For a simple example: my mother is Catholic and until Trump came along, a lifelong single-issue Republican voter who always said she would be a Democrat if it weren’t for abortion. She attends church in an extremely progressive, famously LGBTQ-friendly town.

There’s a transwoman who attends her church (let’s call her Rita). This lady is probably in her mid-50s to mid-60s and has been a fixture at the church for at least 5 years. My mom has been in choir and bible study groups with her for years now. She still just can’t see Rita as a woman. Treats her politely but behind her back refuses to call her “she” and says she’s a “man in a dress”.

She’s really offended that Rita uses the ladies’ room. I’ve asked her why and she can’t articulate it, she just feels like it’s an invasion of her privacy, because men don’t belong in the ladies’ room. And when I point out that Rita isn’t a man, she just rolls her eyes. I’ve asked her if she’s worried that Rita is in there for predatory purposes and she admits that she doesn’t think Rita intends any harm. I’ve asked her how she’d feel if she were forced to use the men’s room and she says “but that’s different!”

My mom prides herself in being a moral person, and still can’t manage to get past her bigotry to see Rita as a woman. There are just too many mental blockades against it. But since she thinks she’s so highly moral, she thinks she must be correct in this situation. It excuses her from finding empathy and bettering her attitude toward trans folks.

My longwinded point is that when people who consider themselves highly moral are bigoted, there’s almost zero chance of getting through to them. And I think a lot of the people who are bigoted against trans folks feel that morality is on their side and being trans is morally deviant, so they think they’re justified in their prejudice.

Yeah…GrubHub is so fucking expensive that I’m surprised they’re still in business.

I didn’t change my name. My perspective is that my identity doesn’t change just because I got married. My name has been mine since birth and it’ll remain that way.

I’m from New Jersey and have never heard anyone unironically say “youse guys”. Side note we also don’t call it “Joisey”.

I have zero paifs of underwear.

Aw, you just reminded me of something. My grandma used to wash out soup cans, then use them to bake small raisin breads. She would make several at once and you could freeze them. I don’t know where she got this idea but it was awesome always having these tiny raisin breads available :) especially if you don’t want to commit to a whole full-sized loaf!

It was reclaimed a while ago.

What a thorough breakdown haha

Hmm… hollow bones might negate the need for gills.

Recovery was a combination of frustrating and boring. I was on crutches for about 3 weeks, then down to 1 crutch for another week, then finally no crutches and I was allowed to drive. You will definitely need to navigate the stairs on crutches, but your physical therapist will teach you how.

The drive home after surgery was pretty awful (thanks, City of Philadelphia, for having such prodigious fucking potholes!) and the first few days were rough. I actually wasn’t in too much post-surgical pain, but every little thing was a hassle. There are certain restrictions as to how to can move, how you can sit, etc which were not always easy to work with. For example, I wasn’t allowed to bend past 90° at the waist, so my husband had to help me get dressed, or pull up my pants after I used the bathroom, etc. He was a champ but it’s really frustrating to have to rely on someone for things like that. Showering was also difficult, even though I had a shower stool. I was prescribed oxycodone for the first 5 days after surgery, which gave me the most severe, painful constipation. In retrospect I probably could’ve gotten by with just extra-strength tylenol. Sleeping was awful - I was only allowed to sleep on my back or my nonsurgical side, and nighttime is when the pain was the worst.

For the first 2 weeks a physical therapist came to my house 2-3 times a week, and also a nurse visited 3 times. I had some simple physical therapy exercises to do twice a day for the first 3 weeks, plus I had to use a continuous passive motion machine for four hours each day. Aside from physical therapy exercises, you’re supposed to make sure you get up and move around every hour to prevent blood clots, but otherwise you’re more or less bed bound for the first few weeks. I read so many books and watched soooooo much Star Trek!

Once I was off the crutches and allowed to drive, I made quick progress. I went to physical therapy twice a week and made sure to do my exercises every day. I think it helped that I was already in good shape before the surgery due to weightlifting, and I was really motivated to get back to lifting as soon as I could. At around 5 or 6 weeks after surgery I was doing kettlebell squats in physical therapy, and by 8 weeks I was doing deadlifts in PT. At that point I started back in the gym with my personal trainer, and I also continued seeing my physical therapist twice a week. No jogging/running or jumping until the 3 month mark.

At 3 months post surgery, I had a follow-up with my surgeon, and he cleared me to return to all activities with the caveat that I ramp up slowly. So now I’m 4 months post-surgery and I can do everything I was doing before surgery - weightlifting, hiking, biking - but I’m still working my way back to the weights and intensity I was at prior to surgery.

I definitely notice an improvement in my hip. I’m middle-aged, and the surgeon made sure I understood that the surgery wasn’t going to give me a perfect hip like a young person would have, which helped set reasonable expectations. And despite the frustration of surgery, I’m glad I did it. I still have some pain if I overdo it, or if I sleep on it weirdly, but it’s a lot more flexible and resilient than it was before surgery.

This turned into a wall of text, but I hope it’s useful to you. Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!

The Primitives - Crash

My mom prays to St. Anthony. #justcatholicthings

I’ve got 2/3 of those (my cholesterol is fine). I just had the impingement fixed in March along with the labral tear it caused, and recovery has been annoying but worth it. I’m back to all my regular activities! If you’re interested, I really recommend looking into surgery.

I would absolutely:

• Get rid of anxiety (assuming there’s some genetic component to this - seems like all the women in my family have it)
• Change my eye color from hazel (mixed green & brown) to full green
• Add about 5 inches of height (I’m only 5’0")
• Add gills to my sides that deploy at will when under water, but otherwise are hidden
• Fix that annoying “it went down the wrong pipe” design flaw
• Add a nictitating membrane to help fix my dry eyes
• Wings? Maybe!

Bohemian Rhapsody

I’m atheist. My mom is a devout catholic (and raised me that way) and my dad is an atheist Jew. I never truly believed and mostly think religion is dumb, but I’m fine with everyone believing or not as they see fit. I’m not fine when others’ religion is forced on anyone else - e.g., abortion restrictions, the 10 commandments being displayed in Louisiana classrooms.

Very tail end of Gen X.

Ha, actually no! But that’s because my sister was wayyy pickier than me. Her diet primarily consisted of hamsteak & oodles of noodles for a long time.

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American cheese, because I threw up once as a kid after I ate some. Honestly no big loss, I wouldn’t eat American cheese now even if I’d never thrown it up because it’s a trash cheese.

Also, any meat where I can tell what it once was. I don’t want to eat anything off of a bone, or anything’s skin, or god forbid a fish is served whole. Growing up we used to have whitefish sometimes on the weekend and no fucking thank you.

Green Day - The Grouch

and

Violent Femmes - Add It Up