I like to think it takes so long because Joyce’s mind still runs with old timey film tech. A little Joyce has to go in and unspool the film before cutting out a section and carefully pasting it back together.
As someone with a near eidetic memory (except for spelling, ’cause dyslexic [yes, related]), and surrounded by OCD types… I so wish I had this, and so glad I don’t.
I want to forget those 30 or 40 (or more) events that my brain keeps replaying at random moments. And yet, I can’t understand how so many people can forget or mix up events just a couple of years (decades) ago.
It is because those events hurt or or is something the brain wants to avoid happening again, so the brain keeps them around so it doesn’t get hurt again. Next time a memory comes up, how this next bit goes varies, but basically tell yourself this isn’t likely to happen again and try to back off the pain of it.
Definitely depends on the person (speaking only from my own POV as a trans person). I have a lot of coworkers who are trying but still slip up often. It’s general the older people who have memory problems. While it’s annoying, I also understand that having a bad memory isn’t the same as doing it out of malice.
I cured my mother. After I had surgery I went to see her in Arizona, Took a long hot bath, got out of the bath and started walking around the house naked. She kept going “put on some clothes!” I told her “why? just us girls” She got really freaked and said “PLEASE!” I told her “can we get my name, sex and gender right?” she said “Anything just put some clothes back on” the few times she started to slip up I just started taking my shirt off. Fixed that stuff right up. 🙂
Might also depend on how often they are with you and how much the habit got ingrained. If it is someone that used to see you a lot before but now only does during the holidays or a very rare phone call (birthday or something), I would expect it to take longer than someone you see every week or day. Since Joyce spent evey day with Jocelyne being her brother growing up, that is a lot of years to build up that habit, especially since they aren’t living together anymore. One food method might be to have a conversation with Joe about childhood stories of herself and Jocelyne eveyday until the correct terms become a habit. It would be better than talking directly to Jocelyne since the you doesn’t have a gender and you don’t commonly use someone’s name in a conversation except at the very start.
I also think that it makes a difference how flustered you are too. Joyce’s brain is focused on Dina and her sister being acquainted enough to share secrets, so it defaults without thinking to what she has called her sister for all of her life until now.
I find the time it takes me to get the groove is related to how long I’ve known someone.
Someone can be at the very start of their transition and still boy-moding but if I’ve just met them it’ll click right away. If I’ve known someone a long time I need to practice a lot more (I’ll literally practice talking to myself about memories I have together).
It’s harder to incorporate new info if I beat myself up (go into freeze mode like Joyce) than it is if I own that I’ll make mistakes while I’m processing.
I’ve found that remembering their new name can be hard if it’s someone you’ve known for long, but the actual gendering goes pretty quick.
I can’t quote it directly, but there was a tumblr post that put it in words so well, with that you have to recontextualize your entire memory of the person. It’s not “when they were a boy/girl”, it’s just “before New Name transitioned”. As long as you’re stuck in seeing them as having had the wrong gender at one point, you will continue to slip up.
Given a pass by the commenters, sure. But some of us respond to these mistakes with 20 lashes of self-flagellation and frankly it kinda helps with not doing it again, so…
Honestly I sympathize with this. If you get used to referring to somebody a certain way it can take time to reprogram. And it feels awful to slip up. But the solution is not to pretend you didn’t make the mistake Joyce, geez!
Seriously. I get that it’s well-intentioned–and it’s definitely preferable to the transphobic assholes–but after a while, it’s exhausting trying to manage other people’s guilt. Especially when some of them make it all about their feelings instead of yours. A quick self-correction is preferable
It’s an interesting debate because misgendering does happen but the line between honest mistake and bad faith is so thin, as well as processing guilt or apologizing too much. It’s just so easy for transphobes to take advantage at every aspect of the interaction. How does it feel when a loved one vs a stranger misgenders? What if it keeps happening? Is it okay if it’s an honest mistake, how do you decide when it’s too much? I don’t think we’ve really found an elegant solution yet.
Oh definitely fair. I would never pull some apology barrage nonsense, past a certain point you’re clearly just doing that for your own benefit. I remember the one time I got called out for slipping up I just said sorry one time and made sure it was as genuine as I could make it.
…And then I agonized over it for weeks in private. Which might not have been the healthiest way to do things but you know what? The next time I heard her deadname (she was really slow to update her caller ID for some reason) I had reprogrammed myself so effectively I literally didn’t know who was being referred to. So clearly agonizing over your mistakes is the best way to go about things!
Ahhhh but THAT one goes right back to the Venerable Bede, who recounts how it was boosted from Old Gaelic by Saxon invaders. A random fact brought to you to celebrate The Internet Never Lies Day 2024.
The term goes back to the Pedantic Wars between Turkey and Greece. Frozen Turkeys were cooked in boiling Greece and the loss of life was catastrophic. Sadly, the act kept repeating throughout the period because Hold My Beer.
If that was the only thing she did then that’s one thing but according to Joe she’s apparently now actively trying to forget she even made the mistake at all by purging her memory… that doesn’t sound really healthy.
some earthlings seem to try to force making it more natural for themselves by basically gaslighting themselves into thinking it was always this way for them to begin with, to varying degrees of efficacy
Probably still thinking, “Lil sis is taking this better than I thought.” Like she’s understandably still tripping up (*it’s been 2 minutes) but like you said, she’s trying to correct herself so she’ll do better in the future.
Probably that this could have been much worse. She knows her sister is mostly out of the bubble, but they both grew up fundie and that sort of culturing is hard to shake
It’s a lot easier when one has only known someone as their experienced gender, but if they didn’t know (or were closeted) when one was introduced, then fuck-ups can happen. Neural pathways take time to realign, and it can be particularly bad if they have some strong association as the wrong gender in one’s brain.
Like, for example, being the person who got one pregnant.
Dina: Personally, I have only needed to edit my memories once, to erase large portions of my first and only viewing of The Good Dinosaur. This only took a few seconds. Perhaps I could recommend a few techniques?
As a trans person, this is the right reaction, imo. It’s been minutes since she found iut; I wouldn’t expect perfection immediately, and she’s very apparently trying to correct herself without immediately complaining about how “hard it is to adjust.”
Tomorrow I may eat my words, but in the moment, she’s trying and doing pretty well.
Absolutely, it does take some time, but you have to draw a hard line in the sand. You will get people who after ten or fifteen YEARS who will try and play that card, just no.
I’m torn between sympathizing with Joyce because of how much this reminds me of me, and hating Joyce because of how much it reminds me of parts of me that I hate.
I already look like I say shit like “pronouns are for sissies.”
Coworker who was the main source of the anxiety has gotten me used to it and the understanding that the effort is what matters. Doesn’t stop me from feeling like a heel lmao
It’s good, figuring out how to edit memory. I don’t think she’s being inefficient at all. Unless Dina was being sarcastic and referencing Joyce’s capacity for cluelessly brash overconfidence…
But assuming one CAN edit memory, it’s a good skill.
Right now I’m trying to edit out someone I’ve known for the past 33 years. Sometimes you just need a blank space where a person used to be, you know? White noise to fill in the gaps where voices and words have evaporated away from.
Nah Dina probz ain’t being sarcastic, she’s just indirectly referencing many times Joyce has needed to correct herself when interacting with others as she does away with her indoctrination like this
I strongly suspect much of the difference you’re noticing is because of Dina’s reaction.
If Joyce steps in it with Sarah or Dorothy, she’ll get an immediate snarky or tactful correction from them. But Dina mostly doesnt give responses in the same way – so if Joyce says something ignorant in front of Dina, she’ll get a deadpan or coldly disapproving expression and very little dialogue.
The release of tension you would normally experience as the audience member doesn’t come. Joyce is left to panic and try to cover it up, and the drama heightens instead of lessening.
I honestly don’t fault Joyce for this one, if you have called someone by a certain name or pronoun for 18 years, you might slip up just from muscle memory; especially if you’re still training yourself on the new name. Heck, some trans people even misgender/deadname themeselves by accident, because if you go by a name/pronoun for more than one decade, it’s hard to stop responding to it.
It’s entirely possible Dina never even knew Jocelyne by her old name and pronouns, so she never had to do the mental switch like Joyce does.
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“MAYBE IF I FREAK AND BLURT OUT THE RIGHT THING LOUDLY ENOUGH IT WILL OVERWRITE THE ERROR”
THE PROFILE PHOTO PROPHECY HAS BEEN MET
ALL HAIL, ANA BECOMES CHRONISTIC ONCE AGAIN FOR A BRIEF MOMENT
the strip comes first?
what’s it gonna be
a rock paper scissors and a
ONE TWO THREE !!! XD
SYSTEM ERROR MEMORY REFORMATTING IN PROGRESS 10% COMPLETE
I like to think it takes so long because Joyce’s mind still runs with old timey film tech. A little Joyce has to go in and unspool the film before cutting out a section and carefully pasting it back together.
Wearing an old-timey straw hat, a vertical striped red and white vest, and a very fake mustache. To banjo music.
Hammer dulcimer music.
at least she didn’t BSOD this time XD
perhaps Dina can give her some pro tips? ^^
*plays “reconstruct” by Photay on hacked muzak*
At least she’s not throwing herself at Jocelyne’s feet to apologize and lament her failure and how she’s a bad sister and will get it right forever…
Ohdip. I got Sal? Finally, I’m cool!
Congratulations!
Joyce mentally edits out all moments where she makes a mistake?
So for her this comic progresses in real time, then.
As someone with a near eidetic memory (except for spelling, ’cause dyslexic [yes, related]), and surrounded by OCD types… I so wish I had this, and so glad I don’t.
I want to forget those 30 or 40 (or more) events that my brain keeps replaying at random moments. And yet, I can’t understand how so many people can forget or mix up events just a couple of years (decades) ago.
It is because those events hurt or or is something the brain wants to avoid happening again, so the brain keeps them around so it doesn’t get hurt again. Next time a memory comes up, how this next bit goes varies, but basically tell yourself this isn’t likely to happen again and try to back off the pain of it.
i feel this so hard
is one of the reasons so glad I discovered a med regime which has proven at all effective T_T
HURR HURR HURR
Oh dammit you beat me to it.
Of course I’m five hours late so I can’t really complain.
[*mumble grumble raggum fraggum*]
I kinda feel like Joyce can be given a pass here on the misgendering. Like it’s been minutes at most?
Yeah, nonbinary here, and I would not be offended either as a reader or as Jocelyn. Give her brain a bit to compile here.
From us binary t folks its really irritating It annoys me as much now as it did in 2000.
My view was 90 days, anything after that and you are just being a dick.
Definitely depends on the person (speaking only from my own POV as a trans person). I have a lot of coworkers who are trying but still slip up often. It’s general the older people who have memory problems. While it’s annoying, I also understand that having a bad memory isn’t the same as doing it out of malice.
I cured my mother. After I had surgery I went to see her in Arizona, Took a long hot bath, got out of the bath and started walking around the house naked. She kept going “put on some clothes!” I told her “why? just us girls” She got really freaked and said “PLEASE!” I told her “can we get my name, sex and gender right?” she said “Anything just put some clothes back on” the few times she started to slip up I just started taking my shirt off. Fixed that stuff right up. 🙂
Might also depend on how often they are with you and how much the habit got ingrained. If it is someone that used to see you a lot before but now only does during the holidays or a very rare phone call (birthday or something), I would expect it to take longer than someone you see every week or day. Since Joyce spent evey day with Jocelyne being her brother growing up, that is a lot of years to build up that habit, especially since they aren’t living together anymore. One food method might be to have a conversation with Joe about childhood stories of herself and Jocelyne eveyday until the correct terms become a habit. It would be better than talking directly to Jocelyne since the you doesn’t have a gender and you don’t commonly use someone’s name in a conversation except at the very start.
I also think that it makes a difference how flustered you are too. Joyce’s brain is focused on Dina and her sister being acquainted enough to share secrets, so it defaults without thinking to what she has called her sister for all of her life until now.
I find the time it takes me to get the groove is related to how long I’ve known someone.
Someone can be at the very start of their transition and still boy-moding but if I’ve just met them it’ll click right away. If I’ve known someone a long time I need to practice a lot more (I’ll literally practice talking to myself about memories I have together).
It’s harder to incorporate new info if I beat myself up (go into freeze mode like Joyce) than it is if I own that I’ll make mistakes while I’m processing.
I’ve found that remembering their new name can be hard if it’s someone you’ve known for long, but the actual gendering goes pretty quick.
I can’t quote it directly, but there was a tumblr post that put it in words so well, with that you have to recontextualize your entire memory of the person. It’s not “when they were a boy/girl”, it’s just “before New Name transitioned”. As long as you’re stuck in seeing them as having had the wrong gender at one point, you will continue to slip up.
Given a pass by the commenters, sure. But some of us respond to these mistakes with 20 lashes of self-flagellation and frankly it kinda helps with not doing it again, so…
Give her a sec.
Honestly I sympathize with this. If you get used to referring to somebody a certain way it can take time to reprogram. And it feels awful to slip up. But the solution is not to pretend you didn’t make the mistake Joyce, geez!
Honestly, sometimes it is. Like, a lot of trans people would rather move on from it than endure the apology barrage.
Seriously. I get that it’s well-intentioned–and it’s definitely preferable to the transphobic assholes–but after a while, it’s exhausting trying to manage other people’s guilt. Especially when some of them make it all about their feelings instead of yours. A quick self-correction is preferable
It’s an interesting debate because misgendering does happen but the line between honest mistake and bad faith is so thin, as well as processing guilt or apologizing too much. It’s just so easy for transphobes to take advantage at every aspect of the interaction. How does it feel when a loved one vs a stranger misgenders? What if it keeps happening? Is it okay if it’s an honest mistake, how do you decide when it’s too much? I don’t think we’ve really found an elegant solution yet.
Oh definitely fair. I would never pull some apology barrage nonsense, past a certain point you’re clearly just doing that for your own benefit. I remember the one time I got called out for slipping up I just said sorry one time and made sure it was as genuine as I could make it.
…And then I agonized over it for weeks in private. Which might not have been the healthiest way to do things but you know what? The next time I heard her deadname (she was really slow to update her caller ID for some reason) I had reprogrammed myself so effectively I literally didn’t know who was being referred to. So clearly agonizing over your mistakes is the best way to go about things!
TIL a new word that I have definitely engaged in. u_u
“Until” is Johnny-come-lately. “Till” goes back to Old English.Til or ’til is a misapprehension of English teachers
Oops, left out a part. “Until” only goes back to the 14th century.
That’s not the word they were using at all. TIL is an abbreviation of Today I Learned.
Ahhhh but THAT one goes right back to the Venerable Bede, who recounts how it was boosted from Old Gaelic by Saxon invaders. A random fact brought to you to celebrate The Internet Never Lies Day 2024.
Wouldn’t it be Brythonic at that point? Not that Bede would call it that, but he wouldn’t call it Old Gaelic either.
And yes, this is me Missing the Point.
The term goes back to the Pedantic Wars between Turkey and Greece. Frozen Turkeys were cooked in boiling Greece and the loss of life was catastrophic. Sadly, the act kept repeating throughout the period because Hold My Beer.
I don’t think she’s pretending she didn’t make the mistake? Seems like she’s just correcting herself by saying the sentence again the right way
She also seems to be trying to force her brain to get used to referring to Jocelyne as the correct pronouns so she doesn’t make the mistake again
Reminding me of Hannelore writing “Tilly” on the blackboard 1000 times.
I asked her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen.
Ha! Good one!
If that was the only thing she did then that’s one thing but according to Joe she’s apparently now actively trying to forget she even made the mistake at all by purging her memory… that doesn’t sound really healthy.
some earthlings seem to try to force making it more natural for themselves by basically gaslighting themselves into thinking it was always this way for them to begin with, to varying degrees of efficacy
A character said it, so it’s definitely an immutably true fact of the fiction.
Well the expression isn’t helping lol
“According to Joe…”
That’s so weird. Pretty sure he’s not in her brain. Think he might just be exaggerating for comedic effect.
Not 100% positive though.
Aww Joyce
Correct the slip and go forward
Or do whatever that is. That’s an option too
Process it calmly Joyce, no one is rushing you.
She caught, and corrected herself without prompting. She’s also trying to reinforce the memory so she doesn’t slip again. That’s honestly pretty good.
I wonder what Jocelyne is thinking since she’s probably like… a couple feet away at most?
Probably still thinking, “Lil sis is taking this better than I thought.” Like she’s understandably still tripping up (*it’s been 2 minutes) but like you said, she’s trying to correct herself so she’ll do better in the future.
Probably that this could have been much worse. She knows her sister is mostly out of the bubble, but they both grew up fundie and that sort of culturing is hard to shake
Joyce is allowed a little well-meaning-yet-not-quite-there-yet grandma energy, as a treat.
Anyway. Can’t wait for her to find out Ethan’s known for months and months LOL
Accidental misgenderings suck.
It’s a lot easier when one has only known someone as their experienced gender, but if they didn’t know (or were closeted) when one was introduced, then fuck-ups can happen. Neural pathways take time to realign, and it can be particularly bad if they have some strong association as the wrong gender in one’s brain.
Like, for example, being the person who got one pregnant.
ah yes, the binary stratification of gender (and roles thereof) as long-ingrained into our society is very much a pervasive form of indoctrination
as Socrates once said, “give me the child until they are seven and I will show you the adult”
Dumbing of Age Book Fifteen: Anything You Say in the Next 15 Seconds is Wasted As She Edits Her Memory So That Didn’t Happen
It’s a process.
I mean, she’s going about it slightly correct, in that you notice and correct yourself. Just usually not this long.
gotta reboot her
this happens all the time
*loud dial up modem noises*
*extremely loud static while the tv antennae are adjusted*
Welp, time to light Joyce on fire for her slip-up.
Not the misgendering thing, she accidentally made Jocelyne a brunette in her mind somehow. It’s gonna be really awkward when she looks over again.
{Operator voice}
Please hold as we connect you to the next available agent
*Tally Hall’s Banana Man plays on hacked Bluetooth*
These aren’t the Joyce faces I was expecting from this, but they’ll do.
Dina: Personally, I have only needed to edit my memories once, to erase large portions of my first and only viewing of The Good Dinosaur. This only took a few seconds. Perhaps I could recommend a few techniques?
Joyce: Her Her Her Her hEr HEr heR HURRRRRRRRRR
Dina: When you are listening, of course,
New Joyce freakout face unlocked! Maybe even several of them.
Dina: I learned this like twenty minutes ago.
As a trans person, this is the right reaction, imo. It’s been minutes since she found iut; I wouldn’t expect perfection immediately, and she’s very apparently trying to correct herself without immediately complaining about how “hard it is to adjust.”
Tomorrow I may eat my words, but in the moment, she’s trying and doing pretty well.
Absolutely, it does take some time, but you have to draw a hard line in the sand. You will get people who after ten or fifteen YEARS who will try and play that card, just no.
Plain and simple reason – Becky.
Needs more rinsing and repeating.
Dang, I really did want today’s strip to be Dorothy’s cleavage pic. xD
great pfp for this comment
eh give it a couple more in-universe minutes,
what goes up into The Cloud™ must come down eventually XD
Aging popcorn here.
The longer it takes the more likely it seems that she sent it to someone else by mistake
ERROR: Joyce.exe has run into a problem. Would you like windows to send a crash report?I’m torn between sympathizing with Joyce because of how much this reminds me of me, and hating Joyce because of how much it reminds me of parts of me that I hate.
I continue to be disappointed that Dina’s hat doesn’t match her expressions.
To be clear, this is not disappointment in Dina. She is delightful. Her magnet is eating cereal sexily on my PC as I type this.
unfortunate that Willis stated he makes “concentrated effort not to Howard The Duck her dinosaur hat”
but yes, the Empress of Evolution is nonetheless very wonderful <3
Oh my god I feel this.
I already look like I say shit like “pronouns are for sissies.”
Coworker who was the main source of the anxiety has gotten me used to it and the understanding that the effort is what matters. Doesn’t stop me from feeling like a heel lmao
It’s good, figuring out how to edit memory. I don’t think she’s being inefficient at all. Unless Dina was being sarcastic and referencing Joyce’s capacity for cluelessly brash overconfidence…
But assuming one CAN edit memory, it’s a good skill.
Right now I’m trying to edit out someone I’ve known for the past 33 years. Sometimes you just need a blank space where a person used to be, you know? White noise to fill in the gaps where voices and words have evaporated away from.
*Plays white noise on the hacked waterfall*:
https://youtu.be/NWlFKrzvsm0
Correction. Somebody that I used to know. And no longer do.
Nah Dina probz ain’t being sarcastic, she’s just indirectly referencing many times Joyce has needed to correct herself when interacting with others as she does away with her indoctrination like this
What on earth is it about Dina specifically that causes Joyce to just -repeatedly- put her foot in her mouth.
She caught herself quick that time though.
it’s not Dina, this literally just Joyce by default XD
I strongly suspect much of the difference you’re noticing is because of Dina’s reaction.
If Joyce steps in it with Sarah or Dorothy, she’ll get an immediate snarky or tactful correction from them. But Dina mostly doesnt give responses in the same way – so if Joyce says something ignorant in front of Dina, she’ll get a deadpan or coldly disapproving expression and very little dialogue.
The release of tension you would normally experience as the audience member doesn’t come. Joyce is left to panic and try to cover it up, and the drama heightens instead of lessening.
All hail hypno-joyce
It’s okay Joyce, i’m trans and i still misgender myself on occasion, and i’ve been out for 7 years years!
I honestly don’t fault Joyce for this one, if you have called someone by a certain name or pronoun for 18 years, you might slip up just from muscle memory; especially if you’re still training yourself on the new name. Heck, some trans people even misgender/deadname themeselves by accident, because if you go by a name/pronoun for more than one decade, it’s hard to stop responding to it.
It’s entirely possible Dina never even knew Jocelyne by her old name and pronouns, so she never had to do the mental switch like Joyce does.
Joe is a quick study.
I mean, Joyce is not wrong in being flabbergasted that Jocelyne told Dina and not her first.
I hope this isn’t just forgotten down the line, because Joyce misgendered her sister… 2 mins after finding it out.