ADM introduction: A ranty tranny, a developer, an abuse survivor

So anyone who follows Seebs arguments on Tumblr probably recognize me. I'm the heavily progressive, angry tranny bitch.

I go by adigitalmagician on Tumblr, you can call me ADM or Piper.

By day I'm a heavily invested Python developer working on REALLY COOL mobile apps. (If all goes well, I can discuss one by the end of the week.) I do server dev, so I'm much more interested in how you save data, how you manipulate it, and how you communicate it to other folks. My tool belt includes Python, Go, AWS, MongoDB, SQL, HTML5, and Ruby (ugh).

By night I'm heavily involved in the local development community. I hit two or more meet ups for Python devs a week, I speak, I teach. Twice a month I go to my trans support group. Outside of these structured things, I write video games using various Python libraries, though I'm considering working on learning JS game dev and unity for both the web player and mobile player.

Historically, I spent 2 years in an abusive marriage, and 4-6 years in that relationship both before and following the marriage. I'm always willing to talk about the experience, so questions, go ahead and ask.

I'm also an Ex-Mormon and used to be a bit of a scholar of religions. I'm also a blasphemous fuck. The more I know a religion, the more I'll make fun of it.

I think that's a pretty solid break down of me past and present. Any questions?

 

Okay, so I have been meaning to ask this since I started following you, but I kept on forgetting or running out of spoons. Did you ever get a "patriachal blessing"? The little fortune telly thing they do??

 

No, I in fact never got to the point where I felt moved to do it! It actually requires an insane amount of spoons to get a patriarchal recommend, and as I've learned since then, a lot of things required WAY more social interaction than my brain can handle.

 

Hiya! Your blog is awesome, by the way.

 

OMG, thank you.

I feel like my blog is a hot mess that I have not even tried to make useful to anyone or anything but me.

 

I actually reccomended it to a friend (who should be showing up here eventually) when the whole 'a is for ace' crap was going on.

 

Yeah. I was the anon a little while ago that thanked you for pointing out that having feminine teasing made things harder to work out/accept. That was a big thing when I was a kid, and I never realized the connection, before.

Your blog is great! It doesn't have to be useful to anyone but you, but seeing cool people being cool and being able to learn from their coolitude's a big, huge help.

 

Oh, cool! Glad to have an identity to go with the ask!

I often spend time going over my founding experiences and just. . . ugh, the fact that I am reasonably well adjusted is shocking to me. Of course, that took a lot of work from some lovely people.

I'm still sad about that topic. Like, I am all up for ace visibility and improving discussion of topics that affect the various a-spectrums. But I will not let them step in and make themselves more important by fiat.

 

Yay! 'S why I mentioned it. I would've sent from my blog but found out only main blogs can send asks, apparently, which means I'd out myself in the process which I'm not sure I'm ready for. But yeah, that really helped a lot.

The large majority of my friend group describes us as "suprisingly well-adjusted people given significant traumas and assorted difficulties".

As someone that used to be in the other camp (briefly, thank goodness, but for longer than I'd like to admit all the same)... yeah, it's a problem. I think it comes a bit from people lifting more stuff from other communities, honestly? Like... women are a large enough group that male allies help but aren't strictly vital anymore to basic functionality of the feminist movement (overall success, probably, but there are those that would argue). I know a number of black folks that are sick to death of allies jumping in and talking over them/being given more visibility than larger other movements. These are both movements that are able to build and grow kinda on their own, for various reasons, I think?

The queer community isn't. If I have children (something going horribly wrong right there to begin with), there's no guarantee they'll be anything other than straight and cis. A likelihood that they'll feel okay coming out if they are, sure, but that's really not the same. We're a tiny population with no continuity (which leads to the recreation of history and constant re-fighting of battles), no inherent visibility, and we're spread out more-or-less evenly initially (although some places foster awareness better than others, to be sure).

We reaaally need allies to actually make progress. Like, so fucking much. But because of the circumstances that make us need them, people don't realize how much they've done for us.

 

This is such a perfect description I must steal it.

 

Yeah, I think this is really the crux of it honestly. I'm in a post Civil Rights Movement black history class right now, and we're currently talking about Stokely Carmichael and the origins of the Black power movement, and its really interesting because you can see the origins of i guess what you might call modern thinking about allies there, and also some of the ways that it doesn't quite translate to LGBT&c. stuff (like, self-determination through getting LGBT&c. people enough political power via voting to control local elections/government? proooobably not going to happen, statistically.)

Also, I think some of tumblr's weirdness about slurs and "slurs" may make a bit more sense if you're coming at it with the assumption that any derogatory word that can refer to a minority or oppressed group is "basically the n word, but for y people."


Also, hi Piper! I've lurked your tumblr a bit and you seem pretty cool! (and have sent you anon messages to this effect :P)
You've got way more ability to argue with dipshits than I will likely ever have, which impresses (and intimidates, a bit) me.

 

I do think, yes, a lot of harm comes from copy/pasting models from other minority groups and struggles without taking into account differing circumstances and history and times.

 

I am ace and I thought that was ridiculous! What is the problem with sharing the damn letter?

 

My PR campaign is working.

I get told a lot that people aren't sure where I get the energy, and in honesty, I don't, really. I just care, and I often burn myself out. See my current "suicide doesn't exist" rule.

One of my local friends doesn't understand why I put the effort into the crazy kids who have about ten years of learning to do. I usually answer with: I remember being the crazy kid in need of an education. I also remember being led by the nose when I was out of line.

 

*waves*

 

i found you through seebs and you seem pretty cool.

 

This does not surprise me.

The seebs part.

The cool part is like, have you really paid attention to me? I'm the biggest nerd.

 

But nerds can be cool. At least in my universe.

 

...
that's why i think you're cool?
nerds are cool in my opinion.
you're also you know, a real life trans grown up.
there aren't as many out there.
i mean presumebly there are more then there were.
but still.

 

Sorry, self deprecation.

I dunno if I count as a real life trans grown up. Like, I've been aware of myself for less than a year. I'm doing what I can to handle it, though, and I'm working as a woman, so maybe I do count. I dunno.

Excuse me while I go over there and poke at code for awhile.

This is becoming more prevalent an opinion, which is cool.