Trans women are women.

Speaking as a cis woman, I want to say firmly that trans women are women.

I admit that it took me a while to understand this and I’ve had to broaden my definition of women a bit to reach that conclusion, but it seems ridiculous to define “women” as “cis women” and then say that trans women aren’t in that group (by definition). We can just as well define “women” as “people who know they are women” and trans women fit right in there.

There is no one “true” definition of a woman , as humans we choose how we categorise the world. It’s a bit like poor old Pluto: first it wasn't a planet, then it was a planet, now it's a dwarf planet, and many scientists think it would be useful to categorise it as something else instead. The lump of rock orbiting the sun hasn't changed but we define it differently according to what is most useful.

It’s most useful to broaden our definition of “women” from “assigned female at birth” to something that embraces everyone who feels themself to be a woman.

Trans women are women.

For me, that is “the truth”.

Is it that time already?

Last November I wrote about the "novels" I'd written during Nanowrimo but at the time I was in the middle of my story and didn't know how it was going to go. It turned out to be one that I had a lot of fun with, so I'm adding it to my list of Nano stories.

2017 This Planet Has More Dangerous Wildlife Than Australia
A survey team has vanished from a new planet in mysterious circumstances and the follow-up team face dangers from the indigenous life, including carnivorous trees. The two main alien races are in an uneasy truce and one of them uses only colour and gesture to communicate.

Think octopuses, only on land. I had fun with this one.

Now it's time to think about what I want to write this year. October will go by far too fast!

So far, I've updated my spreadsheet where I keep track of my progress. It's important to get your priorities right.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I was lying awake the other night with my thoughts whirling, and decided I needed a more positive frame of mind.

I thought back to my counselling days, and how children were being taught the main emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. The only one of those that is really positive is happiness, and that seemed to be selling us a bit short. Surely there must be as many positive emotions as negative ones? I tried thinking of all the positive feelings I could.

Not all of them fit neatly into a single English word but then why should they?

Here are some of the ones I came up with:

• happiness
• satisfaction
• competence
• doing something that matters
• complete absorption in a task (what's sometimes called "flow")
• euphoria
• peace
• comfort
• affection
• amusement
• hilarity
• being among friends
• enthusiasm
• delight
• excitement about something you like
• feeling accepted
• feeling validated
• feeling valued
• feeling loved
• enjoying cuteness (kittens!)
• feeling like you're floating away among the stars and your body doesn't exist any more
• mastery
• curiosity
• the feeling you get when you learn something new
• the feeling of a lightbulb moment
• the feeling you get when you do something you didn't think you could do

And then I fell asleep.

Which ones did I miss?