Maëlys McArdle

Blog

  • Anti-trans and anti-gay rallies across Canada, deconstructed

    Anti-trans and anti-gay rallies across Canada, deconstructed

    Following the failure to portray gay people as an existential threat, conservatives have shifted to trans people’s increasing acceptance as the latest wedge issue. Supported by an ecosystem of American conservative television, British tabloids, reactionary content creators, and a long-standing history of homophobia and transphobia domestically, these forces have resulted in the biggest rallies against gender and sexual minorities in Canadian history. These actions are enabled by legacy media and public institutions that overlook the unhinged bigotry of its organizers, the bomb threats and physical intimidation of its adherents, and sanitizes the genocidal views expressed while depicting them as mere opinion.

    Polling and political trends suggests that the virulent transphobia being observed will only get worse.

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  • Childlessness, Grief & Future

    This May will mark ten years since I went to the fertility clinic to freeze my sperm. I’m don’t think I will renew this year. The way I saw it, I had three options to conceive a child:

    • Doing so with a partner
    • Going solo with adoption
    • Going solo with a friend as surrogate

    The opportunity for the first has passed. I’m single, it would take me five years to be comfortable with a partner to consider having a child, and I don’t want to be fifty with a five year old. The second didn’t ever appear like an option: I could never afford a house and the middle-class appearance that was its entry requirement. The third was what I had my hopes for doing, and a friend had volunteered to be that surrogate. She was not going to be able to co-parent full-time and wanted to live away, so I would be the primary caregiver.

    It took me years to be emotionally ready. When I finally was, I realized I couldn’t do it. I had watched those around me with young children: they were often two parents, with dual incomes, each’s own parents and grandparents helping with childcare. They barely held on in the early years. How could I pull off taking care of an infant alone while also working full-time to make ends meet without any meaningful support. A few single parents I knew were doing alright, but some were really suffering, even now that their kids were older. The same day I went to tell my friend who agreed to be a surrogate that I wouldn’t be able to do it, she was going to tell me that she also was no longer able to do so, as the country she had since moved to had outlawed it.

    Part of this was self-inflicted. I came out of my youth with a fair amount of psychological maladaptations, which caused me to poison relationships, as well as made me enter relationships with emotionally underdeveloped individuals. I was both a cause of harm in my relationships with others, and accepted the harm others did to me. It’s only now, after years of therapy, conversations, and rock bottoms, that I’ve overcome most of these maladaptations. Had I been better adjusted younger, I would have maybe been in a long-term relationship by now, with a house, and who knows. Or not.

    Whatever the case, time doesn’t pause, and now I’m here, in middle-age.

    Being childless does open some doors: I can travel any time of year, anywhere. There’s no school or extracurricular schedule to work around, or child whose experience I’d want to prioritize. I can live anywhere – no need to move close to a school. Likewise, as I wouldn’t want to remove a child from their social network at school, I wouldn’t be tethered to that proximity to their school like I would be had I a child. I have much more time to pursue interests, and money to do it with – at least compared to single parents. So while I wish I could be a mom, I know that my friends who have children (and love them!) wish they could sometimes enjoy the long uninterrupted night’s sleep and spare time and freedom they once had. I can do that.

    Not that I haven’t felt anger and envy – I have. But those are a manifestation of wanting a different outcome. When that’s no longer realistically possible, those feelings can become a crutch, and artificially make life more miserable. So I accept my circumstances, allow myself to feel that sorrow, and open myself to appreciating the unique opportunities I have. That is a recipe for a higher quality of life.

    To those well-meaning people who want to offer platitudes that deny the reality of my circumstances, I won’t accept them. “There’s still time” – yeah sure, until I’m dead I suppose. But to me that sounds like keeping myself in an unrealized state for the emotional comfort of others who are uncomfortable with this “unhappy” ending. It doesn’t allow for acceptance, grief, and moving on.

  • International Chess Federation Bans Trans Women

    International Chess Federation Bans Trans Women

    The International Chess Federation, FIDE, has banned trans women from participating in women’s events in a new policy:

    In the event that the gender was changed from a male to a female the player has no right to participate in official FIDE events for women until further FIDE’s decision is made. Such decision should be based on further analysis and shall be taken by the FIDE Council at the earliest possible time, but not longer than within 2 (two) years period.

    Trans men meanwhile risk demotion:

    If a player holds any of the women titles, but the gender has been changed to a man, the women titles are to be abolished. Those can be renewed if the person changes the gender back to a woman and can prove the ownership of the respective FIDE ID that holds the title. The abolished women title may be transferred into a general title of the same or lower level (e.g., WGM may be transferred into FM, WIM into CM, etc.).

    If a player has changed the gender from a man into a woman, all the previous titles remain eligible.

    The implication from these two policies is that women are less intelligent than men, and their titles are worth less. There’s an absurdity to this.

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  • Towards a burn-out world

    Towards a burn-out world

    For the third time in my career in tech, I’m experiencing burn-out.

    Part of it has to do with working at a start-up. But I think much of it can be attributed to what it’s like working white collar jobs in 2023, compared to twenty, thirty, forty years ago.

    The promise of advancing tech was a reduction in workload. Yes it automated straight-forward tasks, but the vacuum did not provide a reprieve. Those tasks were simply replaced with ones requiring a higher cognitive load. Eliminated were the inherent breaks of walking to the printer or now with GitHub Copilot, even writing easy code. I always have to be “on”.

    Then there’s communication. Whereas before you could only have a conversation with one person at a time or spend time drafting a letter – it’s now commonplace to have three conversations simultaneously on Slack. Again, no break. That’s also why I look at Shopify’s derision of meetings with dismay; I get it – meetings can be a waste, but it’s yet more mental pauses eliminated.

    Finally, work used to end with leaving the office. That’s not standard anymore. Like so many in this business, I’m regularly on call and not compensated for it; when I’m not on call I’m still expected to be reachable 24/7, and my days get stretched by the other timezones some of our colleagues are in. Part of that is a scope creep to my occupation; we’re not just writing code but making sure production stays up, while taking advantage of that attention to pump out more features with less testing, causing more downtime.

    I’m so exhausted. On my weekdays, I get up, go to work, and then as soon as I’m done I go to bed. The only time I have energy to do anything is on weekends. And yet I feel fortunate – I’ve watched so many careers outright vanish as a result of automation with nothing to replace them, and more yet face significant reductions in quality of life.

    I feel bleak about it; everything is trending worse not better.

  • I’m addicted to my phone

    I’m addicted to my phone

    I have heard a definition of addiction as being “an increasing and compulsive tendency to avoid, pain, boredom, silence, inner development, and moral responsibility by displacing it with outer stimulation.”

    Jim John Payne, Being at your best when your kids are at their worst

    I’ve been having a good few weeks. I took a five hour trip to Midland to attend their Butter Tart festival. I’ve been on the water with my kayak. I’ve gone to the Fringe Festival and watched a friend perform a one-person show. I went to a small town to watch another pal sing. I attended both Asian night markets. I ate delicious ice cream at a queer vegan snack event. The Great Glebe Garage Sale was a hoot. I participated in a Jeep meet. There’s more I’m forgetting.

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