A point of skepticism on the premise: it doesn't feel realistic to me that Allison doesn't clock Carrie given that Carrie is [_not on hormones yet_](http://www.dolari.org/cs/55.htm). Passing is _hard_, especially when you're _living with someone_, rather than just seeing them "in passing" in public. No one mistakes [the Texas insurrectionist woman](http://www.dolari.org/cs/23.htm) as a man even though she has short hair and wears men's clothes. And Carrie _sings_! (Vocal pitch is hugely sexually dimorphic; [one study reports](/papers/puts_et_al-masculine_voices_signal_mens_threat_potential.pdf) the sex difference in mean [fundamental frequency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_frequency) at Cohen's _d_ ≈ 5.7, which is so huge that I can't _quite_ take it at face value insofar as it implies that Tracy Chapman (whose [singing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwrHwZyFN7M) I've mis-sexed) should outright not exist, rather than merely being very rare.) I feel kind of vindicated that a [guest illustrator gave Carrie a realistically unfortunate face](http://www.dolari.org/cs/357.htm).
-Okay, Heidi [who _is_ on hormones](http://www.dolari.org/cs/340.htm) [lied to Allison to cover for Carrie once](http://www.dolari.org/cs/54.htm)—maybe that helped tip the scales after [the hypothesis had been promoted to Allison's attention](http://www.dolari.org/cs/57.htm)? How much work is being done by [the effect where it's easier to pass precisely when transsexualism is rare](/2020/Dec/crossing-the-line/)? Maybe Allison in particular is just (autistically or self-deceptively) really oblivious? (["I thought I knew what to look for."](http://www.dolari.org/cs/255.htm)) Allison and Carrie do [get](http://www.dolari.org/cs/175.htm) [clocked](http://www.dolari.org/cs/177.htm) by restaurant waitstaff, to [Carrie's discomfort](http://www.dolari.org/cs/178.htm) and [Allison's obliviousness](http://www.dolari.org/cs/179.htm).
+Okay, Heidi [who _is_ on hormones](http://www.dolari.org/cs/340.htm) [lied to Allison to cover for Carrie once](http://www.dolari.org/cs/54.htm)—maybe that helped tip the scales after [the hypothesis had been promoted to Allison's attention](http://www.dolari.org/cs/57.htm)? How much work is being done by [the effect where it's easier to pass precisely when transsexualism is rare](/2020/Dec/crossing-the-line/)? Maybe Allison in particular is just (autistically? self-deceptively?) really oblivious? (["I thought I knew what to look for."](http://www.dolari.org/cs/255.htm)) Allison and Carrie do [get](http://www.dolari.org/cs/175.htm) [clocked](http://www.dolari.org/cs/177.htm) by restaurant waitstaff, to [Carrie's discomfort](http://www.dolari.org/cs/178.htm) and [Allison's obliviousness](http://www.dolari.org/cs/179.htm).
_Closetspace_ seems to be on life support—there have only been four updates since 2019. (If a blog updated in September, and the previous post had been in May, would you think the author was relentlessly persuing her vision? I didn't think so.) As much as one mourns the tragedy of real life moving faster than the independent creator can tell their story, in a way, it seems—fitting?—in the sense that _Closetspace_ is noticeably a product of [its time](http://www.dolari.org/cs/articles/99706roo.htm). Someone starting a comic in the current year, about the challenges of being trans in the current year, wouldn't still be speaking in the vocabulary of the '90s. Specifically, no one in the world of _Closetspace_ seems to disagree or be confused about [what women are](/2018/Apr/reply-to-the-unit-of-caring-on-adult-human-females/). ["I'm not really a woman," Heidi confesses to Allison.](http://www.dolari.org/cs/53.htm) (Not _really_? You mean, you're not _cis_, right?) ["I haven't been your big brother for over a month," Carrie tells her sister](http://www.dolari.org/cs/133.htm) (implying that the _act_ of social transition is what makes Carrie not-a-brother, rather than an underlying identity). For her part, Allison is committed to a life of stealth, disdaining trans people (["I shouldn't be so negative. I just ... have a thing ... about people straddling gender roles"](http://www.dolari.org/cs/254.htm)), rather than taking up solidarity as one of them. Even the narrator is in on it [(describing Carrie as "male" and Allison as "once male")](http://www.dolari.org/cs/132b.htm).
When [Riley expresses concern for Jaden's bruises the next morning](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p31/), Jaden [admits that "a few men kicked up a fuss at the club last night."](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p35/) Riley [assumes the troublemakers were homophobes protesting lesbianism](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p39/); Jaden says she [doesn't know what they were about](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p40/), but that they "[called themselves _trance, women_, or something. I can't really remember.](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p41/) [...] [I didn't really get it either. But hey, that's straight men for you, haha!](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p42/)"
-Riley, who has not been living under a rock, [feels ideologically uncomfortable with Jaden's account](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p55/)—Riley wants to be a good ally, but isn't personally zealous enough to correct Jaden. Riley starts to [worry that her girlfriend Blaire will start a quarrel if transwomen come up in conversation when meeting Jaden](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p59/). (_Transwomen_ is spelled as one word in Riley's thoughts, but we imagine Blaire is the kind of person insists that it's two.)
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+Riley, who has not been living under a rock, [feels ideologically uncomfortable with Jaden's account](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p55/)—Riley feels morally obligated to be a good ally, but isn't personally zealous enough to correct Jaden's speech. Riley starts to [worry that her girlfriend Blaire will start a quarrel if transwomen come up in conversation when meeting Jaden](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch6p59/). (_Transwomen_ is spelled as one word in Riley's thoughts, but we imagine Blaire is the kind of person insists that it's two.) The meeting goes fine thanks to Jaden's continued obliviousness; [when Blaire asks Jaden what pronouns she prefers, Jaden (momentarily distracted by Riley nervously dropping a glass) mishears the question and replies, "The way you pronounced it just the was fine."](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch8p6/) Later, Blaire [asks Riley if Jaden might be trans](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch9p2/) [and not know it](https://leasebound.com/comic/ch9p4/).
When I protested that I wasn't expecting a science fictional Utopia of pure reason, but just for people to continue to be right about things they already got right in 2008, he said, "Doesn't matter—doesn't _fucking_ matter."
humans have honor instead of TDT. "That's right! I'm appealing to your honor!"
+
+The boundary must be drawn here! This far, and no further!
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff