This is a guest editorial by “L”. It was brought to Dangerous Minds by Elizabeth Veldon, who writes this short introduction:

This is her story, her voice.”

My name is L., and I am a woman with a transsexual past (male-to-female, MTF). I have had gender dysphoria since my early childhood, so I always had a lot of problems with socialization.

I have never seen my father because he left my family before my birth. I grew up with my mother and grandmother, who were extremely transphobic and authoritative and did not pay attention to my mental difficulties. I had to hide my real self from everyone from when I was 11 years old. It wasn’t until I was 21, in 2007, that I decided to stop hiding, and took my first attempt to bring my appearance in accordance with my self-perception.

This gave me other troubles, and I’ll only give one example: in October 2007, I was stopped on the street by a police officer, who took my IDs and took me to a police station. So-called “state authority representatives” made me strip nude and began to beat me and to urinate on me, laughing and shouting “fags must die!” When they put my head into the toilet bowl and cried out, “Drink Russian water you queer,” I lost consciousness. Eventually I woke up in an unfamiliar yard, my clothes torn and dirtied with urine and faeces. After this, I attempted to commit suicide. Thanks to my friends with the same problems, they helped me to find strength to withstand. But, I was hiding my real identity again for almost a year, and this was a real torture. I couldn’t stand it.

I learned that Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) in the Russian Federation would require a conformance letter from the Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Psychiatry, and in order to obtain one, a psychiatric examination was necessary. My friend in the transgender community told me about terrible violations of human rights in such clinics (unsanitary conditions, mobbing, rape, tortures, etc). Nevertheless, I could not live ‘as-is’ anymore, so I began Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) at my own risk. When my mother and grandmother discovered what I was doing, they threw out my female dress and hormones, but I continued with HRT secretly.

In September 2009, I met Anton, the man who totally understands me. Our relationship grew rapidly, but when my mother and grandmother found out they turned my life into hell. So, I left them for him, and we started living together.

Unfortunately, the problems connected with my transgender identity followed me through all my life in Russia. My boss – who was the head of the IT department of the local Federal Tax Inspection Office – told me (quote), “You have the choice – resign or face big problems. Fags are not welcome here.” I was forced to resign.

You can read the rest of L’s story after the jump…

The forced sterilzation of transgender persons and those with a transgendered past has now been abandoned by the Swedish authorities, but Russia still actively discriminates agains its LGBT community, as this video demonstrates:
 

 
There’s an edge here you never see on TV anymore. Actually you couldn’t see this on television when it was first recorded - Johnny Thunders ‘banned’ performance from Swedish TV in 1982.  Even looking death-warmed-up,Thunders had that edge, an urgency that makes you sit up and take notice.
 

 
Bonus interview with Johnny Thunders plus performance, after the jump…
 

 
Dangerous Minds pal Chris Campion writes: “I’ve been joking for years that Ikea is part of some kind of fascistic experiment in social conditioning. And it’s probably true!”

According to a new book about Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad, his youthful dalliance with rightwing Nazi groups is more extensive than he’s admitted in the past. Sweden’s intelligence agency actually set up a special file on him. From The Guardian:

Swedish author and journalist Elisabeth Asbrink says Kamprad joined the Swedish Nazi party in 1943 when 17, prompting the security police to start a file on him the same year.

Asbrink also claims in her book, And in Wienerwald the Trees Remain, that the founder of the Swedish furniture chain was in contact with Nazi sympathisers until at least 1950 – two years longer than he had previously acknowledged.

She writes that Kamprad’s letters were secretly opened by Swedish security police and their contents, including information about his effort to recruit members, were noted on his file, in which the police wrote “Nazi”.

“They were steamed open, copied and closed again,” Asbrink states.

The intelligence agency is also said to have noted that Kamprad “had some sort of functionary position” in a youth Nazi organisation that sent him newsletters.

Per Heggenes, a spokesman for Kamprad, told the Associated Press that the Ikea founder had never been aware of the file’s existence until now.

—snip—

In 1999, Kamprad admitted his past involvement with Nazism in a book about his life and asked for forgiveness for his “stupidity.”

He also admitted to Swedish media that he had attended meetings of Nazi groups between 1945 and 1948.

Kamprad has attributed his early sympathies to Nazism to his upbringing, saying he was greatly influenced by his grandmother, a native of the current Czech Republic region of Bohemia, who introduced him to Nazi propaganda magazines at an early age.

In a statement, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants demanded that an inquiry be opened into Kamprad’s past.

“Holocaust survivors are shocked at the reports of the depths of Kamprad’s Nazi involvement, which he previously had dismissed as mere ‘teenage confusion’,” it said.

“It is time for Kamprad to come clean. Swedish intelligence files describe his recruitment of others to the fascist movement and his involvement with it well after World War II. This can hardly be characterised as youthful confusion.”

 
One of the aural drivers of the 20th century—and the bane of many traditionalist stick-men—the drum machine has a rather undersung legacy.

The first drum machine was invented in the early ‘30s by Leon Theremin on commission from Henry Cowell.

The biggest one was recently built and toured around Stockholm by Propellerheads, the Swedish bad boys behind Reason music software. Kids stomped on it, and its interface was projected onto a big-ass building downtown. Bring that thing over here!
 

 
‘60s Swedish instrumental group The Spotnicks had the coolest fashion sense of any band to come out of Scandinavia. And man did they love reverb.

Here’s two cool clips of the band. Any bets that Devo got some fashion tips from these cats?

 
more space age grooviness after the jump…