(i) IM administration, which for most psychedelics was my favorite RoA, but for the beginner/nonprofessional it is probably best done in the deltoid, or by someone else in your glute (see easily googled chart on where to hit it on the upper/outer quadrant); the thigh (
vastus lateralis) is very accessible but does have a mess of blood vessels and nerves, it's not preferred in professional practice for that reason. I am a hypocrite though because I use it to self-administer my testosterone more than half the time (and just did before I started typing this out);
(ii) another post on
gender identity, I think Xorkoth is more or less on the right track, although of course we'll disagree on a few things. the "passing" phenomenon is interesting as is the insistence of non-"passing" transsexuals demanding to be referred to by pronouns of their choice and to assume female roles functionally (e.g. the bathroom issue), this is to me an instance of ideology superseding ontology; that ideology being "gender is a social construct." the whole fact that we use the term "gender" to refer to sex is in fact only started coming about or becoming more mainstream before this thinking, from critical theory, began to take hold, and the idea that "gender" and "sex" can be contradictory
ontologically is madness to me, although the idea that it can in self-perception (resulting in what I would call mental illness, which is not to say that it is pejorative: I have a patient, for instance, who believes himself to be a "dragon" and insists upon being referred to as such, this is a delusion, and one very resistant to medication, but is not exactly the same thing as if he were to believe himself a woman—nosologically speaking, and this is talking about my own formations not the "official" diagnoses in the DSM
*, I'd not really equate transsexualism with a delusional disorder although parsing this out precisely is difficult.) Because of the current transsexual "movement" (or "moment," as it was called last year what with Bruce/'Caitlyn' Jenner and all the media attention, etc.) society has a lot to do in trying to decide what to do with these individuals. Rather silently, the media has begun to refer to these people in a way that I initially found very confusing: a "transsexual woman" meaning a man who identifies as a woman, etc. But anyway, more on this later.
(iii) I have made a lot of posts in various places, @420sxLover, about the dose work and it's associated culture; I'll post more as it's a subject i like discussing. I promised you a post on it here and will make one, just haven't found time and got to run to work. I posted in one incarnation of this thread what I called my "
harm reduction guide to buying drugs from hippies," which might be a good start. When I got into the business I didn't do so organically. I attended festivals/shows first to check it out, realized how easy it was to get drugs, and started to go more regularly to get drugs to sell at home, I also developed a love for the Grateful Dead and their music; meanwhile, I realized that it was more profitable to make a step (or a few) up the pyramid in that scene but that involved getting in an extremely élitist, "xenophobic" as you call it, not inaccurately, as they are very tribal and suspicious of outsiders. To do this I had to essentially develop an entire new identity, or "legend," as it's called by undercover LE and spies. Some Bluelighters who think they've met me have actually only met this "legend." Many people did, I even was in a relationship with someone while "in character." It's an interesting story that I think I'm finally ready to tell somewhere here.
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*[size=-1] Psychiatric diagnoses with names, etc. are often thrown around as if they are real
things, they are not, and they are not "diagnoses" in the same sense as diabetes is, despite the two often being compared by mental health anti-stigma advocates, psychiatry is an extremely subjective thing and is very much as much, or more, an art as a science. The science is, of course, largely about psychopharmacology (but of other medical knowledge is essential because psychiatric patients are not brains
in vacuo and have other bodily complications which can interact with illnesses as well as medications), but dealing with crazy people is certainly art (perhaps I'd even call it a gift, as not all people have it or seem to be able to develop it, I consider it personally for myself a
calling) as well as is developing a treatment plan/medication regimen.. These do not automatically follow from diagnoses (only generally so), and so-called "evidenced based management" and "treatment algorithims" are mostly bullshit. Psychiatric diagnoses are not real things, they are just words that we have made up to describe certain patterns of experience and behavior that repeat themselves between individuals. There are brain changes associated with them, etc. but the science is not there yet to fully understand how that interacts with mind and spirit. Thus as healers we have to be flexible and not bound down by labels.[/size]
Hoping that'll change soon though!
