I’ve been known to occasionally cover the gender bending world of the transgender movement here, but this post is going to mention transgender issues in an oblique way in comparison to mens issues and the paths men take toward discovery and self actualization. There is a new pbs frontline documentary called “growing up trans” making the rounds on the internet. It follows young adolescents, (children really as some of these individuals are as young as nine years old), that have decided that they are transgender, and feel as though they are born in bodies that do not match the gender they perceive themselves to be. An article titled Early, weighty decisions for a young generation in ‘Frontline’ documentary ‘Growing Up Trans’ gives the following details: (emphasis mine)

NEW YORK (AP) — “Growing Up Trans” explores the transgender phenomenon as younger people than ever (and their parents) now experience it: a frontier of possibilities and unknowns, and a minefield of high-stakes choices for these youngsters as they also navigate the changes adolescence brings. Airing on the “Frontline” documentary series (Tuesday on PBS; check local listings), it begins with 9-year-old Lia (formerly Liam) Hegarty, who says she transitioned when she was about 7 and now is “almost completely female.” Ticking off the steps with each finger, she says, “I’ve changed my name, my clothes, my room and my pronouns. And that’s really all you need.” Except for the fifth step, she adds, looking ahead as she presents her thumb: “Surgery and medicine.” But through it all looms doubt and risk. “We’re asking families to take some leaps of faith,” says Dr. Robert Garofalo of Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, who cites vexing uncertainties from as-yet-unproven drugs and procedures. “How realistic is it to believe that a 14-, 15-, or 16-year-old has the capacity to make that kind of decision for him or herself? But at the same time, to deny them — that’s tough,” he says. “This is tough stuff.” Ariel (formerly Ian), 13, wants to have children someday, but not from sperm that could be stored from the male body she was born with. Yet she grieves that the girl she is transitioning into can never carry a child. Otherwise, she is pleased with the path she has chosen, and considers her puberty-blocking drugs “my lifesaver. Me turning into a man is just probably the most horrifying thing ever.”

Let me first say that I have deep reservations about giving children drugs that allow them to postpone or even halt the process of puberty in order for them to avoid developing physical characteristics of an adult male or female. Do these puberty blocking drugs have lasting side effects? do we know the possible long term effects done to the bodies of these developing children such that we can guarantee that if they wished to one day undergo their normal development they could? these are children after all, at what point do we allow children to make such drastic decisions about their future?

We lock up grown men in droves for consuming the wrong drug, by the millions in America alone. And yet, if a child “feels” that they are the wrong gender we greenlight them access to drugs that allow for an extreme repression of physical changes their bodies are destined to undergo? Something isn’t adding up here.

I’m going to go ahead and put on my conspiracy cap here, and yes feel free to call me a crazy whackjob if you’d like, but from what I understand, male to female transexuals are about three times as common as female to male transexuals. Meaning that the unique experiences that trans people face are largely faced by men (yes I just misgendered you, it’s unavoidable for the topics i’m discussing here) seeking to transition to becoming women. Why is our society so able and willing to erase masculinity at such early ages? Maybe society, with all of it’s gynocentrism sees male to female transgedered people as men who are not going to provide utility and take on disposable gender roles associated with masculinity?

Thus, they allow them to transition as a signaling post or warning to others, indicating that society views the male to female trans individual as a “Defective male” and allows them to don their FTM scarlet letter, as a visible manifestation of of their “defective” masculinity. I of course, do not view these individuals as defective examples of masculinity myself, I simply posit the idea that society views them as such.

Perhaps our society feels it has a vested interest in making sure that men who appear masculine, are also forced into acting “masculine” and those that wont get on board are encouraged by our society (subconsciously) to transition into womanhood. I don’t know, and once again, this is pure speculation, nothing else.

Whatever the reason may be, it is undeniable that in a country where people are imprisoned for smoking plants, where there is a massive war on drugs underway, it is quite hypocritical to let young impressionable children take puberty blockers while telling adults that they cannot take pain killers, or ecstacy, or smoke marijuana or trip on LSD.

I have a particular interest in LSD and other hallucinogens myself, DMT being the other likely candidate should I wish to embark on a psychedelic journey into the mind. But I am, unfortunately, living in a country where these types of drugs are highly illegal. My only option then is turn to a drug dealer, risking jail, in order to consume something that may or may not be LSD, or DMT. These are risks I am not willing to take. I am not willing to ingest an unknown substance I procured from a potentially shady drug dealer, and risk going to jail for it in order to experience the effects of LSD.

The ideal scenario would be a world in which on an open market, most drugs, given that they do not if taken by many people, create a disturbance of the peace or increased rates of violence, could be procured in such a way that one knows that they are in fact buying what they believe to be purchasing. Some regulations would have to be in place in order to ensure quality control and avoid the inevitable scammers that would try to sell you anything but the substance you’re looking for.

Unregulated markets in which goods are sold that cannot be verified to be the goods they are sold as without intensive testing are notorious for these type of fraudulent practices. There is the example of the nootropics subreddit, a reddit, that functions as an extremely interesting and informal clinical trial of the effects of various substances that are believed to confer some type of increased cognitive function to the user. Substances such as Bacopa Monnieri, Modafinil and other untested substances are ingested by the now tens of thousands of subscribers, dosages are recorded, effects if any at all are noted, and the entire reddit has, for whomever is interested, compiled a large amount of relevant data on the effects of these various nootropics on the human body. Since they are an unregulated internet community, they are also responsible for their own quality control testing, and many often buy these nootropics on the word of the manufacturer, with no concrete evidence that what they are ingesting is what they wish to be ingesting.

A reddit post from the nootropics subreddit demonstrates the types of risks these guys are taking.

Many of you may remember the issue that came up with Cerebral Health/Bioscience Nutraceuticals a few months ago, where their choline bitartrate was numbing people’s mouths. After sending those samples in to the lab, the tests came back negative for choline bitartrate. We suspected it was choline salacylate, but decided further testing to ascertain the exact compound would not be worth the cost. Unfortunately that was not the last issue to come from Cerebral Health.

A few weeks ago, another Redditor placed an order pyritinol from CH, along with some alpha GPC and oxiracetam. When the order arrived, both the alpha GPC and oxiracetam seemed alright. However, the pyritinol seemed off. Before thinking about it, he took his normal 400mg dose of pyritinol and went out for a mountain bike ride. Within 15-20 minutes he was getting a weird euphoria and detachment. After another couple minutes, his memory gets very fuzzy.

Eventually his sister found him in the garage in a manic/psychotic state. He was biting his lips very hard, shaking, and holding his fists tight. Eventually he went into seizures when the paramedics came. He was taken to the hospital and seized again while waiting for the doctor. He had a crazed look in his eyes like what you see with people having a psychotic episode on MDPV. He was in the hospital for 4 days.

Not putting two and two together yet, he tried another small dose of pyritinol a few days after getting home, to see what effects came back. Sure enough, he started to get the euphoria and disassociation that he felt before. He also got the same crazed look in his eyes, and same rolling nystagmus. It tasted nothing like pyritinol, but more like burnt plastic. His cognition was off for a while due to the seizures, but he was sure it was the Cerebral Health pyritinol that caused it.

After doing some searching for similar reactions and physical properties online, he came to the conclusion that the compound was most likely a cathinone derivative like MDPV. All the effects fit with an overdose on something like MDPV. Since 400mg is a normal dose for pyritinol, but a massive dose for MDPV, that is most likely what caused the blackout and seizures. Since then he has been having intermittent seizures, and has been back in the hospital 3 times.

After speaking with the other moderators, we decided we needed to send a sample into the lab to get this tested. To prevent any accusations of tampering with the sample, I had another moderator order a whole new bag from them, then send a sample from that into the lab to be tested. So we now have two samples of the compound in question. The original one that sent the Redditor to the hospital, and the separate order we placed right after we became aware of the issue. Today the results came back, and it tested negative for pyritinol. I spoke to Colin at the lab, and he said that the FTIR did not match up at all, and that it was a completely unrelated compound. Due to legal constraints, the lab did not want to do a full workup on the compound apart from confirming it was not pyritinol. So we are going to be sending another sample from the same batch to Dacesafe.org to do a full workup. It will tell us exactly what the compound is, and what purity level it is at.

Here is the result from Colmeric

So in light of this, I suggest that nobody purchases anything from Cerebral Health. This is the second instance in the last 6 months where they have been selling a completely different substance than what it was advertised as. In this particular instance, it could even be a dangerous and illegal substance. Until we do a full workup, I cannot say for sure if this substance was MDPV or another cathinone derivative. However, it is definitely a psychoactive compound other than pyritinol. Obviously a lawyer is going to be brought in by the Redditor that went to the hospital, so I may have to take certain statements down eventually. However, I want everyone to be aware of this serious issue before it potentially puts another person in the hospital!

EDIT: After further testing, the substance was identified as diphenhydramine (Benadryl).

Here are the spectra results.

Scary shit isn’t it? Users have smartened up to some degree and are now demanding that the various companies supplying these products provide NMR spectroscopy results of their product from independently verifiable testing facilities. If you wish to purchase Coluracetam, you can now demand that the company provide proof that there is regular chemical testing of their product. For a while though, users were left to the mercy of a completely unregulated market, in which scams can proliferate while a method of regulation and quality control can be established. It’s the inherent risk one takes when dealing in a market with zero restrictions. There is a “wild west” period where anything goes, followed by a natural progression toward regulation after scams proliferate and are unsurfaced.

If any of you are familiar with the dark net online trade network named after the fabled silk road, where one can procure all sorts of illegal drugs for personal use, then you know that it is perhaps the single most unobstructed market in existence. Services rendered are paid for in bitcoin and goods are delivered to unmarked and discreet addresses via fedex or UPS that only the buyer and buyee are aware of. This affords the patrons of the silk road and its various incarnations since it was shut down, a freedom of anonymity that few enjoy in any real world face to face market, but as i’ve just mentioned, scams can and do proliferate. Take the prevalence of the “exit scam”. An article titled The ‘Exit Scam’ Is the Darknet’s Perfect Crime gives the details.

Imagine that you’re a vendor on Evolution, Agora, or another of the Amazon-like underground emporiums modeled on the now-defunct Silk Road. Buyers send you payments in Bitcoin, the digital currency that approximates cash on the internet, along with their encrypted mailing addresses, and in return you ship them parcels of methamphetamine, designer psychedelics, or even home-roasted coffee. Following me so far? Now imagine that you want to to quit. Maybe you suspect you’re under investigation, or your friends are getting suspicious, or the anxiety associated with your startup criminal enterprise has become too much. So you sell the last of your drugs, reformat your hard drives, and shut down your vendor accounts on the darknet sites where you used to sell. Or do you? It turns out that a logistical problem with darknet markets is that when a vendor throws in the towel, it’s very tempting for him or her to stop mailing drugs, but continue pocketing customers’ payments for as long as possible. By online consensus, the phenomenon even has a name: an “exit scam.” If you’ve built up a good reputation on a darknet market’s seller rating system—which, like eBay, is based on feedback from other users—why not keep pulling in cash until the review system catches up with you? “I am sorry guys but I have scammed you.” Darknet vendors tend to disappear completely after defrauding buyers, which was why it was so remarkable that one exit scammer recently published a seemingly remorseful confession before disappearing for good. “9THWonder” had built up a good reputation selling marijuana and hashish on the Evolution market. But last month, the seller decided to rip off customers and skip town. “I am sorry guys but I have scammed you,” 9THWonder wrote in the note, which has been reproduced here. “I am not going to try to justify it with my reasons, I am just a terrible person. I am sorry for each and every person affected, I am ashamed about the way I have deceived so many people for my own personal gain. For what it is worth the money is not going to stupid lifestyle enriching purposes. Even though I could likely go on for a few more days, making fake promises and feedback I have reached my goal and will lock myself out of my account.”

The above is one of the major risks that come with this type of thing unfortunately.

Given all of this, I submit to you a graph of Lifetime psychedelic use by age and gender in the US in 2010.

A clear pattern emerges here. Men are more likely, approaching doubly more likely to take psychedelic drugs. It makes sense that this would be the case, men are the first to explore every new frontier. When the north pole represented the vast unknown, men went there, when the marianas trench represented it, men went there, when the moon represented it, men went there. Men were the first astronauts, it stands to reason that they would be the first pyschonauts, the first explorers of the human mind. The state has a vested interest in maintaining the prevalence of the type man who isn’t interested in the mind, but instead in resigning himself to a life of servitude, a beast of burden in the form of a human oxen.

If men could explore the deepest recesses of the human mind with the most exotic ego-crushing psychedelics available to them, why would they instead choose a life of work and drudgery in service to women? Would you rather be a provider drone busily scraping off years of your life due to accrued stress and workload for some ingrate “family”? or would you rather make the money you need to survive and use your disposable income to save and perhaps embark on the occasional lysergic journey into hyperspace? The state wants, docile, safe, easy, complaint men that take pride in “work” and “family” they do not want inquisitive, sharp, feral men who explore reality or their minds.

The palliative nurse responsible for the book “The Top Five Regrets of The Dying.” listed the following as the second most common regret:

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. “This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

Are you reading this? do you want to be that guy in your final moments? do you?