So, something terrible happened yesterday morning. I got an e-mail from IRCC. Like most communication I get from IRCC, it is a harbinger of tiring bullshit to come. Originally, it was supposed to be one post. However, after exploring the legal strategy and the religious reasons why I’m against pretending to be male, one post turned into five. So far, the series is 5,000 words and growing.
So tonight, with ninety minutes before bed, I’m choosing to think about the most pressing civic issue in Whitehorse: a horse I am contractually forbidden from riding. From the post header image above, we are at the Hougen Centre on Main Street. Well, okay, “contractually” is doing some heavy lifting there. I’m just an adult who can read. As someone who is trying to be an author, it’s going to be hard to argue that I didn’t see the three separate notices around the horse. I’d like to ride that horse, however, there’s just one problem.
You see, Champion is an old mechanical horse from the 1950s. As a result, there is an age limit of 12 and a weight limit of 45kg. Fascists.
But, you see, I’m the kind of person who sees this not as a hard boundary. Rather, it’s a mechanical problem. A physics problem, truly. How can I ride this horse without damaging it? Further, how can I present this case to the management of the Hougen Centre so they’ll let me ride the horse? Because I can’t accept that the hard limit is 45kg and if someone who is 45.1kg gets on, they break the damn horse.
The current fly in the ointment: I’m nowhere near the weight limit right now
I’m not stupid. I know full well that being three times the weight limit, I’d break Champion. No cap. However, as someone who knows how to use a TDEE calculator, I know that a healthy weight for a woman of my age and height is 62-64kg. This is a much easier ask than being roughly 140kg wanting to ride the horse. Still outside the posted weight limit, but much closer than I am right now. Thankfully, I’m participating in the Yukon Bariatric Program. I’m hoping in 2-3 years’ time, I’ll be much closer to my goal weight. By then, I’m aiming to be a published author. Maybe, just maybe, people will be reading this blog other than a few developers who get lured here with the promise of WordPress plugins and PHP libraries.
… If that’s the case, could we figure out a way for me to ride Champion? At least by then, I’ll have moved from catastrophically ineligible to just regular ineligible. And hey, it never hurts to ask. After all, I’m planning on fighting a legal battle with less favourable odds. I’ve already beat the odds expected of me by one particular Service Alberta employee. She thought CBSA would have deported me by now.