bbc news reports that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) will shrink your brain. a research team at wake forest university determined that “two key areas of the brain involved in thinking and memory were smaller in women who had taken HRT than in those who had been given a “dummy” placebo pill.”

never mind being all scientific in their study however.

…the researchers admit they were unable to carry out brain scans before the women began taking HRT.
And the results suggest shrinkage was most pronounced in women who may already have started to develop memory problems before they started taking hormones.

and, “The forms of HRT examined in the latest study contain a variety of oestrogens referred to as conjugated equine oestrogens.” you know, premarin (careful, this is one of those annoying talking websites). horse estrogen. the kind that’s more expensive because one has to torture horses to extract it.

my advise – use estrace. it doesn’t shrink your brain, and no horses were tortured in its production.

it seems that every time i read through my trans news feed, someone makes a derogatory joke about trans people, or calls us freaks, or compares our existence as being equal to destroying rain forests. so when i read this article entitled “Has being Transgender become the new punch line in America?”, i think “become the new punch line?. we’ve been the punch line now for years.” it contributes to the perception that we’re disposable, that our lives have no worth.

i don’t blog enough about how many trans people are murdered, or disparaged, or insulted, or joked about. i suppose it’s one of my coping mechanisms to gather the motivation to move through the world as my authentic self. you know, sorry for being a freak, or “funny”, or living an existence that’s as destructive as the loss of our rain forests, but this is really getting old.

they’re everywhere. like in the parking lot of the lonestar steakhouse.

just got season 4.0 in preparation for season 4.5 which starts january 16th. i’m really looking forward to the final season. see the preview webisodes here.

heh. i found this through one of my favorite new sites bad astronomy, who linked to plognark.com, who created the artwork. in the comments, he queries “Now I’m curious what other odd places this has shown up”. heh.

also available in black.

i received a coupon book from cabela’s featuring a $30.00 off on a purchase of a .22 LR marlin model 60 with walnut stock and stainless barrel/action, or a pink laminate stock with blued barrel/action. so can i get a stainless barrel with the pink laminate stock? well, they’re having their periodic gun show on february 6 – 8, so perhaps i can ask then.

while there is progress being made in the jewish community with the acceptance of transgender jews, there is quite a gap between the reformed and orthodox flavors. it follows quite closely the way christian conservatives differ from christian progressives. according to this article, avi shafran, director of public affairs for agudath israel of america, holds the view that:

…under Jewish law, “and that’s all that should matter to an Orthodox Jew, if the physiology is clearly male or female, then they are considered that.

Certainly the surgery [for gender reassignment] is not permitted.

If post facto there was a change, to the best of my knowledge it doesn’t make a difference either.”

ouch. having been raised in the orthodox tradition, the congregation to which i used to belong wouldn’t recognize my current status. fortunately, i’ve long ago “drifted” from my religious roots. my parents have done the same. though my two sisters still both practice, i believe they currently follow a more conservative (in judaism, “conservative” is a tradition or sect somewhere between orthodox – very traditional – and reformed – progressive) or reformed tradition.

But ancient texts are more modern in some ways than may be widely known: said Congregation Sha’ar Zahav rabbinic intern Reuben Zellman, “Today in the Western world, we are very insistent about our binary gender system,” but the Reform synagogue intern added that that was not necessarily an outlook shared by ancient scholars.

“Our sages talked about gender diversity in a much different way than we talk about it in contemporary America,” Zellman, who himself is transgendered, said.

“They were, in some senses, much more open about what the range of human experience could really be.”

Among various genders aside from “male” and “female” that ancient texts refer to, said the article, are “androgynos” (literally, “man/woman”) and “tumtum,” which is a gender in-between male and female.

so if i were ever moved to start practicing judaism again, i could certainly find a place. in fact, i’ve run into a few local jewish groups here in phoenix that are quite lgbt focused, small as they may be.

according to this wall street journal article, russian academic igor panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. he believes that arizona and its neighboring states will fall under china’s influence. now granted, we couldn’t do much as individuals against fighter jets, tanks, or bombs, but arizona’s populace is pretty well armed. since there’s about 300 million firearms in possession by civilians in the u.s., divided by 50 results in 6 million guns in arizona. though based on the relative liberal gun laws here, i’d imagine that arizona is above average.

i worked today, being that i get a regular day’s pay whether or not i work as holiday pay, and time-and-a-half for every hour i worked. and besides, i only have one more day of work in that department, since i start a new position on monday. 6 weeks of training with no talking on the phone. yay! 2009 is starting on a high note. lets hope it continues.