magid

Wow: Australia now allows intersex people to choose a third gender, designated X for their passports. Transgendered people can choose their gender, with a doctor's note, but cannot choose X (I hadn't realized that the USA dropped a surgery requirement to have passports match presenting gender last year). I don't know whether this thereby covers the field; I know that I am not the most up-to-date on the murky area of gender politics, which are so often tied up with sexual preference/identity (which I think is the more complicated end of things).

A FaceBook friend posted an article he'd written on the Jewish perception and law about tattoos, asking for friends' thoughts on tattooing. I replied that

I have a number of (mostly non-Jewish) friends with tattoos, and while I definitely don't understand the urge to permanently have some art on me (especially considering the pain involved), some of the actual art is attractive. If someone in the [Jewish, religious] community had a tattoo, I generally assume that it's from a previous period of their life (that I might be curious to ask about....). I definitely don't understand why anyone chooses a tattoo on a part of their body they can't see without a mirror, and worry that those with lots of tattoos will have issues with their health because so much of their skin can't breathe. That said, I do know people who seem to need to mark important milestones on their bodies.

[I didn't deal with the question of tattoos of deity names or depictions, because I've never considered that as a distinct, more problematic, subcategory before.]

(What I didn't say but am now thinking about is how the only mention of ear piercing in Tanakh is a Jewish slave choosing to stay in servitude, yet it's common practice to get ears pierced. I don't, because of my mother's issues when hers were pierced (leading to a metal allergy), and while it would be be convenient at times to have the holes, it's nice not to have to figure out yet another thing to match to my outfit. :-)

Ten Rules for Fat Girls is something I wish I'd read years ago. I'm never going to be thin, and in my head I'll always be a fat girl, no matter how (TV- /magazine- /whatever-depicted mainstream) socially-acceptable I may get my exterior to be. I've definitely had doctors tell me that $Issue would be better if I only lost weight, and only some of the time were the issues possibly weight dependent (though I'll admit that the one that hurt most was a doctor telling me I could obviously find more time for exercise, since I was single (!)).

In one of the crochet communities, someone posted to ask about The Perfect Pattern (a challenge to make and amazing after), which sounded far too much like The One True Way (Yarn Edition) for me. I replied that

for me, this doesn't exist; once I've made $FinishedObject, there's no longer the same challenge that there was the first time; it's like rereading a book rather than the first time reading it: still good in lots of ways, but not the initial contact that has the potential to change the reader in whatever ways.

(Though I also have to admit, I don't often work from patterns, if ever, because for me the creative part is making something up, rather than producing an object from a given pattern. Obviously, this is not how most people work....)

Bonus: best hat for watching the zoetrope Charon.
(Side note: my mind keeps hanging on the word zoetrope, thinking about warrior women, non-literal use of words, and chanting cantillation.)