Welcome to my blog!

• 23Dec 12

  Ms. ghokle

  Disclaimer: I am writing this blog entry because I often find myself explaining to every other person on OT about my sex. I think that it wouldn't hurt if more people knew.

  A few months ago, I realized that I am trans*. In other words, my assigned sex at birth is different from my innate, subconscious sex. I am a trans* girl in that I have a male body, but my true, subconscious sex is female. My femaleness is not something I can change with experience; it is an inherent aspect of my identity. I also have dysphoria in that I wish to transition fully. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), sex reassignment surgery (SRS), laser hair removal, electrolysis - all of those things are on my mind because I have an internal need to end the dissonance between my body and my mind once and for all. I don't hate my body, but I need to change it.

  Feel free to ask me any question you want! I'm open to all questions, especially if the people who ask are asking in good faith. Please bear in mind, however, that trans* people are a very diverse group; in regards to questions about personal experience and perspective, I intend to speak only for myself.

  • Posted Dec 23, 2012 7:36 pm GMT
  • Category: Other
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• 27Jun 12

  Criminals are people, too

  Suppose you hear about a middle-aged man being sentenced to 20 years in prison for committing some heinous crime like murder, rape, abuse, etc. You are pleased to hear the verdict because you believe in justice.

  One day, you find out somehow that this same person is being gang-raped in prison. Prison rape is a ubiquity, but in response to this news, you dispassionately say that he deserves to be raped in prison because he's a horrible person.

  Why is it that, once someone has committed a crime, he or she is no longer to be treated humanely?

  The very same thing we condemn outside of prison we tolerate or even encourage in prison because the victims have committed heinous crimes.

  When we tolerate or encourage prison rape, what are we really saying? To me, this suggests that we care more about punishment than keeping society safe. Society will not be safer once that person's very soul is ripped apart by constant torture in prison. He may lose his desire to commit crime, but it will be at the cost of his life. Yes, you now have one less potential criminal on the street, but that same person - a human being - now has to suffer from PTSD and a host of other problems. The purpose of justice is to protect, not to torture perpetrators.

  Indeed, what I'm saying is that even criminals are people. Yes, I know that serial killers are terrible people. But torturing them is not going to make society safer. I'm not even talking about prison rape as torture exclusively. It seems that we aren't even willing to entertain the idea that they should be treated with a basic level of respect. I'm not saying that we should unconditionally love and support serial killers. We just shouldn't say that they should be relegated to the status of subhuman creatures just because of their crimes.

  • Posted Jun 27, 2012 4:48 pm GMT
  • Category: Rant
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• 9May 12

  The not-as-bad-as fallacy

  One informal fallacy that makes me livid these days is the not-as-bad-as fallacy. To elucidate this fallacy, I'll give you an example. Clearly, a rapist is more reprehensible than a thief, because the former has committed an egregious crime against another human being tantamount to physical and psychic torture, whereas the thief has just stolen something. But just because the thief hasn't hurt anyone, doesn't mean that he or she is totally free of blame. Certainly, theft is nothing like rape, but it's still bad. Indeed, the not-as-bad-as fallacy is the fallacious assumption that, if X is better than Y, then X is necessarily good. Of course, this assumption is fallacious because X's superiority to Y does not entail X's absolute goodness.

  Here's a wise quote that sums up everything:

  "To be good, it is not enough to be better than the worst." -Lucius Annaeus Seneca

  I don't have much else to say, but this is something that people should certainly think about.

  • Posted May 9, 2012 9:46 pm GMT
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