Large blooming flower

BS on the BS

2012-02-16T08:37:00.000Z

It seems to be open season on the Beaumont Society at the moment. With some justification, as one of the higher-profile national trans groups they have become something of a go-to for journalists wanting to talk about trans issues, and we're told they inadvertently broke the story of a UK trans man having a baby. Now trans groups are being approached by journalists from one of the nastier tabloids trying to track the family down.
The whole affair sounds like a bit of a cock-up, to be honest. The Beaumont press contact comes out of it all looking woefully naïve, and as a primarily MtF organisation they shouldn't be talking about FtM issues anyway. If all that has been said is true, a few heads need to roll at Beaumont Towers and serious attention needs to be paid to their press policy.
The press story isn't the reason for my writing this post though. I'm reading a lot of comments about the story and I feel that many of them verge on hate-speech and are not acceptable. Phrases like "Deeply closeted gay club" and "You can almost smell the testosterone and man smell" are just the tip of an iceberg of misandry and TV-hate that has surfaced in the last couple of days.
I'm a member of the Beaumont Society, and while you can read my views on their press policy above, I'm not recognising the organisation I know at a local level in the reactions I've detailed in the preceding paragraph. I've met more than one of their elected officers including their current president and I've seen some of the grass-roots support they provide all over the country to real trans-identified people both in the closet and coming out of it. Now, in 2012, not a stereotypical image based on how they might have been in 1972 or 1982.
The Beaumont Society provide support to all corners of our sphere, from the wackiest cross-dresser to the most stealth-seeking transsexual. I see this very well, I live on the border of two of their regions, one of whose regional organisers is a flamboyant TV and the other is a long-transitioned TS. The latter regional organiser was one of the ladies who mother-henned me on my first outing presenting as female back in 2010, something she has done for countless other trans women edging out of the closet. This is the everyday work of the Beaumont Society, real people spending a lot of their time attending support groups, helping real trans people at difficult times. There are many trans organisations on the national stage with very lofty ideals, but I have yet to find any of them helping people out of the closet on a wet Saturday in Swindon.
I get the impression that a lot of the criticism of the Beaumont Society stems from their association with the TV end of the spectrum. I've read vitriolic comments about private parties for TVs wearing silly clothing, it seems that any association with such people should be of great offence to someone who identifies at the TS end of the spectrum. If those people can't grasp the concept of a support organisation whose remit covers a wider community than just them then I am sorry for them, with their tiny closed transphobic minds.
So by all means slam the Beaumont Society for their media cock-up. They deserve that. But if you know nothing of the grass-roots work they currently do in supporting real trans people in the here-and-now in 2012, then shut up and stop having a go at them as an organisation just because you don't like them. Or get off your internalised-transphobic arse, and start giving some grass-roots support yourself!

Crunch crunch, saw saw, code code

2012-02-13T19:22:00.001Z

All the clichés of the British media have been wheeled out, it's been a snowy weekend hereabouts! Pretty cold as it happens, we had a -14 celcius frost a few nights ago.
I spent most of the weekend at my parents place. Watched our resident fox nosing around in the field, threw him an apple. And spent a load of time in the orchard, pruning apple trees. As always a restful occupation, this time with the added fun of drawing large patterns in the snow dragging branches across the field. The harvest seems a long way away, but in eight weeks it'll be nearly blossom time. I should have finished the pruning earlier.
So that's the crunch crunch and the saw saw part. The coding came later, I returned to my trans news analysis. Yet again looking at the sources, this time breaking them out by month. The image below shows a colourful graph that should be an abstract bedspread design rather than a representation of media data. Click on it to see it at its full size. It's even more obvious which outlets have an obsession with us, and how constant it all is. I should point out here that one UK paper is missing: the Times hides its content behind a paywall so doesn't appear in Google News.
Next I'll be looking at language rather than source. You can never tell until the results are in, but I hope there'll be a few stories to tell there, too.
Just a thought, given current UK news I might add "pregnant man" to my search terms. They can't resist a new angle, can they!

Asset review

2012-02-10T08:00:00.000Z

When MtF trans people of whatever hue get together, they will often talk about the same stuff. Body hair removal, for instance. A common response I elicit at this point is one of envy from those who are undergoing painful full body laser treatment, because I am fortunate enough to naturally not have much to laser. A patch of hair on the chest, that's it.
I'll usually respond with a jokey "Well you've got petite size 9 feet you B**ch!", because the chances are they'll be sporting a to-die-for pair of boots that will simply never be seen in a size 15.
It's something to consider, isn't it. We all dwell on our worst points, how about our best points? I have almost defined myself by my size, but here I am with an enviable lack of body hair.
I should remind myself, I'm lucky enough to have a slim figure, great legs, and thick slightly curly hair that I've had natal women envy since I've grown it out.
You should do the same, list your assets first. It don't 'arf make you feel better!

Trans news, in the news

2012-02-09T08:22:00.000Z

Yesterday was something of an important day for trans people in the UK, for it saw Trans Media Watch's submission to the Leveson enquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press. (If you fancy watching it, it's here, about an hour in)
Important because it offered a rare chance to lay bare the outrageous language and attitudes unleashed against us in front of the wider world, and in an arena in which such a submission will be listened to and it is likely, acted upon. Helen from TMW did an excellent job of explaining the concerns of the trans community with respect to the media as well as highlighting some of the more blatant examples.
It was rather unexpected to receive a request from TMW for my corpus of trans news stories a week or two ago after I wrote a blog post about it. I hope it was of help in producing their submission. I only wish I'd started collecting it earlier and had more data to offer.
I've been a little absent from here these last few days. Partly because of a busy work schedule and partly because I've caught the coding bug again. My visualisation tool for trans-news-derived data is slowly taking shape.

Beetling

2012-02-05T11:08:00.000Z

    Everywhere you look, it seems you can find all sorts of interesting treatments for reducing or shaping your eyebrows. The beauty therapists will pluck, wax, or thread, the hair removal people will give you electrolysis and the more extreme beauty people will permanently tattoo you a new set of eyebrows.
    All this is of consuming interest to me of course, for left to their own devices my eyebrows will do a passable job of a full-on Denis Healey, a man not known for moderation in the eyebrow department.
    My mother claims that plucking eyebrow hairs causes them to stop growing. It's one of those infallible pieces of Parental Wisdom that simply doesn't stand up to real-world experience, yet she'll regale you with the tale of one of her pupils back in the late 1950s who plucked her eyebrows entirely and was left with nothing.
    If I pluck my eyebrows, they seem to grow back ever more vigorously. So I'm constantly trimming them and having them plucked, something other people seem to see as of no consequence but I have to admit to finding rather painful.
Yelping at laser treatment, now wincing at eyebrow shaping. No pain no gain and all that, but I ain't taking to this very well, am I.

Trans news analysis preview

2012-01-27T08:18:00.000Z

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have something of an interest in language, and how it is used in relation to us.
In pursuit of that interest, I have been looking at how we are treated in the media, and to that end I have been collecting as many news stories on transgender themes as I can.
Last March, I wrote a little piece of software that checks Google News feeds every day on a range of keyword searches designed to find as wide a range of transgender news stories as possible from the widest possible range of sources and from all corners of the world. Since I will soon have a year's worth of data, I have been working on some code that analyses the stories and allows a human-readable view of the language trends.
It is too early to show anything meaningful, but I thought I would share the following graph by way of a preview. It shows the story frequency by source, for British publishers only, and it shows pretty clearly which outlets have something of an obsession with us. The Daily Mail was not just the most frequent publisher in the UK of transgender related stories, they also top the world rankings. At number two was the Huffington Post, and at number three was the Guardian, for the curious.
Expect to see something more meaningful from this data set in March. At the moment I'm playing with analysis scripts and with display ideas. I will also release my processed data sets, should anyone else fancy their own analysis.

Gate valve

2012-01-22T11:41:00.000Z

    Salt is the enemy of old cars, it makes them rust in all sorts of exciting ways. The council spread it on main roads in winter to allow idiots in modern cars not to have to drive carefully on frosty mornings, so at this time of year a drive of more than a few miles will expose your ride to more of the stuff than is healthy for it.
    So people like me, custodians of Rusty Old Wrecks and their ilk, are faced with a challenge in the winter months. Cars need to be driven, if you don't use a car for a few months you'll find that bits of it no longer work when you return to it. But driving it on main roads brings salt, and that's bad. So we pick dry and fine winter days like yesterday, and venture forth on the most salt-free roads we can find. For me yesterday that was a well-worn run round a couple of the villages near where I grew up, the council never salt minor roads.
    January days can be beautiful. Yesterday saw the sun poking under patchy grey cloud with a bit of haze, lighting up the countryside in rays like the Promised Land. The muted greens of winter roadside verges and fields of winter wheat seedlings were briefly rendered emerald, and the browns and greys of the dormant hedges and trees gained flecks of gold and red.
    The car didn't show its five decades as it started almost on the button. Coolant and oil as they should be, all hydraulic systems responding well to a repeated cycling. The charging was a bit lacklustre, but what do you expect from Lucas, Prince of Insufficient Light.
    Not everyone will understand this, but it's fun piloting a geriatric car through country lanes in January.
    I was assaulted by one thing though. Back in the summer, the Wreck's heater valve started leaking. Car heaters run on engine coolant, so leaks are generally a Bad Thing. New heater valves for a Wreck are only available as reproduction units, and at eye-watering prices, so I simply piped the entire heater out of the system and kept driving. Really, I've paid more for entire Wrecks than what they want for a new heater valve!
    I meant to fix it, I was going to ask a heating engineer friend to source me a microbore gate valve as a substitute. But somehow I never got round to it, so the car still doesn't have a heater.
    Rather cold, bimbling through the British countryside in January in a five-decade-old car with no heater.

Everybody's an expert

2012-01-19T08:11:00.000Z

You soon find when you embark on a treatment such as laser hair removal that you are bombarded with advice. Your practitioner has got everything wrong it seems, all your hairs are going to go white, you'll end up with an interesting pattern of indelible red marks on your face, it'll take far more treatments than necessary if you do it that way. And many more permutations of that theme.

There's an important thing to remember when faced with such a confusing array of views.

Number of procedures of which the person offering advice has experience: ONE.

Number of procedures of which your laser practitioner has experience: MANY THOUSANDS.

Why I will never be a Feminist

2012-01-14T08:43:00.000Z

Scary stuff, testosterone. I remember over twenty years ago as a spotty young oik, suffering the full effect of having large amounts of it coursing through my veins. For a rather difficult few years my brain felt at times like a barely manageable mix of aggression and carnal desire with a sensory focus between my legs.
I guess my contemporaries must have had the same experience, though their reactions seemed to be different. Slipping as I did into a cycle of depression that lasted for nearly two decades I never really participated in the meat market of teenage dating, they seized their new challenge with enthusiasm.
Against this background as we make the difficult move from teenager to adult we form a lot of the views and prejudices that stay with us for the rest of our lives. I pity young women in this situation, faced as they are with young men of their age driven crazy by their hormones. Their adult impressions of men in general are formed by observation of the gauche sex-crazed youths who employ ever more desperate tactics in an attempt to seduce them, and not surprisingly some of them exist in an atmosphere of contempt for what they see.

It's not the most attractive of traits, instinctive contempt for a group of people.

It's easy enough to foster. If a group tells itself another is worthy of contempt for long enough and it passes without challenge, it becomes received opinion, an attitude beyond reproach. The pages of history books are full of episodes of the unpleasant aftermath of those moments when contempt has been fostered between countries or ethnic groups.
I guess we are all guilty of it, to a greater or lesser extent, I for instance would readily admit to an instinctive contempt for the staff of some British tabloid newspapers. But that's a matter of personal taste rather than outside influence.
Contempt starts to worry me when it becomes a central plank of an ideology. And I see contempt at the heart of the ideology of Feminism. It's received opinion among Feminists, that you can advance the most outrageous statements about men, or even those born male-bodied, and they will pass without comment, be applauded even. And subscribing to an ideology within which such casual misandry is acceptable is not healthy.
Now you're probably getting ready a comment here about how laudable feminism is, and how I've got it so wrong. And at face value, you have a point. But take another look at the preceding paragraph. I've talked about Feminism with an upper-case F, as shorthand for its use as an Ideology, a Cause even. Consider the difference between a conservative and a Conservative as a parallel, or perhaps a democrat and a Democrat if you are American. With a lower-case f, feminism is self-evident. I doubt there are many women who would not call themselves some kind of feminist. I certainly think of myself as one. My concern is that with that upper-case F, Feminism is not doing enough to ensure that it does not become just another twisted ideology sustained only by hatred for an enemy.
And that is why I will never be a Feminist, only a feminist.

Permanence

2012-01-13T08:19:00.000Z

It's an exciting moment, when about a week after going under the laser your beard hairs start falling out. Right now I'm looking a little patchy, definitely bristly but a little threadbare. In a day or two with luck my chin will be as smooth as the proverbial baby's arse. At least until the next crop grow through.
I have no regret about losing my beard, I've never liked it and I've always hated shaving. In my life as a scruffy bloke I've thus ended up oscillating between clean shaven and very bristly as I delay shaving until the beard gets too annoying. Ending that cycle will be nothing short of fantastic.
Everything I've done until now with respect to my appearance has been temporary, or at least reversible. Fingernails and hair can be cut, plucked eyebrows can be allowed to grow back. But lasered beards will not return, this is permanent. Those surrounding me in my daily life will probably not notice and think that I'm simply fastidious in my shaving habits, but never again will they see the bristly me.
In changing my appearance irreversibly for the first time I have crossed a line somewhere. No possibility of going back, this is uncharted territory.

No pain no gain

2012-01-09T07:29:00.001Z

I had my first meeting with the laser on Saturday. Full beard and chin. Ouch.
There is no shortage of blow-by-blow accounts of laser hair removal in this sphere so I won't bore you too much with mine. Suffice to say it made me yelp a bit and I now have a slightly swollen and red face, with more than my fair share of zits. No pain no gain.
I'm doing this with the luxury of presenting as a scruffy bloke in my everyday life. My current state can be explained away as an unusually severe case of shaving rash, in the unlikely case that anyone notices.
I am very glad I am not faced with having to present as female today. Shaving or applying makeup at the moment would be rather painful and probably wouldn't do me any good in the long run. I have a new respect for those who go through this particular part of the process after going full-time, I wouldn't want to go out in the world as a woman looking as I do now.

Cutting some slack

2012-01-07T00:05:00.000Z

Plenty of outrage in the news this week, a couple of celebrity gaffes.
There was a bit of it from an acquaintance of mine on one of them yesterday. Professor Stephen Hawking said something about not understanding women, and she took offence at that. For her it was a feminist issue, and worthy of railing against.
I have to say, I don't see it. It was a little old-fashioned, maybe ill-advised even, but offensive? Not really. Just a slightly silly off-the-cuff remark from a 70-year-old academic. And septuagenarian academics are not exactly known for being in touch, are they.
The whole thing got me thinking. I cut Professor Hawking some slack, not because he's famous or because he's in a wheelchair, but because he's getting on a bit. His world view was formed in the 1950s. It's a bit like your slightly embarrassing elderly aunt who comes out with well-meant pronouncements that were what passed for politically correct politeness when she was a girl in the 1930s but sound ever-so-slightly racist in 2012. There's that rather awkward silence round the dinner table, nobody wants to make a fuss because the poor thing's out of touch and obviously didn't mean it in quite the way it slipped out, but nobody knows quite what to say.
I think my acquaintance didn't show herself in the best light by her reaction. There are battles worth fighting and there are others which merit little more than a humorous rebuttal. When there is so much real hate speech in the world it's perhaps as well to concentrate on that rather than fire off on the silly.
There are times when I wish more people thought a little before speaking. When everything we say contributes to our image and credibility, best to make every word count.

New year lethargy

2012-01-02T10:02:00.000Z

Right now, I could use a holiday. "You've just had one!" I hear you say, but no, I mean a holiday. As in sun, sea, sand et cetera. And as unquestioned girl, too.
It always hits me at this time of year, a lethargy. Interestingly something raised by my GIC blood test may provide an answer, I don't get enough light on my skin to break down some of the light-sensitive chemicals my liver sees fit to provide an excess of in my blood. I should try to catch a few more rays, but with a date with the laser on the horizon I'm doing my best to avoid the sun.
So I'm sitting here, knackered. As is so often the case, some other blog pieces depress me a little. I've written a couple over the last week but not published them, they sound too petulant. Still, writing in any form is cathartic.
Last Friday was spent walking in the Chilterns with these two, great to find two others smitten with a love of Ordnance Survey maps. Surprisingly, afternoon tea in the rain on a soggy canal bank can be rather fun. And New Years Eve was spent drinking rosé from a box with my wife and our friend R. So it's not been doom and gloom here, more a lack of get-up-and-go.
I received a letter from the specialist I saw at my last GIC appointment. Summarising our discussion, no surprises. I should have news of my counselling dates before too long. Having something happening at last has been of benefit to me, I find I'm sleeping without medication for the first time in a couple of years.
So my apologies if you've not heard from me much, I've been a lax emailer or blog commenter. Call it hibernation, and hope I found my buried cache of hazelnuts or something!
.

Jenny's first Christmas

2011-12-28T22:04:00.000Z

It is a side-effect of becoming more open about who - what - I am, that those around me make assumptions about my path. My mother, my sister, doctors, they all take it for granted that I am on my way, I will inevitably start living full-time female before too long, say good-bye to the bloke. In my current state in which I sometimes feel as though I am hanging on by only my fingertips this can become a little difficult.

I may lead a charmed life in which all about me are accepting, but sometimes you can have a bit too much.

Last Sunday, Christmas day, I spent the day as the oversized girl rather than the scruffy bloke. At my parents place, parents and sister in attendance. Red cowl-neck jumper and long black skirt, very festive. My mother's reaction when I broached the subject a while back was "We're going to have to get used to it eventually so we might as well do it now".
As it turned out, everything went well. My dad was a little embarrassed at first, but that soon passed. Normal Christmas day for us. Except I was a lot happier, not stressed or depressed. And they now know what to expect from me in girl mode.

My sister bought me some very high quality cosmetics for Christmas. Wow. :)

As always it's a little difficult to return to the bloke after an event like that. But I now know I can be girl at my parents place should I need to. It's not going to happen often, but I look forward to enjoying some of the sweltering rural summer unencumbered by boy clothes, for instance.
I have wanted to do this for nearly four decades. I remember as a child wishing desperately that I could be like my sisters, or the girls at my primary school. And now I've done it, as an oversized ersatz woman approaching middle age.
I never expected it would be this easy. I should have done it many years ago, perhaps I'd have saved a lot of grief.

When you can't do something, it's all you want to do

2011-12-22T23:58:00.001Z

The weirdest of things can make you want what you can't have. A few streets away from where I sit as I write this there is a most unglamourous car parked up amid the Euroboxes, and it's exerting a pull on me that only the similarly afflicted will understand.
You see, as regular readers of this blog will have gathered, I have a liking for dodgy old cars. A twisty British B road on a summer morning is my Nürburgring, and an underpowered and basic family saloon from decades past is my Formula One car.
Unfortunately in a British December the opportunities are limited for doing silly things in cars, the roads are covered in corrosive salt and basic motoring loses its appeal when the air temperature slips towards zero. So I sit cooped up in town, my desire for driving on the edge whetted by my near-neighbour's choice of wheels.
I should give C a ring, plan some crazy road trip in the Wreck for summer.
The unglamourous car? An AvtoVAZ 2107, otherwise known as a Lada Riva. That's right, a Russian made derivative of a 50-year-old FIAT. Basic as it gets, rear wheel drive, and incredible fun to drive on damp roads if fitted with hard-as-glass Eastern European (Chinese I guess nowadays) tyres.
Truly I am smitten.

Letting her down gently

2011-12-18T10:43:00.000Z

A little while ago, I found myself in a tricky situation. I came out to someone in my social circle, and after the usual chat about what it all means, she revealed that her boyfriend used to crossdress. "But he's given it all up now we're together, I'd have left him otherwise".
Difficult. I know they're soon going to be sharing a flat. And probably like many readers of this blog I know that crossdressing isn't something you can just give up like that. It never goes away. Trying to make it go away nearly killed me and no doubt it has had a similar effect on thousands of others.
So he's either still doing it in secret, or he's quietly going mad. If he's been secretly dressing he'll probably have a final purge before they move in together, try to give it up for good.
It ain't going to work, we all know that. He'll try, but it'll go horribly wrong somehow. It doesn't matter how he self-identifies, whether he sees himself as TS, TV, CD, TG or whatever from the alphabet soup of options, this doesn't go away. At some point in the future he's either going to take it up again, or implode.
So what could I do? I'd just come out to a friend, and suddenly here I was, the embodiment of everything she fears. Yet I couldn't mislead her, that's not what you do to friends.
Say "It won't work, you know"? "He's going to assemble a stash of clothing somewhere and keep doing it"? Obviously not. I have to warn her gently that it might happen, that we come in many different varieties, it's not about sexuality and it's not a blame game, but the full-on approach isn't going to help.
Instead of talking about her and her boyfriend I talked about the relationship my wife and I have. How she's tolerant rather than accepting, and how just like her boyfriend I told my wife about it as far as I understood it early on and tried to keep it under control for so long. I talked about the difference between gender and sexuality, how the community as I have encountered it has had almost nothing to do with admirers or sex in general. I told her about the support we've received, and told her that there is support from within the community for spouses or partners of trans-whatever people too.
And I offered an ear, either mine or my wife's, should she ever need it.
I have no idea what will happen. Whether he'll be able to hold it off, whether they'll stay together. But at least she now knows she's not alone, and it's not as far-fetched as she might think.
Which I hope will be of some help to her, after all, what else are friends for?

What does a support group mean for you?

2011-12-11T11:10:00.001Z

My local trans support group is an organisation to which I am much indebted. Through it my journey from closet to the real world has been made much smoother, I have made some good friends and I have gained invaluable support as to the many possible paths through which this mess can be navigated.
Yesterday evening saw their Christmas meeting. As always in a community hall in a suburb of Swindon though instead of sitting around drinking coffee we were eating buffet food. The impossibly glamorous trans lifestyle, eh! Our usual post-meeting trip to a very good Italian restaurant in the town centre will have to wait until next month. Some of our number put the boat out a little with the party dresses, I was little more conservative in a black top and maxi skirt.
This group follows the model of traditional trans support groups. It's a lot more open than some, but the format is pretty simple. An exclusively MtF crowd of everyone from deeply closeted transvestites of all persuasions through to long-ago transitioned transwomen meeting once a month to talk shop, drink coffee and eat biscuits. The group would love to see some FtM attendees, but unsurprisingly they see nothing in common with the MtF TV members.
Support groups like this one are like Marmite. You either love 'em or you hate 'em. A lot of people may attend one during their first steps from the closet before moving on as quickly as they can. They see it as merely another closet, and they've left that behind. Of course they're right, it can be a closet, if you let it. There are attendees for whom it's the only place they ever dress as female, for whom discovery in their home towns would mean violence and intimidation. But as I found out on my first outing, you leave the closet pretty quickly when you venture out into Swindon town centre on a Saturday night.
What I get from my attendance has slowly changed. From closet through support to social gathering, to even giving support sometimes. For me it's not a place just to present as female, after all I'm quite likely to be seen there as a scruffy bloke. I know the format has its faults, but it does fill a niche, and it's a hell of a lot better than the closet.
It has been interesting to watch from afar the support groups in other cities. Pub meets, restaurant groups, or ones like Swindon. Sometimes without an open door policy, with meetings exclusive to people identifying a particular way, or entire groups for specific subsections of our community only. I have a friend - long ago transitioned and married to a normal heterosexual bloke - who was turned away from one group because they thought her husband was an admirer. He's not, he's just a bloke. A nice bloke at that, she's a lucky girl. Or how about the group run as a private club by a well-off TV who has used it as an opportunity to create her own TV social life without leaving home. I call it the gilded closet, a place where you can go out to your heart's content in a schoolgirl outfit or whatever takes your fancy, yet never really go out. Fine if that's your thing, but when I hear of people's referrals being refused because the psych quite rightly points out they've not experienced the real world, that's not good.
If I were to find the perfect support group, it would have these things at its core: diversity and tolerance. People from all corners of our world, seeing past the sometimes challenging exteriors both MtF and FtM, presenting as whichever gender they feel comfortable in and expressing themselves however they see fit. I value the diversity of people I have encountered along the way, and I have found very few from whom I have not learned something, even those I haven't liked.
I am not belittling the organisers of the Swindon group when I say they haven't quite made it. Theirs is a extremely tolerant group with an open door policy, however its membership tends more to be late transitioners and remains stubbornly MtF. In providing a safe space I can see why those who don't fit those groups might be repelled by the thought of that safe space, after all coming out is intimidating enough without being in the company of people with whom you might feel you have little in common.
It's a shame, because it is from the things you do have in common with people with whom you otherwise share little that you can learn the most.

Real

2011-12-07T00:04:00.000Z

Pink fog. It's a worry that persists as you navigate the shifting sands of gender ambiguity, that you might be caught in it. Wanting to spend more time as girl, wanting more, is it real or is it the pink fog talking?
    We have all no doubt heard cautionary tales of those whose pink fog took them a little further than it should have, so the idea it might happen to me has been of some concern. Time to test myself for pink fog with several days as normal girl, doing normal girl stuff as far as possible and sticking to the kind of wardrobe choices any woman my age might make doing the same things. If the novelty fades and it isn't fun any more, then that's the pink fog talking.
    So, a few days after coming back to being a scruffy bloke again I have a moment to reflect on the experience. I spent about three days in the real world as female. I'm used to driving, shopping, eating out and a host of other normal things as female, but until now they have all been individual events snatched as evenings out or similar, or else in the company of others. I've always had either my companions or the scruffy bloke to fall back on, so part of my aim was to leave those props completely behind and face the world in its entirety as female. I am much indebted in this endeavour to Dru for my couple of days in Bristol and Nikki for my day in Wiltshire.
It would be tempting to write a diary piece, but the minutiae of such outings soon becomes irksome. Suffice to say I entered a whole lot of new territories and came through unscathed.The rite of passage afforded by a first solo trip to a shopping mall for instance seems something of a cliché, but it is no less daunting a challenge for that.
    Highlights of it all were my parents seeing me as girl for the first time because I changed at their house (My mother said I looked very nice, probably being diplomatic), being shown the graffiti artwork of Stokes Croft by Dru and an early morning trip out on Bristol Downs without makeup to hide behind.
    Driving home I was struck by not having been troubled by gender issues during the time. It worried me for a moment, then I realised that this had simply been me feeling unencumbered by them. In the real world. Pink fog not an issue. Real.
    I'm not used to that. Definitely entering new territory here.

Letter to a friend who went deep stealth

2011-12-05T07:40:00.001Z

Dear A,
Earlier this year, you had your GRS and promptly disappeared. You dropped all your friends and moved house. I wrote a blog post about it at the time, about my sense of hurt and loss.
I'm told that the other day you unexpectedly visited a mutual friend. You now live only a few miles away, you've changed your name again and nobody in your new life knows your past. Our mutual friend tells me you'd like to meet in town sometime, maybe have a coffee or something.
Y'know what? I'd love to renew our friendship, I really would. But before that happens I need to know which A I'm getting to know again. You see, I'm in a somewhat fragile state, just as I was in April. I'm on hefty anti-depressants, I need medication to sleep, and the slightest upset affects me deeply, makes me cry and ruins my confidence for days. You may remember this, it's a side-effect of living with a condition called gender dysphoria. I've been fighting it for a very long time and though I'm not giving up it's a battle I may lose.
So if I'm going to meet an A who feels quite happy knowing a scruffy bloke but would drop me like a hot potato if I turned into an oversized woman, then no. You've hurt me once by doing that, and I'm not going to willingly set myself up for another shot. Run away and have a nice life in your closet.
But if the A I'm getting to know again is here for keeps, then I'd love to welcome back the attractive and funny girl I last saw in April. If you're going to be there for me no matter what, then so am I for you. When the inevitable happens and someone figures out your past, you've got a local friend to hold your hand if you need it, I'm not going anywhere else in a hurry.
So which is it to be? If the latter, then mine's an Americano, black.
Jenny

A day in town

2011-11-30T21:13:00.000Z

Monday saw my second assessment at the GIC. The same train journey with my wife, walk across the park and through West London. Past the fancy shops, the Bristol Cars showroom, the Olympia exhibition hall. Nice day for it. I bought my wife a scarf.
Most Londoners are aghast if you tell them you walked across their city. For a whole hour! But it provides an entertaining interlude, a chance to de-stress, and some welcome exercise.
The GIC was much busier than last time. A healthy cross-section of our community, men and women attired from the conventional to the slightly bizarre. I was the only scruffy bloke among the MtF contingent, in fact at all, the transmen present could hardly be described as scruffy.
My appointment was with one of the doctors with a more fearsome reputation. One who by all accounts doesn't suffer fools gladly and who sees his job as to challenge his patients. It's his technique to pull no punches, if you go forward on his say-so you have to be really committed to your path. Some people are upset by this, but I see why he does it and if you are prepared for it then it is a welcome exercise in self-challenging.
I had a fixed objective, to receive their specialist counseling services. Their first question at these appointments is always "Why are you here?", so I gave him my objective and explained why. We then discussed my situation and history, before having an entertaining chat about what I do for a living.
As an interesting aside, he revealed that my blood test showed I have a benign inherited liver anomaly with a very long name that I'll need to remember should I ever suffer jaundice. Nothing else was mentioned, so I'm guessing my baseline hormone levels must be exactly where they are supposed to be. Healthy is good.
So I came away with a referral to further counseling. Exactly what I wanted. I'm pleased with this result, it shows that help is available at the GIC for those of us taking non-standard paths. I haven't needed to present as female and I haven't been given a hard time. Sometimes I feel that few people relate their good news GIC stories.
Out of the GIC, into the Tube. Through the maze of deep tubes, onto the Victoria Line to Walthamstow. A slightly run-down high street like any other, home of Doreen Fashions. A long established ladies clothing shop that specialises in supplies for cross-dressers. Staffed by a wonderful pair of Cockney ladies who were very friendly and helpful. I was looking for an item of shapewear to help tease a feminine silhouette from my angular frame - is that what they mean by "squeezed middle"? - , and while I was there it was always worth seeing whether I could fit any of their size 14 shoes.

Opportunities to buy ladies shoes in my size don't come my way very often. There are so few made in a UK15 or US16. So if I find a pair and they aren't wild fetishwear, then I'll buy them. Like these sandals, actually a US16 but labelled as a UK14. OK, I haven't got anywhere to wear them, they're a little dressy for my requirements and November is the wrong time to buy sandals. But I have probably just bought the only pair of ladies sandals in my size in the country, so am I bothered? Of course not!
Surprisingly they're quite comfortable to wear, too. I haven't quite got the walking technique right though. There will be some comedy wobbling moments ahead of me wearing these shoes, but I shall persevere.
So, Monday was a good day.

The Wot and the 'Oo

2011-11-27T10:11:00.000Z

In a couple of places recently I've had my attention drawn to the apparent dichotomy between identifying as female and admitting that I present as a scruffy bloke in my everyday life. It seems letting slip that you have something of the bloke about you is a bit of a no-no hereabouts.
It's a valid subject to address, and it's one that different people approach in different ways. My approach to it stems from my scientific and engineering training, I approach it from an empirical rather than an emotional standpoint. Experience and observation rather than theory or logic.

It comes down to this: splitting the what from the who.

Who I am is defined by what lies between my ears. I've spent the past four decades battling a brain from the girl parts bin, so yes, I identify as female.

What I am is defined by my physical attributes. Stubble, deep voice, male parts. I was born that way, grew up that way, can't deny it. So yes, day-to-day I'm a scruffy bloke. Don't really like it much and it's looking sadly more likely I may well fix it some time, but that's the way I am for now.

This dichotomy is central to the the life of every transsexual. Transition early, transition late or never transition at all, we wouldn't be transsexuals if we didn't have to live at least some of our lives in this way. I find it a bit odd that I even have to lay out what should be the bleedin' obvious, but there you go.

So yes, I identify as female, though circumstances mean I have to live most of my life as a scruffy bloke. Live with it. I have to, every sodding day.

That was the future, that was.

2011-11-22T23:37:00.000Z

They say today's children are digital natives. That is to say, they have never known a world without ubiquitous computing and to them operating a computer is as natural as a dial telephone or a record player was to someone born in the 1970s.

I feel sorry for today's children. They are surrounded by so much computing power, yet they know so little about how to use it.

I was part of the first generation of digital natives, for whom affordable home computing arrived just as we were old enough to get to grips with it. I saved my primary-school-age pennies and bought a Sinclair ZX81. Back then if you wanted to use your computer you had to learn to program it, there was very little commercial software and the machines were designed to be easily programmable. My generation learned BASIC, and if like me we were extra-geeky, machine code. I eventually learned enough about the internal circuitry of the Sinclair to understand its operation completely, the only computer I've had that I've understood to that level in a long career in technology.
My generation's schools had rooms full of similar home computers. In an unusually far-sighted move the UK government funded the development of a school computer - the BBC Micro - and we kids lapped them up. It is fair to say that many people like me were given careers by that investment.

By comparison, today's children learn basic Microsoft Office skills. They use computers as appliances, dumbed down in case they might inadvertently learn something from them.

I spent a while a few weeks ago sorting out some of my old PCs. Dismantling and scrapping some broken or archaic ones, resurrecting a couple of slightly more capable ones to take a lightweight Linux platform for web browsing and other general purpose duties. These were hot gaming and software development platforms in 1998 and 2001 respectively, but now they don't really cut it in the modern PC market. By rights I should get rid of them, but when you work in tech it's always useful to have a spare PC or two around.
It is sobering to realise though that I'll soon be able to buy a more capable PC the size of a credit card for the equivalent of $25. The Raspberry Pi is a single board computer designed to use a modern HDTV as a monitor and a commodity USB keyboard and mouse. It uses a processor similar to the one in your mobile phone and for storage it uses a memory card like the one in your digital camera. Best of all it runs a full-featured modern Linux operating system which gives it the ability to do most of what until very recently you needed a full-sized PC to achieve. As you might imagine, I'll be placing an order for one as soon as they are released.
The aim of the Raspberry Pi is not to give geeks like me a new toy though. It is aimed at schools, and it is designed from the start to be easy to program. Its creators - among them some of the people whose imaginations were sparked by the 1980s computer boom - hope to recreate some of the interest in computing as more than a study of appliances that we had with the BBC Micro thirty years ago.
Maybe today's kids aren't going to be so unlucky in their tech after all.

A walk in the fog

2011-11-20T23:00:00.000Z

As somehow befit the moment, today was a dim and foggy one in Southern England. Last year I spent a while sitting in silent contemplation of TDOR in the parish church I was christened in, this year I passed on that one but took the same long walk with my mother's dog.

Happy mutt, fog must bring out the doggy aromas or something.

So, fog inside and out. A lot to think about. I passed the tree that was in front of me when I heard that Grace had died, its leaves a pleasant coppery colour. The fog blocks the ever-present noise from the main road a couple of miles away, so the dog and I were alone in a world of muted shades, with ghostly trees looming in the distance.
I thought of Andrea Waddell, and then of a friend of mine who has taken up sex work - I have no idea why, her day job earns her crazy amounts of money! - and ended up as I did last year, angry with the world.

Don't like anger. It's the testosterone wot does it. Damn stuff should be banned.

Here's a tip, next time you're likely to be down, take a walk with a happy dog. You're never alone with a dog, and she won't judge you. Plenty to interest her in the leaf litter. I was reminded of the time she put up a muntjac deer which set off at a rate of knots, the dog following on her too-short legs and being left in the dust.
In an odd echo of last year, I bumped into our neighbour, walking her two dogs. Old friends with my mother's mutt, three dogs ecstatically happy to see each other, tearing off down the field.
Our neighbour is a close friend of my mother's, and my mother has taken her into confidence about my gender issues. We hadn't talked about it, but after exchanging pleasantries she complemented me on my hair. It's grown out to the point at which the same wave my mother and sister have is beginning to show.
It was a slightly odd conversation, a scruffy bloke and a middle-aged woman talking about all this while walking through a field of next year's oilseed rape in the fog. I showed her my photo from Sparkle on my phone - not the one I put on this blog but another with my sister - and saw the usual double-take. But no negativity, as she had been to my mother she was nothing but supportive.
I'm not sure that a similar conversation could have taken place thirty years ago. On TDOR it can be easy to forget that however slowly it is happening, we are still moving forward.

Rug pulled

2011-11-17T11:17:00.001Z

A couple of weeks ago my wife dropped something of a bombshell.. She said straight out, that she thought I should move forward and transition because in our current situation neither of us are very happy.

Ouch. Unsurprisingly that pulled the rug from under my feet.

We've been attending counseling together for the last couple of months, with Relate. It's been a little tough at times, but our counselor is very good and it has been of benefit to us. When people think of Relate, they think of marriage break-up counseling, of couples arguing hammer and tongs over who gets which end of the family dog, that kind of thing. For us that has not been the case, our counselor has remarked that to her our relationship is very strong. Instead we're using the service as an opportunity to explore our issues as a couple surrounding my gender, and it has been of great help. A little uncomfortable, that's all.

Did I say a little uncomfortable? I should have said a lot.

My whole approach to all this has been based around building walls. My family would never accept it (Though bizarrely at the time I was also mistakenly convinced they already knew), I'm too large, my feet are too big, I'd never pass as female, the list went on. This might be familiar to other trans people.
Each wall I built has been slowly eroded. My family all know now, and have been surprised, but accepting. There are natal women my size and shape. Shoes are difficult in a 15 but not insurmountable. I see something of my sister in the mirror when presenting female.

I wouldn't make a very good builder, would I.

And now the most insurmountable wall has crumbled too. The line-in-the-sand. My wife has turned round and said that I shouldn't do this for her.
In a way I'm glad that this has come out through and been explored in counselling rather than between us as it inevitably would have. The space provided by Relate is there for exactly this purpose, a neutral space. Face it calmly and rationally. As the saying has it, like a man. Funny, that.
You might think I would be going forward with a song in my heart at this news. After all I have a GIC appointment in a few weeks and all I need do is turn up with a deed poll on my hand and set the ball rolling. But no. What we have is too important to jeopardise and I can not do that. Anything that happens has to be in both of our best interests, unequivocally. She might not leave me were I to transition, but what matters is not whether we stay together but whether she's happy.
I recognise that I'm on a downward slope and it one day may go horribly wrong. I guess the events of the last week or two might have brought that into sharper focus. But I ain't done yet, and I'm not giving up. A bizarre image floats into my head at that, of Maggie delivering her "The Lady's not for turning" speech.
So in a couple of weeks I'll wander up to town, walk across the park again and sit down in front of a psychiatrist bloke again in an office overlooking a busy London street. He'll see a scruffy bloke, not an oversized girl. Something has changed since my last GIC visit though, I now know what I want to ask for from him. I've seen counsellors locally, but never gender specialists. I will ask for whatever specialist gender counselling they can offer me.
I'm done with trying to figure this out for myself, I need a bit of help to get to the bottom of what ails me.

Grey day in Blighty

2011-11-11T23:00:00.002Z

The 11th of November. Armistice day. A typical November day here in southern England, subdued lighting and heavy grey skies. Very fitting.
Though I have one discreetly in the back window of my car I wore no poppy and I missed the minute's silence, mainly because I was picking quinces and I didn't have any means to keep track of time. As it happens I was thinking about a couple of people I knew who were war veterans, both WW2. I was fortunate enough to be in the last generation whose teachers had fought in the war. If you want a very realistic take on it all, get it from someone who spent the war in the nose of a Lancaster bomber, or on a Royal Navy corvette escorting Arctic convoys.
The war - sorry, I should have said the War - is a national obsession here in the UK. My wife once remarked to her mother that British telly was all about the war and I hotly defended it, only to find Dad's Army and no less than three war documentaries on the evening we returned home.
It was our Finest Hour y'see, Mr. Churchill told us so. He had one hell of a job of rousing morale to do back in 1940, but over the decades since his speech was delivered the war has been woven into our national mythology to the extent that it has become in a way synonymous with our national identity as a defining moment of Britishness rather than the global catastrophe it should be remembered as.
So back to today. If you don't observe Rememberance, you are not remembering the War, and thus you are somehow not British. Or so the logic goes. We've seen it reach an extreme in recent years with the near-fetishisation of the act of rememberance in Wootton Basset, in which the ceremonial seems to eclipse the unjustness of the death of the individual. And you get the bizarre race among politicians and celebrities sometime around the end of October, to be the First On Telly Wearing A Poppy. Coquelicots nouveaux, like the race to be the first with the new season's Beaujolais.
In the past week we've had a fuss over the national footy team's right to wear poppies when playing ~~Jerry~~ the Germans, yesterday there was a fuss over a Muslim group who planned to burn some poppies, and today saw the arrest of a group of far-right-wing English Defence League supporters hoping for a bust-up with some lefty campaigners near the Cenotaph. As if the Prime Minister didn't have better things to do as Europe goes down the pan, or as if the Met wouldn't rather be policing a load of ex-servicemen and women.
You'll notice at the start of this piece I referred to today as Armistice Day rather than Rememberance Day. Armistice, the day that war ended. Because I'd rather celebrate the peace and pause for a moment to remember the men and women whose sacrifice gave us it than use the day as an opportunity to wrap myself in the flag.

It's as easy as a walk in the park, right?

2011-11-06T22:13:00.002Z

November in the UK is a time in which you have to take your chances. If you get a sunny day, use it, it might be January before you see another!
Today my wife and I went on a favourite walk of ours, through the river meadows and up onto the Downs near Milton, Oxfordshire. I know the British climate has a reputation for being damp, but rainfall has been rather low this year so the going was surprisingly not muddy and in bright sunlight it made for a very pleasant day.
Now you might ask why a favourite walk of ours passes near to the omnipresent bulk of Didcot Power Station and crosses the A34, a motorway in all but name. And you'd be right to ask, after all it's one of the more unprepossessing places in that part of the world. But hidden to a motorist's casual eye is a network of river meadows that have never seen cultivation, fertiliser or weedkiller, separated by clear chalk-fed streams and lush beds of watercress. In short, an oasis of wildlife in a sterile arable plain, albeit to the thunderous aural accompaniment of the trucks heading down to Southampton.
Sadly we were a bit late to take advantage of the blackberries or wild plums, the birds have had them all. So we did what 21st century foraging humans are supposed to do, we went to a very handy McDonalds by the A34.
It's almost an H.M. Bateman cartoon, isn't it. I can see it now, "The Man Who Admitted To Liking McDonald's In Polite Company", in which a bunch of 1930s-attired people spill their Fair Trade coffees in horror at such a transgression. And it's true, I've bought my share of Fair Trade coffees over the years, shopped local and eaten organic. But then I married someone from Over There, for whom the chain represents not a faceless corporation but childhood parties and so I too was sucked into the Web of Hamburger Shame. With extra special sauce, oh yeah, that special sauce!
You know you've hit rock bottom when you're poking discarded cardboard coffee cups with your foot to see whether the collect-six-get-a-free-coffee sticker has been removed. Only managed one today, from four cups. And a grazed hand, snapping off a dead stick to poke at cups in the leaves. Well, it provides a little bit of entertainment during the boring tarmac bit of the walk I guess.
Our walk took us by the road up the hill towards the Downs, by which there was plenty of discarded fast-food debris. For that I don't blame the restaurant, they have gone out of their way to provide litter bins with their logo on them some distance away from their site, instead I'm unimpressed with people who can't be bothered to stuff the debris back in the paper bag it came in, screw it up and bin it later. Still, I guess I've had more than one free coffee out of them over the years, so I'm hardly one to complain. Maybe I should go litter-picking in penance.
From the top of the Berkshire Downs you can see at least four counties on a good day. Our route didn't quite take us to the top, so make that two for us. The whole of the Vale of the White Horse spread out in front of us, quite a view. And in early November, one alight with autumn foliage, very pretty.
As you might imagine, we didn't walk in silence. We have plenty to talk about, as do most couples. And as you also might imagine, our conversation strayed onto matters of gender. It does have that annoying habit of popping up. My wife said something that gave me pause for thought, she said I should work towards transitioning. Bit of a showstopper moment, that. Her reasoning is that I'm not the happiest of people at the moment and thus neither is she, so there is little point in maintaining a situation in which we aren't happy. And she has a point, however as always I am not sure all that would be entailed in my transitioning would be good for her. If that were our route then I would want to embark upon it only once all that underlies it had been thoroughly explored with our various counselors, as I've gone into here ad infinitum in the past she is too important to me to do something that might hurt her.
So we arrived back to the Turbocharged Rollerskate, safely where we'd left it on a village side road, me with quite a lot to think about. It is encouraging that my wife is prepared to think in that direction because I think we're both aware that this is a downward slope. But while you might expect me to be celebrating such a revelation I'm doing the opposite, hanging back from the brink. Some clue as to why should be found in my description of a happy day walking with my wife.

Hater, or simply alienated?

2011-11-04T18:12:00.000Z

It's a hoary old trope I've seen in a thousand ranty online arguments. Usually just before someone mentions the Nazis and invokes Godwin's Law, someone says something like "If you substituted 'Jew' or 'Black person' for (insert trigger word here) and said that, you'd be locked up!".
At that point I think the argument is lost from all sides and everybody would be better off putting the keyboard down and backing away. Sadly it doesn't seem to work that way.
It is however all too easy to become wrapped up in the perceived truths of one's own bubble and forget that without thought being given to how they are presented they might appear alienating and offensive to outsiders. Alienated and offended people do the strangest things.
To that end if I say something I try to imagine how it might play when read in the soft glow of someone else's computer monitor. Someone, that is, who knows nothing about me beyond what the medium in which they encounter me. They don't know I'm either a harmless but scruffy bloke or an amiable but improbable girl, they only have what I've said to go on. Sometimes I'll get it right, occasionally I won't and I'll be called out on it. Being called out is part of life, engage with civility, after all the caller-out often has a point.
It's interesting though to think about it, those of us in smaller bubbles are quick to label those in larger ones as haters when in fact they may simply be normal people who have been alienated or offended by something we've said or done. Hell, they might even be won over if engaged with rather than met with a counter-display.
I have to admit to falling into this trap myself at times. Maybe you have too. I'm pretty sure I've also at times been someone alienated and thus labeled a hater, simply because of who I am.
It's something to think about, engagement rather than anger. If I try it I wonder how long I can keep it up.

...I've said too much.

2011-10-31T22:38:00.000Z

So you're in a conversation with a natal female friend, and she mentions something in passing that relates to fashion, or clothing. You know, girl stuff. And you forget for a moment that to her you're just another scruffy bloke, and venture an opinion that owes something to experience rather than to guesswork.
Or as happened to me this lunchtime, you're sitting in the main public thoroughfare at work with your colleagues, and a colleague who has made a spectacular sartorial faux pas walks by out of earshot, and without thinking you say "Oh dear, wrong skirt!". You've said too much.
It's funny, because most of my female colleagues know all about me. My male colleagues though don't, and must be in danger of having me pegged as something of a meterosexual by now. Scruffy, into cars and bikes, married to a gorgeous wife, yet long haired and notices women by their clothing rather than their other attributes.
I have to watch that people watching thing, it'll be my undoing. Mind you, it's not as if that matters, in my industry nobody will care too much. I do have to consider how far I want it to go though.
I don't care, I'd happily be girl all the time by now, but I have to think of my wife. To her it matters, she's been great all along but I could so easily puncture her buffer zone.
Today being Halloween, I'm sure some of my American friends will have taken the opportunity to unleash their female alter egos on the world. We don't do that, so no funny costumes today in the office. But something struck me about it earlier that made me laugh. If we did the Halloween thing here, I wouldn't be taking part, it's too close to home. Silly, ain't it.

OM

2011-10-28T08:00:00.000+01:00

In amateur radio parlance, an 'old-timer' is someone who's been involved in the hobby for a quarter century. Back when I still had a current licence, the old-timers were the WW2 generation, they'd sit on 80 metres and talk about their allotments or the war. They were, to my young eyes, impossibly old.
So it is with some distress that I note my near quarter century since passing my licence examination.
Better an OM if not a YL than an SK I guess.

QSB? K

Privileged

2011-10-27T22:18:00.001+01:00

It was encouraging the other day to read something from a natal female feminist outraged that her feminist group was debating whether to allow trans people to attend. Lots of talk about male privilege it seems, usual thinly disguised man-hater stuff. The group had settled on inaction, they'd cross that bridge when a trans woman came along. Presumably meaning at that point they'd decide to boot out a trans woman. One wonders what they think a trans person looks like, and whether they understand that they could have trans women among them without their realising it. They Walk Among Us y'know!
This touches on a difference I've observed between male culture and female culture. Women's groups are often exclusive, groups patronised by men aren't. Feminists and other womens groups exclude men without question, in four decades as a bloke I've never seen the reverse outside dinosaurs such as men-only golf clubs that I have nothing to do with anyway. In the real world the only bloke-only space I've patronised has been the men's loo. Even QwesT FtM, a support group for trans men and a very sound organisation, have FtM-only meetings. I've *never* encountered an MtF support space that has MtF-only events and would not be extremely pleased to see any FtMs who might attend so I was rather shocked to see that. Then again if exclusivity is a female thing perhaps we could learn from them...
(Edit) Nutty radical feminists are all too ready to bang on about male privilege. My wicked sense of humour finds it funny that they do so in the same breath as voicing the self-evident right-on opinion that nobody should be targeted for abuse over anything they are born with and can't help. It is interesting though to think what it means from a detached on-the-fence insider's perspective. I can only see it from my own position after all.
As someone who's spent decades as a scruffy bloke, I have had male privilege in bucket loads. It's true, especially as a large scruffy bloke I can swagger if I choose to. The world is my oyster. But do the man-haters honestly believe that people like me don't understand that? And that someone able to reap the apparent benefits of all that might willingly give it up? Does that not make them stop and think for a minute?
Of course not. At the root of the man-haters hate is envy, for something they could never have.

Shame, I'd give 'em the whole bloody lot if I could. It really ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Perspective

2011-10-23T12:01:00.000+01:00

I spent Saturday morning diving through some bins in one of my town's less salubrious suburbs. Yeah, I sure know how to have a good time. Not my usual weekend entertainment as I'm certain you'll understand, I was retrieving some property belonging to a friend.
R is a friend of mine. Not trans or anything, just someone I know through having been a friend-of-a-friend. She's a couple of years older than me, and she has battled mental illness on and off for most of her life. In the last few weeks she's had a particularly hard time due to an anniversary of a family death, so she missed some of her medication and found herself tipped over the edge. She somehow came to the conclusion that having anything old or green in her flat would cause her to be sectioned (detained in a mental hospital) so she proceded to throw out anything that might possibly fit those descriptions.
Personal documents, clothes, heirlooms, valuables, the lot.
She's safe now, with other friends who are getting her back on the road. But a group of us knew that she'd chucked out half her life and would be heartbroken at the losses when she returned to her senses, so our mission was to rescue her property.
Fortunately she'd been methodical in her turn-out, so things were neatly packaged and bagged. My small hatchback with its rear seats down was filled to bursting-point though, and we had something of a headache sorting it all out and storing it.
It is worth learning the lesson of perspective at moments like this. It would be easy to sink into the mire, but an annoying dose of GD is not as bad as some of the things people can suffer from. Important not to forget that.

White picket fence

2011-10-14T08:03:00.000+01:00

It's very easy when writing for a blog like this one, to slip into a constant cycle of melancholia. I'm depressed, I'm not sleeping, I had a noisy girl day, my female colleagues sometimes get me down by being so damn female, most of you will know the day-to-day angst of the semi-closeted trans person.
In fact, that's maybe why I've written a bit less over the past few months than I might otherwise have done. I'm anxious to avoid such repetitive moaning. This blog should be full of tales of fun stuff, and geeky yet fascinating (To me anyway!) pieces on language and other issues of the day.
But life goes on, and I have to admit that all is not always well in Paradise. Our white picket fence does at times appear to be in need of a coat of whitewash.
In particular I find myself pulled down by the intractable situation my wife and I find ourselves in. It sometimes seems as though none of our possible routes lead to happiness for both of us. If we continue to live as non-transitioning husband and wife then we're both unhappy, she so because I'm in a state, but if we were to give up and go our separate ways or if I were to transition then neither of us would be happy either.
Neither of us wants to give up. But it isn't going to get any better. This is a downhill slope, you can't put it away and despite what the nutty people who believe we can be cured by religious means think, there is no cure. Even transition is not a cure, if you doubt that try coming off your hormones for a while and tell me you are not merely managing the condition.
So my wife and I are attending counseling together, as a couple. The purpose is slightly different to that of psychological counseling, in the simplest terms my wife needs a forum in which she can work out how she can deal with this, both in terms of coping strategies and in terms of how much of this she can take.
As with so many counseling experiences for a trans person, there has been an element of breaking in the counselor. But this isn't about the trans-ness itself but our relationship, so that matters less than it would if this was medical counseling. Our counselor is a very calm and experienced middle-aged lady who has guided us very well in exploring our relationship and the factors affecting it.
The most important thing to have come out of it is to have it spelled out that we have a very good relationship. Our counselor is used to dealing with couples who are at the stage of arguing over who gets which half of the family dog, so she's in a good position to pass comment on this matter. Also while matters of gender do at times appear to have taken over it is important to remember that our relationship is subject to all the same pressures as any other, we are no different in that respect to anyone else. Such positive realisations are vital, for they remind us that things are not as bad as they could be.
I have begun to realise over the last six months that resisting this condition is likely to be a futile exercise. But I can not stop trying, for the same reason as always: my wife is worth it.

Slow pressing

2011-10-13T21:50:00.000+01:00

A happy day spent wielding apples yesterday, as our two friends from the antipodes came up from London to join the fun of pressing cider.
In fact we spent rather less time pressing cider than we might have, after a morning picking apples we cooked a rather huge veggie shepherd's pie and apple crumble which along with a bottle of the 2010 pressing left us all a little relaxed for the afternoon. Still, we managed enough juice for both cider and pasteurising, and I had the chance to blend a high-tannin wild apple with dessert apples to make what I hope will be an interesting cider.
So I think we showed Nix & DB one of the better slices of the British rural autumn. We even had near-perfect weather, dry and temperate, neither too hot nor too cold.
A couple of pressings down, maybe a couple more to go, I think.

Diary of a fruit picker

2011-10-11T08:55:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year again. Trees laden with apples, hedges laden with blackberries. My clothing is streaked with moss and my arms are peppered with bramble scratches. My freezer though is stuffed with bags of fruit and I have a plastic drum full of what will become the first batch of next year's new cider gently fermenting.
The late summer here saw my first apple pressing in 30 degree heat, a first. A colleague remarked that we saw three seasons last week, I expressed the hope that last Saturday would then see cherry blossom, sadly a forlorn hope.
Autumn always leaves me slightly sad, feeling that I've somehow missed the summer. Silly really, autumn is the most impressive season in itself, the countryside both laden with produce and beautiful in decay. I took a walk across the fields with my parents neighbour on Sunday, watching deer through the woodland and a poor buzzard being mobbed by some crows.
The picture shows some very late blackberries. Losing flavour a little by now, but still worth freezing. Those will find their way into a pie sometime in January.

Canola, it's like rape.

2011-10-07T08:28:00.002+01:00

My eye was caught earlier this week by a piece at the UK feminist blog, The F-word: 'Things that are not like rape'. It examines the use of the word 'rape', and how it is experiencing something of a linguistic shift in some quarters, being used to express mild annoyance. I agree with the author of the piece: such use devalues the word and desensitises us as to its meaning. Given the serious nature of the word, that is not acceptable.
The examples given make the point admirably. No, you are not being raped if you attend a photoshoot, or if your online video service increases its prices.
Of course, the problem is that to the people using the word it is just that, a word. They have never been raped, known a rape victim or even been a rapist. It's not as if I fit in any of those groups either, but one might hope that anyone with half a brain would be able to appreciate the serious nature of rape and STFU before using the word in that way.
So how does one communicate the level of transgression inherent in the misuse of the word 'rape'? Time to examine in detail its use in the language.
Regular readers of this blog might remember a piece I wrote a couple of months ago examining the use of 'tranny' when compared to the N-word. In it I used corpus analysis, the science of examining huge bodies of text to find answers to linguistic questions, to examine the collocates of each word: those words which most often appear alongside it.

This word cloud shows the top 50 collocates for 'rape'. I have removed a few stop words and one word relating to a secondary sense of the word, but otherwise they are exactly as they rolled out of the computer.
'Murder', 'assault', 'kill', 'torture', 'abuse', 'violence', 'beat'. It tells the story pretty clearly, doesn't it. And it identifies the victims too: 'woman', 'girl', 'child', 'daughter'.
I don't see anything about photo shoots there, Mr. Depp.

The title of this piece refers to one of the very few acceptable uses of 'rape' in another sense. In the UK, the agricultural crop the Americans call 'Canola' is referred to as 'Oilseed rape'. Its bright yellow flowers are a familiar sight in the fields near where I grew up. The word I mentioned removing from the word cloud above was thus 'oilseed'.

FFS? FFS!

2011-10-04T08:11:00.000+01:00

Every time a friend or acquaintance of mine goes in for facial feminisation surgery I worry for her far more than I would if she had gone in for GRS or any other procedure. Because not only is it a painful and risky experience, I'm worried that she'll come out of the hospital and the swelling will slowly go away to reveal her new look as at best an obvious recipient of plastic surgery or at worst a hideous freak. Sometimes as with a friend of mine who went to the USA for hers earlier this year she'll return looking as I might imagine her natal sister to look and I'll breathe a huge sigh of relief, but all too often you're in that awkward situation in which the world and dog can see something went disastrously wrong but you have to tell her how wonderful she looks because to tell the truth would be to crush her forever.
I sometimes wonder whether there should be a no-holds-barred gallery of real FFS recipients. Because it seems from where I'm sitting that the only pictures that get passed around are those of the lucky girls, the ones who look radiant and pretty. Come to me, the surgeon says, and you'll look like her.
What people considering FFS should be seeing are the not-so-lucky girls. The ones with the face-stretched-tight look perhaps, the Cruella De Vil grimace smiles, or the Michael Jackson noses. The implants that have gone south. One cheek higher than the other, nice. Or how about that cookie-cutter far-too-small-and-pointy out-of-proportion chin that just screams "I used to be a bloke, you know"?
So why am I holding forth on such a sensitive issue? I know that there are going to be people who read this who will be upset by it, so what gives?
On Friday, I saw some pictures of a friend of mine taken about four years ago. Back then she'd been full-time for about a year. In the intervening time she's had extensive FFS and while it wasn't a disaster, it shows pretty clearly.
In those pictures from four years ago, my friend looks gorgeous.I still have testosterone in my system, and I am a gynephile. I am programmed to notice pretty women. She looked good, and then some. I'd always assumed she must have needed the surgery, maybe she had a chin like David Coulthard or something, but no. She did it, I'm told, because she still imagined the bloke in the mirror.
Now believe me, I know all about seeing the bloke in the mirror. I see him every morning, stubble and all. I don't avoid mirrors, but let's just say when I'm at my scruffiest they aren't my favourite. I know I will still see his ghost looking back at me if I ever become the full-time girl. But I also learned something very important from my art teacher mother. I learned to analyse faces as an artist might, to strip away the window dressing and look at the proportions, the underlying components.
And guess what? As I sit and people-watch, I see natal female faces of all conceivable proportions. I see heavy eyebrows and I see square chins. And I don't see men in those faces.
If you were to plot the facial femininty of the male population on a frequency graph, you would end up with a bell curve. On the left, a few with very feminine features, in the middle the majority on the male side of androgyny and on the right a few like David Coulthard with very obviously male facial structures.
So the majority of us have pretty androgynous features, once you remove the gender cues such as facial hair and bushy eyebrows. It was something of a shock to me to see an echo of my sister in the mirror when I first donned a wig, so I rate myself in this group. Given a course of estrogen to round off the corners, my face won't be my undoing.
Something I have to remember, every time I see something of the bloke in the mirror.
I'm sure I'll bite my tongue next time a friend flies to Thailand or Belgium for FFS. I'll avoid asking her whether waiting for the estrogen to do its job wouldn't help, or finishing the hair removal. And if she comes back looking a little false, well I'll concentrate on the good bits. But inside I'll be wanting to scream at her that she's the only one who still sees the bloke.
Nobody wants to rain on a parade, least of all me. But I can't help a feeling of guilt for it.

Indian summer

2011-09-28T07:33:00.000+01:00

Here in Southern England, it's apple harvest time. And it's a good one too, the cold winter followed by a late spring gave the trees a decent dormancy so the yield this year is huge.
So as we get a final burst of warm weather - the Indian summer of this post's title - I'll be spending a while in the next few days picking apples and pressing juice.
There s a comfort in the stability of the rural calendar. Whatever happens elsewhere, you know what to expect at home. On Sunday I was passing the spot where I was standing back in March when Dawn told me her friend Grace had died. That tree is in full leaf now, just starting to turn. Life goes on.

Tell someone

2011-09-24T08:34:00.001+01:00

By now if you knew her, you will probably have heard that Melissa, of 'Melissa's meanderings' fame, has passed away following a fight against cancer. I'm not very good at writing tributes because I always have the feeling that anything I write sounds trite and hollow, but others have penned eulogies for her that both celebrate her life in this sphere and express the sentiment of our community. Rest in piece, Melissa.
As is so often the case in our world, Melissa kept her female life and her online life separate from her family life. As I understand it her sister was quite accepting of her but her mother, while aware, was not. Thus when the end came none of her online friends were aware she had passed away, and now the news has reached us there is no way for any of our tributes to reach her family, or for her family to be aware of how she was respected in our community and perhaps gain some comfort from it.
Following a conversation on this theme with the other bloggers behind T-Central, later today I'm going to have a word with both my wife and my sister. I'm going to give them instructions that in the event of my untimely demise, they are to both announce it here and introduce both this blog and my wider involvement in this community to those among my scruffy bloke friends and wider family who are unaware of them. In that way while my oversized girl might come as an unwelcome surprise to some of them, my writings and the friends I have made here might also bring them some comfort.
Of course, it's easy for me. I'm quietly open about all this. Anyone close to me already knows about Jenny. I appreciate that those of you who are deeper in the closet might not have the luxury of a handy person to have that conversation with but I urge you to think about it, would it be worth telling someone and leaving instructions for the handling of your dual lives after you have gone? Because once the unthinkable has happened, it will be surely too late.

A short and informative post about oil and gunk

2011-09-18T18:13:00.003+01:00

A few weeks ago I was in despair. Black grot everywhere, a very sickly sounding Wreck indeed, and an alarming consumption of oil had left me convinced that the older of my two cars had a broken piston ring, something that is rather annoying to fix.
So I borrowed C's compression tester, a pressure gauge on a bit of pipe you screw into the hole where the spark plug goes, and measured the compression on all four cylinders. Perfect, all nearly the same, and all exactly where I expected them to be. This is an old engine, and it was designed with a low compression to run on the nastier grade of 1950s British petrol.
So the car hadn't destroyed a piston ring. Great. So what's up?
Back in the summer I overheated the car as its aged 1950s thermostat failed. Fortunately it's a tough engine so it can take it, but unfortunately it boiled its oil and a lot of it escaped in an impressive cloud of smoke. I had to buy a can of oil from a garage, and they didn't have the old-style 20w50 grade that used to be the mainstay lubricant for cars like the Wreck. I bought modern 10w40, a much thinner and more high-performance oil that wouldn't do the Wreck's engine any significant damage but definitely isn't the one recommended for it.
I think I've found out why 10w40 is not recommended for Wrecks. The thinner oil seeps past the aged rubber oil seals with ridiculous ease, which meant the cylinders were filling with oil from above rather than below as it flowed past the valve stem seals.
An engine flush that brought out an impressive amount of thick black gunk with the used oil, followed by new 20w50, a new filter and a can of oil seal rejuvenation additive, and I once again have a car that shows some semblance of reliability.
Why on earth do I run a car that does things like that to me? If you have to ask, you just don't understand. :)

Sheer bloody-mindedness.

2011-09-18T15:08:00.000+01:00

If you have never cooked hotdogs with a Trangia storm cooker on a cliff top overlooking the North Sea, you haven't lived. If you have ever walked over a moorland summit with breathtaking views only to find yourself in a local dogging hotspot judging by the litter, you have my commiseration. My wife and I are back from a week's holiday doing all the above and more; wandering the Yorkshire uplands by day and sampling the Local Delicacies in the evening. Fish and chips, for example, taste best when bought from a chippy over the road from the quay on which the fish was landed earlier in the day.
That has been the good part of the last week. The annoying part has been that we're both suffering from interrupted sleep. Sometimes my medication doesn't help much, and my wife has also started having problems remaining asleep.A less-than-comfortable British seaside guesthouse bed didn't help either. Fawlty Towers? In part a comedy, the rest a documentary.
So I'm back in front of a real computer again, a week's blog posts to catch up with. A week without letting the girl out of the bag has weighed heavily upon me, yet again I'm left with the feeling that I'm not winning this. More than one person has talked to me of the moment at which they realised they had to transition, I have to admit to having reached the point at which I can empathise with that position. I don't want to get up in the morning and be the bloke for the day any more. I should have that particular chat with the psych next time I'm up at the GIC, but I won't. Instead I'll stick to my line, hang in there for my wife. The really sad part? I think she's reached the conclusion that I'm not going to win as well, and since I'm bringing her down simultaneous with doing all this for her that's rather upsetting. Sheer bloody-mindedness, or just stupidity in the face of the inevitable?
Good holiday though.

Without enhancement

2011-09-11T20:27:00.000+01:00

This week has featured a couple of significant landmarks for me as I navigate the choppy waters of alternate gender presentation. One was expected, the other wasn't, but they were both very welcome.
Last week I wrote about my hair having finally reached a length at which it can be presented in a female style. As I wrote then, last night I went out for the first time wigless presenting as female, to this month's Swindon TG Group meeting.
Fantastic, not having to worry about a wig.
I flatter myself that I don't look too bad in my wig, but I have never felt secure in it. Aside from a comedy moment in which it became hooked in a climbing rose at a friend's barbecue it has never parted company with my head, but it is the feeling that it could do so which has has haunted me. Maybe my head isn't a good shape or something, but I have always felt that the wig is trying to work its way upwards. A keen observer would probably notice my hairline oscillating over the course of an evening, hardly a good look.
So I was very happy indeed to spend the evening at the support group and join the usual meal at an Italian restaurant, all without a thought to the security of my coiffure. Nobody noticed me in the car park as we mixed with the Swindon late-night revellers, and my confidence knew no bounds.
That was the expected landmark, what about the unexpected one? An aspect of my medication that has rather crept up on me in the last month or two is that I seem to have experienced one of the side-effects of Finasteride. The thought of gynaecomastia triggers the imagination towards hoping for the kind of breast growth that might come to someone given a hormone prescription, so since I have resolutely failed to sport a chest that might make Dolly Parton proud I had always concluded that I had missed out on that one. But over the past month or so I've begun to realise that I've very slowly gained a little more there than I had before. Nothing you'd notice in my scruffy male guise, but let's say my man-boobs are a lot more wobbly than they used to be. In fact, if they are marshaled into place, they even start to resemble something that might have a cleavage, and without involving the yards of surgical tape employed to that effect by some people of my acquaintance. Could a bust, however small, have crept up on me? Time to find out.
Small bras in larger band sizes can be hard to come by. I'm fortunate in that my 38 inch band size places me within the normal female range, but it seems few women with my ribcage size are under-endowed. Fortunately the British standby on matters of female underwear, Marks and Spencer, do cover 38A in their range, so this afternoon when my wife and I found ourselves in time we paid M&S a visit.
I settled on their "2 sizes bigger" push-up bra. I've heard others praising this product so it was time to see whether it could work its magic on me. Sadly I didn't have the chutzpah to have a bra fitting in a crowded store while presenting as my scruffy bloke persona, so I had to make my purchase and try it on at home.
The result is rather pleasing. This bra is one of the more padded bras on the market, it seems to be more padding than bra. However when my meagre endowment is scooped up behind the padding it does give a pleasing curve above the cup and a definite, though small, cleavage. And it's comfortable to wear, something you can't always say for breastforms.
I have replaced breastforms with a bra that all but contains breastforms, but the key result here is like that of going wigless. Just as having my own hair puts me on the same footing as any other woman, so too does presenting a credible female bustline to the world using only enhancements made for natal women.
And those two coming together in the same weekend is nothing short of priceless.

The perfect crime

2011-09-09T18:01:00.000+01:00

When something dodgy happens once, it's unfortunate. When it happens twice, it's a coincidence. When it happens three or more times however, nobody could be excused for smelling a rat.
T is a homeless bloke, a friend of a friend. An honest bloke who takes pains to keep out of trouble with the law, he lives on a piece of wasteland somewhere in my town and sells the Big Issue to support himself. My friend trusts him, and so do I.
For a while, he used to have a flat. A tiny cubicle in a large house subdivided by a dodgy landlord into as many units as possible to milk the benefits system, but it was somewhere to call home after years on the street. His housing benefit was paid directly to the landlord, he never saw any money directly but since the flat was of more value to him than the money that suited him fine.
After a few months in his new flat, he was evicted. Why? None of his benefits had been paid to the landlord, leaving him in arrears. The system had failed him. To add insult to injury, the benefits people claimed he owed them money because they'd overpaid him. Money he'd certainly never seen, as neither had his landlord, that is.
He's a lot more positive than I think I'd be in his position.
You might say T's case in unfortunate. But as the aftermath of recession tightens its grip, it's a story I'm finding rather familiar. Take my friend R, for instance. She's living at the moment in her caravan, parked next to my parents' cow shed. A year ago she lived in a small house with her two children and had a decent job, then she was made redundant. Yet again, she claimed housing benefit to be paid directly to her landlord and her landlord never saw a penny of it.
She was evicted early this summer.
Touch wood, she'll find herself back under a roof fairly soon now. Unlike T, she has the children to take care of, so her case will have higher priority. It's been no less stressful or disruptive to her life for that though.
T's case followed by R's case, you might say they are just a coincidence. But I could relate several more very similar tales from my pool of friends and acquaintances, all of whom have claimed housing benefit which has been processed by the system but has never reached its destination. And I am just an ordinary person with a pretty normal life and social group, I don't move in any circles that make me more likely to meet benefit claimants, these are just normal people like me who have fallen upon hard times. It is not a huge stretch of the imagination to interpolate the experiences of my acquaintances across the entire benefit dependent population and reach the conclusion that this must be happening to a huge number of people.
When something dodgy happens three or more times, I smell a rat. This is public money, taxpayer's money - My money - being spent on the safety net that protects us all, and it's being processed by the system but not reaching its destination.
I sense a scam, money doesn't just disappear. I think our housing benefit system would benefit from a significant audit, because somewhere along the way a lot of money is being diverted from its intended recipients. It could be that the system is so incredibly incompetent that mere non-payment is the norm, but since we are not hearing politicians crowing about unexpected surpluses in our benefit budget it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that significant fraud is involved. Whether this is the work of many small-scale fraudsters within the system or fewer fraudsters working on a larger scale doesn't matter, both as taxpayers and as potential benefit recipients we're being ripped off, and that is not acceptable.
It's the perfect crime, if you think about it.The benefits people are uncaring and inefficient so hardly bother what happens, and the victims are largely people at the very bottom of the pile to whom nobody will listen to. The amounts of money involved in each case are fairly small, perhaps a few thousand pounds, so there is never enough money disappearing at once to raise an alarm. And even if an alarm was raised, our tabloid press have made such a good job of demonising benefit claimants based on the outrageous few rather than the deserving many, that there is no political capital in it being pursued. Diabolical in its cleverness, you might say.
There was a time, many years ago, when I might have looked upon this issue with a "So what?" attitude based on youth and inexperience. Sadly in my town at least, compassion fatigue is the norm as the public view of the homeless is one of aggressive beggars, alcoholics and drug-addled criminals. But that is a dangerously naive view, as a long career in the tech business featuring several lengthy spells on the dole has taught me. It's getting crowded on the outer edges of society, and the crowds are formed not of a demonised feral underclass but of normal people like you and me who have fallen on hard times. As well as short changing the taxpayer, this disappearing money hits those who can least take it, and in most cases they were also taxpayers once.
I'm afraid I don't expect to hear any time soon that they've fixed it though.

Dual-purpose

2011-09-03T22:44:00.001+01:00

    It is now nearly nine months since I last had my hair cut in a male buzz-cut and just over seven months since I had the Long Chat with my hairdresser and started having my hair cut with a view to growing it out into a style suitable for both male and female presentation. In that time I've had it thinned and trimmed on alternate visits to my hairdresser, and though it has only gained a few inches in overall length I now have enough hair to cover my ears and reach down my neck, and I have the beginnings of the same wave that both my sister and mother have in their hair. Over a year on Finasteride has also in a small way reversed some of my hair loss, so fortunately I have little to worry about in the hairline department.

    In short, I think after today's very light trim I'm almost at the point of having a dual-purpose haircut.

Being a bloke is an easy look to cultivate. You don't bother to dry your hair properly, you tuck it behind your ears and use a little bit of styling wax on top to give it a bit of body if it looks too slicked down. You're expected to look a bit scruffy, so as long as you do just that nobody bothers to look at how your hair is cut behind the facade.
    If I brush it out from behind my ears from this blokish start I can see where I'm going with it but something isn't right. Too flat, I just look like a bloke with a really bad haircut.
    So what's to be done? Wait for more length? Not a bit of it! I am now at the point at which if I blow-dry my hair, instead of looking uncontrolled as it would have in months past it settles in that pleasingly fluffy texture and stays where I put it. Five minutes with the hairdryer and when I look in the mirror I suddenly have a female hairstyle. The sides cover my ears and curl in towards my eyes, while behind my ears and on my neck the wave gives it an outwards curl. And the body given by the blow-drying gives it substance, bounce even.

    Pleased? I should say so!

    My most important critic, my wife, also rates it as a success. And she would not deliver such a verdict lightly. It's a short female haircut and there is room for improvement (the word she used for it was "retro"), but she voted it acceptable to wear to my support group meeting later in the month.
    I am like a teenage girl who has just discovered a grown-up look.

Leaking here and there

2011-08-31T23:03:00.001+01:00

They say some people become like their animals, and I certainly know enough middle-aged British women who resemble their horses to give some credibility to that.
I by comparison have started to resemble my car. Just as I have picked up a miserable cold and am leaking into a constant stream of tissues, so the Wreck has done something unfortunate to its internals and has started leaking oily soot from its exhaust pipe on startup. That coupled with an alarming consumption of oil tells me that a piston ring may have given up the fight against age, allowing oil to find its way into an upper cylinder.
All I have to do is wait and the cold will go away. Sadly the Wreck will need considerably more attention, I may try to nurse it over to C's house for a diagnostic session, and then some intensive and fiddly rebuilding effort may be called for. Remind me again why I have this machine? Oh yes, it's fun to work on. Damn. Serious car nut, me.
It's difficult to feel like anything but a very scruffy bloke when you are under the weather with a nasty cold. Particularly as there is an interaction between my sleep and cold medications that means I can either sleep, breathe easily, or do both and risk liver damage. I chose breathing easily last night, tonight I think I need to sleep.
Current woes are masking a more long-term and annoying realisation, that I am not winning here. I am not happy in my daily life and have not been so for months, and it is that unhappiness rather than the fact of my being trans that my wife finds upsetting, it preys on her and makes her unhappy too.
As always, no surrender.
I was disappointed yesterday to read in a blog comment the suggestion that we who resist transition perhaps don't actually need to change sex. I guess you gotta love the girl you married enough to live the dream, to understand.

Dressing up

2011-08-28T23:49:00.001+01:00

We're all so damned serious about all this, aren't we. Sometimes I think so to the extent that we lose some of the fun along the way. Take dressing in silly clothes, for example. I have an acquaintance who wears daft outfits and posts photographs of herself doing so. I mean really daft like her latest, the full-on showgirl lingerie look with beehive hair, while doing mundane household chores. Every time she posts one of her pictures I hear mutterings of disapproval, as though she's gone too far this time, she's not taking this seriously. 'Cos Real Transsexuals, it seems, never dress up in silly clothes.
It's true, there is no sight quite like a middle aged bloke dressed up in the showgirl lingerie look. Probably about as bizarre as a giant-sized bloke like me in a summer dress at Sparkle, I'm guessing. But that's the point, that's her way of dealing with this mess, of letting it out so she can hang in there for her wife. Others go for maid outfits or bridal gowns, name your poison. A lot less self-destructive than my attempt to bottle it all up, by my estimation.
I was set thinking along these lines by a post somewhere else asking "When did you first know?". Because from that question I started thinking about what happened after my childhood crossdressing. What did I wish I was doing, as a deeply closeted teenager?
I remember being heavily influenced by costumes on the telly and in films. A teenage me swooned over the nurses outfits the likes of Barbara Windsor and Hattie Jacques were shoehorned into for the Carry On films (Google it!) and would have given anything to swan around in the lavish ballgowns so beloved of period costume drama producers.
So have I just shot myself in the foot, destroyed my credibility to Serious Transsexual eyes as surely as if I had changed my avatar to a picture featuring myself in a rubber French Maid outfit? I don't think so, because I'm sure I'm not the only confused and closeted trans teenager to have had such thoughts. A mind under the malign influence of huge amounts of testosterone can do funny things. I know I'm not the only person to have watched Titanic for the female costumes, hell I'm pretty sure I can name natal women acquaintances to whom that applies.
Given that I now have the money and the acceptance to indulge myself in the wardrobe department I suppose I could go nuts on silly clothes. And believe me, someone my height could make a very imposing Victorian lady. But I haven't, even though I might enjoy it. I guess that once I'd got over the Wow! factor, I'd just feel rather embarrassed. You wouldn't after all wear such an outfit to Tesco.
Equally though I can't find fault with my showgirl acquaintance. Her path is a little more flamboyant than mine, but no less valid. And since I've just revealed my past costume propensities I guess let she who is without crossdressing sartorial sin cast the first stone!

This is what a real hate word looks like

2011-08-23T08:21:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece on the theme of the word "tranny", with particular reference to its comparison with the N-word as a hate word. As I said then, I believe that there is no parallel between the two experiences and to make such a comparison between the two words is not only rather offensive, it will not help our cause.
As so often happens when a subject excites my interest, I've since found a couple of other places in which the comparison is being made. I was alerted to one by a reader of this blog and the other I encountered in another forum. I didn't have to look for either so I have to conclude that it is a widespread thing.
I think that this is unfortunate if true, so I would like to examine some of the language involved in more detail. Corpus analysis refers to the science of examining huge bodies of text to find answers to linguistic questions. In short it treats language not as something to read but as a series of statistical relationships that can be extracted using a computer. Best of all, there are public corpora available for free, so anyone with a computer can gaze into the intricacies of language for themselves. (I should warn the reader at this point that I am about to examine some offensive language, if you are easily offended then look away now)
The collocates of a word are the words that most often appear alongside it. Here is a word cloud for the collocates of the N-word.
Take a look at the words. 'Lousy','Uppity', 'Dirty', 'Dopey', 'Lazy','Stupid'. This is the language of overt racism writ large in American English, words written purely as insults and with no other possible explanation as to their use. I had expected to see some evidence of the reappropriation of the N-word in for example rap culture, but those use cases are so far outshadowed by the offensive collocates as to render them invisible. The fact is, almost nobody uses the N-word except as a hate word, so it comes as no surprise that its collocates are all also from the lexicon of hate. This is what a real hate word looks like.
So we've seen the context the N-word is used in and it isn't very pretty. How about the T-word by comparison? Here is the corresponding collocate cloud for 'tranny'.

Straight away you can see that this is a very different set of words from those in the other cloud. There are three main sets of words appearing here: those associated with sex work and pornography such as 'webcam', 'she-male','hardcore', or 'whore', those from within our community such as 'MTF', 'post-op', and 'chaser', and finally those from another sense entirely referring to automotive transmissions. 'Auto', 'manual', 'shack' and 'gauge' are not relevant to us.
So we're left with words relating to porn and sex work, and non-offensive words we use within our community.
At this point it is very important to recognise that there is a huge difference between a word that is universally offensive and a word that can be found offensive within our community but has yet to reach levels of universal opprobrium.The collocates in the N-word cloud are mostly the former, they are offensive by nature. The T-word cloud by comparison contains some words which we may find offensive if applied to us but which are not in themselves offensive in the context in which they are used. I would be offended were I to be associated with porn for example, but those words are legitimate when used in the context of a porn star. I may not like what she does for a living but if I have the right to earn a living as a programmer with my own associated collocate cloud of tech words then so does the trans porn actress with her associated porn words. By contrast I can not think of a legitimate non-offensive use of the collocates in the N-word word cloud.
To attempt to co-opt some of the sympathy contained within all the history that the N-word represents is downright offensive in itself. If we as a community attempt to do that it will not be long before we are quite rightly called out on such folly. Not a course that this tranny thinks will do us any favours.

(I've turned on comment moderation for this post. If you comment, please keep your use of language as I have.)

The Wreck on parade

2011-08-19T23:02:00.000+01:00

Time for an outing into petrolhead country. I took a look back to the post I wrote a year ago about the regular trip to a car show C and I make at this time of year. I was struggling with a noisy girl and worrying about keeping its effects from my wife.Nothing much changes, does it. This week has been especially annoying as we've had a major product launch at work, with all its associated stresses.
Anyway, never mind all that! It's time for that car show again, and this time we're not going in C's transporter, C and I are going in our respective automotive follies. His is both newer and faster than the Wreck, but then he's got further to drive in the day and since he gets frustrated by being stuck behind slow vehicles I don't envy him his sports car. The Wreck does the same speed as the trucks, which makes for restful long-distance motoring.
I can't say I'm looking forward to a weekend of hiding the girl. It's not about presenting as female, but having to keep the bloke facade up. At work for instance I'm my everyday big scruffy bloke, but because most of my female colleagues know all about me I no longer have to pretend. Unfortunately this weekend I won't have that luxury and I must be careful not to let it get to me. Much weak Continental beer will no doubt be drunk and much rubbish will be spouted on the subject of automotive tat, so with luck I'll manage to keep my brain occupied. Interestingly I've seen some amateurish crossdressing at previous events, I wonder whether they've heard the adage about people who seem to do it a little too often.
So my peers get to see the Wreck in all its faded glory. It's an unusual model of a well-known British car so it should attract some attention from the cognoscenti. It'll be rather good for once to have my own car with me, it seems like a very long time that it's been "It'll be ready next year".
On Sunday morning I'll emerge from my tent, looking a mess. One thing's new, previously I haven't had long hair. Better pack the shampoo.

The bottle and me

2011-08-12T20:57:00.001+01:00

A few days ago we had the perfect summer evening here in my part of the UK. Warm air, just a bit of cloud and a spectacular sunset. I spent it in the garden of a local pub, looking out over a river and a patchwork of flood meadows.
My tipple of choice? Weston's Country Perry, a dangerously quaffable still perry (For the uninitiated, perry refers to cider made with pears instead of apples). At the end of the evening I had a clear head, but the perry had definitely gone to my legs and I was ready for bed.
I don't think I'm alone in finding a drink helpful in dealing with the aftermath of a bad day. It's a worry that I could make a habit of cracking open a beer or cider when I come home form work. Just the one would turn into a couple, and before I'd know it I'd be getting through a crate of bottles in a week. It's not a coincidence that I know more than one person in this sphere with a drink problem. One or two of my acquaintance have in my view allowed it to wreck their lives.
My medication bears the warning that alcohol is best avoided while taking it. Since I prefer to sleep I think that's the factor that has saved me from getting into the drinking habit. But like so many demons that lurk below the surface of the gender dysphoric, I know that one could make itself felt.
It might seem odd therefore, that I make cider in near-industrial quantities. But I have made cider for many years without over-imbibing and the cider-making rather than the cider itself is an escape from some of my troubles. Or an argument could be made that my cider is so dangerously unpalatable that one could never drink enough at a sitting to risk one's health, I dunno.
But it's a serious issue. I suspect I have this in common with many other gender dysphoric people, a lifetime of this has left the GD as just one of several problems. I know more than one post-transition girl who's realised that all they've been through hasn't cured their depression, and if that happens to me I don't want to find myself using the bottle as a crutch. Because at the end of an annoying week in which the noisy girl and a lot of high-powered work meetings have left me worn out I know that the world as seen through the green glass of a cider bottle could look mighty attractive.
And I don't need to be told that tomorrow morning or indeed any morning thereafter, that wouldn't solve anything.

Wave goodbye to my wavemeter

2011-08-08T13:34:00.001+01:00

I'll be saying goodbye to a little piece of my past on Saturday. My friend Paula who I know through the Swindon TG Group and who performed her mother-hen dutes on my first ever public outing is a radio amateur with a special interest in microwaves. I'll be taking my microwave wavemeter down to Swindon to give to her, as she has far more use for it than I do.
For an electronic engineer, pieces of test equipment like the wavemeter form part of the tools of the trade. They are to us what hammers and tongs are to a blacksmith or brushes are to an artist. You build up your collection of instruments over your career and they are what gives you a window into whatever device you are working on. Without them you are relegated to simply being an end user, the electronic device is simply a black box with wires that either works or doesn't work.
So it feels a bit of a wrench to find myself giving away what was at one time a highly prized and rather useful piece of kit. It's almost as though a piece of my identity has been removed. But I last held a radio licence over a decade ago, haven't touched a transmitter in years and certainly have no use for a wavemeter calibrated to 10 GHz. Paula by comparison has regular need for such a device and I hope will find this one - a former US Navy unit and a very high quality piece of kit - to be very useful indeed.
It will no doubt be a rather amusing sight. Me turned out in full-on seven foot girl mode, manhandling a huge grey flight case from one car to the other. Where's a bloke when you need one eh!

The Boy, the Girl, and the Babe Magnet

2011-08-04T19:20:00.002+01:00

My friend C has a sports car, a mid-engined MG TF, of which he is inordinately proud. It's a fun little two seater, far too cramped for me but if small sports cars are your thing it's the business.
He was very disappointed then when he took his then girlfriend to the seaside in it and she demanded that he drive it at no more than 40 miles per hour. It seems he hadn't considered that the slipstream of a small convertible car would ruin her hairstyle.
Funny, the idea that the 'right' car can be the mythical 'babe magnet'. Even funnier that it once worked for me, a young lady of my acquaintance years ago was very anxious to be taken out by me in the Wreck because it's got lots of chrome and looks rather cute, but dropped me like a hot potato when she saw my daily at the time, a Leyland Sherpa van. And I thought she was captivated by my charm!
Since I started venturing out into the world presenting as female, I have started to appreciate some of the finer points of female affinity for cars. When your clothes aren't suited to motor oil and your hair and makeup took an age to get just right, of course you want a comfortable, safe, reliable and above all clean environment to travel in.
Maybe all blokes should try their hand at going out in girl mode, as part of their 'Babe Magnet 101' course.

( Daihatsu HiJet advert image courtesy of http://9gag.com/gag/101704 )

Walk a mile in his shoes

2011-08-04T07:53:00.001+01:00

It ain't easy, trying to be a girl when you have big feet. I sometimes see t-girls complaining that they can't find ladies' footwear in a UK size 8 or 9, I tell them they simply aren't looking hard enough. More than one of my natal female relatives takes those sizes, and they can find them on the high street.
People with a size UK10 to 13 have life a little more difficult. They can get almost any style from a specialist, but they may have to go online or travel further afield if they want to try them on.
14 and above though, now there's a problem. With my size 15s the choice is narrowed down to an impossibly small selection if I'm lucky. Pleaser and Le Dame are my best bet, but though they are very good quality shoes they are expensive to bring in from the USA and their styles are more suited to the evening than the high street. Every t-girl wants to toc around in a set of killer heels once in her life but as my friend Dawn puts it: "You wouldn't wear them to Tesco". At least, not twice.
So, given that the mass of everyday female footwear is inaccessible to me, what are my options? I can get footwear made-to-measure, for one. Any style I want, in superlative quality. Trouble is, with the quality comes an eye-watering price, and I can't justify that as a part-timer. If I ever go full-time that might be an option I'd consider, but for now I have better things to spend my cash on.
My sister provided me with an answer. She takes a UK size 9, and though I didn't realise it, the casual shoes she often wears are men's shoes. She just picks the right styles and they never look out of place because she wears them in appropriate situations.
So I started looking at my normal supplier of large size male footwear as I never had before. At some of the styles I'd never even think of wearing as a scruffy bloke. It's funny how gender conditioning works, even though I have known all along I had something of the girl about me I dared not permit myself to wear even slightly androgynous footwear lest they look a little gay or something. Your mind does stupid things to you, sometimes.
What I found first were some Vans skate shoes. Pretty similar to the shoes I saw my sister wearing, though available in nicer colours (She reads this blog, she'll berate me for that! :). They look great with a pair of jeans, and they're about as comfortable as it gets in a shoe. Not very good with a skirt or a summer dress though so for my trip last month to Sparkle I found a very acceptable and very cheap alternative in the form of a pair of old-fashioned white canvas plimsolls not unlike these ones. It's all about blending, if your footwear don't look too different to those an onlooker might expect, they won't be noticed.
Sandals though present a problem. Male sandals tend to be of the 'Jesus' variety, either with leather straps as worn with socks by men with beards at folk festivals, or with more modern Velcro straps and worn by young blokes on the beach. I have a pair of the latter as it happens and they're great shoes, but dainty they ain't. The best I've come up with so far has been a pair of Base London Global flip-flops in white, something I'd never wear as a bloke but which as a girl was perfectly suited to a summer barbecue.
So it has been a pleasant surprise to find that for casual styles at least I can still find something I can work with even if it's not the footwear I wish I could have. I appreciate that the potential audience for this post is miniscule, after all how many t-girls can there be with size UK15 feet? But it's important to share, because I know all about the feeling that I'd never find anything.

On respect

2011-07-31T09:00:00.001+01:00

It troubles me at times as I observe the more fractious among our wider community in the real world, on forums, and in the blogosphere, that I am witnessing behaviour that can only be damaging. I've been through several stages in my reaction to the squabbles of others, through annoyance and depression and back to annoyance again, but now I am just sad to witness disparate factions tearing themselves apart. It doesn't have to be this way.
You may well have seen last week's T-Central poll. It was a course of action we decided upon in response to some very personal invective directed at one of our number, and it concerned our deletion policy. It was interesting to read some of the responses to it from other bloggers. I posted fairly similar explanatory comments in my usual (I hope) reasoned style on the blogs criticising our action and was rather unsurprised when some of them weren't published. Now who's the censor.
A few people said they would have done things differently. Someone suggested splitting up the T-Central list into categories. I don't think that would work, not enough space on the page and a nightmare alphabet soup of definitions to contend with. With my wicked sense of humour I wondered whether three categories would suffice, The Trannies, The Definitely-Not-Trannies, and The Trannier-Than-Thou. But that, though mildly amusing, would not be appropriate. It would put me firmly among those who prompted the poll, because it would make me guilty of a lack of respect.

Important word, respect. Sometimes I think we don't see enough of it hereabouts.

Respect is about separating who someone is from what they are. Simple, isn't it. The what concerns identity and path, the who concerns personality and actions. By all means attack someone for their who, but leave their what out of it. Because who concerns the individual while what concerns everyone else like them. Insult a whole group in your attack on an individual, and respect has long departed from the equation.
Might I propose a rule of thumb in this sphere?

If you wouldn't go somewhere in the context of a natal man or woman, don't do so in the context of a trans man, woman, genderqueer, androgyne or other identity. Whatever they are. People are different, get over it.

If I meet a natal man or woman in the street or at work, I do not metaphorically peer into their underwear to speculate on their genitals. Even though there is an extremely wide variation in naturally occurring genitalia of both varieties. I don't question their gender identity, they are presenting as male or female therefore I accept them as such. Though I may sometimes privately question their sartorial choices I don't attack their appearance either. Some natal women are ugly, have hairy arms, or big feet.
And similarly if I meet a trans man or woman I don't attack their paths. I don't misgender them and I don't get inside their underwear. It matters not to me what they get up to in the bedroom or whether or not they have forgone the ability to write their names in the snow. I would prefer people didn't behave this way towards me, so why should I think I can do it to someone else? We are all different in this sphere, and while I often see paths which I think are unwise I express my reservations privately. Identities are myriad and personal, and are not to be turned into pejoratives.
If however I meet someone who is an arsehole, I will treat them accordingly. Because being an arsehole is about the who, not the what. I will respect them to the extent that the language you will see me using here will be lucid and not profane, but I have no worries about attacking them on the basis of being an arsehole. Being an arsehole is independent of identity.
Part of me feels rather sad that I feel I have to write this piece. To enumerate what should be self-evident, particularly within a minority all of whose members are likely to have experienced such a lack of respect from outsiders.
But then again I guess there are arseholes everywhere. I'm sure none of you would wish to be among them though, would you.

That's new

2011-07-27T08:22:00.000+01:00

Annoying, all this, isn't it. A new facet of the wild and wacky world of gender dysphoria has edged into my experience these last few weeks. Getting down when confronted with happy attractive women is old hat, but here's a new one. I've found myself being pushed over the edge by middle-aged blokes. WTF? I hear you say?
I guess it's the summer weather and the industry I work in, I seem to be seeing a lot of Typical British Middle Aged Blokes at the moment. You know, paunchy, losing hair, slightly unkempt. And I'm seeing a possible future for myself and thinking "I don't want to end up like that!".
Crazy, isn't it. But that's the way of this annoying existence. I'll get over it. And hey! I've got Finasteride and they haven't! Funny, talking to blokes on that subject, they have a morbid fear of the Family Jewels not working but they hate the hair loss. I'm beginning to realise new extents to which I'm not one of them.
So normal service will no doubt be resumed in time. I'll answer the comments on the last few posts that I feel guilty about neglecting. And life will go on. A bit more annoying, that's all.

While the sun shines

2011-07-25T08:27:00.000+01:00

It's hay making season in my part of the world. Very evocative smell, that of fresh hay. It takes me back several decades to the golden summers of the 1970s when we used to make hay.
Everybody's childhood summers are golden, aren't they. In my case it's true as it happens, here in the UK we had a run of droughts. Every Brit who was alive in 1976 remembers where they were when it first rained.
Our haymaking was a bit archaic even by 1970s standards. A Fordson Major and the kind of machine that was not uncommon in the years following the war, a rotary hay turner converted from horse drawn to a three-point linkage. Both machines long-gone now, the hay-turner surviving longer than the tractor.
Our neighbours have a much bigger machine, a modern John Deere and a multi-headed hay-turner that unfolds on hydraulic rams to cover much more area. He can do in half an hour what it would have taken the Fordson half a day to achieve. Progress, and in this case that's a good thing. It's tempting to be nostalgic as I was when I snapped this pic of another farmer using a red Fergie for the job a few years ago, but given the choice of a morning on the metal seat of the Fordson versus half an hour in the air-conditioned Deere I know which I'd choose!

What would I have liked when I was eleven?

2011-07-24T09:06:00.000+01:00

I had an odd moment of transportation to my eleven-year-old self yesterday. My mother sprang it on me that my two nephews are likely to visit us for a few weeks. Nice enough kids, though I barely know them as I don't talk to my sister very much these days (This is my middle sister, not the sister I went to Sparkle with a few weeks ago). By a very complex series of events my friend R is also living at my parents place for a few weeks with her two sons of about the same age, so I expect life could get very interesting in my part of the world for a while.
It's likely that some of the task of keeping the nephews amused will fall to me. So I'm left wondering, what would have made my summer back when I was elevenish? No, don't answer that, I don't think they'd be thrilled by a wardrobe full of frocks. Mostly as I remember my passions were mechanical and electrical at the time, but are they going to be enthralled by a crystal set or taking an old engine to bits as I was? And would a trip to a steam railway do for them what it did for me? Or how about the zoo?
I have a fear of rejection, which is stupid.
Still, at least I'm not going to fall into the trap of trying to be cool just for them. There is little more excruciating than an adult trying to hang wid da Yoof.
I'll ask R for advice from her vast experience as a very able parent. I hope her two and my sister's two get along, I see no reason why not as they're all refreshingly normal youngsters.
Of course, I could seize the opportunity to instill in my nephews the desire for all sorts of Forbidden Fruits. Their mother doesn't approve of computer games, for a start. Or motorcycles.
I can see it's going to be an 'interesting' summer

Tranny

2011-07-20T08:25:00.001+01:00

Tranny. It's a word you won't often have seen me use here but something I read this morning was the straw that broke this particular camel's back.
Helen Boyd should I think know better than to compare the use of 'tranny' with the use of the N-word.
I am observing a divergence of language between US English and UK English on the subject of 'tranny'. In both cultures it has the same meaning and broadly similar usage. It's an insult from outsiders - though be serious, it's a pretty mild one! - and we prefer that non-trans people don't use it towards us, though it's widely used within the community. Its etymology is not offensive, it is simply a contraction of 'transvestite'.
The divergence I am observing between the two dialects stems from the way the 'problem' is being approached differs on each side of the Atlantic. A word that is being busily reappropriated here seems from my linguistic point of observation to be in the process of being turned into a hate word by trans activists on the other side of the pond. I find that to be a particularly unfortunate direction because it simply creates an ever more potent weapon for those who would find such a hate word to be of use against us. Censoring vocabulary is an ineffective weapon against prejudice.
Back to the N-word use that prompted this piece. Maybe it takes a white Brit to point this out to a white American but I think anyone making such a point would be well advised to study a bit of American history and in particular the history surrounding both words before making such a comparison. There is simply no parallel between the two experiences.
Perhaps reading Huckleberry Finn would be a good place to start. If being reminded of the reality isn't a mite uncomfortable, that is.

Jungle warfare

2011-07-15T21:12:00.000+01:00

I spent the other evening in the company of a Billy Goat. No, I haven't gone all goaty on you, between you and me people who keep goats are a bit weird. A Billy Goat is a self-propelled petrol-powered brushcutter, and as is my custom at this time of year I was using our rather venerable model to mow my parents' orchard.
The growing season for meadow grass starts in early May. Ground nesting birds move in, the flowers come out, and for a while in June it all looks like a scene from a Timotei shampoo advert, except one featuring apple trees.
By July the vegetation has reached out-of-control proportions. We don't have a handy baby elephant, but I'm sure some of it would be as high as its eye if we did. The birds have all flown and the wild flowers seeded, so it's time to reach for the Billy Goat and tame the jungle. It's hot work, but the machine makes a good job of it and lets the light in around the trees. More importantly the air can get in and keep the damp away, otherwise there are all sorts of mildews and other entertaining afflictions that can strike down your apple crop in its prime. In a few weeks a little bit of new growth will see the orchard carpeted in green velvet, just in time for the odd bit of casual scrumping as the early varieties ripen.
Mine is a tenuous connection to the land these days, that of a hobby farmer who works shifting words at a desk in an air-conditioned office in the big city.

Reactions to Sparkle

2011-07-14T20:08:00.000+01:00

It's now getting on for a week since my first Sparkle. It was exactly as I expected it to be, a Pride, only one with trans people of all hues rather than the gay people I've seen in the past. It was fun, but so was going shopping in Manchester with my sister.
I have been rather surprised to see some adverse reactions to Sparkle in other places, usually because as well as the about 50% of 'normals' among the crowd the event is known for attracting some of the more outrageous and entertainingly dressed members of our community and there are those who don't appreciate being reminded of such people. Or perhaps they are keen to demonstrate how much they've moved on from all that, which is a shame because I think they miss out on something very important: a sense of fun.
Events like Sparkle are what you want them to be. For some they are the most important event of the year as their only chance to get out, for others they're venue for a first hesitant outing and for yet more they're an entertaining spectacle and a chance to meet friends.
I'd advise anyone going to Sparkle to take what they want away from Sackville Gardens and to respect the other attendees for taking away what *they* want. Sure a sissy maid or an LG outfit isn't to my taste, but as far as I could see the middle-aged t-girl maid or the LG with the surfeit of petticoats were having just as much fun as I was. By acknowledging that none of us would pretend to be on the same path.

Besides, I don't think I'd look good in a sissy maid outfit. They always look so damn short, and when your legs are as long as mine, there's a fine line to be drawn between revealing and indecent!

Baptism of fire

2011-07-10T16:01:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was a good day. A day of firsts, for yesterday I spent the day as girl in Manchester with my sister.
The premise for my trip was Sparkle, the UK's transgender pride celebration, but the real value of the day went far beyond that because I spent far more time in town with my sister than I did in the park holding the festivities. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty going on and I saw a load of friends, but the event made me acutely aware that Sackville Gardens and Canal Street were simply a giant safe space and the main event for me was being a girl at large, shopping with her sister in the wider city.
An early start to catch the train north. My wife was working so I was alone. Early morning over the countryside, then the suburbia and endless industrial dereliction, the urban explorer's playground of the Black Country. Waste ground reverting to urban forest, punctuated by the waterways of the Birmingham Canal Navigation. More canals than Venice in Birmingham y'know, as they say around there. Then a progression of stops as the train passed through the Potteries and the Manchester satellite towns. One station had a sign proudly proclaiming it to be Cheshire's best kept, looking at it I shudder for Cheshire's worst kept.
Manchester Piccadilly's airy train shed, and there's my sister waiting for me. A quick walk round the corner to meet J and her wife at their hotel, and I disappeared into the bathroom to leave the scruffy bloke behind.
My sister had never seen me in girl mode. I don't think she was disappointed. Her first critique was of my colour choices, it seems I'd not done too badly.
So off we went. Straight out into Manchester City Centre. Yes, a crowded city centre on a Saturday morning, a baptism of fire. Shopping in the Arndale Centre, not finding anything in the sales, lunch at Yo! Sushi. Very cosmpolitan. And very normal. Two sisters spending the day in town. Amazingly my experience in Swindon was repeated, I didn't see anyone noticing me. What's wrong people, a nearly seven foot woman has just walked past you and you didn't notice? In all honesty though I'm sure I didn't pass unnoticed because I don't rate my passing skills highly. Where I did succeed though was not in passing but in blending. I was wearing fairly normal summer clothes for going shopping in, not wildly different from any number of other women shopping that day. If someone looked closely they could see who I was, but in the mass of people I was not remarkable enough to stand out.
Off to Sackville Gardens, and the party was in full swing. The Equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, gave us a speech about how the government was anxious to do stuff for us, and a lone Labour heckler tried to disrupt her. Any Government politician talking to us is a good thing IMHO, I can't imagine a member of John Major's Cabinet doing the same thing.
All of trans life was on display in front of us. Yes, all of it. With frilly bits. A load of friends to say hi to, time to sit and people-watch some of the more flamboyant people. It's like a Godwin's Law for trans people, the longer you people-watch at a trans gathering the more the probability of seeing someone in a red dress with white polka-dots approaches one. Being able to go shopping in town made me appreciate this much more, hanging out in the park was fun but being almost just another woman in town was much more feeding the beast.
So off into town again with my sister. A stop at LTS to buy some jeans in the sale. Nowhere else does 'em in my length. Another first, first solo over-the-counter trying-on and purchase of women's clothing. Then a coffee and a long chat about family stuff, more shopping and a return to the park for a while. I experienced that female thing of being looked up and down for the first time, outfit analysis. From both trans and natal women. Wow.
All good things come to an end. Back to J's hotel, the scruffy bloke emerges. Say goodbye to my sister and I'm on the train, back through the Midlands as the sun went down. Back home, present my wife with some of her preferred fragranced stuff from my Manchester shopping as an apology for leaving her at home, then collapse into bed, exhausted.
All in all a good day. And a massive thank-you is in order for both J and my sister. There will be the inevitable let-down, but feeding the beast is sometimes necessary. Knowing you can do it though is a dangerous thing, it satisfies the need but that's a need that keeps coming back.
As I've said before, it doesn't get any easier, does it.

Another coming out story

2011-07-07T22:36:00.002+01:00

I had cause to come out to my boss today. My new boss, that is, my old boss who I came out to last September sadly having moved on to pastures new.
My new boss is at a higher level in the organisation, an extremely efficient and fearsomely intelligent lady who runs our entire product division. And since I have a pile of absences in my calendar for medical appointments, my counselor, the GIC, and my gender psychiatrist I needed to explain them to her. Fortunately she's someone who has a reputation for standing up for her employees and I am happy to be quietly open about my gender issues so coming out to her didn't present a problem for me.
Unfortunately when I asked for an extra chat as part of our first weekly meeting she expected something completely different. It seems I've made something of an impression over the last few months, I've delivered the goods in doing my little niche job and she's rather pleased with the results. I've also made no secret of my past in the dotcom-era so she expected me to say I'd found another job and was about to move on.
So I think my telling her I was gender dysphoric came as something of a relief to her.

Damn, I should have asked her for a raise while I was at it.

Overheating

2011-07-06T07:23:00.000+01:00

The Wreck and I are each experiencing problems. The solution for the car is simple: replace the geriatric thermostat and hope no lasting damage has been caused by the engine being cooked. For me, sadly, it ain't so easy.
The problem is, depression hasn't gone away. I'm depressed, and my depression has dragged my wife down too. Medication has helped even off the troughs, but hasn't fixed anything. My wife put it bluntly, that if this was to be our natural state then we would both be better off I were to give in to the girl and just go for it.
I can't do that. Everything I'm hanging in there for is at stake. But to hear her put it that way is uncomfortable: I could do it and let's face it if I had no ties I probably would be well on my way by now.

In simple terms, she's right. I'm just not prepared to give in. Like I said, it ain't so easy.

On Saturday I'll be making my way to Manchester to spend a day at Sparkle. I'm not sure what I'll get from the experience but it's one of those things to try. My sister lives up there, so I'll be meeting her for the day. The first time any family member will see me as anything but the scruffy bloke. Part of me is looking forward to it, the rest of me is scared witless.
Life doesn't get any easier, does it.

Plus other

2011-06-30T22:58:00.000+01:00

A very short post as befits a writer befuddled by medication.
I was interested to spot today that the new Google Plus social networking service has an "other" option in the gender field on sign-up. I doubt it can be taken as evidence of widespread adoption of non-binary identities because I think most geeks will simply use it as an "I'd prefer not to say because I don't want to make it easy for you to spam me with targeted advertising" option. Still, interesting to see that they feel they need to have it.

The Local Tearaway

2011-06-26T22:48:00.001+01:00

    Today was our first real summer day here in the South Of England. The rain and cold winds are behind us, hello to blue skies ans middle-twenties Celcius temperatures. I spent yesterday in my somewhat improbable girl mode at my friend Dawn's BBQ so I already had some sunburn, highlighting a slightly unfortunate feminine neckline.
    Walking my parents' mutt this afternoon, it was as if the local fauna was all out enjoying the weather as well. A pheasant - a non-native species introduced for hunting, so they're all half-tame - decided to hide from us by flattening himself down in the grass, resulting in a rather amusing two-dimensional flat pheasant that stood up and looked sheepish for a moment before scuttling off when he realised he'd been spotted.
   More obliging was the hare in the picture. As I sat on a fallen log while the dog lay out and cooled down it was quiet enough that two of them came out and that one came within mobile phone camera range. I really must get an ultraportable camera or a phone with a better camera, Motorola really didn't give me the best tool for the job. Anyway, you normally see hares running away at great speed, so to have one fairly static in front of me was an unexpected treat.
     Scandal is in the air in the village I grew up in. A stone garden ornament has been nicked from the garden of one of the incomers. Pretty obviously an opportunist with a van, but as so often happens the old farts have suggested a suspect on nothing but baseless rumour. Our farming neighbour's son, a blameless youth in his early twenties with a liking for machines that burn petrol. He rides a motorcycle at times, therefore he's inherited the mantle of Local Tearaway.
    I know all about being a Local Tearaway, because twenty years ago I was one. Someone's electric fence batteries were nicked (Yeah, the rampant crime of rural England in the late '80s!) and because I was the handiest representative of Da Yoof, my name was mentioned. The previous Tearaway, our other neighbours son who is now a respectable farmer, probably breathed a hefty sigh of relief and turned back to his trials bike.
Back then I drove a slightly later and even rustier model of the Rusty Old Wreck. This car was a bit faster than the Wreck, but not by much. In the eyes of the old farts though it was driven like a maniac, simply because I was driving it, even though the same speeds by them in their '80s Euroboxes were quite acceptable.
Yes, being the Tearaway in the car your granny probably drove, how rebellious.
    I think my reign as Tearaway ended when I went to university. I made the transition from ne'er-do-well to Person Going Somewhere you see. I'm a bit hazy as to who picked up the mantle but my guess is the current holder is about three Tearaways removed from me. He has my sympathies, some things never change.
    There's just one thing. I'm unaware of a female Tearaway. Sugar and spice and all things nice.

A question for the blokes

2011-06-26T09:58:00.000+01:00

I have never heard of any explosions within the FtM community, of transsexual versus transgender. Y'know, the nival calligraphers versus the stick-on-beard part-timers about who uses which loo, that kind of thing.
It's probably saying the Great Unsayable, but could it just be that the blokes are, y'know, just a little more sensible about that kind of thing?

Got a lot to bottle

2011-06-24T08:07:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year again, last year's cider needs to be bottled. It has spent the winter fermenting, I racked it a month or so ago and now it's ready for the next step.
There is one snag though. Because of my fancy new press, last year's juice yield was higher than expected. My worry is that I may not have enough bottles to cope, and will have to resort to inventive solutions. Cider in jam-jars anyone? Or more likely one gallon demijohns.
So my Sunday will be spent preparing my stock of bottles. Counting them, and the tedious task of label removal. The BBC tells me it will be a warm day, I'll sit in the shade of a very large apple tree with a tin bath full of water and a bottle brush. I can think of worse ways to spend a day.
Thinking about it, there is a war of words in the cider community too. The drink is called cider, but some insist on referring to it as cyder. It can come down to presscloths at dawn in the saloon bar of the Kingston Black over that one!
Silly really, because however you refer to it it's exactly the same stuff.

Perceptive postman

2011-06-19T21:37:00.003+01:00

My wife and I have just returned from an extended weekend spent with Lisa. We went shopping, we ate fine food, we hung out in student pubs, drank Aussie rosé and felt a little old compared to the other clientèle.
Lisa is well on her way, every inch the successful and confident woman. She sweet-talked us into a table at one of her town's more hard-to-get-into restaurants, something I know would have been completely beyond me.
On Saturday morning Lisa and my wife went off to the gym together leaving me curled up on the sofa watching DVDs. The postman called, bearing a couple of parcels our host had ordered from Amazon.
A middle-aged midlander, he gave me a quizzical look when I answered the door. Oversized scruffy bloke in a Weebl and Bob t-shirt and shorts. I hope he didn't notice my red OPI-painted toenails.
"Well you can't be Lisa, unless you've had the op!" he said.
Trying not to laugh, I accepted Lisa's parcels. Very perceptive, our posties.

Plan B

2011-06-16T09:53:00.001+01:00

I should move to Mount Athos or something.
Seriously, the south of England on a warm summer's day was not a good place for someone who is gender dysphoric. Beautiful women aglow with happiness everywhere I look.
Antidepressants are great. They really do work, at least for me they've suppressed the emotional reactions I was suffering to any of life's stresses. I might not be fixed, but I can do normal everyday stuff without bursting into tears.
What they haven't done though is entirely fix the underlying depression. Sounds odd, you'd expect that from an antidepressant, but I guess fixing the annoying symptom is better than nothing. So I've found myself dwelling rather a lot on my inner girl. You might say she's becoming oppressive.
I feel rather guilty saying this, but knowing I could go for it makes it hard not to think about it.

There, I've said it. For someone who's so set on avoiding it, right now I can't stop thinking about going full-time female, transitioning and not looking back. Not just idle thought, but almost feeling as though I'm plotting it.

Is this what if feels like to reach the point of no return? It had better not, because I'm sure as hell not giving up without a hell of a fight. My wife, quite simply, is worth it.
But it ain't going away, is it.
What is there to be done? The fight back starts here I guess. I do need to face up to something though. I could lose this one. My wife is no fool, she's perfectly aware of that. And as part of the fightback we need between us to face up to it. What happens if it does all go horribly wrong?

In short, we need a Plan B.

If this were some kind of make-believe world, I would smoothly transition (with no associated problems, naturally) and she'd declare herself delighted with the result and we'd happily stroll arm-in-arm into the sunset as a lesbian couple.
But in the real world, she married a bloke. She's been amazing so far in the level of tolerance she's shown for her bloke as his inner girl struggles to get out, but she is not a lesbian. The make-believe world scenario is not going to happen.
And then there is me. I'm acutely aware that everything is up for grabs for someone on HRT. I have never fancied a bloke in my life, but I'm not naive enough to imagine that would remain the case were I to receive that prescription. It would be too much to expect for my wife to put up with that.
So enter Plan B. Whatever eventually does happen, we need to decide now rather than in the heat of the moment how we're going to deal with it. It is our observation that the more chaotic circumstances come to those onto whom this is thrust in short order, therefore we should use our luxury of extra time to think about it carefully.
There are so many factors to consider. Would we stay together? If so, in what form? What about a family? I want one desperately no matter what, but would she? How about housing, for that matter?
It is important to realise that this is not in any way a capitulation. I'm still hanging in there because despite the annoyances life is throwing at me I have more reasons to hang onto the scruffy bloke than I do to become the oversized girl. But if I am to do the best I can by the woman I care most about then the least I can do is remove some of the uncertainty that surrounds our situation.
We're off to spend a day walking over the Downs in the rain. Somehow I think this will give us plenty to talk about.

The Cold Light of Day

2011-06-12T10:52:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was a day of firsts for me. It was my town's Pride day, and my wife was relaxed enough for me to go along a the girl rather than the scruffy bloke. So, first major daylight outing for me, plus first outing in my home town.
I guess a Pride event is not quite the same as the real world. It's a giant safe space full of gay people, hardly the same as a busy city centre on a Saturday afternoon. But it was a chance to be out a lot closer to the real world than I might otherwise be, so I was very anxious to take it.
And it proved to be rather entertaining. My confidence was high, the atmosphere was friendly and the other attendees provided plenty of entertainment. I was with a group of my local trans friends, we settled down in the crowd and had a picnic while watching the more flamboyant among the gay community.
Some people question why we should go to Pride events. We're not gay, they say, we're not part of their scene and our mission is to be invisible. Very true, none of our party were gay and I think we'd all just like to be unremarkable women just like any natal woman. But there are times when being just slightly visible is a good idea, and in a world where we still need allies if some of us are just a little visible at a Pride event it can't do any harm.
Yesterday morning was sunny and warm. I thus selected a floaty summery top and jeans for the afternoon, imagining a summery picnic in the park. Big mistake. Almost as we arrived at the event a wall of dark clouds rolled up along with a chilly wind. It could have been worse, but you might say I suffered for my art.
So that was it. Jenny at large. Normal, unremarkable, enjoying herself. Another couple of barriers broken.

Mop-top

2011-06-09T13:56:00.002+01:00

It is now about six months since I last had a male haircut before coming out to my hairdresser and abandoning the buzz-cut I sported for most of my adult life. It is also about a year since I asked my doctor for Finasteride as a move towards preserving my hair should I find myself unable to stay as a bloke at some time in the future.
On one hand, my hair has grown well. I've had several haircuts this year, to trim the edges and thin out the layers and even though it has grown longer my hairdresser's expert ministering to it has meant I have avoided the result looking too bad as it has become longer.
On the other hand, it's at the frustrating stage at which I can start to see where it is going, but it is not long enough for my purposes. I can blow-dry it and tease as much life into it as I want, but it still doesn't quite look female enough. I'll be wearing the wig for a little longer I think. Sigh.
Still, there is good news. Last year when I wrote about Finasteride I was pleased that I was seeing less loose hairs on my desk but I hadn't seen any evidence of returning hair where it had receded. I am pleased to report that sometime after Christmas, my wife noticed that a small mole that used to be outside the hairline now has hairs growing round it. Only a few millimetres advancement, but it is there, proof that something is working.
No luck on the side-effects though. If I jump up and down I can imagine I have minor man-boobs but gynaecomastia it ain't. And to think, my doctor felt he had to warn me about that side-effect!

Our language, their language

2011-06-05T10:16:00.000+01:00

Language. It's a big deal within our little community, the vocabulary we use to refer to ourselves. Almost as many passionately held views as there are people to hold them. And boy, do we get some arguments!
A recent post from Mercedes Allen provided a very well-thought-out examination of the language used within our community in the context of the changing landscape. From where I'm sitting here in the UK some of it is more applicable to the North American community and it's certainly from a more activist perspective, but some of what emerges from the turmoil at the cutting edge will have sticking power.
I can't help having some concerns about the language debate though. There are two vocabularies at play here, the ever-changing internal vocabulary of our community of trans-whatever people, and the much simpler and more static one used about us by the wider population.
The word that gains the most widespread use for something becomes its accepted primary term in the wider language. Here's an example, the UK flag. It's the Union Jack, right? WRONG! It's the Union Flag, it's only correctly referred to as the Union Jack when flown from a Royal Navy ship. But in the popular mindset it's always going to be the Union Jack, outside a small community of flag pedants who can complain as much as they want but nobody's going to listen to them.

The wider population of non-trans people have not got many polite words to describe us. Take a look at the Google Ngram graph to see the prevalence of some of the most well-known in the wider language. Transvestite (Blue line) is well-established but in decline while Crossdresser (Red line) has never made it significantly beyond the boundaries of our community. Transsexual (Yellow line) peaked higher than any of the others in the 1990s but is now also in decline, while Transgender (Green line) has overtaken them all and is in constant rise.
So the public has spoken, and crafted the greater body of the language. And their verdict is that we are ever more often going to be referred to as transgender, whether we all like it or not. We're just like the British flag pedants in that respect. A word that started as a separatist word coined by a 1960s transvestite to differentiate herself from transsexuals has undergone a linguistic shift and become a collective term for all of us. No Transgender Borg were involved in this (if such a thing exists, getting more than one transperson to think the same way is like herding cats!), sadly the wider population do not consult minority groups when they formulate language to describe them. Instead the word was probably adopted for its convenience and perceived inoffensiveness in a world of political correctness, not to mention its linguistic root. I've heard the word in news bulletins, read it in the paper, even heard it used on CSI.
My concern in writing this piece is not whether or not we should be referred to as transgender, nor whether or not some people like it. Instead it is that whoever we are within the disparate threads of our community, the story we present to the wider world has to be credible to the people outside our community. Otherwise we are simply not going to be taken seriously. If we're telling the wider world we're not something which to their unsophisticated minds we rather blatantly are, then they are going to lose patience with us rather quickly and probably just reach for tired old language that we'd really rather not have them use. And that's no help to anyone.
As always I welcome comments on this piece. But it's probably worth stating, I take it as read that we all wish to be referred to as simply women or men. And that we all have personal takes on our own identities, and there are many times when revealing that identity is not relevant. All that goes without saying. Instead this piece is not on that topic of language within our community but on our interfacing with the language of those who are not within it, at those moments when we do have to talk about the wider identity of that community. Because it's an important consideration, and one that I think sometimes gets lost in the language wars.

Here we go again

2011-06-02T19:57:00.000+01:00

I'm off to see the doctor next week, I'm going to ask him for some help. You might have noticed content has been a little sparse in these parts of late, I'm afraid I've been having something of a hard time. It started a few months ago and I attributed it to nerves in the period going up to my GIC visit, but after briefly abating in the immediate aftermath of my trip to London, it's back with a vengeance.
Depression can be annoying, like that. I feel as though I'm sliding headlong into the pit I was in two or three years ago. When you find yourself stressed to the point of crying by the tiniest things, it's time to go to the doctor. Last time I tried to tough it out and I nearly ended up killing myself, this time it's off to my GP for some help. The alternative would be a surefire route to everything going wrong and I'm simply not risking it. Better medication than that.
Surprisingly I've found some solace in the Rusty Old Wreck. Driving the Rollerskate stresses me beyond belief at the moment because I'm left with nothing to think about . Modern cars really are that good. By comparison going anywhere in the Wreck requires concentration, plus it works at those parts of my brain that still have some of the bloke about them. It's a mechanical toy, and one that's fun to play with.
So I've probably done a little more motoring than I expected to this week. Shuddering around the lanes at what was probably a fearsome speed in 1959 but nowadays is positively pedestrian. Anticipating every manoeuvre to account for fifty year old brakes. Double declutching. Plenty for my brain to occupy itself with. Watching yesterday's sunset driving through the Downs with Dawn was particularly impressive.
It's funny, I keep getting moments of flashback, twenty years ago and a much younger me in a slightly later model Wreck on the same roads. I haven't driven the thing for so long. Driving through my city late night on Tuesday especially brought this on, if I'd had a Ford Sierra in front of me instead of a Skoda Octavia taxi I'd have turned on the radio and expected the KLF. Hang on, that Wreck had a radio, this one doesn't.
Somehow it feels like a minor defeat, to be going to the doctor and asking for medication. But I think it's the right thing to do. The alternative? There isn't one, at least not one I'd care to contemplate.

So that was it then

2011-05-27T22:29:00.002+01:00

A train to London with my wife, a walk across town, through the park in the rain. A visit to the GIC. Much anticipated, over in about an hour.
I'm there as my everyday scruffy bloke. Stubble and all. Nervous as hell, which is crazy. The clinic is easy to find and the receptionist is friendly, but this has been weighing upon me for months. And my trousers are wet. Damn summer showers.
A couple of other patients show up, both transwomen, neither very far into the process judging by their demeanour. We smile at each other, then an uneasy silence. My usual survey of NHS waiting room reading material, Marie Claire, GQ and some interior design magazines. Then a welcome arrival, my online friend Kay. A middle-aged lady now long-post-op, on one of her very last visits to the clinic. She'd said she'd try to arrive a bit early. We chat, she turns out to be brilliant at putting the nervous at ease. I'm called away to the consulting room and she settles down for a long chat with my wife, for which I'm extremely grateful.
The consultation was very similar to my previous ones with my local psychiatrist. Stepping through my background, my life story, where I want to go. Setting out my options, which are somewhat limited. Recognising that I need help to stay where I am, but that it may one day go pear-shaped and I might need to go further. Above all, I'm talking to someone whose job it is to know about the problems faced by someone like me, who has seen many hundreds of men and women like me and for whom nothing is a surprise.
In fact, there was a surprise in store for me, I was handed a piece of paper and told to go up the road to the hospital for a blood test. Despite the fact I'm not asking for hormones, they want my base hormone levels. Which turned out to be a blessing, something of a psychological boost. Instead of coming away hopeless I had something in my hand, something to do.
I've never been a fan of blood tests. Bad experience many years ago. This one was expertly administered though, completely painless and over very quickly. So with twenty minutes taken at the blood test clinic we found ourselves on the Tube back to the mainline station, surrounded by schoolgirls on their way home. Lucky things, just at that age at which they are turning from children into women. And they are probably finding all that excess estrogen to be annoying. Life's not fair, is it.
So, back home before the time I'd have been home from work anyway. Enough time for my wife to take me out for a meal. It's me that should be taking her, for what she's done for me today.
All in all it was a positive experience. Yes I came away with the same challenges as I went in, but I didn't expect them to hand me a miracle cure. What's important is that I'm now in the system and can access what limited specialist help there is available to someone in my position. And one thing's for certain, my next visit towards the end of the year won't weigh on me nearly as heavily as this one did.

The Narrative

2011-05-25T13:21:00.002+01:00

Later this week, I'll have my first GIC appointment. I'll go along as my everyday scruffy bloke and I'll tell the truth, answer all questions as best I can. My agenda is to seek help, not to pursue any particular treatment at all costs.
It's interesting, being an observer within our community and being someone who is doing their best to avoid a hormone prescription rather than doing everything possible to secure one. When you announce you are going to the GIC, you are bombarded with advice. A lot of it is exactly as I've outlined in the paragraph above, just tell it like it is. But there's another thread of advice: that the only way to secure treatment is to tell them what they supposedly want to hear. Enter the Narrative, the Set List Of Things You Are Supposed To Say And Do To Get Your Hands On Hormones.
We are a community of desperate people. It's part of our condition. In some, that desperation manifests itself in an obsession with accessing particular medical treatments whether they are appropriate or not. This is why we see people self-medding with internet hormones, or even flying off early to Thailand for backstreet GRS from one of their less reputable surgeons.
It is this desperation that has evolved the Narrative. If you are worried that you won't sound trans enough to get the hormones, so the story goes, here's what you have to say and do.
It seems you are supposed to appear (as an MtF) in girl mode. How else can they know you're serious? In fact, as I understand it how you present only matters to them if you are undergoing your Real Life Experience and they are at pains to point this out. I have heard tales of people turning up as bloke and changing in the GIC loo, how crazy is that! In my case I believe confidence is the best thing to present, and since I'm telling the doctor I want to stay as a bloke for my wife it makes sense to turn up as the bloke. I can do girl to good effect, simply in this case it doesn't make sense.
And then there is the life story. You're supposed to spin the stereotypical yarn of the girl trapped in the boy's body, you've known since birth, you hate this and that part of yourself, you're supposed to gloss over the fact you've made it through five decades, marriage and a family successfully as a bloke, because you were Never Really a Bloke and You Knew It All Along. I've heard this story as it evolves in the minds of others, and even I can tell the people who are laying it on thick. I'm sure the doctors at the GIC will have heard it often enough to distinguish those whose narrative really did happen that way.
It's easy to become frustrated with the hurdles imposed by the Standards of Care. Especially the somewhat stricter version adopted by the NHS. I'm sure we could all pick holes in some of the the things they require, or treatments they won't provide. But when faced with people giving them the Narrative, you start to understand why they have such rules, and why they sometimes seem unfairly biased against us. Don't get me wrong, if I wasn't doing everything I can to avoid it I'd be waving a deed poll and wanting to start my RLE as soon as possible too so I could be ready for GRS in two years time, but I hope I'd still be telling it like it is.
I can't help thinking that it's the Narrative and its effect on the medical profession that's responsible for some of those extra hurdles we face at what is a rather difficult time. And that really isn't helping anyone.

Orange seagulls

2011-05-19T21:29:00.000+01:00

Getting out of a car without flashing the world is not easy when you have very long legs and have decided that it's warm enough to break out the floaty number. Oh the tribulations of the oversized!
Last night brought an unexpected chance for an evening out presenting female, as my wife was at a friend's place the same evening as a regular t-girl gathering at a very nice restaurant pub near Reading. So a quick phone call to my friend Dawn, and we piled into the Rollerskate for a blast down the motorway.
There is something I still find incongruous about doing something like going to a pub that is normal for me as a scruffy bloke, yet as a woman. It makes me laugh as well as the satisfaction of presenting the way I feel, to look down and see this girl, where there used to be this bloke. And when I pass unnoticed in broad daylight it just gets funnier. I'm glad it works that way for me, knowing other people in my situation who to my mind look a million times better than me yet who are gripped by terror at the thought of venturing beyond a safe space, my just seizing the moment and going with it is infinitely preferable.
Last night's gathering was a chance to dress up a little. Or more to the point, dress up, but not a lot. One of the fortunate things about our community is that you can almost never be overdressed, but it pays not to overdo it. As always my outfit had to pass the "would a natal woman like me wear this" test, and I hope with a knee-length summer dress, smart LTS jacket and no heels I didn't draw attention to myself. There was another "These people must be really unobservant!" moment on the way into the pub, but I guess the blokes with their eyes on a cool pint of Stella Artois just didn't give us - a tall woman and her old lady friend - a second look on their way to the bar.
It is always something of a smack in the face to remove the trappings of femininity after such an outing. I needed last night badly having spent the last week or two in something of a state, but every time going out as girl becomes a little easier to do and putting it away afterwards becomes that little bit more of a wrench.
Driving back home through town the car was surrounded by wheeling seagulls in the orange sodium light. The tourists and revelers leave discarded food everywhere and our feathered friends turn up after hours and clean it all up most efficiently. To be honest I was glad of them, they took my mind off more annoying matters. Gulls are not birds you want to get on the wrong side of, but close-to in flight, especially on an atmospheric evening in a near-empty town centre, they are quite a sight. I wish I could call them up to banish the girl blues at other times.

A whole week.

2011-05-15T21:21:00.000+01:00

In the past eighteen months I have surprised myself with the frequency with which I have updated this blog. I have enjoyed writing it and through it I have both explored the mess in which I find myself and made friends who have been of amazing support to both me and my wife.
I thus feel rather surprised, looking at the date, that I haven't had anything to write for a week. Normally I've found a blogging formula in writing on matters pertaining to my gender issues when I have something to discuss, random other things that are happening around me when I don't, or when I just need a pick-me-up to take my mind away from sleep deprivation, depression or the other annoyances of life dealing with a noisy inner girl.
But this week: nothing. I have sat, looking blankly at the screen, wishing I could find a way to say what is on my mind, and I've failed. I have even been too apathetic to answer some of your comments on previous posts.
My problem is easy to spot, I'm off to the GIC in just under two weeks and it's weighing heavily on my mind. I will sit in a doctor's office in an anonymous West London clinic, and not a lot will happen. Nothing new there, I've known what they can and can't do for me for quite a while now. But somehow it's now a lot more real, while previously it was sometime way off in the future.
So I'm sure my turmoil will be short-lived, I'll have my day in London, get it over with and life will go on. At least I have something to look forward to, following the success of our outing a couple of weeks ago my wife would like us to do it again. I may not anticipate much progress from London, but that's not the only direction from which progress can come.

Admiration

2011-05-08T16:16:00.001+01:00

The attitude within our community towards 'admirers' - people who find transgender people attractive - is not always a positive one. Tales are told of evading spaghetti-armed pests in gay clubs, and of some members of our community whose pursuit of one-night-stands, we are told, demeans us all. I am aware of at least one support group that as a result has a policy of not allowing (genetic) men presenting as male to attend, something that would have prevented me from attending a year ago had the Swindon group had it and that I know caused problems for a long-time-post-op friend when she went along with her perfectly normal bloke husband.
    I've encountered a few admirers myself, and none of them lived up to the stereotype. Amiable middle-aged blokes, not my kind of romantic interest at all even if I was in the market but I'm very happy for the full-time-TV of my acquaintance who's heading for a civil partnership with one of them. I had a slightly surreal in-depth conversation about Rusty Old Wrecks and other machinery with another last summer, gosh how girly I have become!
    Another admirer of my acquantance is a bit different from the stereotype too. She's a vivacious and attractive twenty-something girl who very much prefers her partner to be presenting as female rather than male. I'm fully aware that my attitude towards her is completely different to that I have towards male admirers and as a result I find she has challenged some of my assumptions on the subject. Being challenged is good, so I thought I'd share.
    So as someone who's grown up with a lifetime supply of testosterone and a full set of male gender conditioning classes the idea of being 'admired' by a gay bloke is a little uncomfortable, while that of being 'admired' by a heterosexual girl isn't. Do I detect some double standards and an air of repressed homophobia about it all? Perhaps, and if so it's a fleeting view of myself I don't like. The next time I hear a lurid tale of someone's narrow escape at Pink Punters, perhaps I'll ask them what on earth they expected might happen if they attended a gay nightclub wearing rather risquée clothing, and the next time I end up having a surreal chat with a harmless admirer I'll simply remind myself that this is another thing millions of women everywhere have to put up with all the time. I just hope my twenty-something self was enough of a gentleman with respect to the non-trans women of my acquaintance when I was doing something similar.

Going solo

2011-05-04T21:48:00.000+01:00

Last night my wife and I joined a couple of friends for a meal at an Italian restaurant in a nearby town. Four friends out on a weekday evening. Why was this worthy of a blog post? The evening was arranged at my wife's instigation, and I was there not as my usual scruffy bloke but as my best shot at a stylish-yet-casual Jenny in LTS jeans and a Desigual top under my grey LTS trench coat.
That's right, my wife was extending her comfort zone by arranging an outing with me as Jenny. Previously any such outings have been in the company of our local support group and she has not always been at ease even then. That she voluntarily made such an effort I find to be demonstration enough of why she is worth whatever efforts I can make to hang in there for her.
All things considered, the evening went very well. I was severely spooked though when on drawing to a halt in the car park a slightly dodgy looking bloke appeared at the car window. It turned out he was completely harmless, he merely wished to share his frustration at the ticket machine being out of order.
So for the first time I was out in public in Jenny mode, almost solo. Just the two of us meeting our friends, no support group for protection. Passing through a familiar space, past other couples, even a group of teenagers. No darkness to hide in, it was about twenty minutes before sunset. The big surprise was that I didn't notice anyone spot me. Not even the bloke in the car park. Were they suddenly smitten with blindness or something? I flatter myself I don't do a bad job, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't still have something of the bloke about me. And with my size I'm certainly difficult to miss.
I think I managed it not through a feat of passing but one of not standing out. My efforts not to deliver any unexpected cues had paid off, and for those passers-by engrossed in their own concerns I simply didn't feature on their radar. My outfit passed the "Could I imagine my sister or my cousin wearing this?" test so I succeeded in looking just enough like a tall natal girl as they are that nobody made the effort to look any further.
Yes, we had plenty of nerves. I've been ready for this for a long time, waiting for my wife to feel strong enough to be comfortable with it. However ready you might be for this moment, it's always going to be a challenge. But as is the only way to proceed with these things we just went for it and had an enjoyable evening. I am hugely indebted to my wife for feeling able to come this far, and to our two friends for their company and support.
It is going to be increasingly difficult to keep this in the box, but I know the alternative of not doing so would have eventually been far worse.

Black on white

2011-05-02T23:09:00.000+01:00

I have discovered a striking new manicure technique. It's very eye-catching, if a little dark.

You should all be familiar with a French manicure. Two-tone white and colour paint for your nails. Most impressive when done well.

But what about black instead of white? A little Goth, perhaps?

Simple to do though. Take one Rusty Old Wreck, and fit it with a new clutch. The accumulated oily grime of five decades of motoring accumulates under your nails, and like all the best quality cosmetics it has impressive sticking power.

Damn, I'm out with my wife tomorrow evening and I don't want to be sporting black lines on my fingernails!

In which I lose a friend

2011-04-29T22:49:00.001+01:00

A month or so ago I lost a friend at the hands of a surgeon, on the operating table at the Nuffield Hospital in Brighton.
I first encountered her last year, at which point she had been full-time female for less than a year. An attractive girl a few years older than me, her strident views and combative nature didn't do her any favours among the orthodoxy of the community of trans people through which we knew each other but we both got on pretty well and I came to regard her as a friend. She was fortunate in her build and in having visited a good facial surgeon so she had confidence in her appearance and I never saw her have any issues with being spotted.
Unusually she claimed never to have suffered from gender dysphoria, presumably meaning that she didn't suffer from the crushing depression and hopelessness in being male that a lot of readers will find familiar. Her path took her through the private healthcare system rather than the NHS, so as far as I am aware she began hormones before going full-time and the diagnosis criteria were different from those we might find at an NHS GIC.
She took going off hormones pre-GRS harder than most. For the first time, she said, she understood gender dysphoria. Better late than never I suppose, but it must have been a shock to her. Because almost immediately on her return from the Nuffield following her GRS she announced that she was now going stealth, and that she no longer wished to associate with her trans friends.

And that's how I lost my friend.

Good luck to her I suppose. If she can do it. She wouldn't be the first trans woman to go stealth, though she's the first I've heard of doing it before her surgery has healed.
But I can't help feeling sad at the abrupt loss of a friend, concerned for her wellbeing and above all shocked at her path through the medical system,
Sad at the loss of a friend, because it's as if it were a bereavement. When she made her announcement it hit me hard. I retreated into my shell. It always hurts a little when a friend makes a great stride in transition that you can't, but for her to make such a stride and then dump everyone really hurt. I can tell she meant it when she said she never really experienced gender dysphoria, because had she done so she wouldn't have treated in that way those among her friends who do experience it. Hell, it wasn't as though she had to face the embarrassment of being associated with a Widow Twankey Tranny, she only once ever saw me as anything but the scruffy bloke.
Concerned for her wellbeing because I don't think she's dealt with her issues. I think she is only now discovering that there is more to this than acquiring a pretty face and other female enhancements from a surgeon. If she locks herself into the closet that going stealth can become then she will find it very difficult to find help, and as someone who still considers herself a friend I wish I could avoid that happening.
And shocked at her path through the medical system because I do not believe her doctors to have been acting in her best interests. As far as I am aware she went through the entire process in the absolute minimum time possible under the Standards of Care, and given both her obvious issues now and that she claimed all along never to have suffered from gender dysphoria I find wanting the medics who authorised her treatment without significant examination of why she took that position.
I hope her going stealth was simply due to her being in a hormonal mix-up following her surgery and I hope she'll pop up again as if nothing has happened. With luck she'll be wiser for the experience. But if she does I hope she also realises that her path was not as smooth as it might have appeared to her when taking it, and takes the time to face up to the consequences of that.

Because you know what? I'd hate to lose her once again, this time permanently.

(Edit, Dec 2011: she has surfaced, but I have mixed feelings about it which I've detailed here)

Roadworthy old wreck

2011-04-27T23:36:00.000+01:00

This morning a bloke in a tin shed on the edge of an English village spent half an hour poring over the Rusty Old Wreck before pronouncing it roadworthy and issuing it with an MOT test certificate. It is now legal to drive on the Queen's highway for the next year, given a quick trip with the certificate and its insurance details to the village post office for a tax disc which was free on account of the Wreck's historic vehicle status.
Such are the minor annoyances of British automotive bureaucracy.
It would have been the perfect start to the day, except that the Wreck's clutch is slipping. Fifty year old springs are not doing a very good job of keeping the plate pressed against the flywheel and it is very difficult to make the car go any faster than thirty miles per hour without a sudden burst of revs as it loses adhesion.
How unfortunate. Luckily I know another bloke in a tin shed who can help, sometime soon I'll be off to the lair of someone who is a World Expert on Wrecks and who I am sure will be able to sort me out with the parts I need.
Every branch of motor enthusiasm has a bloke in a tin shed somewhere catering for its adherents. Everyone I know with a Wreck has the World Expert on speed-dial, and similarly my motorcycles and the Turbocharged Rollerskate are tended by equivalent experts in their own fields working out of anonymous industrial units.
There is a cosy certainty to a conversation within the fold of similarly afflicted petrolheads. In the world of the true enthusiast there is no room for hierarchy or snobbery, from the rustiest Wreck to the shiniest concours d'elegance winner they are all machines and thus fascinating to the born fettler. I can no more explain the attractions of a detailed conversation about the different clutch parts fitted to pre- and post-1963 cars as I can the attraction of a Little Black Dress to someone who looks like me, but strangely they both fulfill the same function: that of keeping the brain occupied. Which is important when you are trying to stop yourself going potty.
It's been too long since I last drove the Wreck. I was worried I'd not rediscover the spark, but today has been a good one and the girl has not intruded too much. Something which given the experience of my last few weeks can only be a positive thing.

A year in her shoes

2011-04-26T13:58:00.000+01:00

Just from curiosity, I took a look back at what I was writing here a year ago. Nothing much changes, I was fettling the Wreck, I'd just been out with some local t-girls and I was periodically plagued by the noisy girl. Amusingly I thought I might have the Wreck on the road within a month, only a year later am I about to send it for an MOT test.
One personal anniversary is in the offing though. A year ago, give or take a few days, I finally took delivery of my wig. It had taken a while because I'd taken pains to get the right wig - I've paid less for Wrecks in the past - and I'd had to have it altered for my oversize head.
But for the first time I could stand in front of a mirror and see something more of the girl than the scruffy bloke wearing her clothes. Straight away I gave myself a shock when I saw something of my sister looking back at me.
I've come a long way in the last twelve months. I've come to terms with some of my demons, not least my height. Going out as girl has become less scary and a little more routine, though I've not pushed my wife's comfort zone by doing it too close to home. I'm in the queue for the GIC for whatever help they can offer someone in my position, I'm in a much better job and some of last year's worries for the future have receded. Looking forward I'm slowly growing my hair out and in due course I'll no doubt be savouring the joys of having my facial hair lasered.
So I have a lot to be thankful for. Unfortunately though I'm still as far away as ever from being at peace with all this. I can't quite escape the nagging fear that eventually it'll all go pear-shaped anyway and I'm just stringing my wife along. She says not to worry as we'll deal with everything as it arrives, but I can't help it. I am incredibly lucky to have married someone who has been able to come to terms with having a gender dysphoric husband to the extent she has, but I have no wish to push her beyond her limit.
I can't put this back in the box. I tried that for years, and it nearly killed me. If I am to successfully pursue my aim of hanging in there for my wife I must face up to the crushing gloom of a lifetime of this stretching away before me. However at this point I feel I can take hope from something a friend pointed out to me: that dealing with this is not a process that starts at the point of going full-time female, at GRS or any other milestone, instead it starts at the point at which you come to terms with your female gender identity and thereafter all steps you take represent progress along a path that is never fully completed. Within that scope I feel I have more room for manoeuvre, and that at least is something to be happy about.

Long weekends

2011-04-22T09:54:00.000+01:00

I did have a long post half-written about how the girl is becoming a PITA again. But I scrubbed it because I didn't like its tone. Too whiny. Writing is cathartic, publishing said writing is not necessary for that effect to be achieved.
Here in the UK we are embarking on one of our periodic rashes of bank holidays. A late Easter, a Royal Wedding and May Day mean that we have four of them in eleven days. We're surrounded by a rash of monarchism and apathy as the explosion of national joy at William and Kate's impending nuptials turns out to be rather muted compared to that surrounding his parents' wedding back in 1981. Back then we had a village party with a huge spread of food and several families clustered round a slightly blue-tinged colour telly. I seem to remember some of the women sporting highly improbable outfits featuring more than a little red, white and blue, though that could be a confusion with memories of the Silver Jubilee in 1977. This time I guess my mother will have it on in the background in digital widescreen HD but I doubt she'll watch the whole ceremony. I saw a piece yesterday making the point that the royal engagement ring alone is worth £32m, £4m more than the UK Government's total 4-year spend on services for abused women. Sigh.
Unfortunately my wife will be at work for some of the holidays. So I'll be at a loose end. Not that I'll be short of things to do. After nearly nine years languishing, the Rusty Old Wreck is finally booked in for an MOT test on Wednesday, and I have to ensure that it's as ready as it can be. Old cars can always surprise you with the diversity of ways they can let you down , and I'm anxious that the Wreck doesn't do that to me on its Big Day. I've had enough drama so far with its brakes. Who knew that finding a drum brake adjustment tool would be so difficult in 2011!
In a way having the Wreck roadworthy will be an anticlimax. Sure it's fun bimbling through the countryside in a fifty year old car, but I've found that the fettling of an old piece of machinery is what has kept me coming back to it of late. Something real I can involve myself in to help myself ignore everything else. You'd never have caught a twenty-something me drooling over supercars at the Motor Show but it will be interesting to see whether I rediscover some of the fun I had in owning an older car back in the '90s. I guess if I'm short of old machines to fix I've always got a geriatric motorcycle begging for my attention.
With so many days free I'll probably attach the mutt to her bit of string and set off across the fields a bit further than my usual circuit. My part of the world is looking pretty good at the moment as you can see from the picture attached to this post. So by next Tuesday I'll no doubt have caught the sun, have sore feet and insect bites. But I hope at least I'll be happy having shed the girl as best I can.

Feminist blogs: like a work-safe erotic computer game

2011-04-21T07:56:00.000+01:00

Back in the 1990s I worked in the computer game business. I shared an office with a bunch of games testers, young late-teenaged blokes whose job was to play computer games all day. It was a colourful atmosphere with more than a whiff of unregulated testosterone and other substances about it, and though I am very glad to have moved on those days still conjure a slight sense of nostalgia.
A few days ago I was unexpectedly reminded of the testers by an unlikely stimulus, I followed a link from another blogger and found myself dipping once more into the world of feminist blogs. Though I've made no secret of my irritation with the hate-preaching sector of feminism I found the blogs I was looking at had some sense about them and I found myself agreeing with their writers.
In the normal course of events I might have done what I would in our little corner of the blogosphere: stopped for a while and left a few comments. But I found the usual page on a feminist blog: 'Advice before you comment'. Full of -isms and privileges both real and imagined, and boasts of debating gambits they found unacceptable and trolls they had seen off. I ended up thinking "This isn't worth it!" and moving on. Shame, I always like getting to know people who write well.
So how did the testers come in to this? Simple, I was reminded of the way they used to play erotic computer games. I appreciate that this comparison might be anathema to a feminist blogger, so let me explain. Back in the '90s there was a genre of computer games that involved enticing virtual women into sex. From the merely risqué such as the Leisure Suit Larry series to the overtly erotic such as Virtual Valerie, their premise was simple: do the 'right' things and you will achieve your aim, do the 'wrong' things and the virtual object of your lust will slam the door on you. Never my thing really, but to the testers who had something of the adolescent about them they were fascinating.
What was interesting was how they evolved the playing of these games. Once the initial 'Phwoarrr' factor had worn off and they'd realised that there was only a certain level of eroticism that could be conveyed in pixel form by a mid-90s PC, their focus changed from the eroticism to the chase. Not having their virtual quarry reject them became a daring game of suspense, and triggering the boot became a thrill rather than a failure. This was no solitary pursuit, instead they played as a group, clustered round the monitor offering advice and encouragement.
I was reminded of the testers on the feminist blogs because I saw the same forces at play. The feminist blogger is the unreachable prey and the bloke trolls are the hunters. They get the same satisfaction from worming their way under the radar and springing the trap that closes the door on them as the testers did from being rejected by their virtual women, the object has become to deliver the barb and the door being slammed is simply the expected consequence.
Except that unlike a dodgy '90s computer game, there is a person involved. Do these bloggers gain as much satisfaction from seeing off trolls that the trolls do from winding them up? Or do they crouch beleaguered in their eyries, convinced they are under constant threat and having their prejudices reinforced by people who are simply poking them for sport?

Marketing toys to boys and to girls

2011-04-19T17:57:00.002+01:00

Here's a link that came my way today at work. Crystal Smith is the writer of The Achilles Effect, a book examining the messages of gender and masculinity in popular culture, particularly as they relate to young boys.
As part of her research, she's examined the language used to promote toys to both boys and to girls, and produced a pair of eye-catching word clouds showing how such promotion reinforces gender stereotypes. I can never resist a pretty infographic so I'd like to direct my readers to her blog, which given its subject matter I am sure many will find interesting.

Blossom

2011-04-14T23:14:00.003+01:00

Blokes aren't supposed to talk about flowers. I think they're all scared people might think they're gay or something. Which is a shame because particularly at this time of year there is a lot to talk about if you appreciate flowers, every tree is covered in them.
The picture shows one of our orchard trees, a williams pear. Fruit growers are one of the few groups of blokes you'll find talking about blossom, though they'll be careful not to sound as though they are enjoying its beauty too much. Unless they *are* gay, presumably. Instead they obsess about whether it'll be frosted, how much of it there is, and whether enough of the right insects are finding it.
I tried to catch one of the mason bees on the blossom in my picture, but it was camera shy.
I've been a little up-and-down of late. My wife was away at her mother's place until the weekend, and that's always a bit difficult for me. Wandering through the orchard at blossom time is not a cure-all for depression, but it certainly makes you feel a little better.

Edit: Apple blossom picture added for comparison (See comments).

Trans-cending gender norms, UWE Bristol

2011-04-13T09:25:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was spent in a lecture theatre at the University of the West of England, attending the 'Trans-cending gender norms' pre-conference event. It was the first such conference I had attended and I found it to be an extremely worthwhile experience, both for the subjects under discussion and for the networking opportunities.
Attending were a mixed crowd of academics and trans people, including a couple of blokes from Qwest FTM UK, a pair of ladies from the Gender Trust, me (sadly in bloke mode) and my friend Alison wearing our Swindon TG Group hats, and unexpectedly my local friend Rebecca in her professional capacity as an interested academic.
I didn't expect to find myself talking to linguists about the use of language in relation to transgender, something that I have a keen interest in and is not unconnected with what I do for a living, given that analysing huge tracts of text forms part of my job.
So my thanks to Silvia, the event organiser, and to the other attendees for a very interesting day.

Ladies and Gentlemen

2011-04-10T08:39:00.001+01:00

It seems slightly old-fashioned these days, but there's something I still aspire to in my scruffy day-to-day persona: to be a gentleman. My ever-handy dictionary describes a gentleman as "a chivalrous, courteous, or honourable man", and I'd render it into a more down-to-earth "do the right thing mate, don't be an arsehole".
It goes without saying that this is not an aspiration confined to blokes. The dictionary definition for lady made me laugh: "a courteous, decorous, or genteel woman", I never knew it would be OK to be decorous but I wouldn't need to be honorable when in Jenny mode. But it still works in the vernacular: "do the right thing love, don't be an arsehole".
This week I have been disappointed in some of what I have read on our little corner of the blogosphere. Views that contradict mine I have no problem with, I welcome the cut-and-thrust of debate. Rants are fine too, even unfocused ones. Hell, they can even be entertaining. Where I felt a line had been crossed was the point at which I started reading personal attacks based on people's appearance. Just as we can't help whatever weird and wonderful brain structures have been bestowed upon us, we can't help our genetics and the ravaging effects of years of the wrong hormonal mix on our bone structures. I won't post links, but some of you will know where I've been reading.
Medical science has been wonderful for those of us suffering from GD. It can never erase a male history but it can now deliver as good a facsimile of womanhood as we could possibly hope for. However I've learned this week that there is one thing it can not do. It does not matter where on his scale Dr. Benjamin would have put you, how many surgeries you have had or how many years practice you have under your belt: the doctors can make you into a woman but they can't make you into a lady.

Bloke-aware

2011-04-09T17:43:00.000+01:00

So last night Caroline and Lisa spent the evening with Jenny, face-to-face, no scruffy blokes involved. A massive thank-you to Caroline's sister and her husband for both feeding us and putting up with us, and I hope any cider-fueled headaches will have subsided by now.
As always when I shed the scruffy bloke impersonation I find myself acutely aware of his echoes in my behaviour. Testosterone and a lifetime's conditioning have made it rather difficult to leave all the male traits behind, and I'm constantly thinking "That was such a bloke thing you did there!" at work for example. It's stupid really, it's mostly imaginary and half of what I think is obvious never gets noticed by anyone else, but we all have these things that grip us irrationally from time to time.
Every time I go somewhere in Jenny mode now it feels less like something I have to get ready for and more spontaneous. As real as the scruffy me with Rusty Old Wreck-stained t-shirt sitting typing this. Separating the two could become a problem, one I don't want to have to face. I must remind myself, a woman with a Rusty Old Wreck would be just as grubby after wire-brushing its underside.

Which way?

2011-04-06T00:09:00.000+01:00

On Sunday I found myself somewhere unexpected: my local United Reformed Church LGBT service.
Unexpected because being at a loose end with my wife being at her mother's place I'd seen myself spending an evening in front of the telly watching CSI, but I ended up giving a disabled friend a lift into town.
There is something deliciously naughty about parking on a double yellow line, even if you have a blue disabled badge in the window. I could imagine the judge looking skeptical when told that I was running a disabled pensioner friend into her church service, but that was the truth and anyway no traffic warden wrote me a ticket.
As I've probably mentioned before, I was raised as an Anglican in a rural community. Growing up an Anglican is easy, there's God and Jesus, then the Queen, and the vicar comes round to primary school in his Morris Minor to tell you all the bible stories and everything's so frightfully nice about it all. You sing rousing hymns about saints and seasons to the soft refrain of a church organ, you pick blackberries in the churchyard and there is always honey still for tea.
If Jesus' message was of a higher authority than the Emperor of His day then British rural Anglicanism is there to remind you of the contrary: a cosy certainty that His message on Earth is safely coincident with being British, and that the Queen is a much more benevolent figure than Herod or the Pharaoh. Belief is optional, it's all about taking part. If you've never read the Terry Pratchett novel Small Gods, I suggest you do so, I see in it a biting satire of British Anglicanism.
Blimey, being a five-year-old was so easy!
Of course, when you grow up and become a rebellious depressive teenager you realise that the church is a creaky old building with holes in its roof, and that the Church it represents is run by stupid old men whose minds are in another era.
With respect to Church attendance, I'm definitely a Harvest Festival Anglican. But I know all the moves and more importantly for last Sunday I know all the back story as told to me by our vicar back in the sunny 1970s.
So there I was, sitting in my first Bible discussion for thirty years, and finding it interesting to look upon it with the eyes of an adult. And unexpectedly not finding it embarrassing, thank you Vicar, I know this stuff!
Sadly for my more faith-led readers though, this was no Damascene moment. I still count myself the same small-c christian I did before and there was no blinding moment of renewed faith. I envy those with Belief, but I'm still not one of them.
The service performs a vital role for its regulars, ministering to Christians who may have been excluded from their own congregations. The minister, a very down-to-earth American lady, was very welcoming to the extent that I almost felt guilty, as though there on false pretences. The other people present came from a variety of backgrounds within the LGBT alphabet soup, among them several transgender people, but there was one in particular who stuck in my mind. Though she was presenting female she like me spends most of her time as a bloke, but there our similarities end. She had only come out of her closet in the last few months, and just at that most vulnerable point her (AFAICT some kind of Baptist) church had ousted her and persuaded her wife to leave her. She wasn't even certain that transitioning was for her, but unlike me she'd been denied the chance to even try to hang in there for her wife.
I'm sure her church could go on for hours and hours about the sanctity of marriage. Her minister probably has a great sermon on the subject, about sin and fornication and all sorts of other temptingly forbidden stuff. But just at the point when one of their own really needs their help and support, all that sanctity of marriage stuff goes out of the window and it's all get lost and don't come back. [Village in Austria] [village in Worcestershire]s!
My apologies. Living in a largely secular bubble, you forget that this kind of stuff can happen here, too.
On a lighter note, afterwards we found ourselves in one of my town's gay pubs. As a new attendee I was naturally asked a few questions. I don't think they expected a giant sized scruffy bloke to be transgender, I was asked something that made me laugh. "Which way?". I suppose I should take heart, if my questioner believed from looking at me that I might once have been female then all is not lost for me on the passing front!

Guest post 4: More than a label

2011-04-05T07:06:00.000+01:00

I know I’m obviously biased here, butI do look at the female world and wonder what the point is of allthose articles on ‘how to please your man’ when the most obviousresponse would be just to say what’s on your bloody mind, not tohide behind layers of connivance and manipulation and making himguess.

I get annoyed at the way womenrepresent themselves. I get annoyed at the way men do, too, butcertainly not to the same extent. I hate the clichés, thecomments like “ooh, haven’t you got him well trained!”and “Typical man, always doing …” and the batting ofeyelashes to jump the queue and the utter refusal to be practicalabout checking tyre pressures or the gas meter. I hate the snideremarks and the seeming impossibility of being able to ask for whatyou’d like, simply and without artifice or connivance. I especiallydon’t like the concept that when you ‘bag your man’ you have togo hell for leather to change him. Then the insult upon insult: whenthe poor chap does his damnedest to leap through the hoops you holdalways just a fraction too far away, you walk on because ‘he’schanged’. The complicity of handing down obeisance to sexualisedbehaviour from mother to daughter, aunt to niece.

I do have a big issue with society’sexpectations of what men and women are supposed to do, like, think,want, achieve. Jobs, clothes, families, music, haircuts, ambitions,vehicles... a hundred and one ways we’re expected to conform. Ihesitate to call myself a feminist, though, because I don’t want tobe seen as pro-female at the expense of males, which somefeminism appears to be. Far more to my preference is an equality ofboth genders, and with that an equality of access to any lifeor needs which a person should have for their wellbeing.

On the flip side, I do see the grass asbeing considerably greener on the male side of the fence. I don’tknow if this is a reaction against the boundaries society tries tocontain me (and women in general) within; or if deep down I feel thatit’s a territory that should have been mine by birth. I don’tknow whether liking ‘blokey’ things is a way of getting back atthe follies of the female lot (as I see them), or at society, or atmen in general for being able to claim these things as theirs withoutquestion.

Take motorbikes, for instance. Idespise the assumption that women can’t ride (or can only go on theback). This is perpetuated by women themselves as much as by men. Iget annoyed at the expectation that women don’t like getting dirtyand covered in oil, or are too weak to wield spanners with impunity.Some men have criticised women for not being able to pick up a bikewhen it falls. I know a lot of other men who have problems picking upbikes on their own – they’re heavy bits of kit. I can check myoil and lube the chain, but I don’t know how to change them; that’sbecause I’ve never been shown, not because my gender renders meincompetent. I would like to be as self-sufficient in these things aspossible, not to prove to men that I can, or to women that they’reweak for not even bothering, but simply so that I can beself-reliant.

What a mess! I know not all women arelike that. I know not all men are like that. There are some absolutegems in the world – Jenny’s one, for starters! To conclude andbid you all a fond farewell, thanks all for letting me witter on.

xxGray

Guest post 3: Yesterday, today

2011-04-03T16:12:00.000+01:00

Quite by coincidence, yesterday Imentioned to some female friends of mine in the pub that the previousoccupant of the loo had left the seat up. You can accept that at homeif you share with a bloke, but in a place where only women go? I wasquite taken aback by the response: someone immediately startedlooking round the pub to identify the “ladyman” and jokes flewall night about the unfortunate thus identified. Someone asked whichloo you’d use if you were “having a sex change” which causedgreat debate. What surprised me the most was the contributions from ayoung woman who earlier was explaining hegemonic masculinity andfemininity and how important it is not to pander to stereotypes.

In my previous post, I mentioned abouthow I feel out-of-sorts with the usual crowds. This was an example ofit. It made me uncomfortable and nervous and I didn’t know how togo about bringing a halt to the ribaldry in a gracious way. I thinkI’m a little bit more aware than most about conversations like thisbecause, being on the periphery of that wonderfully useless word‘normality’, a) I perceive how easily the joking could be aboutme; and b) I’ve met quite a few people who define themselves in allkinds of different ways and have (I hope) much more of an open mindabout such things.

I first met a ‘proper TG’ woman in1989; the lead singer of a local band, she was a source of puzzlementand curiosity by many. By this point I’d already decided to be asopen-minded as I could possibly be, so I just took it in my stride. Iknow I’ve met many more over the years, but in 2007, in mybrother’s last days, his close friend Sharon introduced me to herpartner, Jackie. It was only about a week later, when we werechatting about hospitals in general, that Sharon referred to Jackie’s‘surgery’. I was so confused I actually had to ask her what shemeant! My first reaction when the penny dropped was to be jealous.

Why? She had made the choice, and actedon it. She knew what she was, and sorted the problem. Yes, I know, I know, that’s woefully naïve and almost certainly ratherinsulting. But I’m trying to be honest here about the thoughtswhich ran – run – through my head. Bear in mind I was 23 before Irealised that the choice of having children or not was mine to make,not society’s… that always flummoxes people who know me very wellas I’m such an outspoken person on people’s rights to live theway they want to. So, thinking within that framework, I’d alreadygrown a pair of tits and hips so huge I have to do a three point turnto get out of the bath and assumed that being female was something Iwas going to have to get used to. So by the time I realised that Ididn’t have to have accepted this body, I then assumed it was toolate.

I nominally call myself bi, but Ihaven’t had a girlfriend in years. I gave up when I realised thatlesbians don’t tend to want a man, not even a female-shaped one. Ifound it tough to come to terms with the fact that I go in. Ilike my body, sometimes, and do actually have female bits of me thatI’m quite proud of, but I do feel like I should go outinstead. When I was three, I clearly remember telling my brother: “Onmy fourth birthday, I’m going to be a boy.” I have no idea how myparents reacted to this, but I do know that my mother was so fed upof people commenting about her ‘sons’ that she had my earspierced when I was five.

So who am I? A boy, a girl, or a Gray?

Guest post 2: Somewhere in the middle

2011-04-02T09:11:00.000+01:00

Last time, I introduced myself as Gray. This is actually short for a female name, which I don’t like because it’s just a bit too feminine for me. Plenty of others have the name too and they all seem to be PR princesses and journalists who write for Marie-Claire. However, I was struck by the words of a counsellor I once had, who observed that I’d chosen a ‘deliberately ambiguous’ name. When you see it written down, you don’t really know who I am… I like that. People often jump to the nearest female name they recognise when I introduce myself, which sometimes annoys me. But I’m still amused by their confusion.

I’m not a girly-girl. I don’t do pink or frills or cushions. I like motorbikes, loud music, computers,graphic novels, the workings of the London Underground. You’re more likely to find me engrossed in a programme on refitting a narrowboat or a documentary about black holes than ‘How to look good naked’. I browse through sale racks of industrial metal CDs, not handbags or heels. Actually, I don’t think I even own any heels. I know I don’t own any skirts.I have to use something as a title, so I’m a Ms. For years I had very short hair, until last year when I decided to grow it to cover my new hearing aids. I never wear make-up, either– although I can, and do, such as at weddings. I then have to bite my lip when people make crass comments about me scrubbing up well – as if, in my normal scruffy state I’m incapable of anything else.

It’s hard to pinpoint why I’m such a tomboy. I always saw my brother as having much more fun and freedom. I can safely say I knew this from as young as three years old. My first two best friends were both boys (both, oddly, were also called Jonathan, and both shared the same birthday). I liked the idea that girls who are tomboys stand out and get attention. I liked being ready for action at any time. I liked the additional pull for potential boyfriends of being a bit more forthright and down-to-earth than a lot of girls I knew. I’m certainly much happier hanging out with men than women, especially at loud gigs when you’d always find me down the front ‘slamming’ (moshing) and talking technical details of valve clearances at a bike meet.

This has had its disadvantages, of course. It’s left me feeling very isolated sometimes. It’s all very well having male friends, but not so good when you need to talk about your Girl Bits or if you’re upset and just need a hug. Societal expectations seem to have no age limit; I know 15-year-olds and 75-year-olds equally who have problems with me. I can’t believe people's nerve and rudeness, sometimes, but hey... It hurts, when you try to be as open-minded and as accepting of other people as you can, when people are blatantly blinkered. It also makes finding close friends pretty hard; I don’t trust people so much nowadays so I may even be closing the door on people now before I’ve even given them a try. What a round-and-round!

I do laugh, though, when my good friends say “She’s not a girl, she’s a Gray.”

So today, as I sign off, I’m wondering how much closer I actually am to answering my question before: Who am I?

Guest post 1: Who am I?

2011-04-01T18:41:00.000+01:00

A week or so ago I approached G, a friend of mine, to ask her for a guest post for this blog. I suggested something like "Why it's OK for girls to be into bloke stuff" because I have at times witnessed entertaining discussions within this sphere on that subject and G is well placed to comment on it. I received more than I expected, not one but four posts, for which she has my sincerest thanks. So here's the first post, the other three will be published over the next few days.

I thought I’d start by introducing myself in much the same way Jenny did. But then I realised that I could be dissected in a hundred different ways, and each would show someone completely different. Slice me one way, and you’d see the only daughter of a family three- quartered: my mother, my father, me, minus my older brother who died three years ago. Cut me another way, and you’d see the live-in partner of a man whose intelligence is seemingly limitless, but who nevertheless found something in me to raise me in his eyes above the herd. To friends, to co-workers, to managers, to strangers… again and again different versions of me.

It’s quite hard, therefore, to think about defining myself outside the views of others. Quite simply, beyond the actual sperm-meets-egg moment of my creation, my whole life has been subjectively fashioned. This makes it tough for me to pull down a list of characteristics that I can simply point to and identify with. I suspect that most people don’t think that hard about themselves: they just are. Lucky them to be free of such existential gnawings! But my point is, which me would you, the reader, actually like to find out about?

Anyway! I’m called Gray and I live and work in Kent, the south-eastern-most county of England. I’m an IT trainer for a mental health charity, and a Skills for Life tutor (basic English and maths for adults) in a prison; so you could surmise (correctly) that I’m quite an altruistic person. I’m loyal, kind, generous, fun; temperamental, obnoxious, garrulous. Most people don’t ‘get’ me; I do feel very square-peggish. My one biggest chip on my shoulder is when people call me ‘weird’. It’s never used in a positive way and I’m far too sensitive to let ungracious comments, be they inadvertent or deliberate, slide over me and away. Barbs dig; they dig deep and stay in. So, yes, I’ve learnt to be pretty private about myself to people who I call ‘the peripherals,’ ones who won’t ever be more in my life than co-worker or pub acquaintance.

Jenny asked me privately not to reveal her female world to our mutual friends; in respect of this, and to prevent people stumbling across this blog through searching for me and identifying Jenny, I’ve given myself a new name. But the rest of it will be as true as I can make it, bearing in mind what I said above about subjectivity. If you have any questions, do ask. I might even answer! :)

Don't look at us, Guv!

2011-03-31T21:19:00.001+01:00

I've received a reply to my Peter Kay letter from the enquiries assistant at Comic Relief.

Thank you for getting in touch with us. Comic Relief believes in the power of entertainment to communicate serious messages and raise as much money as possible to help vulnerable people here in the UK and in Africa. Entertainers, comedians and professionals donate their time and talent to create a one off programme for Red Nose Day and we are extremely grateful for their support. The Night of TV is a light hearted and entertaining programme which does not aim to offend but we are sorry if you are unhappy about anything you saw.

Comic Relief the charity does not make the Red Nose Day night of TV show so if you have any further questions or comments specifically about the broadcast the BBC is in a better position to answer them. Once again please accept our apology.

If I may paraphrase it:

We believe anything goes, so long as it raises money for us

We have nothing to do with any of the stuff you see on TV with our logo and brand association plastered all over it. Go away and complain to someone else. Oh, and sorry.

I have to admit to being disappointed with this response. Since I didn't mention the BBC Comic Relief night of TV at all, instead talking about the record released by Kay and Boyle, I can only conclude she didn't bother to read my mail. Fair enough I guess, I do use long words. But I'm surprised at their lack of concern for their brand reputation. People like Kay are in effect brand licencees, they're not working for Comic Relief but they are trading on their brand. Thus the Comic Relief brand is a hostage to the licencees handling of it and it's up to them to keep an eye on that.
I work for a global business whose branding and product is as widely known as Comic Relief's, if not more so internationally. Our product is licenced to many external companies, and I know damn well that if one of them brought our brand into disrepute my chief executive would raise one hell of a fuss, and sharpish! Hence my shock at Comic Relief's apparent lack of care for their brand.
Still, if nothing is too offensive to make money for them and they don't care about the brand I guess they wouldn't be bothered next year if someone did a blackface show for them, after all it's all for charity! Just better not make it a stammering blackface show.
I'm not sure whether to reply, or whether it would be a wasted effort.

Interesting news for the large of foot

2011-03-31T13:53:00.004+01:00

You are unlikely to find the Melonia shoe attractive enough for you to covet it, but if like me you are at the outer edge of normal footwear size ranges you should be very interested in it.
Why? It is the first piece of footwear to be produced using 3D printing. If you are unfamiliar with 3D printing let me explain: it refers to the process in which three dimensional objects are fabricated by laying down successive layers of their component materials. Any object can be made with a 3D printer, the only limitations being the size of the device and the materials available to be used in it.
As an engineer I have been interested in 3D printing for over a decade and I had anticipated seeing it used for footwear. I hope that within a reasonable timescale I will be able to order my very large ladies shoes online in almost any style because instead of their being volume produced and shipped from a warehouse they will be made specially for me in my size on a 3D printer. It is likely that by then the industry will have developed some better materials than the Melonia's white plastic.
Something to look forward to, I hope you will agree

(Image from The Register. Very naughty, using one of their images in this way, go and visit them for top quality tech news!)

Timetable shock

2011-03-31T08:18:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week I had a reminder from my email client at work: my GIC appointment is in about a couple of months and I need to inform work I need the day off.
A bit of a rude awakening, it's always been "Sometime in the distant future" and now suddenly it's not very far away. It's well over a year since my first chat with my doctor, I can see the wait is very frustrating for those anxious to move on but as someone whose path is less clear there has been some comfort in knowing I'm in the system but not having to think about anything.
This appointment will be a very difficult one for me. There in front of me will be a bloke who can help make all this go away, and I'll be asking him to help me avoid having to ask for that. I have a growing realisation that I may not succeed in that aim in the long term as all this is becoming something of a PITA, but I have to try. The worst thing is the realisation that my wife might well stay with me were that to happen, even though it would be very distressing for her. High stakes to play for indeed, but not seeking any help would probably deliver a worse outcome.
I don't like going to London at the best of times. I love the trains and the Tube, but the city is alien to me. I don't feel as if I fit in, and I feel it shows. Which is stupid, really, a crisis of confidence.
Not for the first time saying this: get a grip, Jenny.

It's like a rite of passage or something

2011-03-28T08:30:00.000+01:00

Every now and then in this game you have a 'first', a new experience in the crazy world of living with a foot in both genders. I had one yesterday, and a rather silly one at that. Well, you have to laugh.
Yesterday was a beautiful if a little hazy day in Southern England. I spent most of it outside fettling the Rusty Old Wreck. If you have ever reassembled the interior of a car you will understand just how many parts need to be fitted, and if you've ever done it to a car that's had its interior our for a few years you'll know that all the parts will have mysteriously changed size so they no longer fit, and that all the screws and fastenings will have departed.
So now I have a Wreck that is visibly closer to the road. It needs a bit of metalwork, some brake adjustment and a small amount of cosmetic tidying and then it can be sent for an MOT test. This is exciting stuff, given that the car's sorry state has weighed heavily on me for several years now.
The 'first' made me laugh. I broke a fingernail. And cared about it. I must be turning into a girl or something! I didn't have a handy nail file to repair it and the angle grinder looked a little harsh, but I did have a metalwork file with which to remove the annoying spiky bit at the end of the nail. Never a dull moment in stealth t-girl car nut land!

A suitable candidate for the role

2011-03-27T13:06:00.002+01:00

When she was a recently qualified teacher in 1950s London, my mother saw Lawrence Olivier in the title role of Shakespeare's Othello. To play a Moorish general in the Venetian army, Olivier 'blacked up', applying dark make-up to achieve the appearance of an African.
In those far-off times such a performance was the norm. Whatever slant a white actor might have brought to his portrayal of Othello's race as opposed to the rest of the character, the role was simply one of the standard great roles of Shakespearian theatre for any actor at the top of his profession.
What a difference a few decades make. Because of the association between an actor blacking up and blackface parody acts, a white actor playing Othello is now an extremely rare occurrence. Patrick Stewart played the role as a white Othello among an otherwise all-black cast, but that production was sufficiently unusual to receive widespread press coverage during its run.
This week's annoyance with Peter Kay's portrayal of a transsexual has brought the issue of the suitability of an actor to depict a group to which they do not belong to the fore. I have often heard mutterings from within our community when transsexual characters are played by non-transsexual actors or actresses: usually along the lines that there should have been some effort to find a transsexual person for the role. While I would warmly welcome the appearance of some openly transsexual performers I have to admit to finding some discomfort with the idea that transsexual roles should be reserved only for transsexual actors and actresses.
I think it is necessary to examine for a moment what a member of the acting profession does for a living. They portray characters other than their own. A good actor can show you anyone in the world without relying on make-up or props, if a young man can show you an old woman as part of an improvisational monologue then why should he not also be able to show you a transsexual? The key is in the portrayal, if the performer has made the effort to depict the character with accuracy and respect then their performance is to be applauded rather than deplored.
A good example of this can be found in Coronation Street's Hayley Cropper. Julie Hesmondhalgh - a natal female - plays this role admirably as just another female resident of the Street whose status as a post-op transsexual is never lampooned or otherwise taken advantage of. A perfect contrast to Kay's McQueen character or the Little Britain duo who are milking the situation for laughs no matter how they are achieved.
I sincerely hope that one day I will see a non-transsexual comedian create a transsexual character who manages to be funny without crossing this line. I think this is possible, after all there is much to laugh about in our world without laughing at our expense even if some of us sometimes take it all a little too seriously.
As to Othello, I doubt I'll see a white actor in the lead role within my lifetime. I consider this to be a shame not because I have an especial desire to see one, but because that we are not ready to see an actor doing his job of depicting people other than himself with dignity and respect due to discomfort about his race indicates to me that we still have a very long way to go in that particular direction.

Comic Relief: respected institution, now slightly tarnished

2011-03-26T19:39:00.001Z

Dear Comic Relief team,
I am writing to you to draw your attention to something which I
believe to be harming the reputation of Comic Relief.
You will no doubt be familiar with the Peter Kay character
Geraldine McQueen, appearing alongside Susan Boyle in the current
Comic Relief single. What you may not realise about this character is
that she is highly offensive to the transgender and transsexual
communities as a crass and degrading stereotypical portrayal. Peter
Kay has not created a drag act portraying a natal female character,
such as Lilly Savage or Brenda and Audrey from the Bounty/Plenty
kitchen towel adverts, instead he is chasing a cheap laugh at the
expense of a vulnerable and marginalised group that does not need such
a negative mainstream portrayal of themselves forced on the public at
large. The unfortunate consequence of the Geraldine McQueen character
is likely to be that transgender and transsexual people will have to
endure a fresh catalogue of insults based on her catch phrases, and
unfortunately Comic Relief is helping achieve that.
It might be tempting to believe that this is not something about
which you need to worry because you see comparatively few visible
transgender or transsexual people on our streets. To that I'd respond
that the visible transgender people are only the tip of the iceberg.
If you were to look around the audience at the next Comic Relief gig
you might be surprised to find that as many as ten percent of them are
transgender even though they keep it hidden. If you passed me in the
street, for example, you wouldn't give me a second look as just
another bloke, yet I am transgender and have the medical diagnosis of
gender dysphoria to prove it. I am a member of a couple of
organisations for transgender people just within my particular segment
of the community who number their membership in the tens of thousands
including people like me plus transvestites, genderqueers and other
groups. I have even heard it said that we are more numerous than
people with red hair. We number too many potential donors for a
charity to offend lightly.
You have justifiably earned your position one of our most
respected charities through both the work that you sponsor and through
your founding principles such as that of the “golden pound”. You are
also inextricably linked through your founders with the alternative
comedy movement in the 1980s. It might seem a long time ago now, but I
remember alternative comedy as being characterised by not relying on
offensive stereotypes to derive its humour. I thus hope you'll
understand me when I say that to transgender people, a character like
Geraldine McQueen is about as offensive as perhaps a blackface parody
act might be to a non-white person.
In conclusion, by allowing this character to feature so
prominently in your fundraising this year, Comic Relief have offended
a very large unseen potential donor community. It is obviously too
late to stop this association, however I would like to urge you to
avoid acts based on such offensive stereotypes in the future.
If you would like to know more about the transgender community
then I would be happy to provide whatever information I can, or you
might find it informative to visit Trans Media Watch at
http://www.transmediawatch.org.uk
Thank you for your time,

(Me-as-bloke)

If you too feel that Comic Relief have used the rather crass Peter Kay character Geraldine McQueen in error, you can contact them using the details at this link.

It's like playing Whack-a-mole

2011-03-24T22:26:00.003Z

Geraldine McQueen (Peter Kay), as visualised by cows.

Crass portrayals of trans people by unfunny comedians just keep popping up, don't they. I mean, you can't have a go at the black people any more, gays are off-limits, the South Africans aren't racist these days so who else is left for them to raise cheap laughs with but the trannies? I mean, give them a break! Otherwise they'd have to come up with some jokes and we can't expect that, after all they are only comedians.
Just when you thought you were safe from Little Britain, along comes Peter Kay with his portrayal of a transsexual pop singer, Geraldine McQueen. I really wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, this time it would be different, but no, it's one big tranny joke. Har bloody har. Fortunately I already have my review picture from earlier in the year.
But of course, it's OK, after all it's all for charity, and that makes anything OK, doesn't it. Stick a red nose on something and it stops being at the expense of a vulnerable minority, right?