Darth Fluffy

First of all, allow me to respond to your position that I may be projecting. I will not reject it outright or even at all as it has merit and deserves discussion; I will merely present counterarguments.
I am not speaking of my own experiences alone. I myself have learned many of the things I speak of from the trans community. In fact, I did not even acknowledge these experiences in myself until I had struggled with them for a long time. My journey to discovering my identity has taken me many, many years. I do not even know if it is complete yet; I just know far more about myself than I used to.
If you had asked her at seventeen, she might well have denied it indignantly -- out of mortal terror of what would happen if the male identity slapdashed and grafted on her was stripped away. You do realise what happens to many, many trans people who come out? You do realise that the general conception of society of us is still that we are unnatural, perverts, sexually deviant? I had thoroughly internalised those beliefs by the time I reached puberty. If someone had asked me if I were really a girl then, I would almost certainly have rejected it -- not out of belief, but out of fear.
I still wish someone actually had. It might have made me confront myself much, much sooner rather than going halfway and then stopping -- over and over again.
Let me be honest here.
It comes from experience. From a LONG experience of offending people, and not understanding why. And of all too often thinking of them that they were taking offense beyond all reason and that they were just being thin skinned. I am not a saint. I am not even a teacher. I can be a complete and utter shithead, and I often am. If you ask @CritterKeeper, for example, she can tell about how I once used the word 'retard' in the French sense of 'delay/delayed', and I got all snooty and up in arms over her insistence that I could be misunderstood and that I was being insulting even unintentionally. I mean,  people could just know French. Not my problem if they were ignorant and thin-skinned... right?
Good. I am glad. I also understand you have difficulties understanding what she is going through, and that is normal. I am experiencing the same from my own loved ones. As to me being unreasonable... well. Part of it comes from sheer frustration of having such a hard time communicating how I feel. Another part of it comes from miscommunications. If I can't communicate why I am angry and unhappy, of course I come across as unreasonable. :|
This is a very complex subject to discuss. I shall attempt to simplify; please be aware that while I am informed on the matter, I am not an expert and I am building on what the trans community has taught me and experts in psychology, psychiatry and general medicine have worked out as a consensus. I urge you to not rely on me alone. But be careful which sources you trust. A great deal of disinformation and transphobic propaganda masquerading as reputable sources cloud the debate.
But in brief: when we are born, we are assigned a gender, usually but not always based on our external genitalia. (The exceptions would be those children who are born with mixed or otherwise unusual sex characteristics.) I was assigned male at birth, or AMAB. Other children get assigned female, obviously. And society takes it all from there.
The problem with that is that not all children fit their obvious assignment. I am not only speaking of outright trans people here. There are those that are genderfluid, agender, only weakly gendered, those who see themselves as fitting both genders... and none of us fit within the existing gender binary. And yet when we experience dissonance as we grow up, we are in no uncertain terms informed that even admitting to feeling this way would get us marked as deviant, perverted, mentally ill, dangerous to our surroundings. (In Denmark, being transgender was classified as a mental illness until 2013.) Is it any wonder that so many of us retreat into denial rather than confronting society and telling it that it is wrong?
And yes, I wore the boy's clothes and accepted the boy's toys. I didn't have a choice, after all, except to insisting on behaving in a manner that everybody knew was deviant. I was afraid to. This didn't stop me from being called a 'girly boy', mocked and scorned by the other children, never really fitting in and finally collapsing when the stress became too much for me. I am very happy for your daughter that she discovered her true identity so much faster than I did, and thankful to you for what you have done for her so far. I am merely saying that you can do so much more.
Good. Please remember it. It would be best if you could internalise that, too, for it would make your life with her much happier and it would make her happier, too.
Mostly from all the other trans people I know who have all experienced similar events or worse. <sigh> My friend Sandra Bond consistently got misgendered by her parents and suffered as a result. She attempted suicide at least once. These are experiences common to trans people. They are not mine alone. Of course that means that I am projecting ALL of our experiences on her... but since she herself has studied us and proclaimed herself one of us, I feel that I have at least some justification in doing so.
Of COURSE she was! I was not accusing you and I apologise if I came across like that. We are all a product of our culture and we live, breathe, eat and drink it on a daily basis. That is the entire basis for why so many trans people have so many problems because our culture has little or no room at all for us in its conception.
It was not accusations. It was statement of fact. You cannot help your internalised homophobia and transphobia. They have been spoonfed to you since childhood. So were mine. I had equally wrongful ideas when I grew up and they nearly destroyed me. For that matter, I also happened to have heaping amounts of internalised misogyny, racism, religious intolerance, nationalism and not least ableism.
It may help to think of it this way: 'internalised prejudices' are the ones we do not think about because we were taught never to question them. Just like a mere eight hundred years ago we would have been taught that the Earth was flat and the centre of the Universe, and we wouldn't have questioned that, either. Until we got really good reason to do so, of course, and even then it is by no means certain that we would have been able to reject the ideas that formed the foundation of our childhood.
And that is another problem. These sites do exist but they are bewildering and confusing and they are not conveniently organised. I fully respect your troubles because I have similar issues myself; you merely have the additional handicap of not having the personal experience that guides you to, "Yes, this rings true."
I suggest you ask your daughter to help you, if you haven't already. Or, if you wish, I can tell you what my own father and I have experienced once we have worked on it a bit more. I admit that is taking a liberty, but I hope it won't offend you. I apologise if it does.
Absolutely. I agree with the above from your point of view -- I have seen it from the other side and I do not in any way impute malice or ill will to you. But by the same token, remember that she is very likely equally frustrated because what seems so obvious to her is so hard for her to explain to you.
I am not going to say this with any kind of certainty for in this case I am projecting, but it sounds to me as if she is far more angry at the situation than she is at you. I have no idea if that helps any, though.
Quite true. Just remember, trans experiences are as valid to us as cis experiences are to you. The big problem is that there is an immense disparity in the social power of cis and trans people, which means that when you hurt us even unintentionally, the differential in power amplifies that hurt. You cannot help that, of course. It is just another facet of the situation.
Me, too. But at the end of the day results are what matters. <sigh>
I understand that feeling from having felt it myself. It's just that in my experience when I have it, I have been wrong in a lot of cases. And when someone's life and happiness is at stake, it is not a good time to be wrong.
All of these are possible. I have gone through all of them myself. I have come within an inch of destroying myself from doing exactly these things and only the support and trust of very good friends saved me from it. The number of trans suicides seems to hint at not all trans people being as fortunate as me.
I am sorry.

Nice. I think I posted this link before.

Speaking of tests.
I just read the following story. A group of adventurers faced the old conundrum with doors they had to go through and two guards, one who always lied, one who always told the truth.
Wizard: Oooh, I know this one. You have to ask --
Barbarian: <brutally murders one of the guards with his axe>
Barbarian: <asks the other guard> This guy still alive? <points at the corpse with his blood-dripping axe>
Guard: Yes.
Barbarian: <jabs thumb at the surviving guard> This one liar.

This same comic proves that EGS exists in a fantasy world where a huge black man can hide in a bush at night in a rich white suburb of Chicago without being arrested.

Then read obituaries to see if you have the day free ...

Once upon a party cheery, Whilst discussing Magic Theory
Over many a plate of pizza and d'oeuvre hors
In the basement close to cave in, came the spawn of Adrian Raven
Entering Tedd's tiny haven through the basement door
When will these ladies allow us their relation to explore?
Quoth the Ravens, "Nevermore"

Not to mention a steady flow of applicants for the annual Darwin Awards.

 

The advantages of having grown up in the grade school generation previous to pocket calculators becoming ubiquitous in school!

I think we have a better handle on the notion of infinities than we do on finite, but very large numbers that we can't even notate.

I think we have a better handle on the notion of infinities than we do on finite, but very large numbers that we can't even notate.

Nor Grace, she is the Shade Tail in the main comic universe, and she has been important for Tedd's development.
In the brief Beta Tedd interaction, Beta Tedd seemed well adjusted with no evidence of either Shade Tail, and was in a relationship with Ellen, so that supports your point that Elliot and Ellen are more crucial.
Lord Tedd has Nioi, who may not be a girlfriend, but is definitely a positive factor; Elliot/Ellen appears to be absent. She sees him in a different light, perhaps manipulated by General Shade Tail, but we've seen contradictory panels where he is attempting to proactively kill off other Tedds, apparently on his own initiative. I kind of figure Dan's plans for this story line changed, kind of like how Susan and Diane were morphed and recycled.
Ellen's dream world Tedd says, "I'm no good." as a child, apparently a self assessment of his own personality (he was good at kickball, meaning he wasn't referring to that.)
In Magus's universe, Tera and Ellen seem to have some kind of at least friend relationship. It's not at all clear what her negative side would be without him, nor if it has manifested in his absence. Probably doesn't help that she was personally involved in his disappearance,  and it seems that an unspecified third party set him up.
It is not at all clear why Tedd has issues in multiple universes. Bullying and early estrangement are likely common factors, and the ones we've seen appear to be similarly gifted with magic abilities and perhaps technical tinkering, although Tera seems to have more of a direct casting ability, which Tedd cannot do. The key factor of abandonment by his mother is only stated for the main  universe.
Honestly, the multi-universe aspect is not my favorite part of the comic, and I'm glad it's on the back burner. There's enough happening in the main universe.
 

It is surprisingly decent entertainment, if you're into it. We have a decent minor league team in our area, and I go occasionally; I'll watch the game, but it's more about hanging out with friends for me.
I've played an awful lot of baseball/softball (a baseball is harder, and a bit smaller) when I was in middlin' early years of school; it wasn't optional.

No no, I am very familiar with baseball analogies. It's what you think of whenever you feel exceptionally horny. I have never seen a baseball game but I assume that these things are essentially the next best thing to hardcore porn.

Cat had knittens.

They can rebuild them!

I can attest that this was a real thing that happened, back in the day. An Air Force sergeant that I knew who was massively fit kept getting nailed for the fat boy program. He didn't look like he had enough fat on him to make a pat of butter. Much later, they started pinching or dunking to test the obvious.
 
 

The Moderator: Due to current events I have chosen to reopen the political discussion thread for the use of forum members. As usual, I request of the forumgoers that you apply courtesy and common sense to the posts here. I myself am very concerned, and while I do not feel free to join into general discussion here I nonetheless feel that I owe it to posters here to provide them with an outlet for their own concerns.
~tOH.

Squirrels are already unbearably cute
If they chose to dress, they would be fashion obsessed and spending all their resources on the latest styles
They would turn from petty annoyances into thieves, stealing to acquire the means to acquire designer labels

Don't worry, I was just doing a stupid and weak similarity joke about 'concrete.'
And that's the way it is...

Now you have me wondering. Is there such a thing as informal logic? Or is that when the logicians are being really relaxed about things, like, when they just can't be arsed and, oh, gag me with a differential equation it's all just so stilted and why do we even bother we're all friends around here aren't we.
No, I looked it up and there is such a thing as informal logic and it isn't quite what I describe above. Too bad, I rather liked the idea.

Hah! You think that's complex? Imagine how it revolutionised the world of carts and wheels when someone worked out how to grease axles!

But what is the airspeed of an African Grace carrying a coconut?

Not to mention that 1920s and early 1930s Germany was being treated as Europe's whipping boy.
 

That is not funny.
Germany does not deserve the poor reputation it has merely for falling prey to corruption and political malfeasance. Few nations could lay claim to being safe from a similar fate, as current events amply prove.