Adrian
Forum Replies Created
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This thread is posted in “Fun Stuff” – but has wandered from being funny.
Its an unmoderated forum so I just let it be… but am curious to where the joke is. Perhaps someone could publish the punch line?Bemused (not moderating) moderator!
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One week later the new chat room is still up and running!
Over 80 members have found their way into the chat room which is a great first step.
I suspect a couple of members have had problems getting a good connection to the chat – it isn’t particularly forgiving of poor wireless links. If you do have persistent connection issues shoot me an email and I’ll see what the server logs tell us.
On a similar note, it can be difficult to get your web cam working the first time. If you want assistance email me and I’ll arrange a time to step you through the process.
See you in the chat!
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Quote:Thanks Vicki, I think we got off the subject a bit talking about undescended testes.
It may have been unexpected to talk about undescended testes but I don’t think it was off the subject at all.
It perhaps illustrates how little exposure we have had to the reality of the intersex condition and its diagnosis.
I went in search of an official medical statement of what symptoms are considered indicators of a potential intersex condition.
I found this reference from the US government:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001669.htmWhere it states:
Quote:The symptoms associated with intersex will depend on the underlying cause, but may include:Ambiguous genitalia at birth
Micropenis
Clitoromegaly (an enlarged clitoris)
Partial labial fusion
Apparently undescended testes (which may turn out to be ovaries) in boys
Labial or inguinal (groin) masses — which may turn out to be testes — in girls
Hypospadias [the opening of the penis is somewhere other than at the tip; in females, the urethra (urine canal) opens into the vagina]
Otherwise unusual-appearing genitalia at birth
Electrolyte abnormalities
Delayed or absent puberty
Unexpected changes at pubertyThe highlight is mine.
It would appear that undescended testes at birth is potentially an indication of an intersex baby. But obviously everyone with undescended testes is not necessarily intersex.
But we were on topic it seems.
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Lisa,
Thank you for your informative post.
I can relate very personally to the decision you highlighted.
I was born with undescended testes, and in those long ago days there obviously wasn’t an option of a trip to the surgeon after birth to “correct me”.
I lived with the “abnormality” through my childhood in blissful ignorance and it wasn’t until I hit my teens that my parents were advised by the doctor that “something should be done”. At no stage did anyone suggest to me that I was in any way different – in fact I thought until very recently that descending of the testes was a rite of passage of adolescent boys much like the first period for girls.
In those days my treatment wasn’t the knife but instead lots of hormone jabs in my bum at the local cottage hospital. Once a week for a very long time! The hormones eventually “worked”, though not without some other side effects.
In my case I remained fertile and have a daughter who is the joy of my life. I’m also watching out closely, now I know I am at risk, for testicular cancer.
Would I elect to have such surgery at birth for my child?
Well that would depend if the testes were the only irregularity in the sexual organs. If that is the case then an operation at birth has to be far preferable to hormone treatment later in life. I can still “feel” those injections (needles were a lot blunter then) – and all that testosterone flowing did shape my adolescence in ways that I would have preferred to have avoided.
How complicated it is making decisions in the face of such human diversity!
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Simple answer “Yes” – there will be a TransFormal in 2014.
TransFormal is not exclusively a TgR event – it is something that I run personally with a lot of help from others. So these forums won’t carry much information about the event until we start ticket sales in January or February.
TransFormal does have a web site – which should be your primary reference.
http://www.trannytix.com/transformal
But all that is there at the moment is a date!Well, to be honest, in fact it wasn’t there.
Sometime in the last few months the old web site had fallen over. Maybe it couldn’t cope with the post-TransFormal lull in traffic.
I’ve given it a hug and a tickle – and it does appear to be on its feet again.
But it is getting a bit old – 5 years old to be exact – and maybe it will need a rewrite before we go live for TransFormal 2014. -
Thanks for the feedback….
Quote:When I click on the profile pic of people who are about I get an error in finding the page .– Fixed the missing link
Quote:You can no longer click on a member’s name in the ‘Who is online’ box– The link was only on the profile pic and not the name. I’ve extended it to both. To go into chat you have to click on the green circle.
Quote:The ‘Who is online’ box on the Home page, no longer shows which State/territory/country a currently online member is from..
– True but being different isn’t necessarily a problem. The state display was squeezed out by the green circles. To elevate this from “being different” to “being a problem” I’d need to understand the issue.
Quote:The chat room entry page no longer shows any recent lines of chat from the main room in the Chat Room.The entry page is quite different – but that doesn’t necessarily make it a problem. I decided not to repeat the hack I did last time to extract that data to eavesdrop into the chat room. It only really works for one room (not the two we now have), it looked messy with all the different colours – and was a legacy from a time when people were being naughty in the public chat!
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Quote:hope the room does not drop out anymore.
I’ve been trying to present the positive changes in the visible part of the chat room rather than talk about the behind the scenes “engine room” stuff.
But one of my reasons for upgrading the chat was the fact that the old room, when we bought it, was positively buggy. After extensive mods (including the infamous red square) it seemed to settle down a bit – but the consequence of all those mods was the fact that I couldn’t include the bug fixes the original developers eventually made.
Looking into the bowels of the chat room it is true that they have tidied it up a lot over the past two years – so, like you, I hope the new room is a lot more robust. Certainly in the initial testing I’ve seen nothing like the connection problems we had a couple of years ago.
Fingers crossed (virtually of course)….
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I can’t help but wonder – since there are apparently a significant number of us who are challenged when it comes to putting hand behind our backs…
How do the clip and twist girls zip up dresses with a high zip at the back. Even a seasoned chicken winger like myself has been stranded with the zip in a no-person’s zone – too low to reach from above and too high to get at from below.
Are the clip and twist girls all using coathangers or safety pins and ribbons to reach the unreachable?
Perhaps this has the making of another informal survey?
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Quote:Hi Amanda,
I hope you do not mind but I thought I would give feedback.Not at all! I would rather have feedback than a stoney silence!
The changes to add a second room in the chat rest on a number of assumptions that may or may not be true.
Who is in chat to just talk privately?
The most certain assumption is that people having private chats in a room where others want to talk as a group is frustrating to the group chatters. Many times I have observed people wondering why the main chat room is so quiet if there are so many people logged in. At the moment it isn’t clear the reason why people have entered the chat – and the assumption seems to be “they are here because they want to chat with me”. Moving private chat partly into a second room is therefore a positive design choice. I expect this would otherwise be much more of an issue as the new chat room integration positively encourages people to come into the chat room to chat privately. I would like the room you are to speak to why you are in the chat – it isn’t something that can be enforced for private chat – but is something I can encourage by steering people into the appropriate rooms.Who uses video chat?
Next we have the more unknown issue of why people would video chat or more specifically who they will chat with. Because of the issues with un-moderated (or actually un-moderatable) content on video I see sharing video as an extension to private chatting. The process whereby one person launches a web cam and then others ask for permission to view it is more compatible with a private conversation. I don’t want the video to be used as a “live avatar” when group chatting. By only allowing the video to be started in a second room the design will start to separate those having a private chat with or without video from those having a public group chat.I feel that most members would not be happy sharing their live image with strangers – and the private one-on-one model allows greater freedom for how the video is used.
Who watches video chat?
In the new chat room you don’t have to be in the same room as someone to have a private chat with them. If someone enters the chat room wanting to start a private conversation with video then that person has to be in the second room. Because of the way the chat room is built this means people in the main room can be participating in a private chat and viewing video. I’d prefer the viewers to move to the video chat room (and they will have to if they want to send video back) but it isn’t something the chat room can enforce easily.I hope these ideas work out when we go live. But if they don’t or need refinement I’m happy to respond to other ideas.
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The new chat room has been tested out quite thoroughly over the last week, and unless we find any show-stopper bugs I propose to make the switch-over on Sunday (10th Nov 13).
In addition to the features listed in my first post we have integrated the chat better with the main forums.
😉 Chat Requests
It is possible to invite another member who is on-line to meet you in the chat room. You no longer have to wait for others to come into the chat room to have a talk. Now you can proactively select who you want to talk with and arrange to meetup for a private chat.A couple of the features of the new chat room may be unfamiliar to members – and so I’m putting together a few tutorials to help you get up to speed and make the best use of the room.
The first tutorial explains how to invite your friends into the chat room.
View it on YouTube here:
http://youtu.be/iIRIpG0FyQQ -
Following Caty’s request I’ve added a poll to her post.
Please record your answer in the poll and not by posting here – or do both! -
September 2013
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Moderator
Quote:I’ve moved this post from “All about you” to perhaps a better home in the serious forums
Quote:we know the sexes
male
female
these two are a givenIf we are talking about physical sex then one should perhaps also add intersex as a given.
Quote:my question is the third sex transgender should this be added ?No – because transgender is about gender – not sex!
Everyone who is transgender is either clinically male, female or inter- sex. As it is clinically impossible to completely change a human from being of male sex to female sex there is a higher incidence of what is probably technically intersex amongst those who are transgender. But it would be very confusing if we decided to label those of indeterminate physical sex as transgender.
Quote:just for a guide your drivers lic can read male female or other when you renew itIn NSW we don’t have gender or sex printed on drivers licences. But when you apply for your license you are asked what your sex is, with the choice male or female. I’m not sure if you can leave the question blank if you are neither Arthur or Martha so to speak. But we digress I think.
The simple answer to your question from me is still No!
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Liz asked
Quote:has anyone asked me how I felt about being trans? the answer was a resounding no.I can’t buy into the idea that the lack of people asking reflects the “selfishness that allows people to be greedy and self serving”.
I don’t understand why we should expect anyone to ask us how we feel about being “Trans”. Do we walk up to Afro-Americans and ask them how they feel about being coloured? Do we sideline our gay friends and ask them how they feel about being gay? Do we engage those who are left-handed in a discussion about how it feels to be different?
Of course we don’t – it is natural to be gay, transgender, coloured or left handed. So it is not only unexpected to interrogate feelings in this way – it is, I think, rude – because it attempts to highlight differences that which should not need to attract attention.
I’m not saying it is any easier being transgender – but the last thing I look for is sympathy. It is my lot to live a life as who I happened to be, it is 100% natural, and can’t be changed. So I seek acceptance from others – and that means not looking for questions that single me out as being unusual or different.
Perhaps we should be doing the asking…asking our partners more often how they feel about being in a relationship with us!!
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Quote:BTW how did the dress prize turn out?
My friends daughter won a prize for her black retro tasseled dress, headband, and antique clutch bag….she looked far more 1920’s than we did. My prize was acceptance – worth a lot more than a couple of free tickets!