My wife and I call them Aunt Lydias.

There are some that would argue that makes the congestion tax more not less fair - you're being taxed for congestion you're making. And I haven't studied NYC O-D models, but I imagine that the Downtown to the Bronx commuters are absolute edge cases.

Ideally the staff and administrators at NYCPS will figure out a way to make this less hard on their workers - like providing staging or storing areas outside of the congestion zone so people like your wife don't have to haul their shit everywhere or pay for the ability to not have to do so.

I'm not going to condescend to you by pretending your wife's situation doesn't suck. Unfortunately, public services always cost some people more than what they get out of them - like everyone who pays taxes to keep NYCPS running who doesn't have children enrolled therein.

Haven't read this yet, but if his definition is something along the lines of "freedom to consume and expand with minimal restraint," then I would agree with him and you re: conservative freedom and the suburbs.

Do you know any college students you could bully?

Something kind of like excess mortality. Or maybe even just use excess mortality and see where the numbers come in relative to the projections.

...you could use an estimate of envelopes for that specific age range and then look for a corresponding spike in increased mortality within that age range.

I'm not fluent in the literature so apologies in advance if I fumble the language. And this wouldn't be solely predictive, but if we know the average age range when people first gender affirming care and we assume that the rate of transness is stable across the human experience...

Then you could do some loose extrapolation from those rates to their respective population sizes, if those numbers are available.

Is there any literature on the rates of self-harm among trans individuals who are prevented from getting the healthcare they need? I assume the rates might be different for pre- and post-transition individuals.

The only reason I plan to keep a passport is for the purposes of running hormone therapy/birth control/abortion drugs across the border if necessary.

You should do what you need for your own well being. Much as I would miss seeing you at LGM if you've had enough with the nastiness that's understandable.

Very Manhattan-centric, but it's funny to me that Far Rockaway is so non-descript a White Castle counts as a landmark.

Yeah something bad happened, but it sure is good to see you again.