The State Of Seattle

 So evictions in the USA are one of those really messy things which most tenants do not even know a fraction of the laws involved. Landlords have taken advantage of this fact to wrongfully evict tenants, often without even having to go to court because the tenant can't afford legal counsel.

Seattle finally joined the growing number of cities who offered a "public defender" of sorts for tenants facing eviction. This is likely because of our growing homeless problem, which is likely a result of the fact that landlords are finding ways around the eviction moratorium.

But what do home owners say? They're complaining, of course.

We have had this serious problem in the USA where the people who have money are convinced that everyone who doesn't have money are somehow out to get them. Which has resulted in creating a huge divide between those who have, and those who struggle just to get what we need.

The end result is what we see in renting, where somehow people have this idea that every eviction is justified. The pathetic irony being that most evictions are without good reason, and often those who should be evicted never are.

A primary reason why those who should be evicted manage to avoid it is that the landlords just listen to neighbor complaints, and the Karen types are generally the loudest. The ones most likely to be wrongfully evicted are the quiet types who typically stay to themselves and don't scream about every little thing.

Then that one thing causes the quiet person to complain just once about someone, and suddenly the Karen types will start an onslaught of complaints as well as generating rumors to ruin the quiet person's reputation with the landlord. Resulting in the one who did nothing wrong being evicted while the Karen type remains secure in their residence.

This is, of course, only one example of how the disparity shows up, there are many others. Well, with the court appointed lawyer the quiet person suddenly has the strength of the law behind them, as well as all the information normally only afforded to the landlord on how to fight any wrongful eviction in court.

Now the biggest complaint I've seen is about the cost. But let's put this into perspective.

A homeless person will cost about $35,000+ a year, that's taxes it comes from. My apartment generally costs about $5,000 per year in tax dollars, I still pay almost half of the total costs and the rest is subsidized.

Though the average is about $12,000 per year for housing and that include "supportive" housing. So it's in your best interest to house people, not kick them out onto the streets.

Source: https://endhomelessness.org/resource/ending-chronic-homelessness-saves-taxpayers-money-2/ 

The Problem With Office Staff

 My whole situation can be summed up as "office staff are lazy". On the bright side, it wasn't Compass Housing Alliance that messed up this time, instead it was a building with multiple managers who all took the same days off and didn't want to check their emails.

Of course that's only part of the story, but it's the backbone of the problem. The severe resistance to use modern technology is hurting people in so many ways, and yet there are still many people who refuse to modernize because they're comfortable with being troglodytes.

With our modern technology we also have better ways to manage our money, it uses the credit card system. So basically the story goes like this:

First they keep insisting payments are made using money order or cashier's check, both of which are typically used by criminal organizations attempting to commit tax fraud. So I was kind of pushing that back in my mind because they said a credit card system was available for rent payments, and I shouldn't have to deal with the parts which criminals prefer.

Then the stupid bullshit holiday known as Thanksgiving happened. I expected them to take a four day weekend because of it, which was bad enough given the vast majority of the world still functions and the whole process would be delayed because of precious time lost due to this.

But then they all took Monday off as well, because they're privileged office staff who are so over paid for sitting on their asses all day while others toil for entire days and earn less than a quarter what they do. So I am frantic about not knowing what's going on, what needs to be done, and all of that with only a few days remaining to make the transition to a new residence.

I get up on Tuesday, check my email, and no response was made. I don't check my voicemail because it's 2020, not 1980.

Discovered they tried to call me in an email they finally responded too, so my response was simple: I pointed out all the problems they created and said goodbye. Rent is due in two days here, and staying past the first of the month is not only rude, it's also against the lease, when planning to move out because then they have to go an entire month without rent.

So I opted to not screw over the organization that finally started doing something right, and stop the farcical procedure that Colwell Building managers were putting me through. The kicker here is that there are more managers for the Colwell Building than for the Karlstrom. Yet they still manage to have an entire week in which no manager is available to complete a time sensitive procedure in which the people involved need to know vital information to make plans around periods of being ill, medical care, and basic life needs.

At least with the Karlstrom, there was an excuse, the lack of stable staff in necessary positions. Colwell Building is supposedly a business, and they get tax credits for keeping some units for low income, yet they don't seem to be capable of doing this well.

From an assistant who doesn't know the process, to a head manager that is never there. The policies that resemble a criminal organization are just the cherry on the top here, so I will reiterate those really quick:

1. Only drug dealers or beggars take cash now, because it's easy to steal, and untraceable.

2. Only criminal organizations take money order or cashier's checks because they are easily hidden from tax records.

3. Regular checks are viable alternatives to debit and credit, but there is a reason to avoid those.

Of all the payment methods, debit and credit are the only ones friendly to the environment, completely secure, and easily managed. This is why so many new payment systems connected to the credit card system have become so popular, this is the future, time to start acting like it.

Fuck Washington, Especially Seattle

So my problems when I was young, growing up in western Washington (mostly Covington), I had no support from anyone. My mother was psychologically abusing me, even the teachers knew something was wrong but back then no one thought psychological abuse was a thing.

So instead of getting me the help I needed, they would just punish me for my odd behavior. I had no one to turn to, being trans and atheist for as long as I could remember.

In school I avoided the popular kids, even though they often wanted me to hang out with them. Most of the time I was far more happy with cats, dogs, pretty much any other species by my own.

After turning 18 I was lost, no aim, no goals, because I didn't even know who or what I was. All I could do was strive to survive, and that I did well.

I picked up a set of skills, which would better serve some super secret agent in a fictional movie than any real human. After having helped many people and a lot of cats, I was diagnosed with disability and locked into a system that does what it can to keep you there, no matter who is in charge.

The only thing I could look forward to was that one day I could get some surgery and feel happy about my body. Then a medical doctor who was a bastard in Virginia Mason decided to lie and remove my hopes of getting that surgery by having me declared suicidal just because I disagreed with him on something unrelated.

So now I had only one thing to live for, a single cat who I would raise from a kitten and have for their entire life. A cat who I could say "I remember when he/she was so tiny."

That cat was going to be Rhodey, a wonderful black cat with a shady past who got really lucky. Healthy and happy, friendly to everyone, and I was forgetting all my problems focusing on taking care of him and his sister.

I looked so forward to the next twenty years, I probably won't live much longer after that because of a few health related problems and the mistake of smoking tobacco. But at least when I died I would be happy to have had this one thing.

Then, only a year after I had brought him home, our home was flooded and Compass Housing Alliance did not follow through with the repairs, forcing us to live with mold, no kitchen, and exposed insulation. Rhodey lost two pounds in about six months, scared I took him to the vet.

Everything seemed okay, and the vet assumed it was his teeth. I took that diagnosis because it was something I could directly help with.

Brushing his teeth regularly, I hoped he would regain the lost weight and start growing again. But he didn't, though he didn't seem to lose anymore weight.

A few years later, last year in fact, I took him to renew his vaccines and have him checked on. I was correct, he had not gained weight, so they did a full blood work on him.

It was expensive, but I was desperate now, I was worried, tense, scared. A few days later I got the email back, everything looked perfect, as in perfectly healthy, as in what I was doing was great for him, except ...

That except was kidney disease, when I read it I felt numb, fear, rage, hatred, washing over me, all at once. It was obvious who was responsible for it, a disease caused by environmental toxins, a thing which he was only exposed to during the time of the flooding.

Seattle had taken the last two things I loved from me. This vampiric city that masquerades as "environmentally friendly" and a place for equality.

Seattle, the city where everyone will tell you they care about you, as long as you don't rock the boat. Seattle and Compass Housing Authority, the people that claims to be animal friendly while complaining about the extra strong urine small caused by a cat who suffers because they poisoned him.

The last good employee for Seattle Housing Authority, the one who demanded that Compass Housing Alliance actually finish the repairs for the flooding that was caused by a drunk who passed out, retired the same day he did that wonderful thing. The last person who cared about the poor, the needy, the ones truly in danger, retired with one last loving act, though too late, I will always remember that he was the last good person in the Seattle government, perhaps in all of western Washington, perhaps in the entire country of the USA.

The Long Tale of Corruption

How has Compass Housing Alliance changed for the worse? A question that is not asked often enough, it seems.

As Compass Center they were the pinnacle of social services, one of the best that all others could look up to, where those in need found someone who actually cared. This resulted in them getting the bulk of donations from local businesses, enough to fund reconstruction of their offices and a new apartment building fully furnished and ready for occupancy.

But now they struggle, trying to make ends meet and getting no donations to replace the amenities they sell off to pay for office parties and new chapels. That statement should make their mistakes very clear, but the repercussions are long standing and cut much deeper than you'd expect.

Local businesses were already reluctant to assist most social services due to the corruption and the fact that almost everyone they supposedly helped was still unable to meet even basic sanitary standards. But Compass Center residents were clean and presentable to a point that we always blended in with the other customers.

So when the earthquake hit in 2002, the organization had to get money for extensive reconstruction. To get the support of local businesses they offered to turn half of the building into apartments which would be run less like a shelter for the more stable clients using their services.

The result was the Karlstrom, which had all amenities and personal living spaces and very few restrictions on the residents. We were treated like people, and it was managed by a no nonsense manager who took regular maintenance so seriously that she would schedule maintenance inspections monthly to come in and ensure everything was working.

It was great, a wonderful apartment and the residents left good impressions on those who had donated to this project. Seattle had known of no low income apartment building with a better track record for keeping pretty much everyone happy and cooperative.

The Karlstrom was supposed to be a flagship building, a new standard to which all others could be compared to so that when the bulk of staff left Compass Center for retirement, schooling, or new careers those who took over would have the standard already set. Sadly their dream of helping people was destroyed by those hired to take their place.

For the first few years it was just a small amount of chaos as we awaited a new manager to be assigned, so we could get everything back on track. What we got was the beginning of a nightmare, Peter Madril was first appointed, and with him came several new residents which we can only surmise he hand picked from his other program.

Fine, we got some new neighbors, but these were not the same class of neighbor the rest of us had become accustomed to. One on my floor was abusive toward several residents to the point that we had to file complaints of assault on him, he died a few weeks ago and is not missed, but that's a story for later.

Then they sold off the laundry facilities that one of the businesses had donated specifically to this building. Suddenly they were struggling for money to the point of having to cut corners everywhere, including essential maintenance in the building, delaying repairs caused by flooding for years at a time, and having almost no staff present at any given time.

There were no emergency staff to contact, no organization, nothing left but an apartment building lacking basic essential amenities and maintenance which the organization was slowly taking over by storing their old files and supplies in the rooms now vacant after removing the amenities. Carpets with mold growing under them, walls with mold growing in the insulation, and toilets breaking from wear and tear because they have not been replaced in over a decade.

Now to add insult to injury, they remodeled the chapel in the building and hired some new preacher in place of taking care of the people who relied on their organization. Makes you wonder why a religious chapel would take priority over people here.

Our fire alert system has not been updated in over a decade either, wall heaters have not been cleaned or maintained in about that same time, and sinks are routinely clogging at the base of the building. To get any response from them requires many attempts to contact the staff, and most times we don't even know who to contact.

Then the belligerent neighbor dies, which was a huge drama as he was in the hallway attacking another neighbor while suffering what appeared to be a stroke. Others say it was more than a stroke, but I like to give the benefit of the doubt.

He had a cat living with him, a female the same age as my Rhodey. Now Rhodey is slightly underweight at 7.4 lbs because he has a kidney disease, he should be around 9 lbs if he was healthy.

Six days after he died, during which time two of the neighbors were trying to contact the staff over and over again to get the cat from the apartment, they finally got her to safety and she weighed five lbs. Now when I contacted the only person I can get hold of, Kelli Hurley denied that all this happened, all of it except the death that is.

Then she added that someone else had died and made a snarky remark about me not caring. Here's the thing, I don't care, they're already dead and living people take priority over dead people every time.

Using dead people as an excuse to ignore living people is a huge problem and one that many rumored to have started the whole mess. Remember Peter Mardil, they had informed us that it was the death of someone in one of the other buildings he managed that caused him to simply lose his interest in doing his job.

Assuming what they told of us Peter, which I doubted until tonight, it appears there is a big problem with them wanting people to die in their care so they can use these deaths politically. The problem is that this kind of tactic actually works.

People will donate a lot of money to help the organization deal with the dead person but no one cares at all for the living people who the organization now wants to die. If you see the problem then please do me a favor and contact Compass Housing Authority on every website you can to let them know how fucked up this is, or contact Seattle Housing Authority and let them know you don't approve.

https://www.compasshousingalliance.org/

https://www.seattlehousing.org/

The Corruption of Welfare - Not so Corrupt

There is a hidden problem with joining the future that I rarely discuss, because it's not a problem inherent in technology. The lag of upgrades.

Technology is a sink or swim endeavor, not something that can be done willy nilly or half assed. The most important thing an organization must do is how decent IT personnel.

To better understand this I will use Washington state as an example of how to do it wrong. The specific point of interest is the Department of Social and Human Services.

This organization is notoriously a mess, the majority of workers are lazy and callous. Visiting in person was always the best method to take care of issues, however, visiting in person has an inherent issue with convenience.

The Moyer traditional method is to call by phone, which should have very few problems. This office ha's average wait times of 60 minutes, even if no one if being helped.

So it was great to hear that they finally have an online method available. That is, until you visit their website.

The Washington state DSHS website is designed as poorly as those old Altavista websites designed for people's parrots and gerbils in the 80s. The Lansing page is bland and login links are obfuscated, and none of it is mobile friendly.

When you manage to find the link to create an account they demand you choose a password based on insane criteria, like including a special symbol. This  ensures that you will forget the password in the future.

So you sludge through their poorly conceived login system, but you still have no access to what they want you to complete.

For that, there is another account system you have to find, yes, it is also obfuscated. Then you create a second passcode.

Okay, now you're ready to begin the rebel process, if you can figure out which text word you're suppose to click on. Instead of obvious menus or links, they bury the correct links in the actual text that drones on about different languages and how to get help if you can't read this page in English.

Ladies and gentlemen, the stupid of that one page alone is a threat to the sanctity of the internet. We have not  reached the end of our misadventure yet.

Once you start filling out the forms, you glance at the URL and notice, it now looks like a document on its own. The session ID is probably about 1k of data on it's own, excessive barely covers it.

Assuming your browser and connection are both perfect, in which case you don't need DSHS anyway, you get through and just wait for the letter telling you their decision.

Most browsers or connections will crash, that session ID and the fact they use JavaScript in ways the spaghetti monster never intended.

If you are a poor person who needs this service, you load the browser back up an navigate to the page again. Instead of your application, you are greeted with a warning that you have to wait 30 minutes for the other session to expire.

Yeah, they don't use cookies, and they have no way of tracking your IP address. In server scripts your IP address is very easy to check, even some of the laziest coders will connect that with the session for reconnects.

Alright, 8 hours later you manage to get this all done and now you can rest easy knowing you have renewed your much needed benefits. Then you get the letter explaining that you no longer get any benefits.

You have to call them anyway, wait more than an hour on the phone listening to the annoying voice telling you that it's better to use the system that just screwed it all up in the first place. This is not how you join the future, or save the planet, this is the result of bad hiring practices that result in nerds working positions where geeks should be.

I type this after being on the phone for 55 minutes, my second time trying to call to figure out why my medical renewal was denied in spite of no major changes. I am still waiting for an operator, and I was using my cheap $15 phone's keyboard.

Corrupt to the Core - Welcome to the USA

There is as much corruption in the Democrats and religious liberals as there is in the Republicans and religious conservatives. The difference is how this corruption manifests.

The Republicans are easy to see, they are willing to sacrifice their own voters' lives in order to demonstrate that they are sore losers, and their supporters are so ignorant they blame the Democrats for it. The racism, misogyny, homophobia, and even hatred of asexuality is very evident in their policies and actions.

The Democrats are more subtle, and their supporters are not as easily fooled. The problem is that with the alternative being so horrible, even those of us who see the corruption in the Democrats have no choice but to continue supporting them.

Case in point, the DSHS of Seattle, the ones responsible for making sure everyone is insurable and has food on the table, which the tax payers have voted for and even give them increases at their own expense. Conservatives do it to keep the costs low, collection fees of unpaid medical bills can cost the state more than triple the actual medical bills, delayed treatment can increase the final costs by more than ten times the original costs.

So this system was supported unilaterally by everyone, only the morons and heartless disagreed. In order for the system to work every one who is dependent on it must be treated for all ailments in a manner that allows and encourages a return to the workforce. This is not what is happening.

Instead doctors are seeing this as a blank check, one to he milked until the money is gone, and the state encourages them to do just that. Medical costs are considered for coverage based on the costs of a single visit, not over all costs. Thus means if there is a procedure that will result in a person being capable of working but is over the price of a procedure that is the bare minimum for survival, the state prefers the bare minimum.

The end result is that patients are left with chronic illness and nonthreatening injuries that prevent work, trust me, almost every disabled person would prefer and even enjoy working, going to doctor appointments is tedious and wastes a lot of time as well as costs the tax payer a fortune.

The solution is simple, easy, and cost effective. Pay for what is needed to ensure the patient is healthy and not suffering so they can repay the system in taxes by working. Democrats do not want this anymore than Republicans, both parties profit from suffering and death.

The difference is found because of the supporters, the fact that even the religious Democrats are difficult to fool now means the politicians must tread more cautiously. Neither party wants a healthy country, because in all the healthy countries the masses are not as gullible, the government does not get away with as much, and the people have more power.

This is why the Democrats are attempting to wrest control of information, passing policies under the table while touting battles against inconsequential policies like Net Neutrality. If you don't get that statement, Google SOPA and PIPA, passed without any publicity, under the table, by president Obama himself. Net neutrality as you are told it is never existed anyway.

Back to medicine. Democrats are using insurance as a cover for the real issue, doctors who are abusing the patients for their own profits. Not all doctors are like this, a few will mention that the ACA is doing nothing to help, but the private club mentality prevents many from actually voicing, or even recognizing, the true problem.

Seattle is the perfect example of how this is all failing, and I am now a case study for this. I had severe pain in my side, for those who don't know, I am an eccedentesiast. I hide pain, even from myself, and have an atypically high tolerance to it. My old doctor, who I miss a lot, has been the only person alive who could see past the smile I wear.

For more than four visits to the emergency room, each time right after eating something fatty, they did not diagnose the gallstones that were tearing my gallbladder apart. The reason, as I discovered by the only doctor honest enough to care, was because gallstones are not typical for someone who is not an obese female.

Yep, plain old discrimination caused this diagnosis to be missed, but that is only the beginning. The reason the state wound up paying tens of thousands more, and will be paying millions more now, is because the state discouraged multiple tests. They utilized only one test, the least expensive and least comprehensive one, which is unlikely to spot most ailments, all because the state would be less likely to cover the others if they did not help in diagnosis.

Thus I was forced to return many times over the years, several thousand dollars used for an ambulance each time, then hospital fees of nearly one thousand just for a failed diagnosis. When the tax payers could have instead paid about five thousand total for the initial visit if the doctors were encouraged to get an accurate diagnosis.

This us the corruption caused by the Democrats, the feel good doctors' lobby is what convinced them to enact the conservative ACA, after removing the points that addressed medical malpractice and doctor reapinsibilities.

Currently, DSHS of Seattle is just as corrupt, finding ways to take the tax payers' money and avoid using it on those who need it. They pocket most of it, offering themselves raises and paying employees who rarely do any actual work, then complaining they need more money while not paying for preventative measures.

Welcome to the USA, please deposit your brain in the wastebasket and collect your "hunting" rifle if you're white, if you are not white we have these lovely matching iron bracelets for you. Either way, the government does not want you to think about it.

The Beggar's Truth

The busker, street performer for those who are unfamiliar with the word, are providing a public service. Many even pay rent for their performance spaces or belong to organizations that setup a system for where and when they perform. Often park services will invite them to entertain those enjoying the park, in many inner city parks it's actually the only reason some people go.

They do work off tips, sometimes product sales as well ranging from CDs to paintings. With the modern world they give out business card or flyers with their website addresses to purchase downloads. This is their job, and many enjoy it a lot. They are not "bums" and most have homes.

Their competition are the beggars, who provide nothing but expect people to give them money. The beggars will often make it difficult for the buskers in many ways, taking up space they could use and depleting the chances of garnering a tip when a passerby gives their cash to the beggar first.

Another huge, and often overlooked difference is that beggars are aggressive in most areas. Offer them what they claim the money is for and most often they turn it down. The reason is that many beggars are professionals, they beg for a living and often have homes, and food, even cars. It would not be bad if they were all honest and did not syphon money from those more deserving.

The buskers are almost always polite as well, while the desperate beggar can often be rude, even offensive. The beggar that actually is not wealthy is also typically one who is dishonest in how they spend the money, making beggars, as a whole, undeserving of your cash, save it for the buskers.

In Seattle, we have an alternative to the busker, they sell a newspaper that publishes stories written by homeless people, for one dollar you can learn more about the homeless in your area while you enjoy your coffee or lunch. The paper is called Real Change, and it is a very good program which allows people in need, usually unable to work in any other job, a way to pay rent and buy needs.

If you do want to help those in need and don't have buskers or paper sellers, donate directly to charities. There are many great charities in the developed countries, do some research and help out in a way that works.

So the next time you see a street performer and have some time or cash to spare, enjoy their work and offer a tip in return for their hard work. Please do be kind to them, I have known many in my life and they are great people just trying to get by with a skill they worked hard at. Thanks.

Visit my friend Eido's site for an example of a busker who works for the city at http://poodlepublishing.com/

The Biggest Issues Are Our Smallest Problems

Seattle is one of the least green cities in the USA, in spite of claims made by our tourism industry. Today I want to take the time to explain this in depth, as well as warn tourists what not to expect when visiting this area.

Western Washington is very egocentric these days, people here think it's the best state in spite of some major, and often hidden, flaws. I spent most of my life in Western Washington, as I was growing up I saw a very different region. When we were on the piers we looked out over the Sound to watch the mountains, on clear days you could make out the tall trees.

Today, anything past the shoreline on the other side is shrouded in gray, details lost to the smog. What makes this matter worse is that the city governments continue to claim they are working to keep it all green. None of the policies are actually effective ones, as if they are only pandering for votes.

For example, in Seattle the solution to too much traffic became "let's build a tunnel so more traffic can pass through without having to see how ugly the city has become." I watch the vehicles pass by and most are SUVs or other large vehicles with only one person in them. Mass transit here is fading because Metro and Sound Transit are too greedy.

So our air quality suffers, so much that in less than a week my windowsill is covered in black soot from the cars alone. City and state officials still claim it's not that bad here, some even add insult to injury by claiming we are the most green state in the union.

Now, the nitty gritty stuff. Most businesses here still ban nonhuman animals from their stores based on the state's outdated health regulations. The homeless are often corralled into out if site locations and centers, but we still have a huge problem with people being unable to afford even closet sized apartments.

The cost of living in Western Washington is three time higher than our government reports to the federal government. Most of the homeless in Seattle work. You read that right, many have two jobs but still cannot afford a place to live, especially with the prices of food here and our severely defunded food stamp program ran by a bunch of corrupt and lazy morons who care as much about the people they're suppose to help as one does about dog shut stuck to the bottom of one's shoe.

Why did I revisit all this? Because it's a huge problem with a lot of cities and states in the USA, denial. Many city and state governments want tourism to make up for their bad budgets, but all that does is create a vicious cycle where the citizens wind up with a bigger deficit and the cost of living sky rockets.

By lying about the problems, most cities in the USA are creating a vacuum of poverty, sickness, and pollution. The solution must now come from the people, stop touring. It's that easy, if you want to tour, go to Europe, Canada, or Mexico. Force the local governments to acknowledge the problems they are hiding from, force them to consider actually improving commerce in these cities to build a sustainable economy.

In the USA, we have a tradition of only taking care of issues when they scream at us for attention, look how well that worked for Detroit.

Obamacare - Total Deception

Let's take a quick look at what one of the nearly forgotten policies enacted recently has actually done for the people, specifically, for the patient in need. When the policy was proposed, originally, I knew there was something off about it, there was too much press and too many conflicting explanations from both sides of the political fence. So what I did was read the thing.

Even after modifications made, the law itself is nothing more than a ploy to give insurance companies a free meal ticket. Sure, it stipulates they cannot discriminate for any reason, but if everyone has to buy the insurance they will still accumulate massive compulsory profits. Originally that was all that bothered me, and it's a pretty huge problem. That was before I had to deal with the medical industry at length, which resulted in me doing a bit more work on the issue.

I did one thing that patients are not suppose to do, I looked at my hospital bill. The prices for some things were clearly inflated for no reason. I detailed much of that in previous posts so I won't get into the specifics of what I saw. This was before the law was enacted, this is what the taxpayers had to pay because the doctors won't give me the one surgery I need to get back to work.

Then it hit me, if everyone has to pay into insurance, then no one will have any control of the actual costs of medical care ... except the doctors. Suddenly this house of cards had a basement, a dark and frightening one. The notion that a patient needs insurance to pay for something as simple as an exam is, on it's own, ridiculous. It would be like saying you couldn't buy a loaf of bread, instead you gave your money to this other guy and he bought it for you, but the grocery he went to would decide what bread you got, how old it was, and how much it cost.

That is what insurance really is, it's a middle man that can hide the actual costs from the person who is suppose to benefit from what the actual provider gets to decide is right. All rights to your healthcare, all choices, all your freedom is gone in this scenario. Other countries implemented national health care, and it works. It works because the patient still has control of their healthcare. What we have in the USofA is nothing short of a scam.

Of course both doctors and insurance providers would be on board, and they all were. The amount of profit that doctors and insurance providers get in this bargain is outrageous, especially considering how poorly cared for our patients in the USA already are. We spend more money on healthcare, yet have one of the lowest health ratings in the world, and it has nothing to do with our diets. It has everything to do with our complacency, accepting something that is presented to us on a silver platter, even if it's stale and moldy.

Shelter Life - A Time of Deep Insight

In previous posts I have stated I was "100% passable," that essentially means I have no traits that are considered opposite of my gender identity, even my voice and face offer no reason for anyone to question my gender. While this has produced a lot of complications and resulted in discrimination by the medical industry, it did offer me a very unique position in the shelter system while I was a resident of it. I had informed the staff of my situation, only to reduce the risk of discrimination from them, but the other residents had no idea.

This was not a deception, nor a lie, I never once lied to the residents, they just made their own assumptions and accepted those without question. Who was I to correct them, right? It was their belief and they were, and are, entitled to those beliefs, it is not my right to shatter their beliefs with facts and reality. At the time I just really didn't care, shelter life was about living through the day, and nothing more.

But this very unique position, being an atheist and transgendered, helped me to become more critical of what the women said, their choices of words and conversations. They spoke so openly around me, since I never added anything to the conversations and they believed I was just like them. What I had heard was appalling, today I speak against it all the time, working to dispel the myths and misconceptions I had heard in these times I was incognito.

The very few who managed to figure out what I was, usually by some rather aggressive curiosity, still did not see me as any different than the others, just more informed and a great source of information. The more educated women often turned to me as their encyclopedia of obscure information, information that they had not even considered studying until they met me. I was the sage of the shelters for women, considered wiser than my age, but you had to ask the right questions, or you'd not get the right answers.

The conversations of the others, the ones who never had any reason to consider me different than they were, had become the focus of my attention very quickly. There were other transgendered women in the shelters, one who's brain was scrambled by psychiatric medications for problems she did not really have, another was very young and passable enough as to not be seen as much of a threat, and the last that I knew of was an older one who had fallen prey to the nonsense and become an alcoholic. All the the three were always treated so well to their faces, the women behaved with respect and even acted like they were best friends of these women.

But when these transgendered women were not present, the vile hatred that filled the conversations regarding them was a shocking contrast. Many of the things they said about the one who had given up were so horrible that I cannot repeat them legally, or morally. Sure, she had become weak, fallen into a pit of despair, allowing the negativity of those around her break her own resolve. But that was no reason to hate her, it was only a valid reason to pity, and try to help, this poor creature. But the women honestly hated her, and for reasons that defied logic.

They would refer to her in the inappropriate gender when she was not present, and often say it was unfair she was allowed in their shelter. Before I left, I had already signed my lease and was working to leave so I saw no reason to remain the observer, I confronted one, asking why it is they believed a shelter was a place for sexual activity. It was at that moment they realized just who had been watching them for all that time, who was taking notes, and the look of horror on their face, the raw guilt of knowing they were complicit, was worth having endured hearing those horrible words they spewed.

Last I had seen, she was no longer a bigot, but instead treated everyone equally. Such a drastic change in a person, I was given hope for humanity by it. The damage she had done could never be repaired, but she was no longer a threat to humanity because of one simple question. The transgendered woman is still in that deep dark pit though, sadly, it does not appear she has the strength to lift herself from it, drowning her pain in alcohol. She could help so many people with her own story, if only she'd see the value of them.

The younger one was very stereotypical, one of those transgendered women who seemed to be only interested in sex and clothing. When I first met her I thought she may be a lost cause, that some people will just be stereotypes. I did speak with her, often helping her out when I could, offering a hand in friendship to her as often as I could. The other women seemed to have almost no interest in her, even when she was out of sight they didn't gossip about her at all. It was as if those who fit the stereotypes were somehow better than those who didn't, to them. That bothered me more than the gossip though, accepting that stereotypes are better is essentially saying we are all robots with predefined personalities.

I could never bring myself to tell her how much damage she was doing to the transgendered community as a whole, because even if she was a stereotype, it was still her choice to be who she wanted to be. It was that internal conflict that probably encouraged me to be so kind to her, it never occurred to me that sharing my story may change profoundly alter her perspective. She was an interesting person, often upbeat and without a care in the world. I was envious of her at those times, how even the worst of life couldn't touch her.

At that time I had started getting into a routine, which is the worst thing to do when living in a shelter, you become a permanent fixture of that culture. It felt like I had lost the will to fight, the will to cause change in the world. So I just regarded her as a distant friend, one who I would help when I could, when it was convenient. I should have become more involved in her life and formed a much stronger bond, but hindsight is always better.

She got out of the shelter system before I had, of course she had discovered what I was before that and seemed to regard me with some pity, and some respect. I ran into her one day, much later, and it was like seeing a different person, not just different, but a complete person. Her knowing me had altered her own perception of herself so much that I now saw a beautiful young, intelligent, and secure lesbian.

A rather surprising turn in what I had known, she had broken free of living the stereotype and become someone unique who no longer cared what society thought, and no longer behaved how society expected her to behave. I felt as if I had just seen a daughter graduate from higher education, at least I imagine the feeling was the same. I do not know where she is now, but I am certain she is well and happy.

The third transgendered woman, the one who's mind was destroyed by psychiatrists, I had never known her prior to that. Though I could say she is the second friend of mine that psychiatry has killed. You see, I always defended her, stood up for her even against those in charge. She is also what has encouraged me to actively fight against psychiatry, to take it to their throats. She was a very well educated nurse, before the psychiatrists got hold of her, well adjusted, pleasant. The people who knew her before they killed her would reminisce about how great of a person she was.

I had made friends with many of the staff, and one in particular had known this woman for many years, and seen what horrible monsters the medical community is to transgendered people. The staff member was a cis woman, one of those women who truly treated everyone equally and had no hangups at all. I am honored to call her a friend, but it was her who had informed me of the sad tale of the transgendered woman who was slaughtered by psychiatrists in the guise of helping her.

She had an emotional breakdown, a very common thing for many humans, our minds can only take so much stress before this happens. The best treatment for such a case is to place them in a safe environment and allowing them to just work it out in their heads. This is the only treatment that has ever worked, ever. But that is not what they did. Instead, the psychiatrist used her being transgendered as an excuse to declare her unfit, then force her to take medications that completely destroyed her. That is murder, it is a form of murder that is not only legal, but considered acceptable by everyone.

When she was finally released her mind was completely shattered. She could no longer differentiate between reality and imagination, her perception of reality was so skewed that she could not even remain focused on one task. She had a place to live, but kept returning to the shelter, the last place she had ever felt safe in. She had to be reminded to bathe, could not manage her own bowels or urination, and went on incoherent rants.

She would let very few people near her, trust was gone, and rightfully so. With no friends, and the one time she trusted some stranger they killed her, she was lost in a maddening cloud of reality and delusion. I still cry thinking about it, knowing full well that if I give them a chance, they will do that to me as well, just for being different then them. The rather peculiar part, something very few people knew, was that she would talk to me. Though I could only understand some of what she said, I listened to every word.

I always treated her with respect, always kind to her, never once did I mock or get angry with her. Sometimes her delusion would overpower her behavior, and she'd become a bit of a nuisance, others would scream and yell at her, demanding she be quiet and settle down. I'd glare at them for a moment until they were all silent, then calmly, politely, and respectfully ask her to calm down. The sheer anger of the other women when she would apologize to me for being too noisy was something of a mixed emotion. On one hand, it felt good to let them know that I was more capable of handling the situation than they were, but it was a horrible notion to think that they did not understand why my method worked better.

All our lives, the transgendered people are told what we should do, how we should act, what we should be. All our lives we are considered outcasts yet also expected to conform to being outcast. We are rarely ever offered any real choice in our lives, we treat everyone with kindness, treat everyone equally, and offer help when we can. But when we need help, when we are forced to put ourselves into dangerous situations, we are the ones blamed for it, always. We are scorned, tormented, beaten, and discarded. People feign friendship, then wish us harm when we are not present, insult us when we make even a tiny mistake.

Is it not enough that we have more problems to deal with socially? No, of course not, the medical industry does not care about us, they are just as abusive to us. When the safest place for a transgendered is in the shelters, there is something wrong with your society. It's not our problem, it's not our flaw, it's society that is wrong. When hospitals turn us away for simple needs, or worse offer us to the butchers we call psychiatrists, where can we turn for our health? When everything we do right is considered wrong, why should we continue to conform to your ideals? When we abandoned by those we once cared about, why should we care about anyone but our own?

Society does not teach us well, young and old, the transgendered community has no reason to regard society as important, nor valuable to us. Yet, we are all still have such kind hearts as to still hold out our hands in aid, not only to our own, but to other people. Who is the purest in a society, if not the one who society harms most?

Transgendered Asexual - Contradiction or Misconception?

Often people will incorrectly assume a person who is transgendered is inherently sexual, even excessively sexual. But in reality, transgender only refers to a person's gender, not their sexuality at all. A transgendered person can be gay, straight, or even bisexual ... or asexual. The problem here lies in the fact that people still have several misconceptions, not only about transgendered people, but also asexual people.

The most common myth I hear is that people cannot be asexual. That patently false, humans cannot reproduce asexually like bacteria or viruses, but they can lack sexual desires and attractions. This results in a lack of sexual orientation, dating does not count as sex, nor is sexual attraction required to love someone else, of any gender. The entire culture of false dichotomies has produced more myths and misconceptions than one could cover in a single blog post, and here I am focusing on these two specifically.

In reality, sexuality, as I have addressed in a previous blog post, cannot be simplified into only two categories, or labels. Asexual people are the most forgotten and oppressed of all sexual types, because of the false dichotomies. Many people do not even consider bisexuals to be real, another victim of the same false dichotomy. Gender is one of the most common false dichotomies as well.

A transgendered person is not going to inherently want to be the opposite gender, there is, and has to be, a lot of gray there. Some want to be non-gendered, as in having absolutely no gender identity or even identifying traits at all, yet society will not accept these people. To make matters worse, even transgendered people will not accept the ones who are in the gray areas as well. I have been a victim of the latter. In life I am literally 100% passable, even when I attempted to be male people would often ask if I was really a female, I had no simple answer for them at the time.

I am one of those in the gray area, but when push comes to shove I enter the role of female only because society will not allow me the neutral gender, having no gender or genitals is simply not an option, according to society and medical doctors. This part is key, the medical community denies that people could want to live both sexless and genderless. Which is contrary to what science has discovered recently. Not only do people with sexless and genderless roles exist, we are abused more by medical personnel than anyone else.

I have avoided adding my voice to this, mainly because I am completely passable as a female that I have a unique opportunity to witness the hatred for transgendered people from the other side, to hear the women who, in front of one they know being transgendered will be kind to them, say vile and disgusting things about them when not in their presence. This hidden hatred has bothered me, and I have done what I can to combat it, and due to a development in my life which may mean serious problems, I have decided to finally dive into my problems.

Homosexuals have almost attained equality, the finish line is in sight and the majority are now willing to see such problems as they are instead of shying from them. Transgendered will gain this equality next, the time for them is near, however the non-gendered will still be left in the closets, along with the asexual and bisexual people. So will the other gender identities, like the cross-gendered. The answer the medical community has for all these variations is to diagnose them as psychologically unstable, then sweep the under the carpet.

I have had a run through the system, just admitting what I am to a psychiatrist gave him the sudden urge to get me locked away, of course he did not realize he was dealing with someone who was just as manipulative as he is and I was released as quickly. I have learned how to play any and all medical systems now, I am not one to take being abused without learning how to abuse them in return. I am still stuck on disability, it is difficult, if possible at all, to get a business to hire you when you are diagnosed with depression, in spite of the fact that depression is the most mild of all the disabilities and those of us with that diagnosis can, and often want to, work just as well as any other employee.

So now it is time to expose the system for how corrupt and abusive it really is. I have addressed much of the problems with psychiatrists and medical doctors in previous posts, showing how they can be just as abusive in general to everyone. Now I will explain how they are wasting billions of your tax dollars on a minority so small that a single person could actually count us. I will give you two minorities for the price of one, seeing as how I belong to the two smallest of the smallest minority groups in the world.

Yes, billions on two groups of people that account for such a small number as to be countable without the inaccuracy of statistical math, and that's putting both groups together as one. What the medical community does when you admit to being asexual is assume you are lying. They will often run you through a battery of tests, often at the expense of the taxpayers, that are completely unnecessary, which often causes them to miss any real problems that eventually grow into something worse, which the taxpayer has to pay for correcting later at an even greater expense. All this amounts to a lot of money for one patient being bled from the state and federal funds. Simply so they can deny that the person is what they admit to being.

Yes, an asexual person will not need most tests for STDs, yet I am often tested, unknowingly, for all of them. These are not cheap tests, I  am tested for them because being transgendered they assume I am lying about being asexual. When I had the gallstone attacks, the only things they tested me for were STDs and other less common ailments, gallstones are quite common in those with low testosterone, women and any transgendered women. This means they ignored one key part of my medical history, just to deny that I was what I admitted to being, there was no need to check for STDs without first eliminating the more common ailments.

The end result was a surgery that was complicated because of the delay in diagnosis, which cost the state several thousand dollars. It could have cost about $1K, maybe even less, had there been no complications, however the complications also called for a lengthy hospital stay for recovery, which included meals of course. Luckily the hospital I was at had wonderful food, but I didn't feel like eating much so I didn't jack up much of a bill there, you're welcome. This is not uncommon, not for people like me, however, since I am part of a very small minority you will not see much in the media about it, even online you'd be hard pressed to find many of us.

The other is that the state could fund for a surgery that would cost a couple thousand dollars, done by professionals who have actual training. Instead they would rather force us to get an unnecessary surgery, and instead pay for hospitalization caused by complications due to not getting the simpler version. Not only that, but the more expensive surgeons lack in training, plastic surgeons do not have the stringent requirements a urologist does, nor the specialization in that particular area, which means it's a high risk procedure on it's own. Now I do say unnecessary, for asexual transgendered people specifically. We don't want the genitals, and it's not a sexual thing, we have no interest in sex and thus the entire surgery would simply be a waste.

Now, the part you pay for, the taxpayer. Often to hide the genitalia a transgendered woman, or asexual transgendered, must use method which commonly reduce the circulation to that particular body part. Medical doctors warn against purposefully removing the circulation, it can cause blood clots, and even other dangerous conditions long after you stop. These are paid for by the taxpayers, the conditions and ailments caused by reducing circulation. Instead of offering the simple procedure, cost effective one, to us willing to accept them, they insist on forcing us to wait.

Now, if you are still reading all this, you will see that there is a suspicious pattern to all of this. My previous posts about medical practitioners should now make much more sense, and demonstrate why I have pointed out that greed drives them all. Well, greed and power, but mostly greed. I have been told, indirectly, by medical professionals that I am lying about what I am, psychiatrists often look at me with disdain, even hatred. But on realizing that my life may be cut short soon, and that I may not have any reason to be happy about dying, I will be more aggressive against these vile monsters, the medical professionals who have almost allowed me to suffer to death, and who continually ignore the fact that I may have an issue between my legs which will eventually cost taxpayers millions.

Nothing they do now will be in the dark. That includes those doctors at Virginia Mason hospital, and those at Harborview hospital that seemed to want me to die.