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I cooled off and also resolved some of my other issues

So while life is going to be tough for a month or so, I shall endeavour to post if I can. There is a new Bike tonight and I received a lot of support from different readers and one or two who weren't so supportive, but I don't expect everyone to agree with me, if they did I'd have to admit they were perfect too.

I was particularly boosted by other writers who supported my grumble including some very popular ones and also for whom I have great respect and I got some extra comments so I felt happy enough to return.

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For any who may have missed it

For any readers who may have missed it due to the one week allocated to the home page for multi-part stories, the fifth book of the Light series, The Light Between is indeed fully published! From the hit counts it looks like a number of folks who were enjoying it may not have seen that the last couple chapters indeed got posted. Thanks again to Kimmie for all her help! :)

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Life Almost Imitates Art

I've never been a fan of dancing or cheerleading, but circumstances conspired to have me at a dance show for a local high school. It happened like this: my daughter (now in her mid-forties) just got a job working at the high school as a restorative justice counselor, where she meets a whole lot of the students. The cheer squad was planning a big show on stage, and when some of them found out she had been a professional dancer in her youth they talked her into performing with them. In my totally unbiased opinion she did them proud, as a mature woman she still has the chops.

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Just Documenting Things.

Lately, I've stumbled upon a collection of masterpieces beginning with "The General's Daughter". The story kept me guessing every step of the way until the disappointing end. Wakening, sleepless in the middle of the night, I searched for and found more of the Author's stash; enough to keep me busy for a few days.

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My "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" entry

I just posted my entry for the "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" challenge. It weighs in at 21010 words. That's just about what I can read in a single setting. I hope you all are comfortable with that.

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Raindrops on Roses

Food is important to me. I grew up on a farm. We didn’t have any money, so we grew everything we ate, plus we hunted year-round. Nothing quite so tasty as ill-gotten venison. We had cattle, hogs, chickens, and ducks.

A number of years ago I became a pescatarian. It was an answer for high blood pressure, heart disease, and environmental concerns. It was quite a while before I had a name for it. I just cut out meat. As a guest -- I’ll eat what is served and I’ll split a hamburger with my spouse about every other month. But – mostly I eat fruit, nuts, and fish.

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Gruss von Berlin

Or summat like that!

So here I am on day 3 of my German adventure.

Monday was of course all about getting here, everything worked and by 6pm I was in my hotel. I don’t know why I was so anxious beforehand the only delay was morning traffic in Bristol!

I got my bike for the week Tuesday morning and duly set out for my first ever bike ride in Berlin. It takes a little while to get used to a different bike, by the time I’d done a couple of laps of Tempelhofer field I was just settling in nicely. However sod came along in the form of a broken spoke on the front wheel.

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Do people prefer one big story or separate chapters?

I am wondering.

I am part way through writing a story inspired by the April "Take your daughter to work day" challenge. It's turning out to be a bit longer than I had expected, so I would like to get some or all of it posted before the end of the month. But I have a question.

I am writing the story in scenes, each of which is between 600 and 1,000 words in length and ends with a revelation or minor cliff-hanger - what Blake Snyder in Save The Cat calls an 'act out'. The whole thing will likely be somewhere around 10,000 words.

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Cherry Jubilee (May Challenge)

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She’s the main character of a long-running bishoujo manga “High School Senpai”: Popular, outgoing and caring to all, including the younger students who look up to her. She’s is the comic dream girl for one Anthony “Tony” Kincaid. But what happens when she turns up, in the flesh, at his high school?

“Kaze no Hajimaru Basho”

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Well That's Odd

Scientists in Japan have created mice with two biologically male parents for the first time.

The team, led by a professor of genome biology at Osaka University in Japan, generated eggs from the skin cells of male mice.

When implanted into female mice, the eggs produced healthy pups, according to research published this month in the journal Nature.

The proof-of-concept research could expand the possibilities for future fertility treatments, including for same-sex couples.

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I need to complain about my muse.

Not the usual complaint (you know, “where is that bitch!”). I mean, it’s tough to start a story without her, and there are always dry patches. But that’s normal.

Lately, though, when she shows up, she rips the stuffing out of me. I was working along, the last couple of weeks, make a little progress on a fanfic idea, then more substantial progress on something that’ll need to be posted as a serial. I had some free time this weekend, and it was good. Humming.

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Stay in touch with your friends

A good friend of mine died a few days ago. He was at a funeral and collapsed. He would not go in the ambulance and died later that day at home. I used to see hime several times a week. I only heard today.

We lost touch during covid and I owed him and his wife a meal. I kept promising myself I would call him and arrange it. Life, work, and family just got in the way. I thought I'd spoken to him just last month, but when I looked at my phone log it was late December.

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Hatbox Funds Keep Us Online - Moving and Medical Expenses

I had a medical bill for $995 for a procedure last summer that I thought the insurance had paid. I talked myself into a discount on this and paid that, and still may get it back from the insurance after running their obstacle course. Oh, me.

Next month, we will be going to Arkansas to finish moving Melanie out to CA. This will require about $1500 in funds we don't have at the moment.

A bed for Melanie and an air cleaner for me along with some other things for the house ran about $500.

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Disappointed

I've been posting here for about 16 years and have probably posted more than anyone else, last week I started a new story Spider and I thought the first episode was going to get no comments but it got two or three eventually, so I wrote a second episode and that was posted about five days ago, it got seventy odd kudos, but no comments. Now I don't expect many comments from readers because I realise that most are selfish shits who are only interested in themselves, but there are several who comment quite regularly on my efforts for which I am grateful.

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Gamer Girl

My next is actually the product of a collaboration with the fabulous Chris Archer, author of ‘Special Inquiries’. ‘Gamer Girl’ is the story of a lad who likes to present as a female in an online computer game. It’s only meant to be an innocent bit of fun – after all, if anybody realises he’s a boy he can just sign out and never go back, right?

It soon becomes more complicated than that, with higher stakes to play for.

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Trans Safe Haven

Oklahoma is one of many states outlawing transgender care of any kind until one is twenty-one? I think the age is right There were so many changes going into that bill I'm not sure. No psychiatric support, no medical support, no nothing, zero, zilch, nata. If you receive any they promise to persecute (not a misprint) you and the person(s) supplying support. A draconian bill for those in Oklahoma who are trans. I still love Oklahoma but everyone here knows I'm a few bricks shy of a full load. Don't like my governor nor senate, or house, love the state. I'm great at dodging tornadoes.

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I've managed to make my life much harder.

Well, I have managed to make my life harder.

First, I got taken by a scammer and now I have lost my Facebook account.

Then, today, a cop told me my registration for my car had expired. I went to go fix that, only to discover my insurance had also expired.

I'm doing my best to fix this, but boy would it be great if I wouldn't put myself in these situations to begin with.

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Arin - The Transmale Gold Dragon of Pern

I had asked my AI Chat app for a story about a gold dragon from Pern (a planet created by Anne McCaffrey) who had to choose between his male identity, and laying a clutch of eggs for his weir. What I got back turned into a pretty interesting story, so I thought I'd share. Since I didn't actually write this story, I thought it'd be best to share it as a blog post. Enjoy! :)

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Editing for Dear Rylee 10

Hey everyone! I want to apologize for being so slow with Dear Rylee - I just finished writing Chapter 20 and I'm working on editing 10 for this site. Unfortunately, the editing process is drudging up a LOT of old memories. I've been consulting with people who were there at the time the story happened and finding out what actually happened and what I imagined so I can edit appropriately. Of course, I also have to deal with Tori(not her real name)'s insistence that I just 'stick to my photography' and stop writing, because I'm driving her insane.

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Huge rise in the number of girls seeking referrals to gender clinics.

I always assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the majority of transgender folk were MTF and that there were very few FTM.

This article says.

NHS England, 10 years ago there were just under 250 referrals, most of them boys, to the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids), run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London.

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My struggle with dysphoria

So today was not the best day. I had just crawled out of my worst depression in decades, and then I got hit with a nasty bout of dysphoria

Once more, the simple reality that I will never be "pretty", never even get SRS, hit me right in the heart, and yet, because Mom and I were doing errands I had to keep pretending I was okay.

Sighs . . .

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Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe Among 40 Athletes to Sign Letter Opposing Federal Anti-Trans Sports Ban

https://www.si.com/sports/2023/04/10/sue-bird-megan-rapinoe-...

A group of 40 professional, Olympic and Paralympic athletes signed a letter regarding recent anti-trans sports bans sent to House of Representatives legislative directors on Monday.

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Handmade

As I said in my blog before, I have some lovely pain in my left hand. Needless to say, this makes it tough to type. Of course, the left thumb isn't used in 10 key typing, but the pain likes to remind me that it's them anyway.

I've discovered a good way to write regardless. I'm using a stylus on my tablet. Quite literally the latest chapters of Arctic Fox and the Letters are handwritten. It's really not much slower than typing. And wonderfully, the tablet usually can read my writing. As a matter of fact, I don't have the general problem of my drunk spell checker!

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a pretty uneventful Easter

A couple of days ago my aunt Terry asked if we wanted to join her for Easter dinner, and we accepted.

So after I came home from Easter service at my church, we picked up another one of my aunts, and went over to Terry's place.

What we hadn't realized that her ex husband and her adult kids were also going to be there, and I don't think I've seen them since I started my transition in earnest.

So there I was, in my best Easter dress, sitting with a bunch of guys.

And nothing bad happened.

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Personal ask

I will probably never stop feeling guilty about asking for help, but as a disabled person on SSI, I don't know that much will change about my situation anytime soon.

I fell behind on my power bill a few months back, but I managed to get myself on a payment plan to keep my lights on. What I didn't realize was this higher bill would completely drain me from my check within the first week of the month. I don't know how I am gonna get through the month, and it has me scared. I have a measly amount of food stamps, but I'm down to less than $10 in my checking account.

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Happy Easter!

To all my friends and family on this site, Happy Easter! Ressurection Sunday!

I know many of us don't celebrate the ressurection of Christ. Many of us don't believe in Him. I don't intend this blog post to offend anyone, so l hope you don't take it as offensive. My beliefs are such that I do believe, and I know some here believe as well. To those of us who believe its a celebration, I want to celebrate with you!

God bless!

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DR Chapter 7 Posted!

Hey everyone! Chapter 7 is posted after some heavy editing! This particular chapter is interesting because it was the first time I was actually clocked after my transition. The Fiona thing was...definitely clocking but it didn't count because she had enough outside information to form a definitive conclusion. I remember that disaster like it was yesterday, haha. Anyway, enjoy the chapter, I'll be back either later this week or next week!

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Trans Women and Sport

I know this divides trans women. This is just my take on the problem.

The whole thing about trans women is sport is too complex. Sports people are very competitive and will complain about the tiniest thing they think is unfair.

What is a trans woman? Someone that has had full surgery, has the same hormone levels as the average woman and has not gone through male puberty. Or a fully intact male that has no intention of taking hormones and having surgery?

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Please forgive any mistakes

I have just written a short story about trans women developing an "ability".

In the story I reference the anti-trans laws that have been or are being passed in the USA. I blamed the Republicans. I am from the UK. Our politics are hard to grasp sometimes, but I have no idea how laws are passed in the USA.

Please forgive me if I got it wrong

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More Light Completed

Book 5, The Light Between, has finally reached its completion. For any who have been waiting until it was posted in full to go binge read, the starter pistol has now fired! Go go go! :)

A huge shout-out and thank you to Kimmie for all her help in getting these last acts posted over the past few weeks. She's been absolutely awesome and tremendous.

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Short Chapter - Sorry! :(

The latest chapter of Dear Rylee weighs in at about 2700 words which is abysmally short, so I do apologize for that. Most of the story is already written and I'm just posting what's in the word doc. As we move further on, the chapters begin to reach 4k-7k words apiece, so bear with me. This is the first time I've told this story and I'm doing it as best I can remember. I'm glad that everyone seems to be enjoying it and I hope that it helps some of you - it's pretty intense and we've got a long way to go :)

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Take Me Out To The Old Ball Game (rewrite)

Take Me Out To The Old Ball Game was originally published here on September 7, 2009. And I’m republishing it for a couple of reasons, it’s the start of baseball season on this side of the pond, I’ve done some cleaning up to it, and for the new readers who weren’t here in 2009 to be able to read it without digging too deep. Enjoy.

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Wild Coincidence

Yesterday, I posted a dystopian short story about Paul Conklin and his son Karl.

This morning my daughter delivered a baby boy.

We had no idea what gender the child would be or what names they were considering. They had elected not to know the gender.

They're naming him "Karl."

I'm elated and mystified.

The world seems a thousand times better than it seemed to be when I wrote the story.

Jill

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I have the strangest dreams

Okay I really have to share the dream I had last night.

I was working in a store that was getting ready for Christmas, as huge amounts of stuff came in that we needed to find room for.

Suddenly, I realized there was something wrong - we were apparently stuck in a time loop, doing the same stuff over and over again.
Not only did I figure this out, I figured out how to get us out of it.

The store's Santa had to pick a particular item as a present.

I told him of it, he picked the right package, and the loop was broken.

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Sorry, again, no Haida's Travels update this week

Sorry for not being able to post a new chapter to Haida's travels this week. RL stuff has gotten in the way and I haven't had any time to sit down and write another chapter/part.

That aside, I am curious if everyone likes these bite-size parts as they come out. Or would everyone rather they be longer? Is there anything else that anyone would rather I do different than how its come out so far?

Please let me know.

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on my manic state

Since I'm currently in a manic state, I figured I would talk about what being manic does to me.

See, unlike the depression part of my cycle, which is always kind of the same, each time I'm manic seems a bit different from the last.

Sometimes, when I'm manic, I become giggly like I had taken a serious hit of pot. (Its also when my girly girl side comes out most. That, of course, is Jaci's fault).

But sometimes, instead of that, I become irrationally angry at everything and everyone.

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Dear Rylee Story Info

Hi Everyone! I posted Chapter 3 of Dear Rylee today; I know we're moving fast but I have a LOT of this story already written and at this point I'm just trying to keep pace with the readers here. I'm glad everyone's enjoying it as I'm definitely enjoying writing it :)

So because this'll come up, a few things about Rylee:

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Sometimes

Sometimes you find out something that happened some time ago and affected you, but you didn't know it to respond in time.

I just discovered that Janice Lynn Miller, aka J.L. Miller, a friendly, thoughtful and prolific commenter here on BCTS and also a financial supporter of the site, passed away in December 2018, just four days after her last set of posts commenting on stories here. She had more than one account over a period of years, so you might have known her under a slightly different name.

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Life imitates art, ahem, the bit I wrote about bees in Bike last night

I wrote about bees as possibly having self-awareness, now these tiny marvels, featured in research by an American scientist, seem to show this in spades leading them to reconsider how the laws in America don't protect these intelligent insects (they don't protect mammals much either compared to the UK) and how they need changing. I read Chittka's book last year, it was fascinating and now this American scientist, Stephen Bucchman, feels the same towards them. The article is interesting and easy to read.

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For everything there is a season . . . .

It’s been almost a month now since I posted a story or a chapter.

And you’re thinking, “yes, and?” And so you should.

But I realized that, from the time I posted the first chapter of my first story here (appropriately, July 4, 2022 — there were fireworks!) until March 4, 2023, I posted something at least once a week. Over 50 separate chapters or solos, and over 450,000 words.

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Ladies Get to Gether

I’m inviting you to my weekly Sunday Zoom meeting CMT. Only trans women are invited. If you have an invite feel free to invite others I include a link to my local time standard so that you might match it up to yours, Some of the ladies in the past are from Great Britain and Germany. Most of them are writers who post stories on a Big Closet Top Shelf though that this is no way a requirement. This will be the last week this invite log in will work. Next week's invitation will have the new sign information. If you haven't figured this out I send these out every Friday.

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March 2023 Abducted! Contest: Winners Announcement! (And poll info)

It's over! It's done! The contest is finished, the polls are closed, and we have the results you've all been waiting for!


The March 2023 Abducted! Story Contest Results!

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My Homecoming

I was attempting a drabble, on a concept that had been lodged in my mind for some time, but it can be TOUGH to write that short.

As you can see, I continue to write. I write scenes and dialog, but need to work on my plotting to find where a story is going. I am hopeful my block is clearing, and may have something next month.

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Polling for the Abducted! contest ENDS today!

It's time to vote, folks!


VOTING ENDS TONIGHT (March 29 2023) AT MIDNIGHT PDT!

Hop on over to the BCTS Patreon and let us know which entry YOU feel deserves to take home the prize! Or prizes, as the case may be. You can vote for as many stories as you want, too, so don't feel afraid to select ALL your favorites!

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one sick Dot

so for the last week, I've been dealing with a rather nasty flu, mostly settling into my nose and throat.

So when I tried to talk on Discord or on the phone, I basically had no voice at all.ge

Then yesterday, things managed to get worse.

I broke out in hives all over my back and belly.

I called the local health line, and they told me getting an allergic reaction to a flu virus does happen, and the best I can do is treat the symptoms until my immune system kicks out the flu causing the trouble.

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Re: The Shooting in Nashville

Yes, it is about guns, but this goes far deeper than that. This was a trans girl/woman who was forced to go to this school to 'straighten her out' from her dysphoria. I imagine she was tortured by those 'Christians' on a daily basis. Such a shame, when the proper treatment and counseling might have left us with a well-adjusted young woman.

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Hatbox Funds Needed - Still Month Left When the Money Ran Out.

I just got a medical bill for $995 for a procedure last summer that I thought the insurance had paid. I'm going to find out what's going on before I pay them anything.

But in other news, it's the end of the month, there are bills due and coming due, and we have $150 in our accounts, company and my personal account added together.

Thanks for any help you can send. All contributions are very welcome.


Many thanks!

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“Virtually Yours” Session 12 “Do It Again”

Virtually Yours “Do It Again” glosses over Christmas (due to Wi-Fi issues where Seth is at the time) and now he is also conflicted as he spent time talking with someone he met at the ski slopes. How will Elise take this news?
Releasing later this week.

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It’s been awhile…

Warning: Don’t read this if you’re squeamish there’s a lot of nasty things that are going to be said. If the moderators think I’ve went too far in explaining what has happened to me then they are free to remove it. I just wanted to get this out into the open.

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Beautiful Spring day!

Woke up this morning to find it snowing heavy and 6 inches of snow already on the ground. Waited until it finally stopped around 11am to go shovel while my daughter cleared the snow off my truck so we could go to the store. The plow had not came by my home yet so getting the car down the unplowed road could have been a problem.

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It's what we have been trying to tell them for years

Finally, someone does a survey that iterates what we have been saying for years,

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/24/majority-tra...

as long as you don't want to be an athlete:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/mar/23/world-athletic...

Both from the Guardian

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my time as the Ugandan ambassador to the (model) UN.

I don't know if I have ever told the story of how I became the Ugandan ambassador to my school's model UN.

I had signed up, because I was fascinated by the idea, until the random generator said I was to represent Uganda.

If you've seen pictures of the people of Uganda, they are mostly black, and if you've seen pictures of me, I am most definitely not black.

So being the nerd I was, I came up with a backstory to explain why I was picked as the ambassador, even though nobody but me seemed to take the model UN thing terribly seriously.

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Does Detransitioning mean you were not Transgendered?

I've felt a bit odd lately and have gone out in full male mode a few times. If my facial structure was more feminine, I could look like a Butch Dyke, pardon me. I had my hair all cut off to about to about 6.5 mm (1/4"). I am going out today for several hours and plan to do more of that. To me, it seems that my transition, including bottom Surgery, might have been ill advised. Warnings from the Psychological Community seem dire because many of them feel that it is a precursor to Suicide. I'm not feeling that. My children would undoubtedly support detransition.

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Referral pt 8 - officially female

A lovely surprise call this morning from my Doctor's office telling me that I had been issued with a new NHS number. That's because the gender marker has been changed and I'm officially female. That was supposed to take 3 weeks but was completed in just 11 days! I'm also, once again, able to order prescriptions online now that the national NHS database has been modified.

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Abducted! Contest Final Day, and April Challenge Announcement!

Just as a reminder for folks, today is the last day for entries to go up in the 2023 "Abducted!" story contest! I'd originally intended to give people 'til midnight their own time zone and go on trust, but for simplicity's sake I've been asked to move that to midnight PDT (or, just under 16 hours from the time this blog will post.)

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Where has Dot been ?

Okay, so last night Jaci called me, and told me some people on Discord were rather concerned about me, since I hadn't been on in a while, nor had a posted a blog here.

I told her and the others I had gotten super focused on a stupid D&D thing I had been working on, and just kind of tuned everything else out.

But having had a night to think about it, that was only partially true.

See, last Thursday, a 16 year old boy killed 2 police officers, seriously wounded his own mother, and then took his own life here in Edmonton.

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