#world events and health issues and politics are just complex sometimes and it takes time to figure out

[gansey-like]

braver than any us soldier (reading the news from different sources, doing more research about things i don't understand, seeking out information from experts, waiting and listening before taking a position, etc, etc.)

[lastsonlost]

Crossing the divide

Do men really have it easier? These transgender guys found the truth was more complex.

In the 1990s, the late Stanford neuroscientist Ben Barres transitioned from female to male. He was in his 40s, mid-career, and afterward he marveled at the stark changes in his professional life. Now that society saw him as male, his ideas were taken more seriously. He was able to complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man. A colleague who didn’t know he was transgender even praised his work as “much better than his sister’s.”

Clinics have reported an increase in people seeking medical gender transitions in recent years, and research suggests the number of people identifying as transgender has risen in the past decade. Touchstones such as Caitlyn Jenner’s transition, the bathroom controversy, and the Amazon series “Transparent” have also made the topic a bigger part of the political and cultural conversation.

But it is not always evident when someone has undergone a transition — especially if they have gone from female to male.

“The transgender guys have a relatively straightforward process — we just simply add testosterone and watch their bodies shift,” said Joshua Safer, executive director at the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System and Icahn School of Medicine in New York. “Within six months to a year they start to virilize — getting facial hair, a ruddier complexion, a change in body odor and a deepening of the voice.”

Transgender women have more difficulty “passing”; they tend to be bigger-boned and more masculine-looking, and these things are hard to reverse with hormone treatments, Safer said. “But the transgender men will go get jobs and the new boss doesn’t even know they’re trans.”

We spoke with four men who transitioned as adults to the bodies in which they feel more comfortable. Their experiences reveal that the gulf between how society treats women and men is in many ways as wide now as it was when Barres transitioned. But their diverse backgrounds provide further insight into how race and ethnicity inform the gender divide in subtle and sometimes surprising ways.

(Their words have been lightly edited for space and clarity.)

‘I’ll never call the police again’

Trystan Cotten, 50, Berkeley, Calif.

Professor of gender studies at California State University Stanislaus and editor of Transgress Press, which publishes books related to the transgender experience. Transitioned in 2008.

Life doesn’t get easier as an African American male. The way that police officers deal with me, the way that racism undermines my ability to feel safe in the world, affects my mobility, affects where I go. Other African American and Latino Americans grew up as boys and were taught to deal with that at an earlier age. I had to learn from my black and brown brothers about how to stay alive in my new body and retain some dignity while being demeaned by the cops.

One night somebody crashed a car into my neighbor’s house, and I called 911. I walk out to talk to the police officer, and he pulls a gun on me and says, “Stop! Stop! Get on the ground!” I turn around to see if there’s someone behind me, and he goes, “You! You! Get on the ground!” I’m in pajamas and barefoot. I get on the ground and he checks me, and afterward I said, “What was that all about?” He said, “You were moving kind of funny.” Later, people told me, “Man, you’re crazy. You never call the police.”

I get pulled over a lot more now. I GOT PULLED OVER MORE IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS AFTER MY TRANSITION THAN I DID THE ENTIRE 20 YEARS I WAS DRIVING BEFORE THAT.

Before, when I’d been stopped, even for real violations like driving 100 miles an hour, I got off. In fact, when it happened in Atlanta the officer and I got into a great conversation about the Braves. Now the first two questions they ask are: Do I have any weapons in the car, and am I on parole or probation?

Being a black man has changed the way I move in the world.

I used to walk quickly or run to catch a bus. Now I walk at a slower pace, and if I’m late I don’t dare rush. I am hyper-aware of making sudden or abrupt movements, especially in airports, train stations and other public places. I avoid engaging with unfamiliar white folks, especially white women. If they catch my eye, white women usually clutch their purses and cross the street. While I love urban aesthetics, I stopped wearing hoodies and traded my baggy jeans, oversized jerseys and colorful skullcaps for closefitting jeans, khakis and sweaters. These changes blunt assumptions that I’m going to snatch purses or merchandise, or jump the subway turnstile. The less visible I am, the better my chances of surviving.

But it’s not foolproof. I’m an academic sitting at a desk so I exercise where I can. I walked to the post office to mail some books and I put on this 40-pound weight vest that I walk around in. It was about 3 or 4 in the afternoon and I’m walking back and all of a sudden police officers drove up, got out of their car, and stopped. I had my earphones on so I didn’t know they were talking to me. I looked up and there’s a helicopter above. And now I can kind of see why people run, because you might live if you run, even if you haven’t done anything. This was in Emeryville, one of the wealthiest enclaves in Northern California, where there’s security galore. Someone had seen me walking to the post office and called in and said they saw a Muslim with an explosives vest. One cop, a white guy, picked it up and laughed and said, “Oh, I think I know what this is. This is a weight belt.”

It’s not only humiliating, but it creates anxiety on a daily basis. Before, I used to feel safe going up to a police officer if I was lost or needed directions. But I don’t do that anymore. I hike a lot, and if I’m out hiking and I see a dead body, I’ll keep on walking. I’ll never call the police again.

‘It now feels as though I am on my own’

Zander Keig, 52, San Diego

Coast Guard veteran. Works at Naval Medical Center San Diego as a clinical social work case manager. Editor of anthologies about transgender men. Started transition in 2005.

Prior to my transition, I was an outspoken radical feminist. I spoke up often, loudly and with confidence.

I was encouraged to speak up. I was given awards for my efforts, literally — it was like, “Oh, yeah, speak up, speak out.” When I speak up now, I am often given the direct or indirect message that I am “mansplaining,” “taking up too much space” or “asserting my white male heterosexual privilege.” Never mind that I am a first-generation Mexican American, a transsexual man, and married to the same woman I was with prior to my transition.

I find the assertion that I am now unable to speak out on issues I find important offensive and I refuse to allow anyone to silence me. My ability to empathize has grown exponentially, because I now factor men into my thinking and feeling about situations.

Prior to my transition, I rarely considered how men experienced life or what they thought, wanted or liked about their lives.

I have learned so much about the lives of men through my friendships with men, reading books and articles by and for men and through the men I serve as a licensed clinical social worker.

Social work is generally considered to be “female dominated,” with women making up about 80 percent of the profession in the United States. Currently I work exclusively with clinical nurse case managers, but in my previous position, as a medical social worker working with chronically homeless military veterans — mostly male — who were grappling with substance use disorder and severe mental illness, I was one of a few men among dozens of women.

Plenty of research shows that life events, medical conditions and family circumstances impact men and women differently. But when I would suggest that patient behavioral issues like anger or violence may be a symptom of trauma or depression, it would often get dismissed or outright challenged. The overarching theme was “men are violent” and there was “no excuse” for their actions.

I do notice that some women do expect me to acquiesce or concede to them more now: Let them speak first, let them board the bus first, let them sit down first, and so on. I also notice that in public spaces men are more collegial with me, which they express through verbal and nonverbal messages: head lifting when passing me on the sidewalk and using terms like “brother” and “boss man” to acknowledge me. As a former lesbian feminist, I was put off by the way that some women want to be treated by me, now that I am a man, because it violates a foundational belief I carry, which is that women are fully capable human beings who do not need men to acquiesce or concede to them.

What continues to strike me is the significant reduction in friendliness and kindness now extended to me in public spaces. It now feels as though I am on my own: No one, outside of family and close friends, is paying any attention to my well-being.

I can recall a moment where this difference hit home. A couple of years into my medical gender transition, I was traveling on a public bus early one weekend morning. There were six people on the bus, including me. One was a woman. She was talking on a mobile phone very loudly and remarked that “men are such a–holes.” I immediately looked up at her and then around at the other men. Not one had lifted his head to look at the woman or anyone else. The woman saw me look at her and then commented to the person she was speaking with about “some a–hole on the bus right now looking at me.” I was stunned, because I recall being in similar situations, but in the reverse, many times: A man would say or do something deemed obnoxious or offensive, and I would find solidarity with the women around me as we made eye contact, rolled our eyes and maybe even commented out loud on the situation. I’m not sure I understand why the men did not respond, but it made a lasting impression on me.

‘I took control of my career’

Chris Edwards, 49, Boston

Advertising creative director, public speaker and author of the memoir “Balls: It Takes Some to Get Some.” Transitioned in his mid-20s.

When I began my transition at age 26, a lot of my socialization came from the guys at work. For example, as a woman, I’d walk down the hall and bump into some of my female co-workers, and they’d say, “Hey, what’s up?” and I’d say, “Oh, I just got out of this client meeting. They killed all my scripts and now I have to go back and rewrite everything, blah blah blah. What’s up with you?” and then they’d tell me their stories. As a guy, I bump into a guy in the hall and he says, “What’s up?” and I launch into a story about my day and he’s already down the hall. And I’m thinking, well, that’s rude. So, I think, okay, well, I guess guys don’t really share, so next time I’ll keep it brief. By the third time, I realized you just nod.

The creative department is largely male, and the guys accepted me into the club. I learned by example and modeled my professional behavior accordingly. For example, I kept noticing that if guys wanted an assignment they’d just ask for it. If they wanted a raise or a promotion they’d ask for it. This was a foreign concept to me. As a woman, I never felt that it was polite to do that or that I had the power to do that. But after seeing it happen all around me I decided that if I felt I deserved something I was going to ask for it too. By doing that, I took control of my career. It was very empowering.

Apparently, people were only holding the door for me because I was a woman rather than out of common courtesy as I had assumed. Not just men, women too. I learned this the first time I left the house presenting as male, when a woman entered a department store in front of me and just let the door swing shut behind her. I was so caught off guard I walked into it face first.

When you’re socially transitioning, you want to blend in, not stand out, so it’s uncomfortable when little reminders pop up that you’re not like everybody else. I’m expected to know everything about sports. I like sports but I’m not in deep like a lot of guys. For example, I love watching football, but I never played the sport (wasn’t an option for girls back in my day) so there is a lot I don’t know. I remember the first time I was in a wedding as a groomsman. I was maybe three years into my transition and I was lined up for photos with all the other guys. And one of them shouted, “High school football pose!” and on cue everybody dropped down and squatted like the offensive line, and I was like, what the hell is going on? It was not instinctive to me since I never played. I tried to mirror what everyone was doing, but when you see the picture I’m kind of “offsides,” so to speak.

The hormones made me more impatient. I had lots of female friends and one of the qualities they loved about me was that I was a great listener. After being on testosterone, they informed me that my listening skills weren’t what they used to be. Here’s an example: I’m driving with one of my best friends, Beth, and I ask her “Is your sister meeting us for dinner?” Ten minutes later she’s still talking and I still have no idea if her sister is coming. So finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I snapped and said, “IS SHE COMING OR NOT?” And Beth was like, “You know, you used to like hearing all the backstory and how I’d get around to the answer. A lot of us have noticed you’ve become very impatient lately and we think it’s that damn testosterone!” It’s definitely true that some male behavior is governed by hormones. Instead of listening to a woman’s problem and being empathetic and nodding along, I would do the stereotypical guy thing — interrupt and provide a solution to cut the conversation short and move on. I’m trying to be better about this.

People ask if being a man made me more successful in my career. My answer is yes — but not for the reason you might think. As a man, I was finally comfortable in my own skin and that made me more confident. At work I noticed I was more direct: getting to the point, not apologizing before I said anything or tiptoeing around and trying to be delicate like I used to do. In meetings, I was more outspoken. I stopped posing my thoughts as questions. I’d say what I meant and what I wanted to happen instead of dropping hints and hoping people would read between the lines and pick up on what I really wanted. I was no longer shy about stating my opinions or defending my work. When I gave presentations I was brighter, funnier, more engaging. Not because I was a man. Because I was happy.

‘People assume I know the answer’

Alex Poon, 26, Boston

Project manager for Wayfair, an online home goods company. Alex is in the process of his physical transition; he did the chest surgery after college and started taking testosterone this spring.

Traditional Chinese culture is about conforming to your elders’ wishes and staying within gender boundaries. However, I grew up in the U.S., where I could explore my individuality and my own gender identity. When I was 15 I was attending an all-girls high school where we had to wear skirts, but I felt different from my peers. Around that point we began living with my Chinese grandfather towards the end of his life. He was so traditional and deeply set in his ways. I felt like I couldn’t cut my hair or dress how I wanted because I was afraid to upset him and have our last memories of each other be ruined.

Genetics are not in my favor for growing a lumberjack-style beard. Sometimes, Chinese faces are seen as “soft” with less defined jaw lines and a lack of facial fair. I worry that some of my feminine features like my “soft face” will make it hard to present as a masculine man, which is how I see myself. Instead, when people meet me for the first time, I’m often read as an effeminate man.

My voice has started cracking and becoming lower. Recently, I’ve been noticing the difference between being perceived as a woman versus being perceived as a man. I’ve been wondering how I can strike the right balance between remembering how it feels to be silenced and talked over with the privileges that come along with being perceived as a man. Now, when I lead meetings, I purposefully create pauses and moments where I try to draw others into the conversation and make space for everyone to contribute and ask questions.

People now assume I have logic, advice and seniority. They look at me and assume I know the answer, even when I don’t. I’ve been in meetings where everyone else in the room was a woman and more senior, yet I still got asked, “Alex, what do you think? We thought you would know.” I was at an all-team meeting with 40 people, and I was recognized by name for my team’s accomplishments. Whereas next to me, there was another successful team led by a woman, but she was never mentioned by name. I went up to her afterward and said, “Wow, that was not cool; your team actually did more than my team.” The stark difference made me feel uncomfortable and brought back feelings of when I had been in the same boat and not been given credit for my work.

When people thought I was a woman, they often gave me vague or roundabout answers when I asked a question. I’ve even had someone tell me, “If you just Googled it, you would know.” But now that I’m read as a man, I’ve found people give me direct and clear answers, even if it means they have to do some research on their own before getting back to me.

A part of me regrets not sharing with my grandfather who I truly am before he passed away. I wonder how our relationship might have been different if he had known this one piece about me and had still accepted me as his grandson. Traditionally, Chinese culture sees men as more valuable than women. Before, I was the youngest granddaughter, so the least important. Now, I’m the oldest grandson. I think about how he might have had different expectations or tried to instill certain traditional Chinese principles upon me more deeply, such as caring more about my grades or taking care of my siblings and elders. Though he never viewed me as a man, I ended up doing these things anyway.

Zander Keig contributed to this article in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of the Department of Defense.

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Old story worth a repost SOURCE

[beca-mitchell]

I think in the current climate, especially within the context of the last 24hrs, words and timing matter. And in this instance, I think SL should’ve worded that quote better because it can be taken both ways depending on how you read it.

I’m not sure what the intent behind it was, personally I don’t care cause I don’t follow SL, I just checked it out to see the quote. But yeah I can see both sides of the analysis and how it could be construed either way.

In much the same way mental health is complex, words and their meanings are too. They really need to be careful with how they arrange them and how they read when put out into a very divisive environment.

yeah, as it always goes with ‘seeing both sides’, choosing the more divisive argument (that they’re ill-intentioned and could do better) in this situation, imo, is less helpful. if this were a one-off situation with SL, i’d be less prickly but these are likely the same anons who simply want to find reasons to hate brittany.

now, i’m going to say this at length in this ask response (please know it’s no hate towards you because i can see you’re trying to play devils advocate for whatever reason) and i hope this puts some things to rest:

first—brittany snow is a public figure whose every move tends to be scrutinized. i too scrutinize and rightly so because she has a platform (2 million followers, almost 3, on instagram is nothing to scoff at) and she chooses to use it in certain ways. and sometimes those ways are not...the best ways. i say this is a poc and i say this as somebody who is passionate about advocacy, civil rights, and important issues in today’s climate. i understand that silence is absolutely sometimes the worst route that a person can take and i’ve had issues with her regarding that before. but honestly, especially recently, i think she has shown rather vividly that she doesn’t support trump and that she is definitely not republican-leaning. that being said, of course people are allowed to be upset with a lack of vocal support. however, people don’t need to be disrespectful about it towards her.

second, as i said before, september letters is not an advocate/civil rights organization. they are a mental wellness organization. they are akin to those tumblr accounts that post only calming or positive messages and sometimes that’s what people need on their timeline in times of turmoil. don’t like? don’t look to SL to get your dose of news or vigilance. per the ask i got from @pyresrpgear, if you read into that insta post as suggested, that is definitely more in line with what we know about brittany and what we know about september letters. september letters, to put it bluntly, is one of the most bland mental health initiatives to exist and it seems like it was designed that way to be palatable and accessible. scroll past their posts if it doesn’t apply to you. hell they didn’t even post about voting when elections came around. they literally post almost every single day and i wouldn’t be surprised if it was running on some kind of schedule or a queue. or that an unpaid intern posts when britt is too busy to post herself. the post that everybody’s getting into a tizzy about is literally borrowed from another instagram account, this one in particular. i had to scroll down a little bit to find that post, which tells me they likely had their post in their back pocket for a little while and didn’t *just* go hunting for something like that to affirm their nefarious agenda of disparaging against those affected by yesterday’s events or dismissing the importance of accountability in this heated political atmosphere.

third, of course words and meanings and timing are important! i agree wholeheartedly as both a human being and somebody who literally studied rhetoric for my BA and MA. but when it comes to a point where people are literally finding fault with *everything* SL does, including right down to the pictures used (ie complaining that they dont want to see pictures of the beach or surfing), well it sounds like SL isn’t the one with an intention issue. 

fourth, for context as to how i see it: i, as a woman of colour, sometimes like seeing the affirmation that it’s not my burden to shoulder to educate another person on their ignorance. i, as a woman of colour, sometimes like seeing the affirmation that i cannot control another person’s actions even when i do my damn best to try and be a good force in this world. when i see posts like that, i honestly don’t think it applies to republicans, nor do i think it gives them an out. and if they feel like they deserve rest or an out for being pieces of shit, then that’s on them and they’re in for a rude awakening. if you’re concerned about what’s emboldening republicans and what emboldens trump’s fanbase and you think it comes down to september letters, then please also take issue with literally every single one of these types of accounts, which are seemingly endless. 

i just think that if you advocate so hard for the complexity of words and the complexity of mental health and the complexity of timing, then you shouldn’t be given a free pass to simply shit on something just because you hate the person who runs the account. that’s not how life works, especially when you probably know next to nothing about the person. sometimes there are obvious moments where call-outs work, but i don’t think this is one of those moments. 

[dropintomanga]

Attack on Titan's Ending - We're Now All Free

So this was finally it, huh? A manga that debuted in 2009 which became an anime/manga phenomenon in 2013 and would later still have a significant place in manga history ended this month. Hajime Isayama's Attack on Titan was a title that I liked a lot and while there were some great moments in its final arc, the manga seemed like it tried a bit too hard to emphasize the complexity of human beings. Then again, maybe that's been the whole point of the series.

Spoilers abound after the jump.

I got to read up on the chapters that made up Volume 34. To be honest, it felt like somewhat of a mess. The whole backstory about Ymir Fritz confuses me a bit. I know that I will need to re-read the entire series to get a clearer idea. I got that the series became some kind of commentary on how people are always finding ways to divide one another via their differences.

It's just that I missed the old days, pre-basement. Attack on Titan was labeled as a horror action manga to a certain degree. I recently was reading an article about CM Punk (a former WWE wrestler who was very popular, but left the business after frustrations with management) and he talked about a horror movie he was cast in. Punk was asked about his love of horror and he said:

"I grew up on it, you know? I grew up on it because it was taboo. When things are taboo and you’re told you’re not allowed to watch it, what do you do? You watch it! You watch a lot of it. As you grow older, smarter and get some wisdom about the world, you realize that horror is the genre that tackles, before any other movie genre, the hard-hitting issues. Dating all the way back to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead tackling racism. I love a great slasher movie, right? Jason Voorhees and some camp counselors. Just let them loose."

As many fans who follow Attack on Titan will tell you, the story takes a huge shift from the days of Titans eating humans and the mystery surrounding them to a world where humanity is actually thriving and politics are a big reason why the events of Attack on Titan are the way they are. I know some people dropped the series after that. I don't blame them because to be frank, the series loses some of its unique appeal as most fans have seen stories of the latter quite often. There were still horror elements (albeit very few), but the tension delivered later on in most scenes weren't ones that gave readers chills down their spines.

I wrote a lot about Attack on Titan. I wrote about Mikasa, Hange, Annie, Eren's stress, Levi's past, etc. But once that time-skip happened, I never felt compelled to write about Attack on Titan much. There was some good exploration about Reiner's guilt about his actions early on. But nothing was super-compelling to talk about honestly to me. I think the time-gap between the 1st and 2nd anime seasons didn't help and so many exciting series (mostly from Shonen Jump) were coming out around that time period.

I did think the ending was okay. I do believe that Isayama was trying to point out that bringing real change in society comes from talking to one another in person despite differences. This was reflected in a campfire scene before the final battle where all of the "good guys" and the "bad guys" sat together to hash it out. You don't have to like one another, but never let differences become radicalized to the point of no return. I'll admit that this isn't easy and these things never are. Plus, talk should mostly be a starting point to get rid of injustice.

What I've learned from my own experiences is that I sometimes get anxious over certain conversations with people that I may not agree with. But once they happen in a safe environment and no one's shouting, I actually learn something and so does the other person. I can't assume everyone who disagrees with me is an awful person. I will never, ever suggest social media as a way to have those kinds of conversations because some people are either too awful or just say well-intentioned things without thinking about the person's true feelings.

And about people I truly dislike, I just look at them with pity because I know they're just being brainwashed by grifters/scammers/cult-like leaders.

Having those kinds of perspectives really benefited my mental health, so I guess I can appreciate Isayama for highlighting what it means to live among people who I don't always feel comfortable around.

I also love the Ackermans (Mikasa and Levi) for being the ones to take out the end-game threats. They're a family known to be Titan-killers, but there's also some Asian blood within them. I got a funny sense of Asian pride in seeing Mikasa and Levi wreck shit and getting respect for it.

While the ending felt similar to Code Geass, I kind of understand the view point on being the world's enemy to bring the world together. It's just a bit too naive. Even after all that, people are still at conflict with another only without Titans around. Maybe that's the whole point - the fact that self-sacrifice isn't a panacea to life's complexities. Martyrdom is sometimes worshipped a bit too much and there's a good number of disenfranchised young men who fall in love with that idea.

To end this post, I think back to how Isayama came up with the idea of Attack on Titan. He said that the story came to him after seeing a frustrated customer grab him by the collar while working at an internet cafe. Isayama noted how scary the person was and it was hard to communicate with him. The whole point of Attack on Titan is not just freedom, but getting past communication barriers with other people we fear.

When it comes to freedom, a lot of people seem to have a naïve and/or child-like sense of it. I see this a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic. They think freedom is basically the right to do whatever you want and not be punished for it. However, true freedom involves doing as you please and having the ability to be responsible to yourself and other people.

I know this viewpoint irks people, but the whole ending gives off that vibe. I have to respect Isayama for that.

I think that's all I have to say about Attack on Titan. This series played a big part in helping the anime and manga industries post-2008. It also made me see the possibility of a mainstream shonen hit that wasn't from Jump. I was one of the first people to pay attention to the series before it was licensed in English. I even got praise from Kodansha folks saying that I played a huge part in bringing the series over.

So I have a lot of fun memories. One of my personal favorite memories was during NYCC 2013 where a huge gathering of Attack on Titan cosplayers at Kodansha Comics' booth and Japanese news programming was there to film it. I got to witness all of that interaction between Americans and Japanese. I left the gathering thinking that things were really on the up-and-up for anime and manga perception over in the U.S. We're now in a golden age of anime/manga and Attack on Titan deserves credit for bringing us to it.

So thanks, Hajime Isayama, for showing the world what Kodansha stories are all about - inspiring impossible stories.

[ranger-report]

Review: THE WITCHER 2: ASSASSINS OF KINGS (2011)

With the first Witcher game under my belt, I decided to plunge straightaway into the second game in the series: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Expecting little beyond improvements in graphics and controls, I was very curious to see how the game delivered on the cliffhanger ending of the first game, in which Geralt of Rivia defended King Foltest of Temeria from a would-be assassin, only to reveal that the killer was also a witcher. I’d had a decent time with The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, particularly in the storytelling aspects and the choose- your-own-adventure narrative, but had found myself frustrated by dated game design and graphics and lackluster combat. Still, it was, by the end, an arresting experience that had captured my intrigue enough to make me want to go back and replay it to see what paths I could have chosen. Choice is truly the number one aspect of The Witcher, in that Geralt generally chooses not to choose sides, but is often found forced into doing so. Choice is also the highlight of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, so much so that by the end of the game I was nearly horrified with how all of my decisions, ambient though some of them were, had stacked into a neat pile of awful fuckery. If you want to feel good about what you’ve done by the end of a game, The Witcher series might not be for you. But if moral ambiguity and robust, branching paths are what you seek, then read on dear reader, because things are about to get immediately messy in what is some ways a vastly superior sequel to the first game, but in other ways falls short of the narrative potential established by its predecessor.

From the start, Witcher 2 is once again a big game of Choose Your Own Adventure. Opening with a prologue establishing Geralt’s involvement in a political assassination, the player is continually given agency over where Geralt is going, what he wants to do, and how he is going to do it. This is at once the game’s biggest strength. Just as in the first game, Geralt’s choices have domino effects that tumble down the slippery slope of lesser evil decision making, affecting what characters do and whether or not they might appear elsewhere in the game. And, furthering the CYOA aspects, certain portions of the grander story are hidden from sight should Geralt choose to go down a different path. Maybe some characters will have happier endings than we see them get if Geralt decides to help them instead of quest elsewhere -- maybe not. Perhaps the biggest departure from the previous game’s style is that the entire second chapter of Witcher 2 is different depending on which side of a conflict you choose to enable. This, of course, is also all based on whom you’ve sided with previously, with deft moments of quick situational judgements, some of them timed. Give the elven rebel his sword so he can defend himself, or push him to the side so you can leap into the fray yourself? Not every decision is placed in front of the player as a monumental choice; some of them are as simple and clean as whether or not you pick up an object in front of you, knowingly saving someone’s life. This makes the world -- and the story -- feel surprisingly alive, vibrant, always on edge as though the lightest touch in any direction will spell consequences for some and reward for others. This does, however, create a shorter gameplay experience overall. Where my full playthrough of the first game was close to fifty hours, I clocked in just over thirty hours here, but this is partially because the full content of the game cannot be seen in only one playthrough. There’s a massive amount of game to be held, but the unfortunate reality is that it can only be seen piecemeal. It’s like getting to the end of an actual Choose Your Own Adventure novel, only to realize there’s a vast amount of pages left unread because you didn’t take the roads less traveled...or simply traveled differently. For better or for worse, the first time through this game will leave the player with the sensation that there is a lot that they didn’t get to see, despite the freedom of branching paths being thrilling and adventurous. And the story itself isn’t nearly as investing as the previous game. Geralt’s adventure in clearing his name of wrongdoing and tracking down his memories are at the forefront of his story, but in the background is a complex, political plot that simultaneously is and isn’t important to follow. Decisions made by Geralt heavily affect what’s going on, even as Geralt himself is constantly growling about how he wants to track the kingslayer and a missing friend. But the game and the characters populating it continually drag him back to the fray because they need him, dammit, and if he wants the means to his ends then he’ll have to endure everyone else’s shit. Perhaps that’s the point: Geralt’s actions continually change the entire world around him, whether he wants to be a part of it or not. That said, the straightforward narrative is defiantly strong here, partly because the branching system demands it need be. This is a Story with a Purpose, the Purpose being to establish a series of unfortunate events happening around Geralt, if not to Geralt. But when it’s as bland as it is -- save for the bits where Geralt is trying to clear his name -- it can be difficult at times to maintain a steady pace. And the entire third act takes place in a ruined elven city which is a chore to navigate, nearly ruining the momentum and the whole of the game’s experience; there’s two disasterously difficult combat engagements to wade through as well as a grating boss battle with a large beast, not to mention a magical puzzle which demands navigating the labyrinthine ruins if you want to discover what it is. And yet, by the end, the house of cards comes tumbling down into the awful realization that everything behind the scenes has been doing its utmost to raise the stakes high enough to win the whole pot, and depending on Geralt’s actions, it does so to varying degrees. I sincerely doubt there is anything close to a happy ending in one of the alleged 16 conclusions the game contains; if anything, it can only go from shitfucked to fucked-with-hope-on-the-horizon. And, despite the sometimes slog, that’s effective.

Gameplay has seen a heavy upgrade. Gone are the original title’s point and click controls, replaced with a more intuitive interface that relies heavily on action and exploration. Similar to Arkham Asylum’s Detective Vision, Geralt can use his medallion to scan the world around him for interactive elements or objects to search through. Neat in concept, but oftentimes the execution is lacking; it can be incredibly difficult to find objects on the ground left by corpses without always using the medallion, as they can get lost in the surrounding scenery. Upgraded, too, is the combat, which is thankfully no long a boring fucking exercise in clicking at the right time to string together combos. Geralt rolls, swings, magics at the click of a button, using the WASD and mouse camera to keep an eye on the action. The triple division of combat styles -- fast, strong, and group -- are replaced with a fast and strong attack bound to the two mouse keys, and upgrades can make it so Geralt’s attacks can hit multiple people. Blocking is integral, but Geralt needs vitality for a block to be effective, or it will chip away his health. I both enjoyed and did not enjoy the new combat system. It’s functional, but I couldn’t help but feel out of control in tense moments, attempting to roll or dodge or block or use signs between sword strikes. Geralt only swings at whoever he is targeting, not simply in front of him, so if you accidentally turn the camera to the wrong angle while trying to attack he will swiftly turn and swing at someone else entirely, leaving him open to devastating counterattacks from behind. Frustration can mount quickly, as it seems that Geralt is a whole hell of a lot squishier this time around than in the first game. Sure, the first Witcher had plenty of moments where getting overwhelmed could happen in the blink of an eye and Geralt would turn into fresh meat, but Witcher 2 makes every sword fight feel like an exercise in dodging just to stay alive. Maybe I wasn’t playing with enough patience, but it felt like I spent more time rolling and running to regain health than I did connecting with satisfying blows. Sometimes, quicktime events pop up during major boss encounters, which are devastatingly difficult in needless ways. Just like in the first game, Witcher 2 will absolutely dial up the volume on the difficulty knob without warning and around an unseen corner, to an extent where I found myself pained by exhaustion and anger at yet another GAME OVER scene. This is compounded by the strenuous camera, which is awkward at best in outdoors environments, frustratingly awful in close quarters hallways. Making things even worse is the game’s departure from the previous healing methods in The Witcher: where potions could be downed on the fly, and food eaten to regain mild portions of health, now the only way to heal is potions while meditating, or simply by meditating. Without the ability to heal in the middle of combat the thoroughly aggressive enemies will stymie even seasoned players as they watch their health bar helpless disappear with no respite.

Graphically speaking, this is leaps and bounds better than the original. High-detail, crisp textures, far draw distances, I very rarely had any stuttering or framerate issues. At worst, there was minor pop-in and fade in, some seams showing where textures were laid out, and jittery models here and there. Also, motion blur and bloom were turned on by default. Never fun. It was an absolute job to take in the world on hand, with the variety of monsters and humanoid characters to encounter, lovingly rendered with tons of color and flair. Outside of the story, this is where the game truly shines. Before there had been low-res models being reused left and right, but here nearly every character model (outside of factory-line soldiers) feels unique enough to recognize in and out of combat. It’s really a fucking wonder to behold. It felt the same as the graphical leap between Uncharted and Uncharted 2, with nearly an overwhelming amount of detail in the world to take in, dizzingly put together in a way that is breathing and living.

That said, is the game actually an improvement over the first title? Well, yes and no. Graphically, interactively, yes, to an extent. The branching narrative is bold, but feels like there is so much you’re missing out on once you’ve chosen a particular path. For example, there’s a dragon that exists in the game, and its origins are shrouded in mystery. I only discovered them based on a trophy I got at the end of the game, which felt like a huge cheat to learn that way. If the game had told me something about the dragon’s nature, even down the path I took which actively led me away from the dragon, then I wouldn’t have felt disappointed, but it didn’t. I learned the answer through a trophy. And in many ways, while this game does things better than the first game, it’s only to slight degrees, and while I do want to go back and play this again, it’s difficult to do so after a somewhat disappointing first run. Geralt’s story was excellent, and kept me on the edge of my seat whenever it came around, but everything else that happened felt largely disconnected from what was driving Geralt this time around, and ultimately only served as setup for the third game in the series. Again, perhaps that’s the point: perhaps Geralt will have to face the weight of his decisions, that which defines the world at large whilst he maintains a selfish lean towards his personal goals. Geralt of Rivia both is and is not the most important person in this story -- he is but one man who is forging a path towards his wants and needs, but maybe he’s crumbling kingdoms along the way, intentionally or no. While I’ve heard nothing but Game Of The Year praise for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I’m keeping my expectations tempered based on this sequel, which is fun and daunting and clever, but the drawbacks are hefty, saved only by the draw of the lead character and the living story itself.

Final Score: 7.5/10

[grimoiresontape]

Reading Room: Sarah Lyons

Today I’m joined by my friend and fellow regular of our Diviners’ Nights across NYC, the mighty Sarah Lyons. Sarah is a writer, activist, occultist, and witch with one foot in popular politics and direct action, and another cloven heel in the dark wilds and haunted woods. She was the witch in residence for Broadly, where she had a weekly tarot-based web series, and her writing has appeared in Veneficia, Teen Vogue, Vice, Broadly, Slutist, Fusion, Dirge Magazine, and Dear Darkling. Most recently, Sarah has authored Revolutionary Witchcraft: A Guide to Magical Activism through Running Press. She is also one half of the hosts of the PopCvlt Podcast.

Al: Congratulations on your new book my friend! Would you share what motivated you to write it, who you feel it’s for, and what your hopes are for the book now it’s written?

Sarah: Thank you!

So there’s obviously been a huge resurgence in interest around witchcraft and other magical arts recently, and at the same time there’s been a big surge in political engagement, especially in the United States. People usually tie these two together around issues like feminism and women’s empowerment, and while I think there’s a lot to that, I also think it’s more #complicated. Maybe a bit of a tangent, but if The Witch is an archetype, a spirit or force outside of ourselves, then maybe it’s her using us, and not the other way around. 

So when I sat down to write a book about witchcraft and activism, I didn’t want to do a book of spells or activities, although those are in there, I more wanted to give people new to either the tools and ideas that will help guide them on the rest of the journey. 

A: That idea of what the spirit may want is an especially interesting and potentially fruitful one I think! 

So without beating about the burning bush, what do you think divination has to offer activists? 

S: Personally I find divination invaluable to my activism. Before engaging in a campaign or action of some sort, wouldn’t it be useful to know of potential pitfalls and problems beforehand? I think on the Left there’s a distrust of too much woo, which I get to an extent, but I also think it’s where the politically minded magical folks out there have to start making our case a little louder and more clearly. It hurts far less to engage with divination to gain insight and foresight, than it does not to. 

A: I feel like one of the biggest problems for activists is burn-out, and my suspicion is that part of that case to be made by and for spell-slinging activists should probably include the importance of spiritual baths for replenishment and rejuvenation. It’s a noted element of vested interests’ and big capital’s tactics against organised people power - to simply keep repeating the same efforts until finally it’s not contested enough to be shutdown again. In the face of this, divination and magical action for cultivating and encouraging that stamina of body and heart to get back in the streets and cause trouble once again seems especially important. So I feel like even asking just “how can I support myself and my comrades to keep going?” is a particularly worthwhile one.

Do you think some forms of divination are more helpful than others? 

S: I think it depends on the person and the situation. I personally don’t like pendulums or scrying all that much because I can’t always gauge when my ego is interfering and making me see what I want to see, rather than what I need to. 

A: I totally agree on the pendulum front - unless it’s for a very particular spirit or operation, I tend to find those methods sometimes referred to as “computational” (cards, dice, and especially geomancy; anything definitively *there* in front of you) as far more useful. I think scrying has a lot of use in making and deepening spirit contact and communion, but again, it’s very unlikely it would be my go-to for answering concrete client questions. Depends what the question actually involves and how much we’re exploring it as well as “solving” it perhaps...

So, perhaps that leads neatly to my next question: how/when do you think it can be best to approach and engage with divination?

S: I think at first keep it simple with questions that can be concretely answered, and advice that can be easily followed. Don’t start off by asking “will I ever find love?” or “what direction should I take in life?” That’s a lot, even for tarot. If you are just starting out with a new method, try questions like “Is it in the best interest of my health if I do X?” or “If I go to this event, what type of people can I expect to run into?” If your life improves, or the answers are generally correct, then keep at it! If not, some deeper learning might have to be done, or the method switched up a bit. 

A: I have grown to really enjoy the phrase “What to bear in mind about x” really increasingly helpful in the divination I do for myself and clients. It sounds a bit cumbersome, sure, but I’ve found it really opens up things without getting vague or diluting.

S: I agree! I often describe my role to clients as a “google map for life.” You don’t *have* to take my advice, and things might still be ok if you don’t, but you’ll probably get to your destination faster if you get off on this exit. 

A: Ok, so considering divination can span all the way from cards to bird-song and everything in between, what are you favourite forms of divination?

S: For clients and friends I love tarot. The imagery and history of tarot help paint a beautiful picture, and literally illustrate what I’m talking about, even to someone who has never had a reading before. Being able to ground esoteric concepts and complex symbols in narrative is, to me, a lot of what being a good reader entails, and I think tarot has a lot to offer in this department. In my own personal practice I still use tarot, but more for reflection and gaining personal insight into problems. If I’m communicating with a spirit or doing ancestor work, I like to keep it a little more simple and stick to playing cards or coin tosses for “yes/no” questions. 

A: So my emphasis here is often how about diviners can deepen their practice by learning other skills or engaging in aspects away from the reading table or augury hill. Having asked what magic has to offer activism, what do you think activism and radical political engagement have to teach magicians, witches, and diviners?

S: Politics and magic cannot be separated from each other, as both deal with power and how we understand and work with it. Even if you see your magic as “apolitical” you are still engaging with power, and that is a political act. We live in a world where reality has been shaped by the revolutionary actions of the past, where groups of people shifted reality and dreamed new worlds into being, for better or for worse. As a magical practitioner, I think it’s pretty foolish not to draw at least inspiration from that. 

Beyond that, and I talk about this in my book, but it’s my belief that a good deal of our problems come from living in a disenchanted world, a place where all the magic and wonder has been sucked out of it, leaving behind only profit and cold materialism. If you are doing magic, you are fighting against this, even in a small, private way. I think so many people are getting into magic now because the world itself desperately needs people to re-enchant it, and if magic is your calling, I believe you’ve been conscripted into the fight whether you know it or not.

Sarah has a whole tour arranged to talk about her new book, but most immediately she’s going to be in Salem, MA on Saturday 11th January to talk Magical Activism 101 at The Cauldron Black. She is also hosting a night of Revolutionary Witchcraft in the form of a panel discussion on the political dimensions and possibilities of witchcraft as a practice coming up at Bluestockings in NYC on Friday 31st January.

[numberonepapermaker32]

The Book Thief review (SPOILERS!!)

What I CAN'T believe: that it took me this long to read this book. What I CAN believe: that this book is going to be that one that stays with me for years to come, one of a handful few that is going to mark my whole reading life. It's difficult to put every single thought into words. I'll try. Lately, I've been reading YA books because I feel how in my now adult age, I often forget what it was that brought me here. I don't necessarily mean events and people, but ways of thinking and doing. When I remember myself at the age of 13, I chuckle and sigh. I chuckle for first kisses, friendships, playing outside. I sigh because then, I saw things more simply and clearly. As an adult, I'm often sad and feel helpless about not being able to solve tons of problems and doubts that plague me daily. As an adult, I have work, health issues, and other monstrosities. What I don't always have, is perspective. I don't see everything clearly. I complicate to the verge of losing my mind. I read somewhere the other day how people get depressed because they see things much too clearly. Wrong. It's the opposite. Reading this book showed me just that. It reminded me how a child sees and understands things in a pure and simple way without complicating them. And that's one of the facts I liked best about ''The Book Thief''. It is also one of the most heartbreakingly devastating things about it. Liesel's simple way of seeing life and people around her while living in one of the darkest periods and one of the worst regimes in human history. Her being able to stay innocent in mind and soul. This book made me see through Liesel's eyes. Through my own childhood eyes. Brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed having Death as the narrator. It gave me chills all the way from beginning to the bitter but hopeful ending. There were moments when I would forget who narrates the story, and then the author would gently or at times, not so gently, remind me of the fact that Death looms over me. All the time. But I don't think I've EVER thought of Death as having a complex existence, a character, or that he/she sees the world in colors! Again, brilliant. We know from the Prologue that this is going to be a sad story interlaced with beautiful moments. I mean, Death tells us so constantly. Still, every ugly thing that happens surprised me and made me pause for a while. Could I have expected this from a book set in WWII Germany? Yes. Could I have braced myself better? Not really. That's one of the main points I got from the story. Another thing I loved was the rich symbolism behind a light language. That gets me every time. It takes a skilled storyteller to manage to pull that off. Not that many actually do. Zusak does. He's a master storyteller. Inserting ''Mein Kampf'' into Liesel's books, having Hans play the lavish and nostalgic accordion amidst the chaos of war? Breathtaking. There's a feature on goodreads and book blogs on recommending a book to your friends who would like it. I recommend this book to all my friends. To everyone, really. EVERYONE should read it!! The political climate behind the public discourse in our country is certainly not light. For years on now, there's been talk and tolerance of oppressive regimes. Read this book, people!! And when you finish it, pass it on first to all of your family and then your friends and so on... Don't let this fictionalized experience which undoubtedly has root in reality fall on to deaf ears. This book is meant to be read and re-read. We are never meant to forget the horrors of our human race. We are never supposed to forget all the countless little book thieves whose families died for someone's greed or politics. They were many. Too many... Here are some of the quotes I found most thought-provoking, but just some. There are oh so many... ''They were French, they were Jews, and they were you.'' ''The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.'' ''If there was one thing about Liesel Meminger, her thieving was not gratuitous. She only stole books on what she felt was a need-to-have basis.'' ''At first, Liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? It’s likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her.'' '' 'How about a kiss, Saumensch?' He stood waist-deep in the water for a few moments longer before climbing out and handing her the book. His pants clung to him, and he did not stop walking. In truth, I think he was afraid. Rudy Steiner was scared of the book thief’s kiss. He must have longed for it so much. He must have loved her so incredibly hard. So hard that he would never ask for her lips again and would go to his grave without them.'' ''I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sandcastles, houses of cards, that’s where they begin. Their great skill is their capacity to escalate.'' ''The best world shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words. They were the ones who could climb the highest. One such word shaker was a small, skinny girl. She was renowned as the best word shaker of her region because she knew how powerless a person could be WITHOUT words. That’s why she could climb higher than anyone else. She had desire. She was hungry for them.'' ''There were stars. They burned my eyes.'' ''How could he show up and ask people to risk their lives for him? How could he be so selfish?'' ''On Munich Street, a boy and a girl were entwined. They were twisted and comfortless on the road. Together, they watched the humans disappear. '' ''You are going to die.'' ''Kommunist.'' ''[…] at some point on time I will be standing over you, as genially as possible. Your soul will be in my arms. A color will be perched on my shoulder. I will carry you gently away.'' ''He'd have been glad to witness her kissing his dusty, bomb hit lips.'' ''It kills me sometimes, how people die.'' ''From the toolbox the boy took out, of all things, a teddy bear. He reached in through the torn windshield and placed it on the pilot's chest.'' ''In short, Himmel Street was flattened.'' ''Although something inside her told her that this was a crime - after all, her three books were the most precious items she owned – she was compelled to see the thing lit.'' ''When a Jew shows up at your place of residence in the early hours of the morning, in the very birthplace of Nazism, you're likely to experience extreme levels of discomfort. Anxiety, disbelief, paranoia.'' ''Beneath her shirt, a book was eating her up.'' ''The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this. Without words, the Führer was nothing.'' ''Not leaving: an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children.'' '' 'Is it really you,' the young man asked […]. Is it from your cheek that I took the seed?' ''

[powermakesussick]

Q&A with Power Makes Us Sick

A condensed version of this piece appears in the Spring 2021 issue of Slingshot.

A few years ago, when I was living in Europe, I heard about a feminist healthcare collective called Power Makes us Sick (PMS). They were organizing and holding workshops, writing, printing and distributing zines, beautiful posters, and free resources, in different countries in the EU, in South America, as well as in the US.  Being very curious and excited to hear about this project, I read and saw more of what they were sharing with folks, and putting out into the world, all rooted in an anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist perspective, politics, and practice. And in the process, the PMS collective was creating and connecting broad networks of projects, communities, and individuals involved in various forms of healthcare, as well as various forms and fabrics of political struggle. I felt inspired to try to meet with some of them in order to learn more, and hopefully spread the word about PMS, who they are, what they're about, and what they do.

What follows in this article is an interview with some of the members of the collective. Hope readers out there find this useful, and that we all deepen and solidify our networks and relationships of care in our own lives and communities. Stay safe out there, and take good care of yourselves and each other.

"Self-care can't cure social diseases"

In solidarity, Sarafina Witch Militia Northeast

Who is PMS? We are called Power Makes Us Sick, which kind of speaks for itself in a way. We're an anti-national group that researches autonomous health practices and shares the good news about all the ways we can and do care for one another outside of and in opposition to the state and capitalism.

How does PMS relate to issues of health? Where do you fit in? “We're all a bit sick. In some ways we are healing. We're all healers in some way. We're all growing stronger or learning how to better act in the world through this collective and others. There's a lot of little things that we've just accidentally found out along the way that we all have in common, they didn't start off as rallying points.”

“Take what you need and compost the rest” is a slogan and an approach that inspires us.

Our work is centered around sharing skills, resources, and tools. A mutual aid with emphasis on the “mutual”. We offer our support to social movements and others fighting back against oppression. We make new friends along the way, we share strategies and lessons from their experiences and ours. They help us refine our tools, and then we bring all of that back to the group and are able to share new skills farther and wider.

What is autonomy? What is health? What are practices of autonomous health? Autonomy, in our context, really doesn't mean “solo” or on the level of the “individual”. It's something that only begins to make sense in a collective context, and against repression, control, and institutional power. We see it wherever people are finding each other and coming together to directly bring about the kind of world they wish to see.

In terms of “health” it's the kind of health we want to see in the world, not necessarily in the ways it is conceived of by those in power. If “health” is related in a certain context to work and productivity, we might refuse to be healthy. Alternatively, we might choose to say this or that aspect of the dominant society is profoundly “unhealthy”, sickening, sick...

Our working model of health encompasses the mental, physical, and social aspects and we want to incorporate an understanding of each part. We are inspired by an example given to us by our friends at the “group for an other medicine” (rough translation) in Thessaloniki, who say that if there is mold in a building and you're only looking at the physical health of the individuals, you might treat the affected lungs, but if you understand health in a social context, you might come together to pressure the owner of the building to remove the mold. This is just an example of how the shift to the social can help address the issue at its core.

We too often feel that the dominant practices of healthcare ignore the health of the social body. By shifting the discourse to encompass the social, we can get a better picture of the things that are ailing us as a society, whether that be the way that capitalism makes us all very anxious, the way that industrial civilization itself encourages us to work ourselves to death, the way that patriarchy can make us feel very small (or gets us killed), the way that racism means we ignore the pain of certain people (or gets us killed), among a myriad of other social ailments.

While those in power may work to incorporate that in diagnosis and policy, there is a point beyond which their analysis and actions won't go. Anxiety, depression or dependency might be portrayed as “mental health epidemics” with social causes and outcomes, but they will never be portrayed as a symptom of capitalism and various forms of exploitation, exclusion, and extraction. Giving ourselves the freedom to make that analysis can open up new spaces to work in.  This consciousness doesn't mean we can write and analyse our way to better health, but it can give us an edge, an organising basis, a direction to go in.

This is where practices of autonomous health comes in. Methods and means can be pirated and communalised, or found in already existing popular and folk contexts. In our zines, we share examples of what autonomous health care looks like in practice through articles, reportbacks, and interviews. The mental, physical, and social aspects are not necessarily distinct from one another, but we cover them all in each zine. In Issue #2 (2017) you can see physical health being addressed in a reportback from a DIY abortion workshop, as well as a comprehensive article about gut flora, probiotics, and microbiome health and resilience. In that same issue, emotional wellbeing is addressed in an article about how to perform a hex, and a guide to some acupressure exercises for stress and anxiety. The health of the social body is addressed via reportbacks from sex worker organizing), a report on an anti-surveillance makeup workshop PMS organized in Berlin, and more. You can download (and print for free, although we appreciate donations) that zine and others on our website.

What are the inspirations or prior struggles that PMS is building on? We put together a very incomplete and eclectic list of instances that came to our minds. We have a lot to say about each of these inspirations and struggles, so if you want to hear more, perhaps you can read some of our report backs or otherwise get in touch:

Greek solidarity clinics (particularly in Thessaloniki and Athens) post-2008

Icarus Project (New York, et al.) [now Fireweed Collective]

Health organizing from our past and in our own communities that we have left behind (personal failures within the Woodbine autonomous health track, the failures of so many accountability processes, the blockades, the occupations, the herbal mutual aid efforts that have come and gone, etc.)

Out of Action (Germany) and Activist Trauma Support (UK)

Black Mesa Indigenous support (Stone Cabin Collective)

All of the sex work and sex worker organizing that so many of us have been involved with over the years

Standing Rock med tent

No More Deaths (so-called US/Mexico border)

Lincoln Hospital occupations (South Bronx, 1969, 1970); Lincoln Detox (1970-78); Dr. Mutulu Shakur

Socialist Patients' Collective (Heidelberg, West Germany 1970- present)

Radical Herbalism Gatherings (UK, 2014-present)

The Gynepunks in Catalonia

The Solidarity Apothecary / Nicole Rose / The Prisoner's Herbal

Pirate Care (Croatia / Europe / worldwide)

Many people working in the 'undercommons' of the NGO-industrial complex

How do you all work together as a group, especially given that you're all far apart? Since we don't get the chance to meet in person very often, a lot of our organizing is done online. We'd already been meeting over an encrypted video chat site for years, so once the pandemic started, we had a communication strategy ready to go and could continue meeting as usual (almost).

Sometimes we come together in person to work on projects or respond to specific calls for support. Actually, that's how most of us who are with the project now have met each other, in doing the work along the way. We've been exploring new modes of emotional support for some time now, and most of the instances where we've been asked to support social movements have centered around bolstering different existing communities' infrastructure for support in, and after, potentially traumatic events, such as actions and occupations that involve direct conflict with the state. Along the way, we met others interested in working on this topic and have expanded our networks and our collective through those relationships that have been made “on the ground”.  

One key aspect informing our organizing is a prioritization of one another's wellbeing over the productivity of the group as a whole. In practice, this means making time and space to check in before and after our meetings and following up with one another to offer support outside of meetings. We talk about emotional support, herbal remedies, or just brainstorm solutions to health-related issues that come up for us as people. This also means that a lot of what we do tends to move slowly as we give ourselves the time we need to work at whatever pace our own health needs require. We create spaces where we can be honest with one another about where we're at and what our capacities are, so that we can do the work that we want to do together with intention.

What are some of the shared beliefs that have brought the group together? “Action dries your tears! Self care can't cure social diseases! Most of us are not doctors!”

We don't have these set in stone, but there are definitely some common threads that come from our experiences and that we've encountered. There's a few points that stand out as some kind of “tenets towards an autonomous healthcare”. These areas are consent, accountability, self-defense, and illegalism. They might be more open questions than core beliefs, but we certainly see them as crucial, and sometimes underdeveloped, in movements and initiatives we've been involved with.

How does the matter of consent come up in your work, and how do you navigate that? Our approach to consent in care goes something like this: take measures to ensure that you are getting consent from folks before providing care whenever possible. Be conscious and respectful of the tools and practices that the individual (or community) in question might already be using. Honor and strengthen those practices and offer information about additional sources of support if it makes sense or it is requested of you. Always ask folks what help they need first and what they are already doing: they probably have a good idea of what support they need or want anyway. We look to harm reduction principles, which affirm that each of us is capable of determining what our own health, healing, and well-being could look like, and that these understandings are a valuable basis upon which care and support can be provided. Caring is a process; consent needs to be obtained and maintained throughout that process.

Beyond offering care, consent extends into the way we relate to one another in the group as well. We make decisions on the basis of consensus, which for us is about people in the group consenting to doing work that they feel called to, that coheres around their values, or simply that they feel good about. Consensus is not about unanimity, but unity, which is generated through shared commitment. It is about slowing down in order to take the time to consider and address everyone's concerns, as well as their cool ideas. When we practice with consent and consensus in these little ways, like decision making, we learn what it feels like and can spread that farther and wider into the everyday.

Self-defense and health aren't necessarily topics you would expect to see together. How do you see them relating? For any movement to substantively or even marginally challenge capital, self-defense must be considered. The line between self-defense and care is quite blurred. How can movements survive without defending themselves from the many systems of exploitation, dominance, coercion, and oppression that we experience in our daily lives? And further, how can we defend ourselves without cultivating our own infrastructures of care to patch the literal and emotional wounds, both current and ancestral? In our zine on autonomous trans healthcare, we wrote of the Stonewall riots in 1969: “If you are so accustomed to fighting to exist on a regular basis, and fighting to keep your friends and loved ones alive, you are already so enmeshed in, and so concerned with a community self-defense that letting the brick fall on someone who is attacking you is simply not so far of a stretch.” We think this is how it starts; survival and self-defense are just so intertwined for so many.

Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson, who were involved with the riots, were founders of STAR: Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, a group focused on direct action as well as harm reduction and providing housing and food for other trans/gender-nonconforming people. It's clear to us that these aspects of the movement are so much a part of one another that no distinction is clear. When self defense becomes care, when care becomes a riot, when these become interchangeable - that's when it becomes revolutionary, when substantial change begins to happen.

How do you approach the question of illegalism? What does that mean to you? In short, we are against the law.

It is an essential aspect of state formation to criminalize solidarity. In most contexts, like wherever there is a state, it is illegal to meaningfully take care of one another's health without supervision. Acts of care are criminalized; such as sharing food with houseless people, providing shelter to those without the documentation the state demands, and distributing medication without a license. We are guided by our theoretical approach and stay grounded in the history of past projects of autonomous and illegalist care, but often it is most effective to learn by doing, bringing us into direct conflict with the state.

Solidarity means taking care of one another. When we learn to take risks for one another's wellbeing, we learn to render the walls of division obsolete. Sometimes people are baffled by the idea that these seemingly trivial acts would be illegal, but of course they are. Taking action through seizure, distribution, or provision of what is necessary for survival in the face of oppression interrupts and challenges the state's ability to maintain power. State power depends on the ability to decide who is a citizen and who is not, who deserves “rights” and who doesn't, and ultimately who lives and who dies. That is whack, obviously, and so we aspire to shift the responsibility of care into the hands of the community.

This is why we don't just passively skirt the law, but we support practicing in a way that essentially renders “the law” totally irrelevant. Remember, “you didn't see shit.” We're doing the work in a manner that DIRECTLY creates the world that we want to see. That means us being able to take care of one another's bodies entirely on our own terms, with consent, with abundance, with nurturance.

Is that why you're an anonymous collective? It seems this is directly connected to how you relate to legality. Yes, anonymity is practical: we may allegedly do things that are not considered entirely lawful, or that the state considers a threat. Sometimes this looks like direct action; often these are simply things we do to survive. When we don't connect our names and faces to our work, we can speak more openly in hopes of sharing our tools and strategies with others living lives that are similarly outside of the law. Some of us have faced doxxing by fascists or harassment by abusive people in our own scenes. You may see some of us at events or workshops, or out doing things in our communities, because some degree of identification is sometimes what's needed to build connections of trust with others, but maintaining good security practices is essential for us.

Anonymity can be a tool for accountability: it may feel counterintuitive when we're used to an emphasis on visibility, but speaking and moving as a nebulous collective means that no one can use our work to build themself a platform or gather social capital, or actual capital/money, for that matter. We have agreed to refuse to do so ourselves.

We recognise that being denied visibility can be part of the harm and repression inflicted on us by power. It can be degrading and demoralising when we don't get recognition for our actions: either because care and healing are less visible and less valued than other forms of activity - or because we consciously chose (alleged) criminality and anonymity over taking credit.

Also, speaking from a position of anonymity doesn't mean you speak for everyone. It might be necessary to be very clear about the standpoint you're talking from. At least, it's important not to speak for those whose experiences you don't share.

These problems open up a strategic question about what kinds of visibility are useful as a means, but for us it's never simply an end.

“Accountability” can be understood in a lot of different ways. Usually, in radical communities it is understood in a very specific context around harm. It sounds like you all might be intending for it to be understood differently. Can you elaborate on what this concept means to you?

Accountability is an elusive principle that we constantly aspire to develop and understand within ourselves, with each other, and in our communities. Why is it so hard? We could start by looking at two different ways accountability gets used. First is the view that seems common in activist, anarchist, queer, feminist communities. There, accountability is often seen as a response to harm, something that’s primarily invoked when one person harms another, often in the form of abuse and sexual violence. The second way accountability can be understood is as an ongoing practice of care, or as harm-reduction, a continual basis for healing and reparation(s), which may open up some new possibilities and directions.

What is the accountability model and what were some of the inspirations behind it? Here we understand accountability as a kind of shared responsibility, specifically in relation to a person's health. Being able to 'account' for each other. We have been developing a tool for groups to use to move towards collective engagement in the health of many individuals, in an overlapping web of smaller groups. We were inspired by some models that people were already using to reinvent how they thought about healthcare for themselves, including the clinic at Vio.me in Thessaloniki, the Icarus Project, and others. In Thessaloniki in the wake of “the crisis”, some newly-unemployed medical professionals were able to reinvent health care from the ground up by creating an experimental clinic in a factory squatted by workers. Later, some of those involved developed the “group for an other medicine” whose project was a system starting with an expansive initial interview that would take about three hours or “as long as was needed” with (1) someone from their community, (2) a 'doctor', and (3) a 'psychologist'. They would use an exhaustive questionnaire to inform a comprehensive discussion about the person's wellbeing, some next steps, and how to achieve them together. It also served as a kind of health record for many of the migrants who otherwise did not have papers of this type that they were in control of and could take with them. Drawing heavily from how inspired we were by what we saw of their process, we wanted to adapt this for folks who might not have access to a a physical clinic, whose networks might be more spread out, or for groups of friends and comrades in community with one another.

Our accountability model is a guide with suggestions for how people might form such a group themselves. It covers the types of commitments and boundaries participants might choose to make with one another, a series of questions for the long interview itself, and ideas about how to move forward and continue working on core issues once they've been identified. Right now, it also contains some practical suggestions around security and group process that would aid in keeping everyone safe and secure. The idea is to redistribute accountability for each other throughout the ties that exist between people who already share community with one another, and shift responsibility (and therefore power) into the hands of the community while mapping out and making visible the pre-existing relationships of care so that they can more heavily be relied upon. This means building ties based on accountability and support for the wellbeing of each individual in a pre-emptive way - building stronger relationships of care before people break under the burdens of capitalism and other oppressions, and the community is left to pick up the pieces.

What are you working on right now? Our most recent zine came out last May and was a collection of preliminary ideas and resources in response to the Covid-19 pandemic - much of this is still relevant and reflects what we are doing right now.

As for our current public-facing work, we're forming a new publication tentatively titled “An Abolitionist's Guide to Autonomous Emotional Support”, which will focus on concrete models and tools to support the emotional wellbeing of our communities on our own terms. The general contexts we see are immediate and longer-term survival, combatting and deserting repression, isolation, “pathology”, and associated distress, harm, and capture.  We are in an environment where psychological warfare is a primary mode of attack from the state and its allies (fascists, police, the border, the psych ward, the prison). These kinds of attacks aim to divide us and leave the most vulnerable among us to deal with the consequences. Combatting this means taking the responsibility for our collective wellbeing into our own hands through care with longterm treatment plans, navigating existing resources together, and community self-defense. If we really want to get rid of the logic of the prison, we have to take on the work of caring for one another, and it isn't easy. The zine will include some ways to relate to our herbal allies, notes on how to navigate 'big psych', reflections on supports that have served us well (DBT, somatic exercises, on-the-ground emotional first aid, etc.), a toolkit for a "spa day" you can take anywhere, de-escalation and self-defense basics, an 'ask me anything' from an anarchist therapist, among other little treats.

If you are working on a project that coheres around these themes, we'd love to hear from you. We invite you to share tools and strategies that you have found useful in supporting the emotional health of your friends or community, or that have allowed you to find support in times of crisis.

How can people hear more, or how can people work with you or become involved in the collective?

On our website, there's a “Want to get involved?” section listing ways folks can connect with us and support our work.

All our zines and a bunch of shareable resources can be downloaded here [look in the “resources” tab]. Our zines are made to be shared! Feel free to print them out give them to your friends, put them in your local infoshop, add them to your zine table, leave them strategically placed around your city etc.. We have a small social media presence, but we mostly rely on people spreading the word about what we do, sharing our zines, and reaching out to us personally. If you don't have access to the internet, you can write to us and we are happy to correspond, and/or send physical copies of our zines to anyone who needs them.

PMS can be reached via e-mail at powermakesussick@riseup.net or powermakesussick@protonmail.com.

All physical mail can be sent here: PO box 234 Plainfield, VT 05667

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

U.S. population growth slows (The Economist) In mid-December the US Census published new population estimates (to be used for comparison when official census data are released in 2021). For those keen on growth, they offer mostly grim reading. California’s population has stalled and may, for the first time, be declining. Illinois, which has shed over 250,000 residents in a decade, has shrunk for seven successive years. In the year to July, thus counting in little pandemic effect, New York endured more shrinkage than any state: it lost 126,000, or 0.65%, of its people. Some states, mostly in the South, are growing fast, but not enough to lift the national rate. Overall, America’s population is barely inching up by historical standards. In the year to July it grew by 0.35% (or 1.2m) to 329m. No year since 1900 has seen such a miserly gain, though the year to next July could be slower still. Even in the dark days after the first world war, as the Spanish flu raged, growth was faster. William Frey of the Brookings Institution calculates expansion in the decade to July 2020 at just 6.6%. If his sums are right, that is the lowest decadal gain since 1790.

Washington braces for intense opening to a pivotal year (AP) The tumult of 2020 isn’t over yet. The opening week of the new year will be dominated by a collision of events that will test America’s commitment to democracy, shape President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration and determine the future of the Republican Party. It begins on Tuesday with two runoff elections in Georgia that will decide control of the Senate. Biden’s ability to easily set up his Cabinet and enact a legislative agenda hinges on Democrats capturing both seats. The focus shifts to Washington on Wednesday, where Congress is set to certify Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. The typically procedural afterthought is now a battle as some Republicans, eager to satisfy President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters, say they won’t certify the results of a free and fair election. Others in the GOP are warning that such moves are destructive. Even in a capital that has become somewhat accustomed to the chaos of the Trump era, the tension heading into this week is particularly acute. The repercussions could be long-lasting, influencing the course of Biden’s administration and ultimately the American resolve to peacefully transfer power from one party to another.

The time to question election results has passed, all living former defense secretaries say (Washington Post) The time to question election results has passed, and there is no role for the military in changing them, all 10 of the living former defense secretaries said in an extraordinary rebuke to President Trump and other Republicans who are backing unfounded claims of widespread fraud at the ballot box. The former Pentagon chiefs issued their warning Sunday evening in an opinion piece that they co-wrote and published in The Washington Post. Its authors include Trump’s two former defense secretaries, Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper, as well as each surviving, Senate-confirmed Pentagon chief dating back to Donald H. Rumsfeld in the 1970s. It comes as concerns persist that Trump might seek to use the military to keep himself in office, despite his electoral loss. “Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted,” the former defense secretaries wrote. “The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.”

Mexico’s president reaches the people with morning show (AP) Retired auditor Rafael Silva pours himself a cup of coffee and turns on his television at 7:00 a.m. each weekday morning to watch. Also in Mexico City, Amalia Meléndrez tunes in after her morning bath. Four thousand miles away in the United States, engineer Raúl Juárez connects to the internet no matter where he is —at home or in his car—to see the show they all wouldn’t miss for anything. It’s not a Mexican soap opera—though its number of viewers rivals some—it’s the daily, marathon morning press conference that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has given every weekday since he took office on Dec. 1, 2018. That’s over 500 opened-ended news conferences, sometimes lasting as long as three hours. They are a platform for the president to relay information he says the media ignores or misrepresents. Others say they are propaganda venues López Obrador uses to attack his critics. They are undeniably a break with the past in a country where some presidents could go years without taking an unvetted question from a reporter. “It’s my favorite series,” said Ana Errasti, an interpreter in Mexico City. “Any reporter can go up and directly question the president, and he shows his human side, without a script.”

Britons flying home to Spain caught in post-Brexit red tape (AP) Blame COVID-19 travel restrictions or Brexit but whatever the cause, some British citizens trying to return to their homes in several European countries this weekend were barred from boarding flights. Airlines refused documents that before Brexit had been valid proof of the Britons’ status as residents in Spain, Italy and Germany, although Spanish authorities claimed that the issue had been resolved by mid-Sunday. Their ordeal came amid heightened travel restrictions due to a coronavirus variant that has been blamed for faster contagion in the U.K. and highlights the bureaucratic complexities resulting from Britain’s departure from the 27-nation European Union. Around 300,000 British citizens are registered as permanent residents in Spain, although before Brexit, many more had been living full or part-time in the country without officially registering.

UK prime minister orders new virus lockdown for England (AP) Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday a new national lockdown for England until at least mid-February to combat a fast-spreading new variant of the coronavirus, even as Britain ramped up its vaccination program. Johnson said people must stay at home again, as they were ordered to do so in the first wave of the pandemic in March, this time because the new virus variant was spreading in a “frustrating and alarming” way. From Tuesday, primary and secondary schools and colleges will be closed for face to face learning except for the children of key workers and vulnerable pupils. University students will not be returning until at least mid-February. People were told to work from home unless it’s impossible to do so, and leave home only for essential trips. All nonessential shops and personal care services like hairdressers will be closed, and restaurants can only operate takeout services.

Scottish independence (Foreign Policy) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made clear his views on a potential referendum on Scottish independence, telling the BBC that such votes should only be held “once in a generation.” Under current rules, a referendum would likely need the support of the government in London to go ahead. Johnson’s remarks come as Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon continues to push for Scottish independence, saying Scotland is “committed to a legal, constitutional route to becoming an independent state,” in an opinion piece published in the Irish Times on Saturday.

British Court Addresses Fate of Julian Assange (Foreign Policy) A British judge will today decide whether to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face an 18-count indictment related to the release of thousands of documents, including diplomatic cables, published by Wikileaks in 2010 and 2011. Assange has been held in high-security Belmarsh prison since his forced removal from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he had spent the previous seven years. Reporters without Borders (RSF) chief Christian Mihr, whose organization has been ever-present at Assange’s British trial, was pessimistic about today’s ruling. “I’ve always said that this is a political process. That means there is political pressure. And that means—as sad, as tragic as that is—I won’t be surprised if the court approves extradition,” Mihr told Deutsche Welle. The United Nations special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer said the U.S case against Assange is “just because he practiced investigative journalism.” / Later (BBC): Wikileaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States, a court in London has ruled. The judge blocked the request because of concerns over Mr Assange’s mental health and risk of suicide in the US. US authorities have 14 days in which to lodge an appeal and are expected to do so.

The Tokyo Olympics hit the 200-days-to-go mark (AP) The countdown clock for the postponed Tokyo Olympics hit 200 days to go on Monday. Also on Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he would consider calling a state of emergency as new coronavirus cases surge to record numbers in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures. Japan has never had a lockdown for COVID-19, attempting to juggle the economy and health risks. It’s nearing deadline time for Tokyo Olympic organizers, the International Olympic Committee, and various Japanese government entities as they try to pull off the Games in the middle of a pandemic. Officials have promised to announce concrete plans early in the new year about how to get 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes into Japan; about the safety of the Athletes Village, and hundreds of thousands of fans, media, judges, officials, broadcasters and VIPs. The new year is here.

South Korea’s population falls for first time in its history (The Guardian) South Korea’s population has fallen for the first time in the country’s history, as it battles an ageing population and chronically low birth rate. The latest census figures, released at the weekend, show the population stood at 51,829,023 at the end of December, down 20,838 from the previous year. Data reported by Yonhap showed the country recorded 275,815 births in 2020, compared with 307,764 deaths. The trend, which has also led to a population decline in neighbouring Japan, is adding to pressure on the government to address the long-term demographic challenges posed by a rapidly ageing society and one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.

Australia’s Influence in Pacific Islands Grows as China’s Wanes (Bloomberg) Australia is moving to boost ties with small island nations off its eastern coastline, pushing back against China’s growing influence in the Pacific Ocean as the virus outbreak hinders travel. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government has promised to supply its neighbors with Covid-19 vaccines in 2021 as part of a A$500 million package aimed at achieving “full immunization coverage” in the region. It also recently signed a “landmark” deal with Fiji, one of the region’s most populous nations, to allow military deployments and exercises in each other’s jurisdiction. “China has largely been missing in action in regards to providing Covid-related support in the region,” said Jonathan Pryke, who heads research on the region for Sydney-based think tank the Lowy Institute. “Australia has built up an amount of goodwill by not forgetting about the Pacific in a time of crisis.”

Tensions with Iran (Foreign Policy) Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has seized a South Korean-flagged tanker and its crew, Iranian state media reported Monday. Tensions between Seoul and Tehran have escalated since South Korea froze $7 billion of Iranian funds in its banks after the United States reimposed sanctions on Iran following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018. Iran also announced Monday that it had resumed 20 percent uranium enrichment, the most significant breach of the 3.67 percent enrichment agreed as part of the 2015 nuclear deal that was signed by several major world powers, including the United States. The move puts Iran one step closer to reaching the 90 percent enrichment required for a nuclear warhead and sets up an early challenge for the incoming Biden administration. Sunday marked the anniversary of the assassination of Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani, and the United States was wary of a possible retaliation. The U.S. Defense Department announced that the USS Nimitz, due to leave the Persian Gulf, would remain in the region due to threats made against President Donald Trump and other senior officials by Iranian leaders. The move came just three days after the aircraft carrier had been ordered to return home as a message of de-escalation.

100 Civilians Are Reported Dead After Attacks in Niger (NYT) A hundred civilians were killed in attacks by suspected militants in the West African nation of Niger on Saturday, according to government officials. Armed men shot men and boys in what was said to be a revenge attack on the villages of Tchoma Bangou and Zaroumadareye. The villages are in the southwestern region of Tillabéri, where civilians have increasingly come under attack in the past two years. “They opened fire on everybody,” said Jahafar Koudize, a resident of Tchoma Bangou who managed to escape. The attack, which came just a week after Niger’s presidential election, is one of the country’s deadliest ever. Prime Minister Brigi Rafini, in remarks broadcast Sunday on national television from a visit to the area of the assaults, put the death toll at 100 but did not say who was responsible, Reuters reported.

Faith and spirituality in the time of Covid (BBC) Like many last March, the pandemic took Misha Allard by surprise. The 36-year-old from Toronto, Canada, had recently quit her corporate job to pursue an acting career—something she felt was her “calling”. With productions halted and no work in sight, Ms Allard decided to use the spring to explore another calling—her growing interest in spirituality. Like many millennials, Ms Allard had not attended church in years. Now, with nothing but time on her hands, she decided she would revisit her faith and see if she could find it a home. The pandemic had caused most churches to go from in-person worship to online services, which made it easy for her to try out different denominations. One of the churches she visited was the Meeting House, a protestant church that a friend had told her was “a church for people who don’t like church”. “They were doing a four-part series on basically love, and the fact that Jesus is love, and that so resonated with me, because I really believe that, and now more than ever do we really need love,” she says. For decades, religious attendance in most parts of the world has been declining. But the pandemic may just be reversing that trend, leaders from several faiths say, in part because the move to online services has helped make it easier for people to participate. “We’ve seen not only the numbers grow, but the kind of people, the people who wouldn’t typically feel comfortable even going to church, or setting a foot inside a new church,” says Bruxy Cavey, the lead pastor at the Meeting House.

[lastsonlost]

In the 1990s, the late Stanford neuroscientist Ben Barres transitioned from female to male. He was in his 40s, mid-career, and afterward he marveled at the stark changes in his professional life. Now that society saw him as male, his ideas were taken more seriously. He was able to complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man. 

A colleague who didn’t know he was transgender even praised his work as “much better than his sister’s.”Clinics have reported an increase in people seeking medical gender transitions in recent years, and research suggests the number of people identifying as transgender has risen in the past decade. 

Touchstones such as Caitlyn Jenner’s transition, the bathroom controversy, and the Amazon series “Transparent” have also made the topic a bigger part of the political and cultural conversation.But it is not always evident when someone has undergone a transition — especially if they have gone from female to male.

“The transgender guys have a relatively straightforward process — we just simply add testosterone and watch their bodies shift,” said Joshua Safer, executive director at the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System and Icahn School of Medicine in New York. “Within six months to a year they start to virilize — getting facial hair, a ruddier complexion, a change in body odor and a deepening of the voice.”

Transgender women have more difficulty “passing”; they tend to be bigger-boned and more masculine-looking, and these things are hard to reverse with hormone treatments, Safer said. “But the transgender men will go get jobs and the new boss doesn’t even know they’re trans.”

We spoke with four men who transitioned as adults to the bodies in which they feel more comfortable. Their experiences reveal that the gulf between how society treats women and men is in many ways as wide now as it was when Barres transitioned. But their diverse backgrounds provide further insight into how race and ethnicity inform the gender divide in subtle and sometimes surprising ways.

‘I’ll never call the police again’

Trystan Cotten, 50, Berkeley, Calif.

Professor of gender studies at California State University Stanislaus and editor of Transgress Press, which publishes books related to the transgender experience. Transitioned in 2008.

Life doesn’t get easier as an African American male. The way that police officers deal with me, the way that racism undermines my ability to feel safe in the world, affects my mobility, affects where I go. Other African American and Latino Americans grew up as boys and were taught to deal with that at an earlier age. I had to learn from my black and brown brothers about how to stay alive in my new body and retain some dignity while being demeaned by the cops.

One night somebody crashed a car into my neighbor’s house, and I called 911. I walk out to talk to the police officer, and he pulls a gun on me and says, “Stop! Stop! Get on the ground!” I turn around to see if there’s someone behind me, and he goes, “You! You! Get on the ground!” I’m in pajamas and barefoot. I get on the ground and he checks me, and afterward I said, “What was that all about?” He said, “You were moving kind of funny.” Later, people told me, “Man, you’re crazy. You never call the police.”

I get pulled over a lot more now. I got pulled over more in the first two years after my transition than I did the entire 20 years I was driving before that. Before, when I’d been stopped, even for real violations like driving 100 miles an hour, I got off. In fact, when it happened in Atlanta the officer and I got into a great conversation about the Braves. Now the first two questions they ask are: Do I have any weapons in the car, and am I on parole or probation?

Race influences how people choose to transition. I did an ethnographic study of trans men and found that 96 percent of African American and Latino men want to have surgery, while only 45 percent of white respondents do. That’s because a trans history can exacerbate racial profiling. When they pat you down, if you don’t have a penis it’s going to be obvious (or if you’re a trans woman and you have a penis, that becomes obvious). If they picked you up for popping a wheelie or smoking weed, if they find out you’re trans it can be worse for you.

There are also ways in which men deal with sexism and gender oppression that I was not aware of when I was walking around in a female body. A couple of years after my transition, I had a grad student I’d been mentoring. She started coming on to me, stalking me, sending me emails and texts. My adviser and the dean — both women — laughed it off. It went on for the better part of a year, and that was the year that I was going up for tenure. It was a very scary time. I felt very worried that if the student felt I was not returning her attentions she would claim that I had assaulted her. I felt like as a guy, I was not taken seriously. I had experienced harassment as a female person at another university and they had reacted immediately, sending a police escort with me to and from campus. I felt like if I had still been in my old body I would have gotten a lot more support.

Being a black man has changed the way I move in the world. I used to walk quickly or run to catch a bus. Now I walk at a slower pace, and if I’m late I don’t dare rush. I am hyper-aware of making sudden or abrupt movements, especially in airports, train stations and other public places. I avoid engaging with unfamiliar white folks, especially white women. If they catch my eye, white women usually clutch their purses and cross the street. While I love urban aesthetics, I stopped wearing hoodies and traded my baggy jeans, oversized jerseys and colorful skullcaps for closefitting jeans, khakis and sweaters. These changes blunt assumptions that I’m going to snatch purses or merchandise, or jump the subway turnstile. The less visible I am, the better my chances of surviving.

But it’s not foolproof. I’m an academic sitting at a desk so I exercise where I can. I walked to the post office to mail some books and I put on this 40-pound weight vest that I walk around in. It was about 3 or 4 in the afternoon and I’m walking back and all of a sudden police officers drove up, got out of their car, and stopped. I had my earphones on so I didn’t know they were talking to me. I looked up and there’s a helicopter above. And now I can kind of see why people run, because you might live if you run, even if you haven’t done anything. This was in Emeryville, one of the wealthiest enclaves in Northern California, where there’s security galore. Someone had seen me walking to the post office and called in and said they saw a Muslim with an explosives vest. One cop, a white guy, picked it up and laughed and said, “Oh, I think I know what this is. This is a weight belt.”

It’s not only humiliating, but it creates anxiety on a daily basis. Before, I used to feel safe going up to a police officer if I was lost or needed directions. But I don’t do that anymore. I hike a lot, and if I’m out hiking and I see a dead body, I’ll keep on walking. I’ll never call the police again.

‘It now feels as though I am on my own’

Zander Keig, 52, San Diego

Coast Guard veteran. Works at Naval Medical Center San Diego as a clinical social work case manager. Editor of anthologies about transgender men. Started transition in 2005.

Prior to my transition, I was an outspoken radical feminist. I spoke up often, loudly and with confidence. I was encouraged to speak up. I was given awards for my efforts, literally — it was like, “Oh, yeah, speak up, speak out.” When I speak up now, I am often given the direct or indirect message that I am “mansplaining,” “taking up too much space” or “asserting my white male heterosexual privilege.” Never mind that I am a first-generation Mexican American, a transsexual man, and married to the same woman I was with prior to my transition.

I find the assertion that I am now unable to speak out on issues I find important offensive and I refuse to allow anyone to silence me. My ability to empathize has grown exponentially, because I now factor men into my thinking and feeling about situations. Prior to my transition, I rarely considered how men experienced life or what they thought, wanted or liked about their lives. I have learned so much about the lives of men through my friendships with men, reading books and articles by and for men and through the men I serve as a licensed clinical social worker.

Social work is generally considered to be “female dominated,” with women making up about 80 percent of the profession in the United States. Currently I work exclusively with clinical nurse case managers, but in my previous position, as a medical social worker working with chronically homeless military veterans — mostly male — who were grappling with substance use disorder and severe mental illness, I was one of a few men among dozens of women.

Plenty of research shows that life events, medical conditions and family circumstances impact men and women differently. But when I would suggest that patient behavioral issues like anger or violence may be a symptom of trauma or depression, it would often get dismissed or outright challenged. The overarching theme was “men are violent” and there was “no excuse” for their actions.

I do notice that some women do expect me to acquiesce or concede to them more now: Let them speak first, let them board the bus first, let them sit down first, and so on. I also notice that in public spaces men are more collegial with me, which they express through verbal and nonverbal messages: head lifting when passing me on the sidewalk and using terms like “brother” and “boss man” to acknowledge me. As a former lesbian feminist, I was put off by the way that some women want to be treated by me, now that I am a man, because it violates a foundational belief I carry, which is that women are fully capable human beings who do not need men to acquiesce or concede to them.

What continues to strike me is the significant reduction in friendliness and kindness now extended to me in public spaces. It now feels as though I am on my own: No one, outside of family and close friends, is paying any attention to my well-being.

I can recall a moment where this difference hit home. A couple of years into my medical gender transition, I was traveling on a public bus early one weekend morning. There were six people on the bus, including me. One was a woman. She was talking on a mobile phone very loudly and remarked that “men are such a–holes.” I immediately looked up at her and then around at the other men. Not one had lifted his head to look at the woman or anyone else. The woman saw me look at her and then commented to the person she was speaking with about “some a–hole on the bus right now looking at me.” I was stunned, because I recall being in similar situations, but in the reverse, many times: A man would say or do something deemed obnoxious or offensive, and I would find solidarity with the women around me as we made eye contact, rolled our eyes and maybe even commented out loud on the situation. I’m not sure I understand why the men did not respond, but it made a lasting impression on me.

I took control of my career’

Chris Edwards, 49, Boston

Advertising creative director, public speaker and author of the memoir “Balls: It Takes Some to Get Some.” Transitioned in his mid-20s.

When I began my transition at age 26, a lot of my socialization came from the guys at work. For example, as a woman, I’d walk down the hall and bump into some of my female co-workers, and they’d say, “Hey, what’s up?” and I’d say, “Oh, I just got out of this client meeting. They killed all my scripts and now I have to go back and rewrite everything, blah blah blah. What’s up with you?” and then they’d tell me their stories. As a guy, I bump into a guy in the hall and he says, “What’s up?” and I launch into a story about my day and he’s already down the hall. And I’m thinking, well, that’s rude. So, I think, okay, well, I guess guys don’t really share, so next time I’ll keep it brief. By the third time, I realized you just nod.

The creative department is largely male, and the guys accepted me into the club. I learned by example and modeled my professional behavior accordingly. For example, I kept noticing that if guys wanted an assignment they’d just ask for it. If they wanted a raise or a promotion they’d ask for it. This was a foreign concept to me. As a woman, I never felt that it was polite to do that or that I had the power to do that. But after seeing it happen all around me I decided that if I felt I deserved something I was going to ask for it too. By doing that, I took control of my career. It was very empowering.

Apparently, people were only holding the door for me because I was a woman rather than out of common courtesy as I had assumed. Not just men, women too. I learned this the first time I left the house presenting as male, when a woman entered a department store in front of me and just let the door swing shut behind her. I was so caught off guard I walked into it face first.

When you’re socially transitioning, you want to blend in, not stand out, so it’s uncomfortable when little reminders pop up that you’re not like everybody else. I’m expected to know everything about sports. I like sports but I’m not in deep like a lot of guys. For example, I love watching football, but I never played the sport (wasn’t an option for girls back in my day) so there is a lot I don’t know. I remember the first time I was in a wedding as a groomsman. I was maybe three years into my transition and I was lined up for photos with all the other guys. And one of them shouted, “High school football pose!” and on cue everybody dropped down and squatted like the offensive line, and I was like, what the hell is going on? It was not instinctive to me since I never played. I tried to mirror what everyone was doing, but when you see the picture I’m kind of “offsides,” so to speak.

The hormones made me more impatient. I had lots of female friends and one of the qualities they loved about me was that I was a great listener. After being on testosterone, they informed me that my listening skills weren’t what they used to be. Here’s an example: I’m driving with one of my best friends, Beth, and I ask her “Is your sister meeting us for dinner?” Ten minutes later she’s still talking and I still have no idea if her sister is coming. So finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I snapped and said, “IS SHE COMING OR NOT?” And Beth was like, “You know, you used to like hearing all the backstory and how I’d get around to the answer. A lot of us have noticed you’ve become very impatient lately and we think it’s that damn testosterone!” It’s definitely true that some male behavior is governed by hormones. Instead of listening to a woman’s problem and being empathetic and nodding along, I would do the stereotypical guy thing — interrupt and provide a solution to cut the conversation short and move on. I’m trying to be better about this.

People ask if being a man made me more successful in my career. My answer is yes — but not for the reason you might think. As a man, I was finally comfortable in my own skin and that made me more confident. At work I noticed I was more direct: getting to the point, not apologizing before I said anything or tiptoeing around and trying to be delicate like I used to do. In meetings, I was more outspoken. I stopped posing my thoughts as questions. I’d say what I meant and what I wanted to happen instead of dropping hints and hoping people would read between the lines and pick up on what I really wanted. I was no longer shy about stating my opinions or defending my work. When I gave presentations I was brighter, funnier, more engaging. Not because I was a man. Because I was happy.

‘People assume I know the answer’

Alex Poon, 26, Boston

Project manager for Wayfair, an online home goods company. Alex is in the process of his physical transition; he did the chest surgery after college and started taking testosterone this spring.

Traditional Chinese culture is about conforming to your elders’ wishes and staying within gender boundaries. However, I grew up in the U.S., where I could explore my individuality and my own gender identity. When I was 15 I was attending an all-girls high school where we had to wear skirts, but I felt different from my peers. Around that point we began living with my Chinese grandfather towards the end of his life. He was so traditional and deeply set in his ways. I felt like I couldn’t cut my hair or dress how I wanted because I was afraid to upset him and have our last memories of each other be ruined.

Genetics are not in my favor for growing a lumberjack-style beard. Sometimes, Chinese faces are seen as “soft” with less defined jaw lines and a lack of facial fair. I worry that some of my feminine features like my “soft face” will make it hard to present as a masculine man, which is how I see myself. Instead, when people meet me for the first time, I’m often read as an effeminate man.

My voice has started cracking and becoming lower. Recently, I’ve been noticing the difference between being perceived as a woman versus being perceived as a man. I’ve been wondering how I can strike the right balance between remembering how it feels to be silenced and talked over with the privileges that come along with being perceived as a man. Now, when I lead meetings, I purposefully create pauses and moments where I try to draw others into the conversation and make space for everyone to contribute and ask questions.

People now assume I have logic, advice and seniority. They look at me and assume I know the answer, even when I don’t. I’ve been in meetings where everyone else in the room was a woman and more senior, yet I still got asked, “Alex, what do you think? We thought you would know.” I was at an all-team meeting with 40 people, and I was recognized by name for my team’s accomplishments. Whereas next to me, there was another successful team led by a woman, but she was never mentioned by name. I went up to her afterward and said, “Wow, that was not cool; your team actually did more than my team.” The stark difference made me feel uncomfortable and brought back feelings of when I had been in the same boat and not been given credit for my work.

When people thought I was a woman, they often gave me vague or roundabout answers when I asked a question. I’ve even had someone tell me, “If you just Googled it, you would know.” But now that I’m read as a man, I’ve found people give me direct and clear answers, even if it means they have to do some research on their own before getting back to me.

A part of me regrets not sharing with my grandfather who I truly am before he passed away. I wonder how our relationship might have been different if he had known this one piece about me and had still accepted me as his grandson. Traditionally, Chinese culture sees men as more valuable than women. Before, I was the youngest granddaughter, so the least important. Now, I’m the oldest grandson. I think about how he might have had different expectations or tried to instill certain traditional Chinese principles upon me more deeply, such as caring more about my grades or taking care of my siblings and elders. Though he never viewed me as a man, I ended up doing these things anyway.

Zander Keig contributed to this article in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of the Department of Defense.

[notourhomeland]

About Gratitude, Love, and Life’s “Collateral Beauty”

Dear Mr Gansa,

I was very hesitant to participate in this letter campaign for many reasons. For one, I would never want to pressure anyone into doing anything he or she didn’t want to do, or overly influence someone to achieve a goal, however valid it may be. If this letter campaign had taken place straight after the finale of 6.12, I might have acted more impulsively and emotionally and jumped right in without thinking through the impact my actions could have on another person, as you are a fellow human being after all. Nonetheless, I do remember how strongly I felt four months ago, how devastated I was and my state of painful disbelief. At the time I felt so passionately about what happened that I did write something which I had worded quite strongly, angrily and desperately even. But that was then. My feelings have since changed. I’m not angry anymore, though still conflicted and confused. And sad and strange as it may sound, there is a part of me which feels gratitude towards you. Not that it matters because it’s not likely you will read my letter, not only because it is going to be one of many, but because I’m sure you have people employed to deal with letters like mine before they even get to you. In my head, I have this picture that my letter will end up in a shredder or a bin somewhere, and maybe that is where it belongs. I’m not a writer. I don’t understand anything about television shows, story arcs, character development, what you do and what your job entails, and what you consider to be important. I just remember falling in love with a character on your show for a very particular reason - a personal reason. I lost someone many years ago, also named Peter. He was a soldier who was killed doing his job “protecting people”. Ours was a beautiful, honest, and gritty love story which was sadly cut all too short. Even though many years have passed, his loss cuts deep and not a day goes by that I don’t miss him. My story is a very personal one, and so my love for him and my grief I usually prefer to keep very private. Still, I’m going to tell you a little bit about him, about my Peter, and about others too.

But first I will tell you how I started watching Homeland. I heard about the show through tv ads and a colleague and I was intrigued. I liked the idea of a female protagonist who had to face the challenges of being bipolar because I know people who face similar mental health challenges. It is a subject matter which interests me and I wanted to learn about it, and it was the first thing that drew me to Homeland. I tend to get captivated by stories and characters who have some kind of link to my reality, to real-life experiences, to the stories of people I know. It helps me process and find new and better ways of looking at something or someone, and sometimes it helps me resolve what’s unresolved. Unfortunately, no matter how much I loved the character of Carrie, I lost the connection to her as a character as her relationship with Brody progressed. I stopped watching; it wasn’t a deliberate decision but rather less conscious. Things just started to come in-between somehow, daily life things.

Years passed, and I was up late one night. I was sewing, not with a machine but stitching by hand. I felt tired and was nodding off, so to keep myself awake I switched on the television and coincidentally I stumbled upon a repeat episode of Homeland. It was during the scene when Quinn was sitting beside the pool getting hammered. When he finished, he threw the empty bottle into the water, and at that moment the landlady arrived and reprimanded him in a friendly, forgiving sort of a way. He in turn shrugged dorkily and tried to get up from the lounger, but he was so drunk that he fell back. It was that very scene that pulled me back into the world of Homeland- that short, small scene is the one that did it for me. It was so powerful that I pricked my finger, because what I saw onscreen felt so familiar. Quinn felt so familiar, because he reminded me of my Peter. He also used to self-medicate when something was really bothering him at work or after he had experienced something traumatic. Similar to the landlady, I couldn’t be mad at him because my Peter, like Quinn, had an unusual, unconventional charm; he too was mesmerising on so many levels; he was drawn to the darkness but was made of light; he struggled with the moral implications of his job; he blamed himself for the death of a child; he suffered an injury, but was lucky enough to make a full recovery; he had self-esteem issues; he too was a turtle- tough on the outside, resilient but vulnerable on the inside, and capable of deep, deep love; he too was very good at his job, had nerves of steel, was a protector by nature; he also struggled with depression and PTSD and, as we later learned about Quinn, was a survivor of sexual abuse. And I could go on with the list of uncanny and extraordinary similarities which drew me to your Quinn in Homeland.

I also share some similarities and real-life parallels with your Quinn. I am a survivor of child sexual trauma and was physically and psychologically abused, and I am familiar with depression and PTSD. I was a street-kid like Quinn at one time and struggled against a failing foster care system, falling through that proverbial net. I was groomed and manipulated and controlled by Dar-like figures, and like Quinn came close to killing my abusers. The scenes at the Lakehouse in season six felt as if they were taken out of difficult chapters from my own life.

All these parallels felt extremely validating. It was as if someone had done their research to bring such realism to the many difficult issues raised by Quinn in Homeland. I felt like someone had taken meticulous care in telling such tough, controversial, complex, and painful stories like the one my soldier partner and I had lived through, and which had left us with many scars and a closet full of demons. Therefore, to me the story you were telling and how you were telling it made complete and utter sense. Where others saw plot holes or retcons, inconsistencies or implausibilities, I saw realism, consistency, truth, and accuracy, and it turned me into a fan. I admired your courage in wanting to highlight these difficult issues, to shed light on them. I interpreted it as proof of your real commitment to giving people like my Peter and me a face and a voice, and I was grateful to you, very, very grateful!

Looking at it from an entirely sober and rational perspective, I probably don’t belong to the category of people you want to target in terms of marketing. Yes, I am interested in politics and I follow current events, but I’m not usually someone who gets captivated by spy plots, political thrillers, or semi-current affair shows which mirror or try to predict what goes on in the world or behind closed curtains, all elements which are very important to you if past interviews are correct. I’m probably your polar opposite; I’m someone who is more interested in matters of the heart, in humanity and what makes us who we are. I’m interested in the human experience, what shapes us and how we deal with reality, relationships, difficult past experiences, moral questions… the emotional and psychological journeys and challenges humans face in their lives and in their jobs, including the military, and how global affairs and politics impact us in human terms. That is why I love following the journey of characters on-screen, especially when I can connect with them for personal reasons.

However, I have never connected as deeply with a fictional tv-character as I have with Quinn, and I am convinced it will never happen again. It was a once in a life-time experience for me.

Peter Quinn was a tv character who stood out for me. He was a beautiful man and I could relate to him on so many levels, and that relatability allowed me to connect to and appreciate the spy plot and the political and prescient elements of your story-telling. And through him, I also gained access once again to Carrie and her journey. In other words, Quinn was my key to the overall Homeland experience. He made me appreciate other characters and the story-line as a whole, the totality of the Homeland universe you have created. But while for Carrie I cared, it was Quinn that I loved. I loved him because of what he represented and who he represented, “real-life” people. And, yes, one of them was my own Peter, a soldier who wanted to take a similar career path to Quinn. But he didn’t make it. He came under intense machine gun fire and died during one of his overseas deployments. Quinn allowed me to connect to my own Peter in a positive way, and allowed me to understand him and his struggles better, his demons and his job and its psychological implication.

And then something happened on Homeland, an unexpected shift: Quinn suffered a stroke, which further drew me to the character. Now he not only mirrored my own Peter in complex ways, but also people I have the privilege to work with in a rehab and care-providing setting, people who face all types of challenges- physical, personal, cognitive, emotional, relational, societal. People I have huge respect for, people I assist and facilitate and support on their road to recovery and in making positive adjustments to achieve the maximum amount of independence, people with whom I enjoy connecting and who motivate me. I especially enjoy working with people like Quinn who are in danger of falling through the cracks of the system, or who are in danger for their very own personal reasons and the nature of their demons, or because they simply lack family support structure. I enjoy it because I can relate, in the same way I could relate to Quinn.

Another very important reason why I love Quinn is because he reminds me of my own husband. I was lucky to have found love twice in my life, and my husband is just as special and amazing as my Peter was. He is an exceptional guy and is also like Quinn, but in a different way. He lives with a physical and cognitive disability, though the expression “differing” ability or “different” ability better describes the truth as he and we live it. And even though my husband doesn’t resemble Quinn in looks, he wears Quinn’s face in the shape of his courage, agency, resolve, and capacity to love unconditionally.

Quinn was the face of so many of us. He stood for so many of us, and us for him. That is why I loved him, because he gave us a voice, a face, words. We saw people we loved in him, people we cared for, ourselves even. But he did more than that… He brought us into the living room and thoughts and minds of others who may not have shared our experiences, people who wore a different face, lived different lives, had different pasts, loved differently, thought differently. And, yes, they too loved Quinn. Quinn’s popularity and importance to the story felt like a beautiful validation. It bestowed worth upon all of us whose face he wore. And we felt a sense of worth through him and through the love others felt for the character, because if the wider audience loved and accepted and rooted for Quinn, then perhaps the wider society had the capacity to accept and root and even love people like “us”. Perhaps we were deserving of acceptance and love. And it was not only because others loved and accepted Quinn but also because someone important like you who could reach many felt it was important to tell Quinn’s story, our story. And you managed to find an incredibly talented and believable actor who breathed life and realism into your creation in such a sensitive way that he touched every strand and fibre of our emotions. He made us love him, forgive him, understand him, admire him, feel with him, empathise with him, grieve with him, love with him, suffer with him, walk with him…. An actor who made Quinn complex, mesmerizing to watch, and beautifully relatable.

Quinn touched me in the same way my husband, the people I work with, and my own Peter touched me. There is much I would love to tell you about the people I deeply care about and love, the many faces of Quinn. And when I think about that, I wonder if it is all just an amazing coincidence, or did you and your team deliberately write Quinn and his story in such a way that it allowed for a multitude of personal projections. Was it solely down to the direction? Or maybe it was all in the acting and talent? Maybe it was a combination, I have no idea. I just know that on that day when I was stitching and Quinn appeared I became hooked on the show, really hooked.

I remember how intensely I was looking forward to season six. I had read your interviews before the season aired and discovered that you wanted to tell the story of a wounded veteran. My own Peter suffered a blast injury from an IED. Thankfully he recovered and returned to duty, but it triggered all sorts of struggles in him, and his recovery was not an easy one. Therefore, I loved the idea of your commitment to telling the story of a struggling veteran. After 5.12, I believed Quinn was “safe” and his place in Homeland secure. To me, 5.12 had centered around Quinn’s death, and so I believed Quinn’s story in season six was going to be a tough story towards recovery and life. I absolutely wanted you to touch on gritty reality, on tough subjects veterans are facing in every country, what it might be like to be affected by traumatic injury, stroke, PTSD and other mental health issues like depression, to touch on the challenges of adjusting to and coping with “disabilities” and finding alternatives to old ways of doing things. I wanted you to raise the issue of the many shortcomings in the provision and accessibility of good care, rehab programs and home supports, of people facing isolation, and the struggle with reintegration and the difficulties soldiers and veterans can face when transitioning into civilian life. I also wanted you to show how some people might struggle to engage with Quinn and how he might struggle to engage with others. I wanted you to show how some carers find it difficult to relate to someone like him, and how some carers can fall into the trap of infantilizing or dismissing the person in need of support. I wanted you to highlight the pressure that acquired “disabilities” and mental health issues can place on relationships, and how the interactions between couples can become strained. I wanted you to show how professional carers can be unprofessional and compromised. I wanted you to show the reality of depression, the dark side, the self-doubt, and I wanted you to touch on suicide and anger management issues. I wanted you to go deep on all fronts, to go dark and touch on all the taboo subjects. I wanted it and was prepared for it, and you took us there and even deeper, and I was grateful to you.

Before season six I was not part of the fandom, had never heard of the term. But because of the many complex issues raised by Quinn, all issues which are close to my heart and in which I’m personally and professionally invested, I started to engage in some online and offline discussions. I was grateful for these discussions because we were discussing and demystifying misconceptions and taboos, perceptions which needed clarification and reevaluation, and we did it together and with respect. It made people ask questions about themselves and others and about society as a whole. It led me to challenge my preconceptions and look at and question my own. It felt healthy and like a positive sign of the times, and it gave me hope that perceptions can change through raising awareness and through honest, respectful dialogue. It also made me believe in the power of love, that love is the most potent ingredient to affecting and bringing about change in society, and that even the love for a fictional character can unite people and move and shift things internally. Quinn was the common ground we could all relate to, and he was the catalyst for these discussions.

Quinn was almost universally loved and was such a strong character that he could carry that torch and be that beacon. He could take people by the hand and show us the difficult side of life, the struggles some of us face, the harshness of reality, the ugly and uncomfortable and unpalatable experiences some of us have to face, the damage and scars of trauma and abuse, the draw to darkness. Quinn could do this because he somehow coupled it with light and a touching vulnerability. Someone somewhere in the fandom eloquently and poignantly stated that Quinn showed us all of this without our ever losing the love we had for him. He mistook a friendly hug for a sexual one, did drugs and drank and smelled and yelled. He sucker punched Astrid, and even brutally killed. And still we loved him. He showed us his pain, his darkness, and his struggles so viscerally that we felt it too, we ached for him. And even when it was difficult we stayed and didn’t turn away because we loved him. That in my view is an incredible achievement on your part, the writers’ part, and the actor’s part!!!!!

We all saw the worth in Quinn, and because of the way you were telling his story and the way you expressed that sentiment in your interviews, I believed that you did too. I believed you understood and valued Quinn and enjoyed telling his story, and that you wanted to continue to write and explore it in future seasons, seasons I was looking forward to because I wanted to know more.

And that is why I never saw his death in 6.12 coming. A few hours prior to watching the finale I had come across spoilers of his death, but my brain didn’t fully process it. It made no sense. It was late at night because of the time difference, but because it was the finale I wanted to stay up. My husband was too tired and had fallen asleep, which meant I was alone. I was drawn into the story playing out on the screen immediately, to the point that I became part of it. I walked alongside Quinn and Carrie and followed Quinn into the underground parking lot. I stood beside them when Quinn told Carrie to do as she was told, and watched as she got in and shielded the president-elect with her body. I got into the car, but I was not afraid because I trusted you. I closed the door and clicked the buckle of my seat-belt. I felt the car move as Quinn drove us out of the garage and watched as he made his split second decision. I felt like someone who was about to embark on a roller coaster ride. I felt the adrenaline and the suspense. Yes, I did feel fear, but still I trusted you like one trusts the engineers who build a real-life roller coaster. I trusted that you had built the story in such a way that you wanted to challenge us, thrill us, frighten us, shake us, shock us even, but I didn’t think, not for one second, that you actually wanted to kill us. Because that is how it felt when suddenly it all changed, when the bolts that held the roller coaster started popping, the bullets started flying, the windscreen started cracking, when it all started to fall apart around and underneath me, when I was sent into a terrifying free-fall towards an emotional death of sorts. Because like Carrie, I could not lose another one… Not Quinn, not a character who embodied so many of us, became the face of us, and who wore the face of my beloved Peter, the brave soldier who came under heavy machine gun fire and died protecting other people. And as time slowed so did my heart and my breath, because it was as if I was sitting in the front seat beside Quinn. I let you take me there because I had trusted you. But in that moment, as I became witness to Quinn’s death, I was hurled violently into the moment of the death of my own Peter. And the pain I felt in that moment was unbearable, because the bullets did not hit my flesh, they hit my soul. And it was sheer and blinding agony. I could feel myself choking, I had the taste of blood in my mouth, I felt the life drain from me and the world fade around me. And I died. I died with my Peter. I died with Quinn. My heart and soul bled out, and I died. And so I became a writer’s unwitting collateral damage, your collateral damage.

The next day my husband watched 6.12 and cried as I had never seen him cry before. You know when a man cries first in stillness, when he presses all the air out of his lungs and loses his breath completely, and still he tries to resist taking in air. But then he just has to breathe, and when he does he makes an indescribably painful and agonizing sound. That was the sound of my husband when he watched Quinn die, because he too did not see Quinn’s death coming, even though I had tried to prepare him. He too believed you wanted to tell a different story which focused on Quinn’s capabilities and abilities in future seasons. Because Quinn’s face was also my husband’s face, my husband who lives with the challenges of his differing abilities and who has learnt to rise above it all and plough on through the obstacles in his way. And he was so proud of Quinn, proud of the story he believed you were telling, proud to a see an unconventional and complex hero on our television screen who functions differently just like he does, a man of agency and worth. But as Quinn died onscreen and the “burp” of an alt-right radio personality marked the end of his existence, a little bit of my husband died too in that moment, because it raised questions about his own worth as nothing had ever done before. He started asking himself questions he had never asked himself nor had reason to. He asked himself whether he was “too damaged” as a person, whether he could only have worth if he sacrificed himself, if his worth was tied to death. He asked himself if there was room in society for him, if he was a burden to me. And so he too became collateral damage, a writer’s unwitting collateral damage. Your collateral damage.

Recently I met a US veteran and his wife who were fans of Homeland, and they too were a writer’s unwitting collateral damage. Your collateral damage. And so was a young man who like my husband has differing abilities. I spoke to his mother who found a farewell note in his room. He was a fan of Quinn and felt that if Quinn could succeed, so could he. Following Quinn’s journey and his resilience allowed the young man to tap into his own strengths, and through Quinn he found the feeling of acceptance. But when Quinn died, he read some critical reviews which described Quinn as too damaged to have a place as a character in future seasons and that therefore his death was a logical and fitting conclusion. And that’s when the young man started to write his farewell note. Thankfully, his mother found it before he could take his own life. Still, he too had become collateral damage, the writer’s unwitting collateral damage. Your collateral damage.

And there are many more stories like that, more collateral damage.

You could easily think this is not your problem, that we are not your responsibility. And if you do think this, I would agree with you. My emotions, my mental health, my past experiences, how I connected with your Quinn, my personal projections and those of others are not your responsibility. And how could they be? You can’t know all the viewers and their own personal stories. You don’t know my Peter, my husband, my patients. I understand that you don’t know us. We are formless and faceless, a small part of the wider viewership, a small statistical number, a footnote. And there are a lot of people out there who are perfectly okay with Quinn’s death. But still, we do exist. We are the collateral damage.

I can’t imagine you wanted to send such a soul-destroying message or cause such pain, I really don’t. Instead, I want to believe that by telling the story the way you did that you wanted to effect positive change in society. Maybe you wanted to get people to confront themselves and their negative views by showing everyone the reality of the social and emotional seclusion that veterans can face, or that people with differing abilities or mental health issues face. Or the struggles of active service men and women and the difficulties they encounter when trying to re-enter civilian life, or the challenges and strengths of people who have been sexually abused. Maybe you wanted to encourage us to measure or define people not in terms of “damage” but in terms of ability, potential, and possibility. Maybe you wanted to encourage us to focus on what we find attractive in another human being, rather than the aspects which do not fit into our “ideals”. Maybe you wanted to encourage us to think outside the box. That is what I hoped you were advocating for, that it was your dream to open eyes and not to shut them, that you wanted to foster growth of soul and heart and not pull the rug from under people.

And I wanted to believe that by not showing a memorial for Quinn, by answering his death with a burp, by applying restraint to Carrie’s emotional responses and having her use a bin liner to gather Quinn’s few belongings, you wanted to achieve the opposite- to emphasize and magnify the void Quinn has left in the hearts of so many and in the story itself. That by not talking about Quinn publicly until now, you were indeed letting the silence speak louder than words.

I’m sure you have your reasons and I do believe you when you say that you too are grieving and that there are no fitting words. You too are made of flesh and blood and have feelings and the capacity to empathize. I’d like to believe that, like us, you connected with Quinn on a deep level. There has to be a part of you in him. And because I’d like to believe that, I would love to know why. Why did you kill him? Maybe your reasons are too personal or painful to share with strangers. Maybe that is the reason you did not publicly acknowledge and draw clear lines around the sexual abuse angle you introduced through Dar, why you didn’t publicly “have Quinn’s back”. Just maybe you experienced what my Peter has, what I did, and maybe nobody had your back. Perhaps you didn’t know and still can’t process that what was done to you was wrong because you feel guilt or shame, maybe you felt you deserved it or were asking for it. Or possibly acts of abuse were sold to you and disguised as love, and so the lines became blurred and the emotions confusing. Maybe you felt your abuser somehow saved you from an even worse fate and that you owed the abuser something. Abuse is complex, and that is why clear lines and clear statements are so important and valuable, statements like the ones Rupert Friend made on the issue- clear, unambiguous statements. Maybe you couldn’t do the same because it is hard for you, because it is a subject you struggle with like my Peter did, like I did and still do. Or maybe it wasn’t you personally who was affected by the issue… Perhaps it was someone you deeply care about, or someone on your team whom you are trying to protect somehow. Maybe someone on your team was a victim of a sexual predator when they were a child, teenager or young adult. Or perhaps you left the lines so blurred because the person who inspired you to integrate the abuse angle between Quinn and Dar was not the victim, but the perpetrator. There are so many possible reasons for your ambiguity on that matter and for your silence in general because you are a human being, because you are made of flesh and blood. And that is why maybe you too understand what it is like to become collateral damage, because you have witnessed or experienced it through your own eyes or through the eyes of someone you love and care about.

This is what I would like to think and need to believe. I’d also like to believe that behind the sparsity of your words hides an altruistic wish - the wish to trigger people into wanting to take note of people like Quinn. Maybe you want to propel us into meaningful action so that we contribute to a charity for those who have been affected by the issues raised. Maybe you want us to get in touch with a veterans organisation to see if there is something we can do, to take the time to write or adopt a soldier who is deployed overseas and who might not have a family. Perhaps instead of passing a homeless person and feeling uneasy or uncomfortable, you want us to stop and sit down and have a chat and ask real questions. Maybe you want us to sit down with a veteran and hear his/her story, for us to see a person who has experienced sexual abuse not as someone to pity or fear, who has become tainted or tarnished, but as one who has been tested and tested again and is resilient, robust and made of tough stuff. Maybe you want us to go and watch a basketball team that is being played by people who skillfully maneuver their wheelchair, or watch athletes with prosthetic limbs who can run faster than gazelles. Perhaps you yourself have tried to open a bottle or tie your shoelaces with just one hand, and maybe you too have become more aware of how ingenious people who live with some form of paralysis have to be, how they are constantly learning and discovering new ways of doing things. Maybe you don’t want us to just stare or feel frightened when someone in a shop has an epileptic fit, when the person’s bladder opens and he or she starts to vomit. Rather you want us to know first aid procedures, what to watch out for, and how to safely support and be there for that person, to treat him or her with dignity. Maybe you want us to really listen when we meet someone who has a different speech pattern, whose speech is perhaps slurred or affected by aphasia after a stroke. Maybe you want to encourage us to give that person the time and space to answer, and for us to be interested in what he or she has to say and not feel “embarrassed” for the person or get nervous ourselves. Perhaps you want us to appreciate the musicality, the beat, the pauses, the acceleration, the slowing down, the movement, the symphony of different speech patterns and hear not the “damage” but the “beauty” and “music”. Maybe if we meet someone who lives in a world where someone’s reality has a dreaminess to it, where someone’s cognitive processes work differently, or he or she misjudges a situation on account of brain damage, you want us to see things from the other person’s view and ask if there is something we can do to best support that person. Perhaps you want us to see each other more clearly and empathically and for us to appreciate our differences.

This is what I want to believe is the reason why you say so little. I choose to believe that you want to give people space and time to find their own path and to develop their own response, rather than trying to influence us. Because I cannot imagine nor want to imagine anything else. Any other explanation just feels empty and cold. And because I choose to believe that you are not cold, I am not going to criticise or clamor for change or a different ending, or ask you to give us more in terms of an explanation, I don’t need that, not anymore.

The reason why I am participating in the letter campaign is for a very different reason: I’m writing to you because I want to thank you. Thank you for the creation of Quinn, for giving all of us a face and a voice, even if I feel Quinn’s story ended abruptly and feels incomplete. Thank you for telling aspects of the complicated struggles my own Peter had to face and also for reflecting on his character, his morality, his beauty, his heart. And thank you for challenging us and for uniting so many of us through the love we felt and still feel for this particular and very unique character named Peter Quinn.

This is not meant sarcastically; my thanks comes sincerely from the heart. And as strange as it may sound, I also want to thank you for opening my pandora’s box of intense pain and grief which allowed me to set hope free, for making me confront my worst nightmares and demons. Thank you for making me remember my own beautiful Peter, for triggering memories I had locked away for too long. And thank you for reading my words, or to whoever took the time to plough through these many pages and this maze of feelings and thoughts of a stranger. And if nobody reads this, then I want to thank the universe or the shredder or the bin where my letter ends up, because I’m glad for the opportunity to have written it, for the opportunity to remember.

With deepest gratitude to you, Mr Gansa, for creating Quinn. Thank you to Rupert Friend for breathing heart and soul into the character. Thank you to my own Peter, for the years we shared, for giving your love and for accepting mine. You were my soul-mate, and I will love you always. And of course a big and heartfelt thank you to my brave husband and life-partner who also understands the meaning of loss, for putting up with me all these years, and for your acceptance and love. And thank you to my patients, to soldiers and veterans, to all the other Quinns of this world, and the special friend who helped me water my flowers.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

One of your many European viewers…

[johnabradley]

HRH Prince William: BY ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

For years, Prince William found himself in a state of shock, unable to deal with the tragic death of his mother Princess Diana. As the nation wept that summer in 1997, in private William couldn’t allow himself to grieve. Quite simply, aged 15, he locked his emotions away, burying them beneath routine and a most dutiful, demanding public life. Until now. Recently, William has started talking about his loss, opening up and admitting his struggle and its effects - now he is passionately calling for all men to follow his example through his mental health campaign, Heads Together. In what is undoubtedly the most candid interview he has ever given, the 34-year-old future King talks exclusively to GQ about his mother’s death, his relationship with the media, his work, his family and how he is determined to lead by example. Oh, that my mother was alive to see me now, walking into Kensington Palace on a sunny spring day, to take tea with the future King William. Born in the same year as the Queen, 1926, and given the same Christian name, Elizabeth, my mother “Betty” was a fervent monarchist; indeed one of my earliest political memories is of the row provoked when, about half a century ago, I refused to listen to the Queen’s Christmas Day message. She and I also used to argue about Prince William’s parents as the disintegration of their marriage provoked a bitter propaganda war between them and their supporters. Once I got to know Princess Diana, in a series of extraordinary meetings (see my diaries, volume one) before Labour won power in 1997, despite the nasty columns I used to write about her as a journalist, I became something of a fan. I was smitten indeed, and so took her side in the Charles-Diana rows taking place in homes up and down the country. My mother was more for Charles, seeing as how he was going to be the next king. It is not a conversion from republicanism that has sparked this meeting with the Prince - though “President Trump” would challenge anyone’s faith in an elected head of state - but a common cause, namely the desire to eradicate the stigma and taboo surrounding mental illness. Prince William, his wife Catherine and his brother Harry, have chosen mental health as their main cause, and their Heads Together campaign has been successfully promoting the importance of being as open about our mental health as we are about our physical health. When they started off down this path, the republican in me was annoyed they could get so much traction for anything they did; but the Time To Change mental health campaigner was overjoyed. They have overseen the making of a series of short films showing the importance of talking about mental health problems rather than bottling them up. To my surprise, I was asked to take part in a film, talking with my partner Fiona about how my mental health troubles impact on us. Then, even more surprisingly, given how few extended interviews he gives, he agreed to be interviewed for GQ. I had met him a few times, on the British and Irish Lions rugby tour of New Zealand in 2005, for example, and more recently at a dinner where I asked him whether he would follow the lead of his grandmother when he became king, by never giving an interview as monarch. Here, I was keen to test two things in particular. One was whether his commitment to this cause was real and whether he had a proper understanding of the issues. You can make up your own mind on that, but after an hour and a half at the palace, mine was made up in his favour. Secondly, I wanted to see how close to the public persona the more private man in his own habitat might be. Would he speak with the same stilted style that seems to characterise his public speaking? He didn’t. Would he have a sense of humour? He did. Would he stand on ceremony? He didn’t. Was there any real passion behind the shy exterior? There was. Indeed, were she still here, I would have called my mum and told her, “Good news - I liked him.”

What son doesn’t miss his mother when she’s gone? As you shall see, almost 20 years on from that car crash in Paris, Prince William clearly misses Princess Diana intensely, saying it is only now he feels able properly to talk about her death, the extraordinary week that followed it, and the enormous impact it had on him and his brother. He doesn’t believe she had mental health problems, and nor does he think that he does. But the trauma he suffered losing her so young, and in such awful circumstances, partly explains why he is determined to get the nation talking more about our emotions, not least because, in life and death, his mother changed the way we express them.

AC: So what’s a nice future king like you doing with an old leftie republican like me?

PW: That’s a very good question Alastair [laughs]. To be honest, I really don’t care where people come from, I like meeting and talking to people from all backgrounds. And this is a good opportunity to talk about something that is very close to your heart, and very close to mine.

AC: And why is mental health so close to yours?

PW: Practically everything in my charitable life, in the end, is to do with mental health, whether it be homelessness, veterans’ welfare, my wife and the work she is doing on addiction; so much of what we do comes back to mental health. Also, if I think about my current job as a helicopter pilot with the air ambulance service in East Anglia, my first job there was a suicide and it really affected me. I have been to a number of suicides, self harms, overdoses.

AC: In what way did it affect you?

PW: Not just the person who lost their life, but the people they leave behind. One of the stats I was given was that, just in the area we cover in the east of England - my base is in Cambridge - there are five attempted suicides every day. Yet suicide is still not talked about. So people have the pain of loss, but also the stigma and taboo means they are sometimes ashamed even to talk about how a lover, a partner, a brother, a sister, a best friend, how they died. That stat - five attempted suicides in the East Anglia region alone - it blew my mind, I thought, “Oh my God, this is such a big issue.”

AC: I am a patron of the Maytree suicide sanctuary in north London, and you and your wife made a private visit there. What impact did that have?

PW: The thing that made an impression on me, it wasn’t just the feelings of the people, the pain they were going through and the care for them, it was that this is the only place of its kind in the UK. It may be the only one in the whole of Europe, and I thought, this is terrifying, it really is, there should be more places like this, where people can go when they’re desperate. I have spoken to suicide groups and having been through personal grief myself, I had an inkling of what to expect, but it was all so raw. When someone does end their own life, [there are] so many questions, people feeling guilty, why didn’t we see it, why didn’t we do more, and all surrounded by this massive taboo. I found it eye opening, so revealing as to what goes on in people’s minds.

AC: When you land in your air ambulance and you get out, what on earth do they say when they see you?

PW: We are only likely to be there if people are in deep trauma or unconscious.

AC: But the other people there?

PW: We are often the first on the scene. Also, I do hang back a little. We land, we secure the scene, I will be sorting the comms for the next flight, and then I might be running around helping with equipment and so on.

AC: Nobody ever has to explain, say, “Sorry, don’t worry about him”?

PW: Most people seem to guess, but I do keep as far back as I can and let the team do what they have to do. I maybe carry the stretcher, carry the kit, sort the comms for the next leg. It is all very fast paced.

AC: Why do the three of you work together on Heads Together?

PW: It is a bit of an experiment really. The Royal Family has not normally done this, three members of the family pulling together to focus on one thing. Normally things are quite disjointed, we follow our own interests and see where it goes, but we thought, well, if we tied it together and had a focused approach, how would that work? We wanted to see the impact we could have.

AC: You must get bombarded with approaches and requests? How do you decide what causes and events to support? Do you try to be strategic about it?

PW: Focused rather than strategic, I would say. When I settle on something, I want to dig deep, I want to understand what I am involved in, I want to understand the complexities of all the issues and, above all, I want to make an impact.

AC: Do you not get frustrated, though? Of course, there are advantages to your position but there are limitations too, because you cannot stray into politics. So you can’t do what I do and bang the drum for more resources and more action from government. Is that not really frustrating?

PW: It can be frustrating at times. I watch the political world, I am interested in it, at times I feel there are things going on I could really help with, but you have to understand where you sit and what the limits are; and with regard to what we do in our charity work, I like to think you can do just as much good but in a different direction.

AC: It’s great you guys are getting involved in mental health. Generally, my worry, though, is there is a danger that making improvements on stigma and taboos is seen as a substitute for services, not an accompaniment. Presumably you saying something like that goes beyond acceptable limits?

PW: No, not at all. I can say that. If I attack government policy, no, I can’t, but I can certainly make that kind of point. What we can do is convene, bring people together, organise private meetings, get experts in one room who might otherwise not always meet, they tend not to refuse an invitation, and we can thrash things out.

AC: Is it very much Harry on veterans, Kate on addiction and young women, you on men in general?

PW: A little bit. Harry has the Invictus Games and focuses a lot on veterans. But we are not stuck in our boxes. We are all three of us trying to understand the tentacles of mental health, which go everywhere. I do think if you are focused about general aims you can have a much greater impact. So we do try to stay focused, not splurge around.

AC: Are you in the mental health space for the long haul?

PW: Medium to long term, definitely. What we would love to do is smash the taboo. Getting the London Marathon as the mental health marathon, that was a big thing, and I hope we are reaching a tipping point. But it is a bit like wading through treacle. It is tough. We are now looking at a legacy programme. We are not going to rush, and the mental health sector has to believe in what we might propose, so we are getting expert opinion and then we will pick and choose and decide what we do.

AC: Why don’t you do the London Marathon yourself?

PW: I would love to, but from the policing point of view, they tested it and they were like, “What?” I am keen to do a marathon but it won’t be London.

AC: What about getting a treadmill in here and doing it while everyone else is pounding the streets?

PW: It would be so boring.

AC: Be great television.

PW: I think I would have mental health issues if I was just staring at that wall. I do want to do it though - and the training. In the military we did plenty of similar things to marathons, like yomping over the Brecon Beacons with a ton of kit on your back. I am just pleased we got London as the mental health marathon.

AC: Do you have specific goals and outcomes for the campaign?

PW: Smashing the taboo is our biggest aim. We can’t go anywhere much until that’s done. People can’t access services till they feel less ashamed, so we must tackle the taboo, the stigma, for goodness sake, this is the 21st century. I’ve been really shocked how many people live in fear and in silence because of mental illness. I just don’t understand it. I know I come across as quite reserved and shy, I don’t always have my emotions brewing, but behind closed doors I think about the issues, I get very passionate about things. I rely on people around me for opinions, and I am a great believer in communication on these issues. I cannot understand how families, even behind closed doors, still find it so hard to talk about it. I am shocked we are so worried about saying anything about the true feelings we have. Because mental illness is inside our heads, invisible, it means others tread so carefully, and people don’t know what to say, whereas if you have a broken leg in plaster, everyone knows what to say.

AC: This is my vested interest speaking here, but what with the marathon and the other things, do you think you might stay in this mental health space for good?

PW: We want to see what impact we can have.

AC: You are making an impact now.

PW: I feel we’re going in the right direction, but not making as much impact as we would like. You know what it is like, you want to get there, grapple with all the issues, get there quickly, make the change that is needed.

AC: But in your position, can you do that?

PW: You can, but you have to do it carefully. Maybe we do make change but the way we do it is slower. We get the benefits of more publicity for the things we do.

AC: I do remember when your father’s letters used to come into Number Ten. Will you go down that route, with his very frank letters to ministers?

PW: [Laughs.] Could you read them?

AC: It wasn’t the handwriting that was the problem.

PW: I have written to ministers but purely to point them towards people I think they should see. So a charity might ask me if I can help with someone and I can help get them access to the people in government.

AC: So you don’t lobby but you introduce?

PW: There are issues I am interested in and I am happy to connect people to ministers.

AC: But you’re perhaps not as robust as your father?

PW: My father has always come at this from a depth of knowledge and a desire to help. He only gets involved in anything when he has those two things: knowledge matched to a desire to help. He genuinely cares. We can argue till the cows come home about whether what he says is right or wrong, but he lives this stuff every day, goes into minute detail, wants to help inform opinion and provide knowledge. I would love to know what the public really think, whether they feel shocked or pleased he gets involved. He has done this for a long, long time, and I think he has used his role really well to raise a lot of questions that people need to ask.

AC: So what might this mental health legacy be?

PW: One idea is getting mental health first aiders in schools. Teachers are under such pressure, they face so many challenges every day. They cannot be expected to be mental health counsellors as well, so we thought there must be a way of having mental health first aiders who can be attached to one or two schools.

AC: Is that something you would promote or fund?

PW: That is what we need to work out. It is a bit of a challenge, but we have a whole range of ideas we are looking at.

AC: Now, tell me about the idea of the films - and thank you for asking me to do one.

PW: Thank for you doing it. I watched it this morning.

AC: What was the purpose of them?

PW: This was predominantly about the importance of the conversation. The point we wanted to get over was that, often, talking is the best thing you can do - it can start the whole process of recovery. For a lot of people things brew up, particularly men maybe, they don’t want to talk about problems.

AC: When you were growing up, when you were still at school, did you feel you were surrounded by people who couldn’t talk about feelings?

PW: Yes, I think so, but I do think a generational shift has gone on. If I look at my parents’ generation, there was a lot more stiff upper lip going on. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for the stiff upper lip, and, for those of us in public life, times when you have to maintain it, but behind closed doors, in normal everyday life, we have to be more open and upfront with our feelings and emotions. Mental health in the workplace is a huge issue, and a sensitive area, and leadership is important here. When you see people in high-powered jobs in the City and big corporations who got there despite their mental health problems, that is a huge success story and it shouldn’t be seen as anything else.

AC: Or maybe people get there because of their mental health problems too.

PW: Absolutely.

AC: I feel I owe mine quite a lot.

PW: Absolutely, but what is really important here is that we are normalising mental health, so if a CEO comes out and says, “I went through this, I got through these dark times,” that is amazing, it normalises, it has an impact then in that organisation and beyond. But without that kind of thing, people tend to make excuses, avoid talking about issues that may be affecting them, pretend everything is fine.

AC: So as an employer, if one of your staff came and saw you and said, “I am really struggling,” do you think you would deal with that properly?

PW: Definitely. I am not pretending I am an amazing counsellor, or a specialist, I’m not, but I would take it seriously and if they needed help I would find it for them.

AC: Now, on the stiff upper lip, I can see why there may be a place for that. But listen… my mother died when I was 56, she had a full life, died quickly, relatively painlessly, but it was very upsetting. I am not sure I could have walked behind her coffin with millions of people around the world looking at me, without crying.

PW: No.

AC: So how hard was that?

PW: It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But if I had been in floods of tears the entire way round how would that have looked?

AC: How can you not be in floods of tears if you feel like being in floods of tears?

PW: In the situation I was in, it was self-preservation. I didn’t feel comfortable anyway, having that massive outpouring of emotion around me. I am a very private person, and it was not easy. There was a lot of noise, a lot of crying, a lot of wailing, people were throwing stuff, people were fainting.

AC: As you were walking?

PW: Yes. It was a very unusual experience. It was something I don’t think anyone could have predicted. Looking back, the outpouring of grief and emotion was very touching but it was very odd to be in that situation.

AC: When you were up at Balmoral through the week, were you conscious of how big it all was down here in London?

PW: No, not at all. All I cared about was that I had lost my mum.

AC: So you were protected from everything happening on the Mall?

PW: Yes. I was 15, Harry almost 13, and the overwhelming thing was we had lost our mother.

AC: So when you came back, and you saw how big the reaction was?

PW: I didn’t take it in. I still didn’t realise what was going on, really.

AC: Did you grieve?

PW: That is a very good question. [Pause.] Probably not properly. I was in a state of shock for many years.

AC: Years?

PW: Yes, absolutely. People might find that weird, or think of shock as something that is there, it hits you, then in an hour or two, maybe a day or two, you are over it. Not when it is this big a deal; when you lose something so significant in your life, so central, I think the shock lasts for many years.

AC: My favourite soundbite of the Blair era was not from him, but your grandmother after 9/11, when she said, “Grief is the price we pay for love.”

PW: Yes, absolutely.

AC: But for you to say you felt you were in shock for years - how much harder is it when you are having to grieve or try to grieve with this extraordinary level of global scrutiny, and the endless ridiculous fascination in every detail of your and your mother’s lives.

PW: It does make it more difficult. It doesn’t make you less human. You’re the same person, it is a part of the job to have the interest. The thing is, you can’t bring all your baggage everywhere you go. You have to project the strength of the United Kingdom - that sounds ridiculous, but we have to do that. You can’t just be carrying baggage and throwing it out there and putting it on display everywhere you go. My mother did put herself right out there and that is why people were so touched by her. But I am determined to protect myself and the children, and that means preserving something for ourselves. I think I have a more developed sense of self-preservation.

AC: Yet the Heads Together campaign is all about saying we should talk, be more open about our emotions, out with the stiff upper lip, in with more talking.

PW: Absolutely.

AC: So is it different for you?

PW: Well, I am in the role I am in. But if I had mental health issues I would happily talk about them. I think the closest I got was the trauma I suffered when I lost my mother, the scale of the grief, and I still haven’t necessarily dealt with that grief as well as I could have done over the years.

AC: Who do you talk to?

PW: Family, friends, I talk to those around me who I trust.

AC: But it can’t be easy in your position to find people you can trust totally.

PW: It is hard. But I have always believed in being very open and honest. One of the few strengths I might have is I am good at reading people, and I can usually tell if someone is just being nice because of who I am, and saying stuff for the wrong reasons.

AC: Have you ever talked to people other than friends and family about your feelings?

PW: No I have not talked to a specialist or anyone clinical, but I have friends who are good listeners, and, on grief, I find talking about my mother and keeping her memory alive very important. I find it therapeutic to talk about her, and to talk about how I feel.

AC: So we are coming up to the 20th anniversary of her death. Are you looking forward to that? Or are you dreading it?

PW: I am not looking forward to it, no, but I am in a better place about it than I have been for a long time, where I can talk about her more openly, talk about her more honestly, and I can remember her better, and publicly talk about her better. It has taken me almost 20 years to get to that stage. I still find it difficult now because at the time it was so raw. And also it is not like most people’s grief, because everyone else knows about it, everyone knows the story, everyone knows her. It is a different situation for most people who lose someone they love, it can be hidden away or they can choose if they want to share their story. I don’t have that choice really. Everyone has seen it all.

AC: The first time I met your mother, in 1994, she said, “Why did you write those horrible things about me when you were a journalist?” I said, “My God, I can’t believe you read that stuff.” But she did. I was shocked that she had read it and also remembered it, it was years earlier. It made me think at the time that some people reach a certain level of fame at which media and public cease to see them as human beings. Do you think that is what happened to her, and do you think it has ever happened to you?

PW: Not with me, no. I think with her it was a unique case. The media issue with my mother was probably the worst any public figure has had to deal with.

AC: What? The intrusion, the harassment?

PW: Yes, but more the complete salacious appetite for anything, anything at all about her, even if there was no truth in it, none whatsoever.

AC: So you don’t have any sympathy with the argument that she cultivated her own friends in the media and fed the whole thing?

PW: I have been exploring this. Remember, I was young at the time. I didn’t know what was going on. I know some games and shenanigans were played, but she was isolated, she was lonely, things within her own life got very difficult and she found it very hard to get her side of the story across. I think she was possibly a bit naive and ended up playing into the hands of some very bad people.

AC: Media people?

PW: Yes. This was a young woman with a high profile position, very vulnerable, desperate to protect herself and her children and I feel strongly there was no responsibility taken by media executives who should have stepped in, and said, “Morally, what we are doing, is this right, is this fair, is this moral?” Harry and I were so young and I think if she had lived, when we were older we would have played that role, and I feel very sad and I still feel very angry that we were not old enough to be able to do more to protect her, not wise enough to step in and do something that could have made things better for her. I hold a lot of people to account that they did not do what they should have done, out of human decency.

AC: Were you not tempted to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry?

PW: We discussed it, but decided in the end not to. Remember, we were the first to expose the phone hacking.

AC: You seem to get a hard time from one or two papers these days. Do you think there is a bit of score-settling going on?

PW: I don’t know.

AC: Do you get followed and chased by paps on bikes?

PW: Not often. But there is a lot of quite sophisticated surveillance that goes on.

AC: So even if not phone hacking, which is far from guaranteed, the press have moved on to other things?

PW: I suppose the one glimmer of light is that because of what happened to my mother, we do not get it as bad as she did. We still have problems, for sure, but do have a little more protection because of the ridiculous levels it got to for my mother - the fact she was killed being followed, being chased, I think there are more boundaries to their actions.

AC: Really?

PW: It is a little better than it used to be.

AC: During the week of her death, Tony Blair spoke to your father and he said to me afterwards, “This is going to be a problem, those boys are going to need help, they are going to despise the media, blame them for her death, yet the media will be a part of their lives.”

PW: Yes, they are.

AC: When you were in Paris recently, posing for hundreds of photographers with President Hollande, did you look at them and wonder if any of them were among the ones who chased her that night?

PW: I’m afraid those are the kind of things I have just had to come to terms with. It is so hard to explain, using only words, what it was like for my mother. If I could only bring out what I saw and what happened in my mother’s life and death, and the role the media played in that, that is the only way people would ever understand it. I can try to explain it in words, but to live it, see it, breathe it, you can’t explain how horrendous it was for her.

AC: Do you think the reaction to her death was a big factor in diminishing the stiff upper lip approach, and changed the way we mourn? Do you think the kind of reaction we saw when, say, David Bowie died last year, would have been the same without that reaction for your mother?

PW: No it wouldn’t. The massive outpouring around her death has really changed the British psyche, for the better.

AC: You do think it is for the better?

PW: Yes, I do think it is for the better.

AC: How much did that week after your mother’s death bring you and Harry together?

PW: We are very close.

AC: And that feeling of shock, sadness, you never felt it strayed over to what I would know as an illness, depression?

PW: I have never felt depressed in the way I understand it, but I have felt incredibly sad. And I feel the trauma of that day has lived with me for 20 years, like a weight, but I would not say that has led me to depression. I still want to get up in the morning, I want to do stuff, I still feel I can function. Believe me, at times it has felt like it would break me, but I have felt I have learned to manage it and I’ve talked about it. On the days when it has got bad I have never shied away from talking about it and addressing how I feel. I have gone straight to people around me and said, “Listen I need to talk about this today.”

AC: Like when?

PW: Last week with the air ambulance, I flew to a really bad case, a small boy and a car accident. I have seen quite a lot of car injuries, and you have to deal with what you see, but every now and then one gets through the armour. This one penetrated the armour, not just me but the crew who have seen so much. It was the feelings of loss from a parent’s point of view, the parents of the boy. Anything to do with parent and child, and loss, it is very difficult, it has a big effect on me, it takes me straight back to my emotions back when my mother died, and I did go and talk to people at work about it. I felt so sad. I felt that one family’s pain and it took me right back to the experience I had. The more relatable pain is to your own life the harder it is to shake it off.

AC: How has the passing of time helped?

PW: They do say time is a healer, but I don’t think it heals fully. It helps you deal with it better. I don’t think it ever fully heals.

AC: Is there a part of you that doesn’t want it to heal fully because for that to happen might make her feel more distant? So you feel the need to stay strongly attached? If grief is the price we pay for love, maybe you want to keep the grief out of fear that loss of grief means you love her less?

PW: One thing I can always say about my mother is she smothered Harry and me in love. Twenty years on I still feel the love she gave us and that is testament to her massive heart and her amazing ability to be a great mother.

AC: How different do you think the country would be if she was still here?

PW: I have thought about that, but mainly from my own perspective. I would like to have had her advice. I would love her to have met Catherine and to have seen the children grow up. It makes me sad that she won’t, that they will never know her.

AC: What about the public Diana?

PW: I think she would have carried on, really getting stuck into various causes and making change. If you look at some of the issues she focused on, leprosy, Aids, landmines, she went for some tough areas. She would have carried on with that.

AC: She was an extraordinary woman.

PW: She was.

AC: How hard do you find the scrutiny? I mean you can’t even do a bit of bad dad dancing without someone taking a video?

PW: [Laughs.] Honestly, I can dance better than that. It’s true though, camera phones, Twitter, there’s not much privacy. I don’t think it was too bad. It wasn’t as if I was falling out of a nightclub, totally wasted. I think people realise everyone has to blow off a bit of energy and tension every now and then.

AC: So how did you feel when some of the papers said you don’t work hard enough?

PW: Criticism is part of the turf, I’m afraid. I think the public are much more nuanced. I have my air ambulance job, I carry out the duties the Queen asks me to, I have my charities and causes and I am raising a young family, so I can’t let that criticism get to me.

AC: A couple of the papers do seem to have turned against you, though?

PW: There is a certain element of Fleet Street getting fed up with nice stories about us. They want the past back again, soap, drama.

AC: Do you see it as part of your job to avoid giving them that? A bit of normality, stability.

PW: I couldn’t do my job without the stability of the family. Stability at home is so important to me. I want to bring up my children in a happy, stable, secure world, and that is so important to both of us as parents. I want George to grow up in a real, living environment, I don’t want him growing up behind palace walls, he has to be out there. The media make it harder but I will fight for them to have a normal life.

AC: But surely you must accept it is an abnormal life?

PW: Totally, but I can still try to protect them as children.

AC: The Queen, your father, you, now George. Four people on the planet who might one day be the head of state in the UK. It is fair to say republicanism has lost, not least thanks to your grandmother. The monarchy seems to have bucked the trend even though we live in a non-deferential, anti-establishment age. Do you feel that?

PW: I do feel the monarchy is in a good place and, like you say, my grandmother has done a remarkable job leading the country - her vision, her sense of duty, her loyalty, her steadfastness, it has been unwavering. We now have three generations of working royals, four altogether, and having that movement through the generations allows for the monarchy to stay relevant and keep up with modern times. You are only as good as your last gig and it is really important you look forward, plan, have a vision.

AC: Do you not look at the Queen, yet another garden party, yet another investiture, yet another state visit, and think how on earth can she keep going?

PW: Yes I do.

AC: Do you, your father and the Queen ever sit down, just the three of you, and just natter?

PW: [Laughs.] What, about Lady Gaga or something? [Prince William had recently recorded a Facetime chat with Lady Gaga for the campaign.]

AC: I was thinking more about being head of state. I mean, how do you learn?

PW: You learn on the job. There is no rulebook. I sometimes wonder if there should be, but in the end I think probably not. Having that difference in how we do things makes the Royal Family more interesting and more flexible. If we all followed the same line, it would all be quite stifled. Our characters are different and the different opinions are important to have.

AC: Your grandmother has always believed in there being a bit of mystique attached to it all as well.

PW: Absolutely.

AC: Never ever given an interview.

PW: No. Never. I seem to have sold the pass on that one.

[renrutnnej]

I never wanted to be a mother

Oh boy, the miracle of birth and whatnot!

I’m really bad at absolutes. For example, as long as I can remember I’ve told people I never wanted to be a wife or a mother. As a little girl I remember looking at both jobs and being like, “Nah.”

My daughter was not my first pregnancy. The first time I was en-wombed was in university and I was a freshman who in the short span of six months time was sexually assaulted, and entered into a volatile physically and emotionally abusive relationship. Because of some mental health problems and a total lack of self esteem, I didn’t see either of these things in their correct light, I just thought my first year away from home was a real education in female adulthood.

Fortunately my first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Is it weird or wrong to say that? I don’t think so. I was 19 and had already chipped a front tooth from being punched in the face by my boyfriend. So when I think about that time in my life, I don’t feel any guilt. Also I didn’t know I was pregnant until it was too late and what I thought was the worst period of my life was actually a miscarriage.

This gave me the impression that my physical person was a hostile environment to children. It proved that I knew I could and would not be a mother, ever.

—

To talk about my daughter’s birth, I have to set the stage, which in retrospect I’ve always described as an unfortunate series of events, but now I realize fully how incomplete and lacking in good substance my life would have been without her. I have to look at these events as exactly the way things were supposed to happen.

First, I could not find a writing job out of college (I graduated with a degree in English literature, lucrative I know). All of my self esteem issues came to a head and I resigned myself to the fact that I had been posing in college as a person with ambition when really I was going to end up staying a small town person working retail or as another’s administrative assistant or something.

Second, my sister graduated from college the following year and decided to move to Las Vegas. Through zero seconds of trying to convince me I decided to come along. Also our parents were already living there (they had moved while we were both in university).

This new start inspired me and I decided to do something completely different with my life. I was going to change the world by joining the Peace Corps. Whoa, except that stipend does NOT even come close to covering my credit card bills and student loans. Umm, backup plan, I was going to change the world by teaching English in South America, somewhere like Argentina or something. In the meantime I had to save up for this adventure so I took the first job I could, in retail.

Third, sexism has pissed me off for a long time. Growing up tomboy really instilled an (arguably ignorant) type of jealous competitiveness in me. Anything they can do, I can do better, or in the very least I can do it too. So when my male peers (retail managers) were having relationships with younger employees, I decided to too. I’m a modern woman, and cougars were like definitely a thing by then. I started hooking up with a very hot, barely legal (but also very legal), sales associate.

Next, in a few months time my sister moved to Seattle and my parents moved back to Washington state. They moved me into my own apartment on Warm Springs and back home to Richland in the same weekend. Finally I was a modern woman living in Las Vegas, with her lifelong companion cat (i.e., cat I picked out when I was 6 years old) Beauty, making it happen.

Just kidding, I got pregnant.

—

Getting pregnant a second time was a complete shock. And by that I mean, I thought it was impossible. As in, not even within the realm of possibility.

I’d been having some lady troubles for sometime and since my sister had had Exorcist level kidney stone problems I went to the doctor right away for fear. The doctor confirmed what I had known since I was 19. Well, almost. She said it appeared that my symptoms might be an indication that I was infertile. Twenty-four year old me: duh. But they still had to run the tests.

Getting pregnant brought intricate complexity and mind-numbing simplicity to my life. Having to tell the parents of my 18 year old (now boyfriend, ugh) that I was pregnant was terrifying. Having to tell my parents, worse.

No more changing the world.

No more Argentina.

No more writing.

No more freedom.

I had just fast tracked my path to wife and mother by being a “modern woman” making things happen.

No more infertility, what the hell?

And since this was clearly a miracle baby, getting rid of her never once entered my mind. This was obviously a baby Jesus type situation.

We moved from Vegas to Kansas City with his family. To say it politely, my parents weren’t pleased by my condition and the distance did us both a lot of good (I told myself). His family, on the other hand, were very happy and excited by the baby’s coming. At least they always gave the very genuine appearance of being so. I was less excited.

Actually I was the most depressed I’d been in my life at that point. I knew my body was a hostile place to fetuses so what the heck!?

I absolutely could not imagine the whole exit strategy of my situation. Instead I imagined death.

I took lots of time to myself and wrote pages and pages of tear-stained journals I can’t bear to read now. I slept as much as I could. I was mourning my death while I was still alive, growing a life inside of me.

Also I had to get rid of my cat, what the fuck.

—

I knew I was never meant to be anyone’s mother and so I was positive I would carry this baby to term and die during labor, and she would be cared for by this warm and loving family. And I would die young like I’d always predicted. Well, youngish.

My OBGYN became worried by my morbid questions about death rates.

I refused to have a baby shower or anything resembling a baby shower because I couldn’t imagine celebrating the event that was going to kill me.

My lamaze class teacher asked me stop asking questions about worst case scenarios because I was scaring the other mothers.

—

Working in retail brought about what I felt to be appropriate levels of shame and self-hatred.

Strangers, assuming me to be much younger than I was, made completely hideous comments about me and my baby, and my education (lol, right). I was constantly touched and given advice by strangers, interrogated regularly.

My retail district was close to a particularly violent one regarding shoplifters. Other managers in my store had been maced or stabbed with the tools shoplifters brought into stores to break off the security tags. One day I found the equivalent of a shiv in the front room of my store and went into the stockroom and had a complete mental and emotional break down imagining approaching the wrong customer just one time.

I felt I deserved this, though it enraged me. This was my penance.

My hormones surged. I snuck as many drinks of wine at family dinners as I could. (Sorry baby, but red wine is delicious). I had nightmares about delivering babies with heads shaped like deflated basketballs, or delivering piles of bloody guts. I obsessed over my single friends awesome lives (aka highlight reels) on Facebook.

It made me bitter that I had to die. I became resentful of my baby’s father, even though he tried his best with me. He wanted to marry me and have more kids, be a dad. I knew she’d be okay. Hopefully he’d marry someone who wasn’t anything like me or that evil stepmom bitch in Cinderella.

I’d end up letting him name her. I chose her middle name, Violet.

—

It began one Sunday night, after a large steak dinner (with red wine) at his parents. I kept feeling like I had to poop really bad every twenty minutes. It was so bad that I couldn’t sleep. By 1am I was on the toilet trying to push steak out and when I saw drops of blood, I freaked out. IT’S TIME! I screamed.

He sprung into action. What do we bring? Spoiler alert, I hadn’t even packed a “go” bag because I never planned on coming back.

We listened to Jason Mraz on the short drive to the hospital. God, this is the last song I’m ever going to hear. I focused on the words and tried to clear my mind of pushing all of my guts out.

When we got to the hospital, they did some tests and I wasn’t far enough along. Maybe this is a fake out, and I can go home and go to bed. No, the nurse told me, you’ll progress it just takes a little time.

Another nurse came in and did a quick ultrasound to see the baby’s position. Her tone worried me, looks like this one’s a breach baby. You’ll have to adjust your birthing plan. Just knock me out, I sighed. Oh oops, those are the baby’s shoulders. I thought it was her butt. She was low and engaged, and I was fine. That fucking nurse.

So he walked me around the hospital corridors while I had the worst cramps of my life. I tried not to cry.

This is how it ends, me alone in the hospital, out in the midwest, without any of my friends or family, with this kid, and this other kid inside me.

Around 4am I finally reached a point where I could get pain meds and this other drug that would help my labor progress while I was medicated, but first they had to break my water. I was terrified of any more pain. They showed me what looked like a knitting needle that they’d insert to break the membrane. The nurse assured me, her name was Bridget by the way, that it was painless. I sobbed. Couldn’t they just knock me out. My knees clamped shut and I couldn’t keep from trembling.

But it was painless and suddenly I was sitting in a puddle of what just felt like warm pee. That was it, water broken. I felt like an idiot. The drugs came quickly after that and by 5am I had progressed to the point that I could get the one thing that was keeping me going through this whole ordeal: an epidural.

The anesthesiologist came in and sat me perpendicular to the gurney. He told me to sit still because he was putting a needle the length of a ruler down my spine. But the painkillers really got to me and I had to crack jokes about how the only thing separating my naked body from the doctors and nurses in that room was a piece of paper gown. My boyfriend looked white. I was already stoned.

Afterward, I was finally comfortable, and I drifted off to sleep quickly. Bridget came in once an hour on the hour and put her whole hand in my vagina to see how far down the head was. I didn’t like being woken up but I couldn’t really feel anything and Bridget was my best friend at that point.

Around 10:45am things picked up. My baby’s dad was downstairs eating breakfast with his family when Bridget told me I’d need to call him, I was almost at 10 centimeters. He came back with his mom and Bridget told me now when I felt the urge to push to do it.

I didn’t want to poop on the table and I couldn’t get up to like clear things out before I labored a baby so I gave some weak ass pushes. Bridget could tell.

I gave one hard push and she exclaimed, JUST LIKE THAT! But I saw his face and I knew I had pooped. The shame. But again, I was stoned so meh.

Strangely I had turned down the floor length mirror at the foot of the bed because I didn’t want to see myself die, but if the end was coming I really didn’t want to see it.

“Bridget can you take off your glasses? With the lights and everything I can see my vagina and I really just can’t right now.”

She did.

With his mom video recording the monumental eruption and destruction of my vagina, my first child was born at 11:25 am. The doctor, I don’t know when she showed up (?), put the blue, guts covered baby on my chest.

She was out. I had tried not to picture her before because I never wanted to let myself go down that road in my mind.

I looked at her. She looked at me. She was gross. But she was an alive thing with eyes who looked at me. She looked like she’d been freezing (she was blue) in bloody Cream of Wheat. Also she had pooped in utero and that was everywhere, super great.

I had nothing profound to say, so I said, “Oh my god, a baby.”

Then they whisked her away to clean her up and do all the baby tests. Everyone else left too.

My body got overtaken with waves of pregnancy hormones coursing through me while I delivered the placenta and my whole body convulsed as the pregnancy hormones left me. NO, I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THE PLACENTA. Jesus.

The doctor began to clean up the volcanic eruption where my lower lady parts used to live. I knew I had felt a slight burning sensation during the birth, but I didn’t know it was a tear. I simply thought it was the slight onset of death.

It didn’t make sense to me that I was alive.

I had no plan for this. I didn’t even bring a nightgown.

Now what?

—

As of the time of my pregnancy, I can’t recall seeing any birth or pregnancy narratives that highlighted feelings like fear, depression, or general reservations without framing them them as fleeting blue aspects of an otherwise golden soft lit scenario. That’s not real life. I’m sharing my story, because even though I was certainly depressed, I don’t know that my feelings of doubt at the sudden onset of potential motherhood are all that uncommon.

When I share my true feelings and experience with friends, I often hear that other women are relieved by my candor. Dutiful, knowing mother is a trope to which I do not subscribe, and frankly, doesn’t reflect my experience at all. So I’m offering my story as just one against the many almost romantic Disney-esque birth and pregnancy stories. My daughter and I did not live happily ever after, and our relationship, just like any other, is one that has required hard work and patience (a lot of patience) but we’re both better for it.

This story originally appeared on Medium, April 3, 2016.

[picardonhealth]

Canadian Journalism Foundation Tribute Award 2021 - André Picard

I want to begin by saying what a great honour it is to receive this tribute from the Canadian Journalism Foundation, and doubly so because I get to share the stage with Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- who really is a luminary.

An award like this is very humbling. It forces you to do something we rarely do in daily journalism – reflect on the impact of our work.

C’est aussi un peu génant parce ce que je reconnais qu’il y a beaucoup de superbe journalistes qui pourraient – et sans doute devraient -- être ici à ma place.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how vital journalism is to democracy and the public’s health. It has shone a spotlight on our power to do good, and our need to do so much more to repair our fractured society.

I’ve had more than my share of awards and flattery this year -- to the point where it’s a bit overwhelming.

Don’t let the white beard fool you – I’m not a wise old sage.

More than anything else, the quirky things I’ve been interested in for decades – infectious disease, public health, health equity, and risk communication -- have suddenly become important and newsworthy.

In my 40th year of journalism, I’ve become an overnight success. Not because I’ve changed, but because the world has.

This is the premiere event in Canadian journalism. I know there are a lot of industry leaders in the audience.

My take-home message for you is if you want authoritative voices, if you want quality journalism, give young people the opportunities I was so privileged to have at The Globe and Mail:

Opportunities to learn, to travel, to fail, to get back up again, to specialize, to challenge traditions, to afflict the powerful, to blaze some new trails.

Just as importantly you need to give those opportunities to those who have too long been denied them, to young journalists who reflect all the richness of Canada: people of colour, Indigenous people, people of all genders, all languages, and beliefs.

The world is changing fast so our newsrooms must change faster.

Notre diversité est notre superpuissance et notre futur.

                                                   ********

Les honneurs individuels sont un peu trompeur parce que le journalisme est un sport d’équipe.

Ce prix ne m’appartient pas uniquement. Il dois être partagé avec tout les collègues, rédacteurs et éditeurs qui m’ont enduré au cours des années. J’aimerais nommer des noms mais la liste de mes mentores serait beaucoup trop longue et sans doute incomplète.

I said a moment ago that being old doesn’t make you wise. But it does afford you the luxury of honest self-reflection.

I’m not the greatest writer. I don’t have the patience for investigative journalism. Partisan politics bores me to tears. I’ve got a face for radio.

I’m wonkish and a data geek. But I’m pithy. I have to ability to make complex issues understandable and digestible to the public.

I inherited this gift from my mother, a depression-era baby who grew to be a very frugal Mom, one who was convinced that any long-distance call exceeding 30 seconds would bankrupt the nation.

To this day, I cannot pick up a phone without the words “you don’t own Bell Canada” ringing in my ears.

We learned to get to the point in my family. And I’ve made a career of it, 750 words at a time. I’ve found my niche, and my passion.  Every journalist should be so lucky.

The final thing I would like to say – especially after bragging about my brevity – is that awards like this can sometimes feel funereal.

But I want you to know I’m not done yet. Far from it. I’ll be more than happy, post-COVID, to go back to my relative obscurity as a health columnist.

But when the next pandemic comes around, I’ll be ready to kick ass again. And, hopefully, so too will a whole new generation of writers who put my knowledge to shame.

That would be the greatest tribute of all.

Je vous remercie de nouveau du fond de mon coeur.

Santé!

[computer-basics]

The world is bracing for the seemingly inevitable proliferation of SARS-COV-12, also known as COVID-19 and coronavirus, which has already paralyzed cities and isolated millions. In the U.S., especially the nonstop work culture in startups, we tend to think we’re immune to such things and carry on business as usual. We are not only deluding ourselves but putting others in danger — so here are a few ground rules to make sure you don’t make this difficult period any harder for yourself or the people you work with.

We decided to publish something on this because we saw a lot of people unsure about what is appropriate to do and not do, as a CEO, an aspiring founder, or an employee in the tech world. If you are looking for the latest news on the health crisis or want to learn more about the virus, visit the CDC or WHO’s dedicated sites.

1. Take reasonable precautions and be transparent

The CDC says that good self hygiene and frequent hand-washing are the best ways to prevent the spread of the virus. Masks are actually not recommended, but won’t make anything worse — they’re more for someone infected than someone healthy.

You’re also only at risk of being affected by people you come into contact with — this isn’t a nerve agent that’s going to creep in through the cracks of your windows. To minimize risk, stay home if you can. This may mean canceling meetings, working remotely, or skipping a conference (if it hasn’t been canceled already).

Work through your ramen supplies, rice, and frozen leftovers, and if you do decide to go out, wash your hands frequently or carry hand sanitizer. If you order in and would rather have the driver drop something off than hand it to you, that’s fine too.

When you do something that could affect others, it might be good to explain that you’re doing it because the threat of infection. Choose your words carefully, but be clear about it: “Can we do a video call instead? I’m trying to minimize my exposure right now” is fine. If people think you’re doing this because you think they’re infected or dirty, that’s a problem on their side, and they probably haven’t read this list.

To be clear, the world isn’t a death trap right now. But because the virus can be asymptomatic and still spread, it’s not obvious where it is and isn’t dangerous to be. So you should do what makes you feel comfortable and minimizes the risk of exposure in general.

2. Don’t question precautions taken by others

A lot of things are going to go wrong over the next few weeks. Major events have already been canceled and no doubt many face-to-face meetings are being skipped out on. That sucks — but limit your judgment of the people making those decisions.

If someone doesn’t want to shake hands or fist bump, that’s OK. If someone wants to meet by video instead of the coffee shop, that’s OK. If someone leaves work early because they get freaked out, that’s OK.

Even in ordinary circumstances we never really know what other people’s motivations and limitations are, and in this situation we know even less than usual. Individuals or companies may be under pressures you’re not aware of — family, financial, religious, personal — and their decisions, even if they cause serious inconvenience to you, have to be accepted without question right now.

That goes for employers, too: If someone wants extra sick time right now, let them have it. If they want to remote in to a crucial meeting, that should be fine. If later, as their employer, you feel they may have taken advantage of the situation to slack off or take a little extra paid leave, that’s something to talk about later. Not during a global health crisis.

Now, you’re likely to see a lot of absurd and racist precautions like not eating at Chinese restaurants or popping bubble wrap because it’s supposedly Chinese air. Rather than take individuals to task for their mistaken or bigoted views, though, try to reinforce the truth by sharing reliable information from sources like the CDC and WHO. No one takes a tweet from you seriously, but people may trust an international consortium of medical and epidemiology professionals. At least that’s the hope.

3. Take the loss

This is going to cost you money, time, and opportunity. Meetings will be delayed, which will eat up overhead. Promised dates for products and services will come and go and your company will not meet them. Information you need won’t be available until it’s too late. It’s going to hurt!

Just remember: You’re not the only person or company it’s happening to. Everyone is taking a hit on this one.

Have you seen the stock market? People are getting rinsed at historic levels.

Know anyone in South Korea or coastal China? Think about what they’re dealing with.

Mobile World Congress is canceled — it’s huge! What are the organizers going to do? No idea. What about Facebook? Will they have a small, weird F8 later or what? GDC will be a ghost town if it happens at all.

This changed from a “how do I avoid issues” to pure damage control for pretty much everyone sometime over the last week. So instead of thinking about how you’re being put out, start thinking about what happens afterwards. Pack your schedule with follow-up reminders, tell your crew to track changes to timelines, inform and apologize to clients. If they’re following rule number 2, they’ll understand.

4. Evolve and interrogate your process

If these events, or others like them, are seriously affecting your productivity or the ability of your company to function, maybe you should think about that a bit. What are you unable to do — specifically? What’s stopping you — specifically?

Do you rely too much on face-to-face communications and find yourself unable to explain concepts in writing? Has your team abandoned Slack for anything productive? Are your press releases and email pitches limp? When you’re forced to fall back from your strengths, you necessarily encounter your own weaknesses.

This is an opportunity to take a good look at what you and your company are and aren’t good at when it comes to communication and productivity. In fact, it’s more than an opportunity — you’re going to be slapped in the face with these shortcomings whether you like it or not. Whether you make something out of it or not is up to you.

And think of this time as an opportunity to simply catch up. What tasks have you been putting off that you can finally take the time to do? You could work on getting to inbox zero, read the documents you promised you would weeks ago, or practice your pitch.

So much of what the tech and tech-enabled industries (which is pretty much everything now) do, we can do with limited access to one another, or even limited connectivity. And even if you can’t do your job, you can always get better at it.

5. Remember that it’s not just you

What’s happening right now is a global issue of great complexity and with far-reaching effects. The things happening to you and your company are a very small part of it.

Don’t take this personally. COVID-19 didn’t emerge from nature’s petri dish to smite your B2B payments play. Like a tropical storm or political scandal, this is something that comes out of nowhere and causes indiscriminate damage. You’re not the only one being affected, and chances are if you’re reading this that you’ve got it better than most.

At the same time, if you’re feeling frustrated or scared or pent in, knowing that it’s not just you can be helpful — others are dealing with this too and will understand.

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[endenogatai]

Will online privacy make a comeback in 2020?

Last year was a landmark for online privacy in many ways, with something of a consensus emerging that consumers deserve protection from the companies that sell their attention and behavior for profit.

The debate now is largely around how to regulate platforms, not whether it needs to happen.

The consensus among key legislators acknowledges that privacy is not just of benefit to individuals but can be likened to public health; a level of protection afforded to each of us helps inoculate democratic societies from manipulation by vested and vicious interests.

The fact that human rights are being systematically abused at population-scale because of the pervasive profiling of Internet users — a surveillance business that’s dominated in the West by tech giants Facebook and Google, and the adtech and data broker industry which works to feed them — was the subject of an Amnesty International report in November 2019 that urges legislators to take a human rights-based approach to setting rules for Internet companies.

“It is now evident that the era of self-regulation in the tech sector is coming to an end,” the charity predicted.

Democracy disrupted

The dystopian outgrowth of surveillance capitalism was certainly in awful evidence in 2019, with elections around the world attacked at cheap scale by malicious propaganda that relies on adtech platforms’ targeting tools to hijack and skew public debate, while the chaos agents themselves are shielded from democratic view.

Platform algorithms are also still encouraging Internet eyeballs towards polarized and extremist views by feeding a radicalized, data-driven diet that panders to prejudices in the name of maintaining engagement — despite plenty of raised voices calling out the programmed antisocial behavior. So what tweaks there have been still look like fiddling round the edges of an existential problem.

Worse still, vulnerable groups remain at the mercy of online hate speech which platforms not only can’t (or won’t) weed out, but whose algorithms often seem to deliberately choose to amplify — the technology itself being complicit in whipping up violence against minorities. It’s social division as a profit-turning service.

The outrage-loving tilt of these attention-hogging adtech giants has also continued directly influencing political campaigning in the West this year — with cynical attempts to steal votes by shamelessly platforming and amplifying misinformation.

From the Trump tweet-bomb we now see full-blown digital disops underpinning entire election campaigns, such as the UK Conservative Party’s strategy in the 2019 winter General Election, which featured doctored videos seeded to social media and keyword targeted attack ads pointing to outright online fakes in a bid to hack voters’ opinions.

Political microtargeting divides the electorate as a strategy to conquer the poll. The problem is it’s inherently anti-democratic.

No wonder, then, that repeat calls to beef up digital campaigning rules and properly protect voters’ data have so far fallen on deaf ears. The political parties all have their hands in the voter data cookie-jar. Yet it’s elected politicians whom we rely upon to update the law. This remains a grave problem for democracies going into 2020 — and a looming U.S. presidential election.

So it’s been a year when, even with rising awareness of the societal cost of letting platforms suck up everyone’s data and repurpose it to sell population-scale manipulation, not much has actually changed. Certainly not enough.

Yet looking ahead there are signs the writing is on the wall for the ‘data industrial complex’ — or at least that change is coming. Privacy can make a comeback.

Adtech under attack

Developments in late 2019 such as Twitter banning all political ads and Google shrinking how political advertisers can microtarget Internet users are notable steps — even as they don’t go far enough.

But it’s also a relatively short hop from banning microtargeting sometimes to banning profiling for ad targeting entirely.

*Very* big news last night in internet political ads. @Google’s plan to eliminate #microtargeting is a move that – if done right – could help make internet political advertising a force that informs and inspires us, rather than isolating and inflaming us.

1/9

— Ellen L Weintraub (@EllenLWeintraub) November 21, 2019

Alternative online ad models (contextual targeting) are proven and profitable — just ask search engine DuckDuckGo . While the ad industry gospel that only behavioral targeting will do now has academic critics who suggest it offer far less uplift than claimed, even as — in Europe — scores of data protection complaints underline the high individual cost of maintaining the status quo.

Startups are also innovating in the pro-privacy adtech space (see, for example, the Brave browser).

Changing the system — turning the adtech tanker — will take huge effort, but there is a growing opportunity for just such systemic change.

This year, it might be too much to hope for regulators get their act together enough to outlaw consent-less profiling of Internet users entirely. But it may be that those who have sought to proclaim ‘privacy is dead’ will find their unchecked data gathering facing death by a thousand regulatory cuts.

Or, tech giants like Facebook and Google may simple outrun the regulators by reengineering their platforms to cloak vast personal data empires with end-to-end encryption, making it harder for outsiders to regulate them, even as they retain enough of a fix on the metadata to stay in the surveillance business. Fixing that would likely require much more radical regulatory intervention.

European regulators are, whether they like it or not, in this race and under major pressure to enforce the bloc’s existing data protection framework. It seems likely to ding some current-gen digital tracking and targeting practices. And depending on how key decisions on a number of strategic GDPR complaints go, 2020 could see an unpicking — great or otherwise — of components of adtech’s dysfunctional ‘norm’.

Among the technologies under investigation in the region is real-time bidding; a system that powers a large chunk of programmatic digital advertising.

The complaint here is it breaches the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) because it’s inherently insecure to broadcast granular personal data to scores of entities involved in the bidding chain.

A recent event held by the UK’s data watchdog confirmed plenty of troubling findings. Google responded by removing some information from bid requests — though critics say it does not go far enough. Nothing short of removing personal data entirely will do in their view, which sums to ads that are contextually (not micro)targeted.

Powers that EU data protection watchdogs have at their disposal to deal with violations include not just big fines but data processing orders — which means corrective relief could be coming to take chunks out of data-dependent business models.

As noted above, the adtech industry has already been put on watch this year over current practices, even as it was given a generous half-year grace period to adapt.

In the event it seems likely that turning the ship will take longer. But the message is clear: change is coming. The UK watchdog is due to publish another report in 2020, based on its review of the sector. Expect that to further dial up the pressure on adtech.

Web browsers have also been doing their bit by baking in more tracker blocking by default. And this summer Marketing Land proclaimed the third party cookie dead — asking what’s next?

Alternatives and workarounds will and are springing up (such as stuffing more in via first party cookies). But the notion of tracking by background default is under attack if not quite yet coming unstuck.

Ireland’s DPC is also progressing on a formal investigation of Google’s online Ad Exchange. Further real-time bidding complaints have been lodged across the EU too. This is an issue that won’t be going away soon, however much the adtech industry might wish it.

Year of the GDPR banhammer?

2020 is the year that privacy advocates are really hoping that Europe will bring down the hammer of regulatory enforcement. Thousands of complaints have been filed since the GDPR came into force but precious few decisions have been handed down. Next year looks set to be decisive — even potentially make or break for the data protection regime.

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