A bit of continuation of the gender wars, but the important bit is at the end

a stream of consciousness with a middle, an end, and the hint of a beginning

Hello Beautiful People,

before I begin I’d like to correct a small mistake — the name of the Dean of Education during the 2016-2017 witchhunt tribulations visited upon me. It was Blye Frank. I think he’s retired now. Anyway, he was the puppet master, I guess. Whatever.

Now. Here we are. many years later, and UBC is still conflating sex with gender, and mis-eductating a whack of new teachers. Thankfully, a great number of them (the teacher candidates) are grown-ups. They either avoid the topic in their classes altogether or they find like-minded colleagues in their schools and do their best to protect the vulnerable children in their care from the promotion of sogi and gender ideology/religion.

At least, that’s what they did up to the time I left UBC in 2018. Maybe it’s worse now.

Now, in general, I have nothing against religion (which is a complete turn aaround for me). We all need something in which to believe, some stories that help us tie things together, that give our lives meaning. That said, I do not, for a minute, believe that “things happen for a reason”. Things just happen. They are caused by circumstances that are not in our control, mostly. I like stories, though.

Now I am in a free-floating space. One of the most influential women in my life, Lee Lakeman died December 20, 2024. by very fortunate circumstances, I got to see her for an hour, or two in late October. We were both very sick. We knew she was dying. We knew I had about a 50-50 chance of survival. She was reflective, of course. Warm, Almost as sharp as ever, she said she had made some reconciliations with some of the important women in her life. We had reached a kind of friendship years ago. I say ‘kind of’ because she was always on a pedestal with me. She was a hard woman, in a lot of ways. Had to be. I saw her more as a mentor, maybe even a guru. She woulda hated that. The last few years, I did see her as a whole woman, powerful, yes, smart, brilliantly so — and vulnerable too. Lonely, joyful, creative, defended — like all of us, but more. She knew me to be kind, and appreciated that. “You made important contributions” she said to me that last day. And as we hugged goodbye, and I started crying (though I promised I wouldn’t), she told me she loved me, too.

The last text message she sent to me was Nov 16th. It was 10 days before I went into the hospital for my bone marrow transplant. “Steady on, Erin”

“You too Lee” We were going in opposite directions and we were at peace.