Kaymyth

*switches on the Mod Voice mic* Okay, I want to be perfectly clear: this thread is for the LGBTQ+ members of the Shard to chat, bond, commiserate, and generally support each other. This is not -- I repeat, NOT -- an appropriate venue for asking questions of them. I am asking everyone to please stop doing that here for the sake of keeping this a pressure-free environment for our LGBTQ+ members. Thank you.

We did do a Pride theme on the Discord last year. We're expanding, bit by bit, year by year. By 2054 we'll have taken over the entire internet! Muahahahaha!

Understood. And while there are a number of people on the Shard who are probably happy to have these conversations with you, this isn't really the thread for it. This is for LGBTQ+ members to bond with and support each other, and we want them to continue to feel safe to do so. Too much challenging can compromise that. We would appreciate it if you (and anyone else of a similar mindset) were to take a step back and perhaps refrain from engaging on this thread.

1. It doesn't matter that it's "rare." These people exist and are a natural part of humanity. 2. A difference is not a defect or a disability. 3. "The exception that proves the rule" is an absolute nonsense saying and has no place in scientific discourse. Furthermore: We don't actually know how common or rare intersex people are. Estimates range all over the place, depending on who's doing the estimation. The issue there is people disagree on what counts as "intersex" as there are a huge number of different conditions. https://isna.org/faq/frequency/ The widest net cast is, "Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female: one in 100 births." So that's 1 in 100 people born with some sort of deviation from "standard." 1% of the population. Through the magic of large numbers, take 1% of 8 billion and you get...80 million people. 80 million people alive on this planet right now who don't perfectly fit the "standard" genitalia model. Doesn't seem like such an exception anymore, does it? My point is, you cannot simply dismiss a portion of the population's existence because it doesn't fit with your preconceived notions of what things "should" be. And if there's that many who are easily identifiable, how many other differences do we have going on that we can't see at all? Hormonal balances (hi, that's me), internal developmental differences, chimeras. There are so many things we just don't test everyone for, so we have no idea how many people like that exist! It's wild. Humanity is wild. Biology is wild. Also, you can pry my spiro from my cold, dead fingers, because the benefits to suppressing my testosterone production are insanely fantastic. Reduced cramps! A more even temper! Virtually no PMS! Reduced acne!* When I think about what my life could've been like if I'd had access to this medication in adolescence...gods. My body might have developed a little bit differently. I might've had hips. I rusting long for wider hips. My point is, medication and surgery is between an individual and their doctor, and you really don't get a say. *seriously I'm 46 freakin' years old I am too old for this acne crem I'm just gonna add here, if your idea of using respectful language towards individuals is "PC" then you're already stumbling into offensive territory. It's not political correctness -- it's basic human kindness and good manners.

Okay, I'm going to expound a bit more. Gender AND sex exist on spectrums. Genetics and endocrinology are complicated. You can have stuff like gene switching, where the X and Y chromosomes trade the gender genes out. You can have XY women whose bodies just...ignore male hormones. And there are a dozen other things that can effect how genes express. Do all trans folk fall under these exceptions? Dunno. Does it matter? Not a whit. And as AonEne said, intersex people exist. You can also have cisgender people with different hormone balances (i.e. I produce more testosterone than an average woman, and it does wonky things to my system. I take spironolactone to suppress it. Many trans and cis women do the same). So, am I a cisgender woman? Yeah. Am I a textbook case of the female sex? Definitely not. Do I have an XX genotype? I mean, I think so, but I don't actually care. I am who and what I am, and if a test were to come back with XY, I'd probably just shrug and move on with my life. Some trans people are men, and some are women. Some are nonbinary or genderfluid on a wide range of variability. The idea that anyone can say, "All A are B," are ignoring everyone and everything that is G or H or S or something else. So I refuse to try to make those sweeping statements, because I have a bare inkling of how complex it all is. The closer you look at it, the more detail you investigate, the fuzzier it all becomes. So honestly, my recommendation to everyone is save yourselves the headache, and just accept people for who they say they are, because chances are we're never going to have all the whys and wherefores figured out. It's just too complex.

I consider a trans woman to know who and what she is better than anyone else who isn't her, and when she tells me, I listen and accept. Beyond that, as a cis woman, I don't really think it's appropriate for me to sit down and try to categorize people whose day-to-day existence I do not -- and cannot -- have firsthand experience with. These are discussions for trans people to have amongst themselves, not for people like me to speculate on.

I'm not gonna lie, you are testing boundaries that really ought not to be tested. I recommend being more mindful in the future.

I'm going to add on a bit to this and point out very clearly to everyone reading that there is no functional difference between saying "cis women and trans women are different genders" and "trans women aren't real women." They mean exactly the same extremely transphobic thing, and neither are acceptable.

My RL schedule in 2023 did not help matters in the least. But I think I'm done Chairing conventions for the foreseeable future (burnout'll do that to ya), so that's no longer a limiting factor. But we're all busy people with jobs and lives and crap, and this 17th Shard thing is entirely a volunteer gig. Sometimes life be like this.

I'll add to this: scheduling has been rough. We've done the best we can, but sometimes recordings have big gaps between them. We are working on it. We just want to make absolutely sure we have enough episodes in the can (and an idea of how many the story is ultimately going to be) before we start releasing that we won't fall behind. Better to have the big delay between seasons than smack dab in the middle of the action.

In a word, yes. There will almost certainly be D&D games going. Last year, there was an entire competitive D&D thing that had pre-generated characters. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens again.

Backerkit is essentially a tool/service that's associated with, but not officially part of, Kickstarter. I suspect what's going on here is that Brandon is skipping a step -- he and his team know there's not going to be an issue with hitting sales goals, so there's no need to use the crowdfunding piece of the platform. All they need is to sort people into their swag levels, which Backerkit can do on its own. (ETA: I forget how the forums don't nest posts, and missed that Argent already answered this. Ope. xD)

There, um, also may be a fiendish plot to go filk-caroling around the Exhibit Hall on Monday. Meet at the 17th Shard booth at 6pm Monday if you want in on these shenanigans.

Are you on the Discord? The information (and the ability to RSVP so the organizers know how many people are going) is in the pins in the #events-and-streams channel.

I know there's a meetup planned for Sunday prior to con, but it's mostly been discussed on Discord.