain the math.

Step 3:

I'm going to need you to to cross reference that with what % of people in the US are Non-Hispanic White and what % are African Americans. Non-Hispanic White people make up 60% of the US population. African Americans make up 13% of the US population. That means that there are 6x as many non-Hispanic white people in the United states as there are African Americans.

If cops kill people of each race equally then there should be around 6x as many non-Hispanic white people killed by cops each year in the United States than African American people that are killed by cops that same year. Another way to say the same thing would be that we would expect about 1/6 as many African American deaths by cop each year than non-Hispanic white people killed that same year IF both races were being killed by police at equal rates.

Using 2017 as an example, there were 457 white deaths, 1/6 of that is 76, we would expect 76 african American deaths, but that's not reality, reality is 223 deaths coming from just 13% of the population. And 457 deaths coming from 60% of the population.

So basically...LOOK AT THE NUMBERS YOU JUST CITED!!!! Half as many African Americans were killed in that year as non-Hispanic white people...that's 3x more than the expected 1/6 as many African American deaths we would expect (compared the non-Hispanic white death total) if the rate of deaths by police for both rates were the same.

Yes, 1/2 is a whopping 3 times bigger than 1/6. Consult any basic math reference tool, i.e. calculator. By population, African Americans in the United states are about 3x as likely to be killed by a police officer than non-Hispanic white people in the United States. That's what the data you've provided shows.

Your ability to critically examine and analyze raw data, understand and evaluate statistics, and do basic math may need to be looked into a bit further. Forming opinions based on information you do not fully understand is not a great way to make your point. In the U.S. police kill African Americans 3x more often than non-Hispanic white people. If you can't understand the math on that, I tutor for just $9 an hour.

It is honestly short sighted at the very least, not to mention stereotypically offensive to assume that all people who struggle with addiction/alcoholism should have to be stripped of all achievements and future professional opportunities because of addiction/alcoholism.

I believe that everyone has the potential to become physically addicted to anything that causes euphoria (anything potentially addictive), but no one goes into a toxic addictive relationship with anything knowing beforehand how all encompassing that chosen substance will be. No one intends for drugs/alcohol to literally take over every aspect of their lives, negatively affecting everything they do and think. We all go in thinking we can stop anytime we want, and when we can't, we get blamed and shamed for "not knowing any better"...but that's just not a fair assessment because the potential for addiction is different for each person and each substance.

It's very normal to guage ones decisions about whether to use a new substance on how it affects other people, but doing so is a mistake. Sometimes it may look from one person's perspective that everyone else is in total control and having an amazing time, when in reality, it's just a front. Especially at parties and social occasions, we may not see all the shitty things people do behind closed doors to get the substance they feel they need, like lying, stealing, hurting or threatening to hurt themselves or others. There is no adequate comparison of how something anyone else does will affect you because addiction/alcoholism doesn't care what you do for a living.

If you use enough of a thing that causes you extreme euphoria, eventually, you'll forget what it's like to be without it, and fear that state, sometimes to the point if doing absolutely horrible things to yourself or others. And withdrawal symptoms can multiply that fear and desperation exponentially. Addiction and alcoholism should never be used as a guage to discriminate against people with, as long as they are willing to seek, obtain and maintain proper assistance for recovery.

Part of why I dislike social media is because I read everything literally unless the context (fairly clearly) indicates I should probably do otherwise. I try not to point out what I perceive as logical fallacies or insufficiencies in people's writings (presumably based on laziness or dialectical incapacity), but when I do, I rarely get positive responses, much less ones that indicate the other person even understands my point.

People seem to automatically get defensive about interpretation, especially when they feel like they're being misinterpreted. When I take what you've said literally and I reach out for clarification, people get angry. I still believe that we say matters, words matter, and sometimes my brain can't just grasp at intent with no additional context or explanation.

When we don't think about what we're saying and how we say it, we leave ourselves open to interpretation. It's not just about filling in contextual blanks, I just feel like if people don't know how to adequately express themselves though language, I get frustrated, like I would if I couldn't find the right words to get my own thoughts across. Sometimes I try to point out how they might change their verbiage or syntax to help them make their point more clearly. It's not meant to offend anyone, but to help them empower themselves by learning to use language more effectively.

I do, taking a step back, understand how this often comes off as offensive. I see how speaking in your own words (stream of consciousness) can be a powerful didactic tool, more indicative of the thoughts going on in the writer's mind. It just bothers me when I examine what people write and find their written statements to be rife with what comes across as ableist or otherwise unhelpful thought patterns and assumptions they've made due to what I would consider to be underlying didactic misinterpretations or misunderstandings.

It bothers me when people use language to make sentences that are not complete thoughts, have little or no substance, or have fallacious assumptions behind them.

I guess that makes me a pariah. I don't know. I feel like when I just want to point out something that could be more concise, people just don't care. It's like language as a form of self expression is becoming socially and culturally unimportant. I see it all the time in social media, people just "talking shit." Meaningless drivel said for the sole purpose of iteration, talking just to talk. I don't get it.

I understand social media is made up of mostly casual, colloquial interactions, but it bothers me that some cannot adequately or accurately portray simple thoughts or ideas using even this basic "abbreviated" form of communication. I don't know, it's just how my brain is, and it makes relationships and communication very difficult for me.

AFTERWORD

Have we raised a generation of people who just assume their words will be understood? And when they aren't (when asked about their meaning) most people get angry and blame the reader for incorrect interpretation or inability to understand their thoughts via the presented incomplete or imprecise language. It's as if writers now claim no responsibility for presenting void, nonsensical, or fallacious statements. I still think we should each do our part to at least try to be understood, and that includes a basic mastery of at least one native language. Is it crazy of me to think we should use the tool of language to better communicate with each other, or is everything open to interpretation, does nothing mean anything?