Notices by Cait the Proud Trans Woman (oldladyplays@wargamers.social), page 2

9/10

It feels like a military inevitability at this point. That the Russian troops are near to break point, and some small impetus can push them over the line into a rabble fleeing the war, instead of a formed force.

The Ukrainians won’t be able to just sweep forward and take their land back, of course. The Russians have been flattening everything between the Russian border and the front lines, building minefields, and all kinds of nastiness. It will take time for Ukraine to carefully move forward and occupy the abandoned Russian positions, and more time to push the borders back where they started ten or more years ago.

There. That’s it. That’s my entire thesis here.

I believe the final blow will be when Europe finally seizes the money frozen in European banks that is nominally Russian. That 300 billion will become, I expect, the Rebuilding Fund for the start of Ukraine’s return to normalcy.

And make no mistake. They had help in supplied weapons to be sure. That helped them stabilize the lines, and keep the Russians held still. Then they kicked their brain trust into gear, and started flat-out outthinking the Russians.

This is, in the end, going to be a Ukrainian victory. Helped by allies, to be sure, but they’re the ones who have paid in blood and lives and ruined cities, and they’re the ones who I believe deserve the credit for the victory I see them compiling. This war will be studied endlessly for its tactical innovations, AND strategic innovations, showing ways in which a smart smaller country can ju-jitsu a much larger country into losing itself the war it started.

7/10

Right, so we're more or less up to date with where it is now.

Why do I think it will end soon?

Because the money has run out. They're using increasingly extreme measures to bolster the war chest, snaking cash from oligarchs to "show their patriotism". Forcing banks to turn over their deposits to the regime. Customers' money.

Obviously, this cannot continue forever.

We are now in a spot where Russia cannot move frorward. But they can't retreat, either, because Putin will order executions of people who take even one step back (shades of Hitler, huh?).

Putin, meanwhile, is well aware that if he loses the war, or accepts a ceasefire or worse a peace deal that doesn't give him control of Ukraine, he's finished. He'll be deposed or betrayed by someone with enough force to make it stick, and he'll end up either dead or fleeing the country to somewhere he can be safe. Probably the Gulf States. Where he can live in peace with his vast hoard of stolen Russian money. Because would you give odds that he's let all those oligarchs plunder the treasury without getting some of the action himself? That he's willing to let oligarchs have more money than he gets?

No way. I feel confident in suggesting he's squirreled away amounts that make any two or three oligarchs pale in comparison.

So they can't move forward. Can't move back. Can't stop the Ukrainians' relentless strikes on their oil infrastructure. With the recent addition of real-time satellite intel from the US about Russia's back areas, Ukraine have become even more effective at avoiding the sparse remaining air defences.

The Ukrainians, then, with sheer brilliance, have manufactured the classic Russian defence strategy, *without* trading a couple of thousand km of their land in doing it.

10/10

In the end, Ukraine is now one of the predominantly skilled military forces in Europe. They will make a lot of money after the war, sending their troops to teach the rest of NATO to fight the Ukrainian way.

And Russia? Well, Russia may well end up breaking apart. Independence movements are making unusual amounts of noise in the East, Siberia and several other regions as well. And Russia no longer has the troops to quell those movements effectively. Or the gas to get them there. Or the money to pay them.

It might well be that the Russian empire completely vanishes in a puff of Putin’s hubris.

Happy to hear critiques. I can be wrong about things, I concede. These are predictions, based on the progress of the situation, and what information I’ve been able to gather from various sources. Obviously, predictions are only as good as they turn out to be accurate.

So maybe I will look like a fool in four months, when Russia busts a move and suddenly rushes forward?

But I’m pretty confident that won’t be the case.

Fin.

Okay, a promised infodump.

So, the war on Ukraine. By Russia. To be utterly clear from the beginning about whose choice this was.

Ukraine has fought this war with an incredible application of sheer brainpower: innovation after innovation, new tactics, new technology, homemade weapons, incredible things.

And they haven't just fired them off randomly to just cause Russian deaths.

They've actually built an incredible strategy based on turning the Russian myth of invincibility upside down.

So first I need to explain that myth, where it comes from, and why it's a mythmaking exercise, and not at all what it's sold as.

First, then, we need to look at Napoleon Bonaparte. The first one.

When he invaced Russia, in 1812, he did so from a start line more or less in modern Poland. He gathered 600,000 troops, from several forcibly allied nations. And off the went to take Moscow. So they marched and they marched, and as they marched, the summer passed, and autumn came. By this time their supply lines were literally thousands of km in length. In a time with no railroads or air transport, that was a HUGE distance. Everything that moved moved by horsepower, or mulepower.

The Russians didn't stand and fight. They fought delaying actions, while their troops destroyed supplies, broke down shelters, and basically scorched the earth for the incoming French armies.

This meant that they couldn't forage from the countryside, as had been Napoleon's innovation earlier in the Napoleonic wars. His men would march much more quickly than other troops, and did so spread out enough to be able to feed themselves by basically taking everything the nearest peasants had. Ruining those people's existence, of course, but keeping themselves fed.

In Russia, this was no longer possible. All supplies had to be brought a couple of thousand km to the front, a wagonload at a time.

1/10

2/10

Right. The French are now nearing their goal. Moscow is on the horizon. They face the Russians at Borodino, in a huge, chaotic battle, and really, neither side wins a victory. Both sides claimed it, but it wasn't clear for either side.

France didn't proceed, but the Russians didn't break them either.

So now it's late autumn, and the Russians now call on their long-time ally, General Moroz. Moroz is "frost" in Russian.

Meaning, the Russian winter arrived. The French, had Moscow. But they had no supplies getting in, and the Russian government had pulled out. Left the empty city to the French. Who could do nothing with it of value.

Napoleon paused. For several weeks, as I recall, he vacillated. By the time he figured out that retreat was called for, it was too late. Winter had arrived.

Now they had to make that 2000-lm+ trek back to their start line, only this time with Russian Cossack cavalry harrying their every move, picking off stragglers, and generally pushing them to keep moving. People started to die in the cold, and of lack of supplies. They were strarving.

On and on the retreat went, more haggard every day, until a meagre total of 60,000 men struggled back to Poland and out of Russia. Napoleon had been defeated; the Russian myth of invincibility was born.

The crucial part of this myth: they didn't talk about the fact that it had only been possible because they were defending the whole time. They retreated, trading land for time, luring the French to go too far, and let the winter sort them out along with the partisan activity crushing their supply lines, keeping their troops awake all night, and things like that.

All in all, a miserable time for the Emperor of France.

Fast forward 130 years. 1941, June 22.

Russia is hit with a "surprise" invasion by their nominal allies, the Germans.

3/10

1941, then. The Germans invade. A brutal invasion, murderous, civilians butchered, horrific scenes. No quarter given on either side. Initially, the invasion proceeds relatively well for the Germans, but as the summer wore on, their progress was slowed, until they found themselves in the same spot as Napoleon. They even fought a major battle on more or less the same ground as the French and Russians had in 1812 (Borodino).

And again, the Germans stalled, as the French had, when the weather turned as they got close to Moscow.

General Moroz awoke, and began to drive them back, starving and freezing.

This was the high tide point for Germany in the east: they'd never get here again.

Huge sacrifice by the Soviets and some clever manoeuvres meant that the German army at Stalingrad (modern Volgograd) was surrounded, and under Hitler's stupid "no retreat" orders, were eventually starved into submission, the 6th Army being captured in tatters.

Back started the movement, with the Soviets pressing hard all the way. All the way back to Berlin, in the end, where the Soviets eventually raised their flag over the Reichstag.

Once again, the myth of invincibility was given a boost in Russian culture. Leaving aside the contributions of the various other Soviet republics, like Ukraine especially, the Russian mythmaking machine went into overdrive, coming to the conclusion that they had won the war.

Now that can be argued, but it's got a degree of truth. However, the contributions of a massive invasion to create a second front for the Germans definitely played a big part (that'd be your D-Day).

And there we are. The myth is complete. The Soviets/Russians are invincible. They threw back Napoleon, they threw back Hitler, nothing could stop them, clearly.

Seeing the issue yet? The invincibility was solely on defence, but it grew to be all-encompassing.

From a Youtube comment on a video about a person claiming a PhD in psychology, and a move from "trans ally" to gender-critical shithead.

Never a trans ally. This is someone who viewed herself as a big ally to the trans community because...well, because sometimes she said some things online that weren't completely awful about us.

Being an ally is not something you do once, slap a label on your shirt saying "Trans ALLY!", and never mention again. It's a process. The word ally is also a verb, and should be treated as one. It's not something you did, it's something you are doing. Also, I call some level of bull-crap on this PhD anyway. Does she really have a PhD, and not at the same time understand the most basic realities of reasoning? Like, you don't argue from the specific to the general? If you see a three-legged dog, this woman would say, "you therefore should treat all future dogs as having three legs, and if they don't have three legs, they're not really dogs." I mean, I learned that in undergrad. How'd she miss it through years of postgrad work?

She "did her own research". That's interesting. So she gathered a group of trans people and a group of cis people who definitely weren't trans in hiding or unknowing yet, and put them into a study and control group, and observed their responses to situations to accumulate data about how they differed from one another? Because that's what I learned about how to do research in the social sciences. Do those not apply to psychology? I had rather thought they did. What she did was google "trans people bad", and read some blog and Twitter posts from the results. That's not research. That's just confirmation bias' mainspring of action in the modern world. It's what the right wing calls "research". The kind that RFK Jr does.

1/4

#Trans

Another brief thought:

If you think "guys" is gender-neutral, consider the following thought experiment.

Think of the largest, most intimidating heterosexual cis man you can imagine. Like...I dunno, The Rock. Who's probably very nice and gentle, I don't know, but imagine.

Now: ask him whether it would be okay if you proposed a headstone epitaph for him.

This one: "He Slept With a Lot of Guys"

Do you find yourself nervous about asking him? Why is that, do you think?

But those who argue for its gender neutrality will say, how is that true anyway?

Because, my dears: if it's gender-neutral, then it applies *equally* to a group of men, a group of women, or a mixed group of genders. (Also, yes, a group of nb people, but let's not make it complex for the people confused by this).

So in that epitaph? I'm saying "he was a stud, had lots of women".

Do you think he'll perceive it that way?

Me either.

@Tattie

:slow clap:

God DAMN you can write, woman. That's excellent.

Read the thread above, folks. Seriously, it'll make you hug your Blåhaj a little closer.

I know many of you will respond to this with declarations of how evil the idea is. I do wish I could be spared the ordeal, but I accept it's part of social media. Put an idea out, wait for people to reply hoping to make it a gender-neutral toilet.

But anyway.

A friend said this morning that she'd watched the sun rise from an urban airport terminal.

And expressed surprise that it was really quite moving.

"Monkey always hope big fire come back."

That was my reply. Because I think it's true. We see the darkness descend, and on some level, there's a deep aching hope that the big fire will come back.

So it's a piece of advice I'm going to offer.

If you're feeling doomy. Gloomy. All-going-kaboomy.

Get up early, just one day, very early.

Find a view of the approaching sun. And watch it come up. Feel that monkey drive to seek the warmth and safety of daylight. Feed it. Maybe say "ook, ook," if your core is moved by the sight. Hoot a little. If no one's watching...sneak in a little caper.

Remind yourself that, when the dark comes, it's not the end of the show.

The big fire comes back. It may feel like an age, but it always comes back again.

When RFK Jr. "investigates" autism, be aware that he is deliberately and knowingly engaging in eugenics.

He's literally looking for ways to eliminate people like me from the human race.

I'm autistic.

So when you ask "what causes you?", you're positioning me as something that needs to be investigated. Something that needs to be "cured", which is to say, eliminated. Because I think in a different pattern than some folk do.

When someone says, "X causes autism, so avoid X", they're saying, "or your kid might have (gasp) *autism* too!"

This is eugenics. It's Nazi stuff. Not an exaggeration. A "science" under the Nazis.

We are not broken. We do not need fixing. We just think differently. But we have always been around. That dude that wrote an eleven-volume handwritten guide to every herb in one county in England, or wherever it was? Telling me he wasn't one of my people? GTF.

We are and always have been productive and innovative members of society. If anything, we should be seen as an advantage to the species: diversity of thought is *better* thought. Not ours or yours better - but ours and yours are.

We aren't a threat, we're not (for the most part) needing round-the-clock specialist care - but be human, will you? If someone needs that, maybe give it to them? Because they're people?

Didn't we fight a big war about this a few years back? Something about a guy with a bad moustache who didn't like the disabled people in his society? Among his many targets?

Seems to me his central thesis was "I will decide who's people and who isn't people."

And that some of us are saying, "How about maybe not? How about all the people matter, and we try to keep ourselves alive all together?"

I cannot personally imagine how anyone decides his plan is better. Or more moral.

But I'll be over here on Team Everybody Else.

#ActuallyAutistic

@Thebratdragon

It's possible? Not saying you're wrong. But I do lean more towards it's a blood purity thing. They don't like people who think differently. They don''t know how to make us think like them, and they don't feel safe unless everyone is thinking ilke them. Eugenicists are driven by fear. Fear of people in power not being white. Fear of majority brown nations. All kinds of other racist shit. And ableist. And queerphobic. Misogynistic. And so on.

It's about bigotry. They can't cope with seeing people they have convinced themselves are inferior outworking and surpassing them.

There has to be a sinister someone behind them, helping them out, because we all know that the white man is supreme!

It is perfectly fitted to Trump's worldview. He has that bizarre idea that somehow his uncle being a professor at MIT makes him very smart and having "great genes".

No. His grandfather's mediocrity produced DJT's father, AND somehow his intelligent son too. And DJT got none of the smart bits.

It's why I think he was drawn to Nazism in tthe first place. He believes he has better blood than us. Like a king. That he was destined to rule.

They appeal to his ego, so he swallows it whole.

A Conversation About Trans People Getting Old

Friend: You're amazing

Cait (she/her/elle)
Why is that? I'm just a trans girl who got old.

Friend: Because that rarely happens

Cait (she/her/elle)
Not true at all. There are plenty out there. But when we transitioned, the rule - like, if you break it you're out of the clinic entirely - was that you MUST be stealth. It was strongly recommended that you move cities, and cut ties with everyone you knew.

So we did what we had to. We hid from the world. We pretended to be cis women. Some of us married men, and adopted kids because we were infertile cis women. And never told them our past.

And they got old. But they're still stealth, only now they have a second life built up. They have spouses and kids and friends and jobs and everything. And if they come out, they fear losing it all, as they already did once. Believe me, having lost it all? I would never do it again, for anyone.

They're not "not there". They just can't afford to be out. Some few of us can, for various reasons. I have been for 20-odd years. But it's not been easy, and I pay for it. I can't resent my sisters who choose not to pay a second time.

So we exist. There are many of us. I know a few, a very few. And they're super careful about even talking to me, the green-haired widely-known activist trans woman. We talk on Signal only, and they use burner phones. I'm their only contact with trans community, because they're terrified.

We exist. We just can't all be out about it. So I try extra hard to be super out. To help make up for their necessary absence.

We do get old, dear. You will too. The present bullshit will pass, in time, and we will live openly and happily again. It has before, and it will again. That's why we fight against it, those of us who can. Because we know we can and will win, in the end. We have before.

Hold strong, my friend. We're not doomed.

====

If you're moved, help me do activism if you can:

https://gogetfunding.com/help-zara-reach-safety/

Using the women's bathroom: a primer for trans femme people.

I know this is a really stressful topic for some folk, so I'll try to be gentle here.

First things first. Should you be using the women's? Basically, here's my guide: if you like your presentation enough that you're going out in public, you're probably too femme for the men's.

So. You decide to use the women's. What next? Confidence. Confidence is *crucial*, and here's the good part: can be faked. This is a true "fake it til you make it" situation. Stroll in like you own the place, select your stall, do your business.

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT: the size of your shoes, the sound of your urination, the chance someone will look into those stupid gaps in North American stall doors, or anything else. No one cares but you.

When you're done in the stall, rearrange yourself clothing wise and get back out there. Stride again, stride confidently to the washbasins and do your work. Fix your makeup if you want, check your hair. If anyone else looks at you, smile and use the mirror to make eye contact.

Trust me on this one. I know it feels like a creeper thing to do, and if you were masc-presenting, it would be. But a smile and eye contact says "I belong here, how ya doing?" like nothing else.

WOMEN DO THIS. They make eye contact with one another, small talk, compliment one another, and so on. Don't choke up when it happens. Your voice is fine. Say thanks, and compliment something of hers.

If she makes you as trans, she may ask you something about it. Don't be alarmed. It's a normal thing to talk to other women in the bathroom, and if she were going to be upset, she'd be there already. Just answer as best you can, maybe with a bit of self-deprecating humour.

Then finish up your business before the sinks, smile again and say "have a good day" or something like it, and walk confidently out of there because you just rocked it.

That's how you do it. It gets easier each time.

Good luck.

Terrible sad news for me.

I just watched an excellent video on transvestigators by Jammidodger. And it revealed something I never knew, so I have to bring it to you in great sadness.

You see, I promise you I *thought* I was trans. I thought I remembered saying to my mum when I was 4, "But I am a girl!" and she punished me for saying something so silly.

So I was massively surprised when I followed the careful Very Scientific Standards of the transevestigators, and discovered...I'm really a CIS woman!

I honestly had no idea. I just wish my bottom surgeon had TOLD me, rather than taking my money to remove my OEM vag, and give me a neovag. It seems like that would have been something he'd have commented on. But I guess he was just ripping me off.

But yes, I checked the metrics. My clavicle is distressingly V-shaped. My shoulders are only 2.5 of my heads wide. My ring finger is shorter than my index finger. On BOTH HANDS! Surely proof as convincing as this can't be wrong?

Anyway, there are a bunch more, and all of them are telling me without hesitation that I'm a cis woman.

Which I suspect my mother will be very happy to hear, if probably a bit confused. She was never happy with my being a trans woman, so now I can relieve her stress.

However, it does mean I have to retire from my role as elder for the trans community.

I'm deeply sorry for having misled you so appallingly. I do promise I thought I was trans in good faith!

But no, alas. I'm just a boring bog-standard cis woman.

So, goodbye trans community! I've loved being among you, felt very at home, but obviously since I'm cis, I need to go and find some GC people to help take away your rights.

I really do like y'all, though. Maybe I'll try not to be too competent as a GC campaigner. I know it'll make me stand out, as they're all such great thinkers and logicians and biologists and doctors.

So yeah. I guess this is goodbye.

Thanks for the mammaries.

@zakalwe @hosford42 @Uair

Especially as the single most effective con in history has to be the one picking his nose in the Oval Office watching TV while he waits for someone to bring him something to lie about for the cameras.

People think he's a self-made businessman who has been wildly successful for his whole life. That he's tough. Respected. Intelligent, without excluding the common folk by using ten-dollar words. A protector of women. Someone who cares about the common folk. The winner of at least 3 Presidential elections, stopper of So Many Wars, Peace Prize deserving, artisan of the deal, economic genius, dancer, golf champion and master, 6'3" and a svelte but muscular 215 lb with perfect genes and basically immortal level immune system.

AND a perpetually unfairly treated victim at the same time, mercilessly hounded by a lying press industry that doesn't desperately wait for the eyeballs that roll in when they spray his firehose of horrors, idiocies, and lies on their audiences uncorrected and seriously debated, despite the absolute paucity of truth, logic, or basic common knowledge in anything he has ever uttered.

AND a deeply pious and godly man, who regularly makes lewd comments about his own daughter, used to "inspect" the girls' dressing room at his 15-year-olds'beauty pageant, with the girls present and undressed, was a very visibly long-term close friend of a major paedophile trafficker of girls who oddly doesn't want the files on that convict's many crimes to become public, brags about sexually assaulting women, asserting that for a million years that was the normal path of humanity, has been found liable for sexual assault in a civil trial, can't decide between Testaments, spews lies like a Ma Deuce, hates the stranger among us, is a sociopath, casually orders piracy and murder, admires dictators, hates dogs, and throws condiments at the walls like a toddler having a tantrum.

Hm. Yeah, checks out. US has a thing for big con jobs.

1998 chars.

Hey! It's activisting time!

This is our first press appearance for the campaign to get Zara into Canada. She's a Black trans woman from the US, came here with her husband, but he turned out to not be what she needed in a partner, and she found herself needing to leave.

She's looking for temporary housing in Vancouver, so if you're in that area, or have reliably not-racist friends there who might have room, we'd be very grateful to hear about that lead. While there are many shelters, every single one (we've contacted them all) has a wait list of at least months.

So if you can please boost this post hard, and if you can donate to our fundraiser (also listed below), we'd be hugely grateful, and we can carry on hoping to kick the door open into Canada for US trans folk.

If you can't access PayPal, or don't want to, you can absolutely donate through me personally, and I will direct it to the fundraising account so you can see that it arrived there. Personally, I can accept Interac (in Canada), Wise, and am willing to look at other options if you need them. For that access, DM me here, or reach me on Signal at oldladyplays.11.

If you are able to spread the links to other platforms, that'd be like super magic wonder twin powers.

Thanks, my friends. Fly, my pretties!

https://thetyee.ca/News/2025/09/17/America-Increasingly-Unsafe-Black-Trans-People/

https://gogetfunding.com/help-zara-reach-safety/

#MutualAid #BlackTransLivesMatter #CanPoli #BlackMastodon

A note for cis people.

Trans fem people do not owe you femininity.

Trans masc people do not owe you masculinity.

And non-binary people do not owe you androgyny.

Update your stereotypes, please.

#Trans

Had a friend pop up on Discord this morning from Australia. She'd a friend who's going to her first rally tomorrow, and the friend is scared. So she asked me to give them a good coach's halftime speech.

I spoke of how they live in terror, how they're driven by it, how their uniform dress makes them feel strong, and that sort of thing.

And they had already learned Bella Ciao on the recorder for leading a song or two.

So I suggested one more song. This is an old one, from the War Against the Fash, and it's not very...correct anymore. But it's a fun one, and I've found it really bothers Nazis when they hear you sing it.

🎶
Hitler, that man had just one ball
Goering, had two but very small
Himmler, had something similar,
And poor Goebbels, had no balls, at all.
🎶

It's a very familiar old tune, sometimes known as the River Kwai March, or the Colonel Bogey March (searching either will give you an example of the tune).

I've used it to great effect against wannabe Nazis when they march up, all proud and brave in their black clothes and their masks. Because it has a marching tune, it can be very funny to start off whistling it, to get them whistling it themselves, and then to start the crowd singing the words.

Anyway, just for a little lightening of your day. And...really, pass the thread by if your only contribution is to say it's not very progressive. It isn't. But it's VERY antifascist, and I think that matters more right now.

Also, my German friends, I know the rhymes don't actually work in German; they do in an English accent, though. Treat Goering as Goring, use similar to rhyme with Himmler, and Goebbels as "go-balls". Then it works just fine.

Oh, and if anyone gets the idea to reword it for the fascist USA: *please* tag me on that post?

I *must* hear your version. I'm thinking Donald, Hegseth, Miller, and Marco, for the two-syllable name portion. Two of them will want rhymes if you can.

@danirabbit @erininthemorning.com

Exactly. Newsom is no ally. He's a radical centrist, the most slippery snake on the political scene. Beware the radical centrist. He's willing to sell out groups of people to get his bipartisan ideology flowing.

Fuck him sideways.