Post Paris very post

So again here I am, not posted for a while and still have those tow reviews sitting in my to do list calling at me. I just seem to be out a lot at the moment due mainly to the lovely weather out there, I have been thinking about carrying a notebook to jot things down and then transpose to the blog as a way of keeping things up to date.

I have in the last few weeks met an FTM who is currently coming off T I have been looking at taking it myself mainly because of what other people have said re increased confidence and feeling better about oneself, I have also been a little curious about the strange side-effect that has now popped up on a few occasions regarding T usage and it's effect on sexuality. So here's the skinny, it looks like roughly in a very unscientific way I have observed that guys taking T have as much chance of changing their sexuality than of staying as they are.  What does it mean? How does it happen? I don't really see how T can have this effect on people but if it does in a purely chemical way then, well theorizing on it in a purely fantastical non-scientific way. In the wrong hands it could be developed and used for creating things like a straight drug. I don't like the idea of that. 

This forced me to think very carefully about what I was looking at doing, I don't need help passing really I do every day without any effort at all, in my mind I am male and I think that projects out and people pick up on that. In my family the men are as hairless as the women sometimes even more so I don't feel the need for any facial hair though sometimes I think it would be fun to have there is no certainty that I could even grow any taking T. Also I do think T has an effect on mood and I am trying very hard to stay stable at the moment after years of instability and I don't want to mess with my new found equilibrium. Finally increased sex drive, this may sound like fun but as I spend most of my time keep what I have under control the idea of more of it doesn't appeal all that much, it just sounds like more intense frustration. I am not however saying it isn't for others this is purely about my personal thoughts on me taking T not a judgement on anyone who takes it, I'd just like to say that. Everyone has to find their own way with this and everyone has a different way.

So with these thoughts in mind for the last week or so and the idea that societies binary demands on gender are the problem I took this issue to task in my mind and here's kind of how it went. I am male, I am not a man even with all the T and surgery I would not be a biological man. In a new gender landscape where my maleness is not defined by whether or not I have the right body parts can I find a way to accommodate the difference of inside and outside. I have done this for many years in a very destructive way and more recently in a more positive pro body kind of way and that is also down to the acceptance I have found in the Trans community, meet and being with people who accept me as male despite my female body has given me a huge amount of confidence and self worth. I have felt less and less like a freak with something horribly wrong and more and more like an actual person with a stake in the world. Strange I know I feel I have a place and a voice and a place to be where people will listen and not judge but share and grow with me, it is a lifeline this community.

I went a little off point there. Anyway accepting I am a male in a female body and that that is OK in the world, that I can indeed be a female bodied male I sat with that idea for a bit, I kinda liked it. In this new world where I can be any gender or combination of them and that's OK I can be this, obviously I can't get over years of being unhappy with my female body when I am male overnight but something changed in me with this idea that regardless of the shape of my body I could still be male, not a butch woman but male seemed to sooth something in me. I don't know how long it will last, if I will change my mind next week or next month or next year, but I am going to try and keep this image as long as I can and see where it takes me.

Back from the brink

Well here I am again, it's been a while I have been living the life of the party hardcore in Paris no less and thinking a lot about writing but not getting much done. I have started on the entries I want to do for two other films but can't seem to find the right way to express them right now so I thought I'd just jot something down here so that there was something new at least to see.

I had a lot of interesting experiences over this weekend I had a spate of putting myself out there and telling some more people ( still no women ) about my identifying as Trans they were so unexpectedly lovely about it, it truly broke my heart and filled me with a great big love for them not once did I feel like I was being judged for my choices and even some I told spoke of how they also identified in a similar way it was beautiful. 

I also talked again to the friend who I had told a while back and felt uncomfortable for it and realized that the discomfort was mine to own and he had actually gone out of his way to find out more about it so he could talk to me I was blown away truly. I could of died happy there, I know it won't always be that way, I know some people will never understand or at least not want to and that is always going to hurt a little but this gave me so much hope and strength it really did and for one beautiful weekend I felt like one of the guys in a real sense not just an invisible one.

So it has also left me wondering about what the Trans community is indeed doing to the gender/sexuality landscape and funnily enough another friend of mine tweeted re this in the context of an FTM letter sent to Irene Chaiken about the way Max has been portrayed in the L word. I so starved of anything even remotely close to what I was lapped this character up and not thinking about it in to deep away saw it as a positive step for trans people to be in the series and having issues delt with, getting information out there, but reading this letter ( to be found here http://www.autostraddle.com/a-letter-to-mama-chaiken-from-ftm-computer-search-champion-mighty-max-sweeney/ ) Made me look at his character in a wider context and I have not seen the last season so was unaware of just how bad it had got.  

I could indeed see the erosion of this character in the series going from a reasonably central position with story lines that tackled some of the issues and the potential to educate to a sideshow anomaly to be gawped at and pitied. I was of course saddened by this and can only hope that we can find a way ourselves in the Trans community to get messages out there and let people know what it means. 

I also saw a very interesting quote on this site speaking about the potential of Trans people to rewrite the gender/sexuality landscape because we can't be defined by the rules in place it was put much more eloquently there another reason to go have a look. It really spoke to me and has left me having to think very carefully about how this landscape of mine is changing, everyday it changes sometimes radically sometimes barely at all but it is in constant flux and I am finding more and more comfort with that. 

I have started using the male pronoun in some places and being more deliberate in my attempts to pass. I am learning to find the courage to define myself for the first time in my life and answer the sometimes tough and sometimes stupid questions that come with that statement I am slowly coming out and it does scare me, but so far everytime I have taken a step out I have been rewarded for it and that is something I never expected.

I have also been thinking more and more about taking T, I have been reading what has been said about it from those who have taken it and I am still investigating what it will do to me mind and body. Taking anything like this I don't think should be done lightly but I am very much interested in knowing more.

Lovers and Fighters

Off to The Lovers and Fighters Convention by some magic of the universe I am dressed as smart as I can to the one show I desperately wanted to see but couldn't get tickets for. It's funny how the world just does what you want sometimes.

So my lovely new butch friend from the RVT had her friend drop out at last minute and she thought of me to ask to go and see it ( amazed and grateful I really was, how lovely of her to think of me after such a short time of knowing each other ). So got there early and met another friend as I was crazy excited about going and I sure as anything wasn't going to sit at home and bounce a hole in the floor :). We sat watched people drank gin and bourbon ( not together of course ) and then she had to go catch her movie. Not much later my other new friend turned up in cow print pajamas and quite unsurprisingly carried them off very well, I think it's a confidence thing myself you can't have style without confidence.

Anyway off we went to see the film I was super excited people around me also had made an effort we were the best dressed in the NFT that day.

The film was a video document of a performance of The Genderqueer Playhouse, filmed in front of an audience ( some of whom I recognized hehe ) interwoven with interviews with the performers themselves. I was instantly jealous that I had not had the chance to see this myself but very glad that someone ( in this case Mike Wyeld ) had had the idea to record this for people like myself to see. This film spoke to me as a celebration of the myriad of gender identities out there and it offered me a huge comfort once again seeing people I know, some of whom I have seen perform, once again giving of themselves so personally to get the message across that this is not a binary world in terms of gender. There are many twists and turns to finding that place we can be ourselves in. Sometimes the journey is fun and sometimes painful but definitely worth it.

For me just beginning to find my feet on this journey this is a deeply important message, before I started to accept my own identity questions and reach out to other people who had already started exploring this I didn't know there was any other option open to me other than being male or being female and that's a scary place to be for me finding myself asking questions about my gender again after so long. 

Like I have said before if I was 19 and had the options available to me now I probably would not have thought all that long about it, I would of gone for it no question, but now I've lived in this body coped with it found ways of not hating it a part of me has become more afraid of the idea of changing it. Which is in itself strange, someone asked me quite recently what if I had the surgery and I didn't like the results and my reply was even if it all went horribly wrong and I was deformed by surgery it would still be no worse to me than the body I already have. That answer shocked me I didn't see it coming the words fell out of me like they had been sitting there for years waiting for that question and when it came I didn't have the time to filter it for me or for my questioner. I don't know what to do with that answer, I don't know how it fits into this new world and I am afraid of where answers like that will take me.

For now though I am just holding onto the messages from the film I hope in the future I can see some of the performances I haven't had a chance to see yet, I look forward to getting to know some performances better and to see where the Trans community goes with the documenting of it's history. Already so much has happened in my lifetime I have seen so much change and it has given me hope for the future. I hope we in the Trans space can continue to keep its inclusiveness I think it is the most powerful tool there is. To make everyone welcome and accepted is a message that cannot be eroded I hope.

I also think it is incredibly important that people are starting to recognize the importance of documenting the Trans movement more and more. These are the voices and stories that will help and save more people like me looking for somewhere safe to think the things we have not dared to, to find the spaces and people to talk to about what we could not before and this sense of history and community can help to reach out to more of those people lost in their own gender wastelands.

Pedro

Film about the life and activism of Pedro Zamora, I wasn't expecting much from this and I'm not sure why. I had seen the series of "The Real World' he was in and remembered him in a vague curiosity sort of way. Funny really that it took a film about his life for me to take notice of him I am a bit sad about that. 

I think I was the only female body in a cinema full of men ( at least I didn't see any other female bodies in there ) which I thought was kind of sad as I think it is important for men and women to share their stories with each other. It is our collective struggle and pain that makes us who we are as a community and these are the stories that remind us that we are all human and vulnerable and finite and beautiful and so much more than the easy stereotypes we use to identify and niche each other with.

It was a well crafted film with a good pace and narrative it managed to gather up the complex and full life of this young man and deliver quite succinctly the passion and determination of him to us as an audience. There wasn't a dry eye in that theatre by the end of it. We didn't hide our tears as we watched a bright and beautiful man fight with his condition and finally pass away at the age of 26. Together we mourned him, listened to his message, let our hearts break with each other and as we walked out of that theatre though we didn't know each others names, we didn't even really look at each other, we had shared something raw and painful and close to ourselves that we would not have done were it not for that darkened room and that powerful film.

My friend and I walked out into the sunlight hugged each other and cried for ourselves as much as anyone else and maybe we are selfish because of it. We didn't share that with anyone just him and me and tears in sunlight.

Back and Forth

Well thought I better get something down this week as I haven't in some time and I am beginning to feel like I may be loosing some momentum. I'm sure that's not really the case I have been very busy with other parts of my life like singing and old life friends which has led me to over commit, run myself down and now become sick.

Sometimes being sick is a good thing, at least for me though unpleasant it forces me to stop and take a break otherwise I would just keep going at a faster and faster pace until I spontaneously combusted I suspect.

Well I've had a few things pop up this week a few issues with ladies showing interest in me then blowing me off for no apparent reason i could fathom ( not unusual for me but irritating as I like to know the why of things ) and an old friend who keeps trying to make arrangements to meet for coffee then canceling and saying "Oh we must meet soon" in the in feeling that surely if you wanted to meet that much you would make time as I had with my schedule, I said I was too busy which I was and then silence so I guess that's the end of that eh? I don't think I should feel bad about it yet I do like I'm the one who didn't make the effort and I guess it is just one of those things I need to work on. I do tend to take on responsibility for the discomfort of others and try to accommodate them. This is a fools game though because it means I won't ever find the time for myself surely.