About two years.

    Just from curiosity I took a look back on this blog at what I was up to at this time last year. Bin-diving to save R's possessions. That was fun. Then a further hop, to this time two years ago.
    A question: "How long have I got?". Meaning of course: "How long before I can't take all this any more and can't go on any longer as a bloke?".
    You learn stuff, given enough time.
    I've learned that it's not a black and white thing. You can always hang on just that little bit longer, I've been doing it continuously for the last few years. And while I feel sadly a lot closer to the edge than I was a couple of years ago I've also had a couple of extra years practice at making it go just that little bit longer.
    All the same though, I can't help thinking that my answer back then was "About two years".
    Ah well, another year chalked up. My answer this time next year may or may not be "About three years", but I know for now I have to hang on.
    Just that little bit longer.

On the edge

    There has been something missing here of late.  Regular readers might have noticed their reading material has strayed into the mundanity of rural life and random political rants. This is a transgender  person's blog, so where's the tranny content, damnit!
    The answer's a bit complex. On a simple level I do not wish to simply churn out an endless transition diary or scorecard of the glamorous and exciting transgender lifestyle, whatever that is. In my view the best offerings from this sphere are those from bloggers who happen to be transgender, rather than those from transgender bloggers which can get rather stale.
    But on a more complex level there are issues that need to be confronted, yet that it is difficult to talk about. Things that involve my wife, for example. I feel that while I can talk about myself in specific terms it is unfair on her to talk about her in the same way in a forum on which she can not speak for herself.
    So what can I talk about. Guilt, I guess. All the walls, roadblocks and barriers behind which I've spent most of my life hiding have now fallen away. My wife has made it pretty clear that we'd both be better off were I to move forward. I can do it too, I'm confident in the world presenting as female. I shock myself with how well I manage at it. I don't have to deal with wigs or trowel on the makeup, I have an employer with whom I could transition tomorrow and nobody would bat an eyelid and I live in a place that's about as good as it gets to be transgender.
    Yet I'm hanging back from the edge of the abyss, scared even to peer over it.I've really tried these last few years to hang in there, to manage this condition and find a way to be the husband she deserves, and to move forward would be a betrayal, a failure and a waste of all that emotional investment.
    Some people write endless screeds justifying why they should transition. Maybe they need to convince themselves it's the right thing for them to do. I guess I've known for years it was the right thing to do and I've done the opposite, trying to convince myself that it's the wrong thing for me to do. That was a big waste of time, wasn't it.
    In January, I'll be seeing my specialist at the GIC again. By May I'll have been with them for a couple of years and they'll discharge me if there's nothing more they can do for me. So I have a few months in which I have to make up my mind. If I want to transition under their care then January is the time at which I have to start. Not the end of the world, for theirs is not the only path through this mess, but a pretty stark choice nevertheless.
    You see, if you are going to transition it has to be for the right reasons. I've seen enough people doing it for all the wrong reasons, caught up in the pink cloud, and I have no wish to emulate them. The pink cloud has long ago departed for me, but I need to have better justification than avoidance of a delay in the medical pathway. There is more at stake than just my path here.
    So there we go. I'm standing on the edge. I don't need pushing from either direction and surprisingly thanks to the help of my counselor and others things are pretty good all round, but I can no longer dodge the decision. I'm beginning to think it'll probably be a yes, but that's by no means certain.
    Strangely enough, that admission in itself brings a feeling of relief. Unexpected, that.

Wardrobe malfunction

    There are times when you realise how little can separate presenting as male and presenting as female.

    Last night saw the regular Swindon TG Group meeting. I was traveling from my parents place and picking someone up, so I had to get as ready as I could while still retaining a male presentation, then throw on the final touches before the final leg to Swindon.
   So, wash and blow-dry my hair, put on a pair of girly jeans, a pair of Boxfresh shoes which are pretty unisex, and stick with a bloke T-shirt advertising a well-known British online forum for owners of dodgy old cars. Hey Presto! Bloke.

    Bloke, that is, with a hairstyle that I'm amazed people register as male when blow-dried, and whose complete absence of beard now makes a lot of the make-up I used to wear unnecessary.

    So when the time came to change, I found I'd left my girly top at home. Damn. Girl in a dodgy old car T-shirt ain't gonna work. I'm not a 5'4" natal girl capable of wearing her boyfriend's T-shirt as a dress with a belt over leggings. So off to Swindon I went as the scruffy bloke. Annoying, but not insurmountable.
    But there it was, the difference between boy and girl distilled down to a slightly different top, a mildly padded bra, and a little bit of make-up. OK, and a necklace.
    I never thought this would happen. And now it has, I rather wish it hadn't. Somehow this has all become a little too easy, which in its own way makes things a little difficult.

    Never mind. On a lighter note, I dug out my old Nokia cameraphone earlier in the day, because it has a far better camera than my regular Motorola. One of the first pictures I took with it was one of an ant receiving a free lunch. I didn't realise how much I'd missed it, so seduced had I been by apps.

On loose hairs

    One of my perpetual annoyances when I was much younger, still living at home with my parents and my sisters, was finding my eldest sister's hair.She has enviable hair and she wore it long at the time, so long reddish hairs would attach themselves to furniture, clothing and a multitude of other surfaces. Because I was a teenage spotty young oik at the time and very deep in the closet, I decided that this was icky, pertaining as it did to girls.

    Teenagers ain't the sharpest tools in the box, are they.

    I guess it's my sister's turn for a laugh at my expense now, because as my hair has grown out to a rather unambiguously female style, I'm finding my hairs everywhere. In fact, it's my wife who seems to find them more than me, and she's not entirely happy about them. Oops.
    When I say my hair is unambiguously female now, I'm not joking. My hairdresser has done an amazing job. I get away with it when presenting as the scruffy bloke by letting it air dry so it looks a bit lank and tousled, and because those not in the know see what they expect to see. But even in that lank bloke look it's got body and a wave that some women would kill for. If I blow dry it I get that curl at the bottom that would have made me very fashionable in the 1960s, shame I can't see the Mad Men look working on me.
    So with long hair, and beard in remission, I'm starting to blur the edges of gender presentation. If I look in the mirror when being the scruffy bloke, I can make the girl appear simply by changing my expression. And if I present as female it doesn't take much makeup for the bloke to go away completely.

    I never expected to reach this position. Especially not while still living most of my life as a scruffy bloke.

    A few years ago one of the biggest walls keeping me in the closet was the thought that I would never be able to present as female with any pretence of looking female. There is nothing more depressing than putting on female clothing and seeing a man wearing a dress in the mirror. I have a feeling one or two of my more whiny and depressive early posts on this blog explored that theme.
    The trouble is, with this evolving female presentation comes fresh stress. As if I needed that. It's better by far than the crushing depression I had in the closet, but it's a fresh reminder that this is a downward slope.
    With the stress of seeing the downward slope I have a lot to talk about in my counselling sessions. They are uncomfortable in themselves, forcing me as they do to confront things I might wish to ignore.
    It's funny, I have a sense I've never had before, that of leaving the bloke behind. I used to be a bloke who had rather a lot of the girl about him, now I have this feeling of having to make something of an effort to be the bloke. How on earth did that happen!
    Still, even if I ain't exactly winning I have to keep trying.
    Keen followers will have noticed that I've been away from here for a while. Work has been busy and I've been burying myself in some other things to try to keep my mind occupied and away from annoying thoughts. You know you're spending too much time with your Wreck when you start double-declutching your modern car.

Why I will never be a Feminist

    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.

The Wot and the 'Oo

    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.

...I've said too much.

    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.

Privileged

    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.

The Wreck on parade

   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 Boy, the Girl, and the Babe Magnet

    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 )

Roadworthy old wreck

    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

    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.

Marketing toys to boys and to girls

    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.

Bloke-aware

    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.

Guest post 4: More than a label

    I know I’m obviously biased here, but I do look at the female world and wonder what the point is of all those articles on ‘how to please your man’ when the most obvious response would be just to say what’s on your bloody mind, not to hide behind layers of connivance and manipulation and making him guess.  

    I get annoyed at the way women represent themselves. I get annoyed at the way men do, too, but certainly not to the same extent. I hate the clichés, the comments like “ooh, haven’t you got him well trained!” and “Typical man, always doing …” and the batting of eyelashes to jump the queue and the utter refusal to be practical about checking tyre pressures or the gas meter. I hate the snide remarks and the seeming impossibility of being able to ask for what you’d like, simply and without artifice or connivance. I especially don’t like the concept that when you ‘bag your man’ you have to go hell for leather to change him. Then the insult upon insult: when the poor chap does his damnedest to leap through the hoops you hold always just a fraction too far away, you walk on because ‘he’s changed’. The complicity of handing down obeisance to sexualised behaviour from mother to daughter, aunt to niece.

    I do have a big issue with society’s expectations 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. I hesitate to call myself a feminist, though, because I don’t want to be seen as pro-female at the expense of males, which some feminism appears to be. Far more to my preference is an equality of both genders, and with that an equality of access to any life or needs which a person should have for their wellbeing.

    On the flip side, I do see the grass as being considerably greener on the male side of the fence. I don’t know if this is a reaction against the boundaries society tries to contain me (and women in general) within; or if deep down I feel that it’s a territory that should have been mine by birth. I don’t know whether liking ‘blokey’ things is a way of getting back at the follies of the female lot (as I see them), or at society, or at men in general for being able to claim these things as theirs without question.  

    Take motorbikes, for instance. I despise the assumption that women can’t ride (or can only go on the back). This is perpetuated by women themselves as much as by men. I get annoyed at the expectation that women don’t like getting dirty and 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 bike when it falls. I know a lot of other men who have problems picking up bikes on their own – they’re heavy bits of kit. I can check my oil and lube the chain, but I don’t know how to change them; that’s because I’ve never been shown, not because my gender renders me incompetent. I would like to be as self-sufficient in these things as possible, not to prove to men that I can, or to women that they’re weak for not even bothering, but simply so that I can be self-reliant.  

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

xxGray

Guest post 3: Yesterday, today

    Quite by coincidence, yesterday I mentioned to some female friends of mine in the pub that the previous occupant of the loo had left the seat up. You can accept that at home if you share with a bloke, but in a place where only women go? I was quite taken aback by the response: someone immediately started looking round the pub to identify the “ladyman” and jokes flew all night about the unfortunate thus identified. Someone asked which loo you’d use if you were “having a sex change” which caused great debate. What surprised me the most was the contributions from a young woman who earlier was explaining hegemonic masculinity and femininity and how important it is not to pander to stereotypes.

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

    I first met a ‘proper TG’ woman in 1989; the lead singer of a local band, she was a source of puzzlement and curiosity by many. By this point I’d already decided to be as open-minded as I could possibly be, so I just took it in my stride. I know I’ve met many more over the years, but in 2007, in my brother’s last days, his close friend Sharon introduced me to her partner, Jackie. It was only about a week later, when we were chatting about hospitals in general, that Sharon referred to Jackie’s ‘surgery’. I was so confused I actually had to ask her what she meant! My first reaction when the penny dropped was to be jealous.  

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

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

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

Guest post 2: Somewhere in the middle

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?

    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! :)

Ready

    I'm ready.
    I could go out tomorrow as Jenny, in a town about an hour's drive away with my friend Jae, just a couple of rather tall ladies out shopping on a spring day.
    I've overcome the fear of my height ruining my chances, I've perfected as good a female presentation as I reasonably can and I've been out quite happily with my support group more times than I can individually remember. Going out holds no fear for me.
    Hell yeah, I'm ready.
    So when am I going to do it then? This week? Next week? Next month perhaps. Tell you what, I'll get back to you on that one.
    Crazy isn't it. Having put so much effort into becoming ready, I find I suddenly don't feel ready at all. Don't worry, I will in time, I'm not writing this searching for support but merely in amusement at my sudden indecision.
    My medication has got on top of me this week so I'm on an evening without it. Whether my next post arrives early next morning will tell you whether I consequently didn't sleep well, however the 2009 pressing cider I've just enjoyed as another consequence of having no medication for it to mess with was certainly worth it.

Get a grip Jenny

    Sitting on the wall by the school playing field on my walk home from work, there they were. A group of teenagers. Nothing special, nothing nasty, just kids. Probably not too different from me an age ago, just sitting on a wall and enjoying a spring evening.
    I could see them from some distance. And as I walked towards them I could feel a rising terror. What if they noticed me, what if they said something?

    Get a grip.

    My everyday persona is not as the very tall girl I'd like it to be but of her giant-sized scruffy male alter ego. In short, someone capable of giving a teenager far more to worry about than the worry a teenager is capable of giving him. It's a side-effect of being oversized that I don't really like but it's a sad truth, if you're going to be a bloke, be a very big one.
    So being scared of a fairly harmless group of teenagers is pretty damn stupid. I think it's a symptom of how far the girl has triumphed over the boy in my head, that as I sit all day in an office letting the girl have free reign between my ears I find it difficult to remember that I don't need to succumb to her worries. It's been an annoying few weeks.
    So I'll say it again.

    Get a grip, Jenny.