Lonely Gender

A funny thing happened....

2010-08-08T03:32:00.000-07:00

So I am not normally one to find myself on a course of any discription that teaches you about life skills I'm not really sure how it got started well no that isn't true I do. I have a utterly beautiful friend who I have come to respect and trust in many ways I think more than I thought I did. Anyway enough gushing, he being the beautiful open sort of man he is told me the story of how he changed his life and part of that story was going to a course with some folk called More to Life ( it's a catchy little name :) (searching for More to Life will get you to their site by the way though this is in no way an ad for this, if you want to see what it has for you I wish you well and think your dam amazing for doing it but I'm not selling anything) So after hearing this story being in a place of incredable stuckness I thoguht to myself what have I got to loose. I logged onto the site looked at the stuff and clicked into the registration page to see how much it would cost... I was shocked at first but then after about a week of investigation and talking to people found that actually what they were asking for was not a lot at all so I went back, I filled out the form, I cancelled the form, I filled out the form, I cancelled the form.. this went on for a few days I walked away I came back, I worried about there being no places left when I finally signed up and then in the end this is what got me to pay money I didn't really have to do a course that I wouldn't normally do.. I said to myself, if this course does even a fraction of what it did for your friend would it be worth it? Yes I thought and if it doesn't well provided you finish the course if you walk away feeling you were cheated and it didn't work they promise to give you your money back. To which I thought, suckers people must be taking your course and getting their money back all the time, but apparently they don't.

I don't know really how to explain what went on there and like my friend I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone if they did want to go check it out for themselves. They just give you tools, tools to help you see through the crap of a situation and then from that truth make choices about what it is you want to do and where you want to go. They help you to have a dialogue with yourself so you can find choices that are really your choices. It's not magic or hocus pocus, it won't solve your problems and make your life perfect, but it could change your life somehow in someway

It's been a while...

2010-08-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I logged in here, it's like an old home I remembered fondly and kept trying to find the time to come back to. I have a lot of homes like that, work mainly has been keeping me away bags of travel and no time for myself too tried when I get home to find words to put together how I feel and what I'm thinking.

It's been a tough couple of months a lot of questioning, a lot of doubt and a lot of fear. I feel like I have lost my way a little no longer sure of where I am or what I was standing in for some time. I've been hiding out in my skin not confirming nor denying anything about myself paralysed a little by demands of changing my name before my next appointment being made on me. I don't see how I can logistically right now mainly because of travel and needing my passport than from any real reluctance to identify myself as male. I have come out at work and found my colleagues to be overall very supportive which has been helpful, but now I am faced with another dialectic I don't pack or bind but I identify as male and everyone knows I identify as male so which toilet do I use? Seems like a silly question really but I am hypersensitive about having a female body so I don't want to make men uncomfortable by using the mens and I also don't want to do the same by going into the ladies when they all know I consider myself to be male. I of course just use the disabled toilets there but it does bring into stark focus the reality that at some point I will have to consciously start using the mens toilets and changing rooms. There are ways around it for now, but the thought of it is very scary right now indeed mainly the fear of being told to get out cause it's the mens which shouldn't be too strange cause I am told to get out of the ladies all the time but I guess the only difference is that this time I want to be male. Being rejected from the ladies has always felt like a validation and a reassurance where as being rejected from the mens would hurt I want to be male I don't want to be rejected from male areas because in my head that would be more than just a rejection from a toilet or changing room it would be a rejection of my gender and that by far is the one thing that hurts me the most.

All my life I have been told I am not a boy but, a girl or even worse a 'tomboy', a girl pretending to be a boy or butch, a masculine female. All identities I have found some comfort in because they allowed me to be part of what it is I am and I am grateful for them but, now I struggle to be me, the full me, a trans-male. These identities only hinder my development, these identities are shackles tying me to the idea that really I am a woman pretending or wanting to be a man.

The idea or this rips right through the center of me and over the last few months it has become more and more apparent to me that I not only struggle against this notion in other people but also in myself. It is my constant fear that the people around me see me as some from of eccentric or crazy, like the trans-men of my past who were derided and disapproved of by the women who initiated me into the lesbian fold. "Oh that poor whats her name she has some kind of crazy girlfriend who makes her call her a mans name! Oh and I am sure that she/he must be beating her she's always this or doing that blah blah blah". This is my growing up image of a trans-man I didn't for one second associate what was going on in my head with what those women were talking about, but now I have finally started to face what it is I am that image keeps floating in front of me, pointing it's finger at me, accusing me. And this fear of being a 'crazy' is being fed by other things too.

Other trans-males around me are getting their treatments and I have been told that I need to legally change my name before any treatments will be given to me, I've told some people and they are like oh yeah well I can see how they would want to see you show some commitment, but then a friend of mine said hell no they can't tell you how to be trans and for god sake talk to some other trans guys. I am still trying to do this alone, all my life I've done this alone, I've survived alone, stayed safe alone in places where if I had been exposed I am sure it would not of ended well. I don't know anymore, I want some help, I need someone to say it's OK your not crazy your just like I was when I was dealing with this and in fact thinking back every tans-guy I have talked to in the past has said that. I feel like I am getting lost in all the what if's and doubt all over again and I want to get back in the sunshine so very very much...

The Appointment..

2010-06-05T02:46:00.000-07:00

On the bus on the train walking round the streets in a daze it feels like I can't seem to catch my breath right now. I feel like something shimmering in between, both excited and afraid of what I may find in the time ahead of me. I make myself small and invisible and yet still feeling eyes upon me as I walk by I can't help but find myself questioning this path I have chosen for the millionth time again. All the upheaval all the disapproval of it. It would be so much easier and safer to stay locked away safe in the darkness of my secrets. Is this what it is like to be in the closet? Funny how I have spent my whole life out of the closet only to find I was in one all along.

Back on the street my feet taking me closer to the place of no return finally setting myself on that road. Step and step and step and step, not much longer now, step, step, you don't have to do anything now you can just take your time, step, step, I'm at the door, looks like a door to a fancy house, only it's not a front door it's a side door off the main street in a building not attached to the Hospital campus with signs that talk about mental health. I can't help but feeling a wave of irony touch me. Here I am coming out into the world stepping out into the sunlight so to speak in a little side road through the metal health door. I guess this is a day for readjusting my perspective.

My appointment starts on time my mind is shutting itself away tucking up tight like a child hiding under the stairs, I need to be able to talk, tell her how this works for me, why I need this. Panic rising and pushing up against my mouth like a bitter bile it freezes my tongue. The answers to her questions are short and superficial, I feel myself cringing inside scrabbling round for some semblance of eloquence in the hope that I may rescue myself. The hour lingers on almost as if time has slowed down to give me the chance to save myself, but there will be no saving today I fear. 'Do you have any questions you want to ask me?' I look at her blankly my face impassive while my mind races round like a hamster trying to grab hold of everything at once, anything for once. 'No I think I'm fine.' I should of just shot myself right there and then and now it's gone the moment passed she's walking out the door and I am left to pick up my stuff and go, dismissed..

It's been a while..

2010-05-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time, I've been up and down and all around the world inside my little world and here I am again. It's been a change of pace a change of job a change of living space a change of me and back to old me and then change again. It never stops changing here and that's ok, I like the change I like the constant roar of back and forth of not quite knowing where I'll be or who I'll be when I wake up.

So Since I've been away aside from the job and new place to live I've given up on love and then found it again ( funny how the universe will always pop along to dangle some sort of delicious treat in the form of something you've just given up to tempt you just as you swear you'll never eat it again and before you know it your stuffing your face full of it, but that's ok too I like it. ) I went to my local psych for an evaluation and apparently I'm not to crazy to go to the gender clinic and so i got an appointment for October, I was happy to wait, I'd waited this long and a few months for time to adjust to the idea of doing something about changing was nothing compared to the years I've spent agonizing over whether or not I should do anything at all. Then I got a letter saying my appointment has been pushed up to June, suddenly the reality is more real and more scary. I'm torn between the excitement and the wanting to finally move a little further along that road to being more me and the fear of what that me might be. How will I change, who will I change into, will I like the me I become? Will this change change the friends I have found or the friends I have kept. Will I remember to take a breath every now and then to take stock and just make sure I am really going where I want to go. Everything is changing..

One of those mornings.

2009-09-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

I've been waking up late, lately. It seems like the days just kind of catch up with me and I am left with a wave of exhaustion that will not go and I am overcome and pinned beneath my duvet for the day. As if that wasn't enough for one day, I woke up lonely, it happens when you live alone I think it must. Don't get me wrong I am really enjoying living on my own, being inappropriate in my own company, lounging around in my boxers all day, that sort of stuff. Every once in a while though I wake up wishing I could roll over, slip my arm round someone else's waist and pull them in close for a morning of just half dozing in each others arms. It's a lazy, sensual activity, that usually ends in one person kicking the other out of bed to make coffee or get some toast and some mornings I just wake up missing it.

Appointment pt3

2009-08-22T00:44:00.000-07:00

Another unnaturally beautiful morning, I've been out all night and am woken at 7:30am by my phone ringing. I am waiting on a job offer so thinking it might be that I leap up and run for the phone I have drunkenly left in the front room. Once I answer it it turns out to be my Doctor seeing if I can come in earlier to see him. Sure, why not I am just round the corner and the sooner I get it done the more of the day I have to do other things. So I wash up get some clothes on and walk down to the GP in the amazing sunshine, I'm feeling pretty damn happy today.

I've been having real issues with my food over the last few months. I am a punishment eater, I don't eat for comfort I eat to punish my body or at least I have in the past. Stuff it full to bursting with any old crap I can get my hands on to hurt it. Since I have come out as trans I have been getting a hold of it, the idea that I could actually have the body I want or something closer to it has allowed me to take more control over my food and start working out and for the first time I think in my adult life, I am being body aware. I'm thinking about what I want my body to look like and I'm taking steps to try and achieve it.

In the last month or so though I was finding it harder and harder to stop going back to my old habits. Bit by bit I was slowly reverting back to the old tortured eater and would stuff myself with food I didn't enjoy as some way of blocking out the world and hurting myself and I think in a way it is also a way of hiding my body. I couldn't work out what it was that was bothering me and then I noticed it.

I don't know if anyone else plays this game, I expect they must because I think it's just human nature to do this. I play a game when I am out in the world, in my head I call it body shopping. I look around at guys and when I see a guy who's body I like, I think to myself I'll look like that one day. Or I'll see a guy and think I'd like to have pecks like that or legs like that. I'd stopped doing it and when I started to think about why I had stopped I realized I needed to do something about getting referred. Part of me very much needs to explore this option of body modification and though other parts of me seem content to carry on, this part doesn't think life is worth living if I don't have at least a look. So I guess this is a part of me that I have kept pretty quiet for a long time and now it's got a voice it is yelling at the top of it's lungs to be heard.

At first when I started just the possibility of being recognized and addresses in a male context was enough for this part of me it made me believe that that was indeed how people saw me and it gave me the space to start getting control of my eating habits. This only existed in a little bubble of space though and as I grew more comfortable with my male space I wanted to expand that out. I started to realize that I was still being seen as female especially in male company which made me want to revert back to invisible, because being invisible for me is better than being singled out as a girl. It was a relief to realize this in a strange way in fact any revelation be it one I want or one I don't is a good thing it helps to give me some kind of anchor in the sea of what ifs I seem to be constantly drowning in. They change too but for the time they are true for me it gives me a chance to work out how I feel about things and helps me to find enough clarity to make a decision or understand something about myself a little better. Sometimes that is all I can ask for.

Anyway back to the Doctors. He was very open and friendly today, such a sweet fellow, I do get the feeling that he genuinely wants to be of help to me and that for me is a very amazing thing. I told him about the call to the GIC and that they said I needed to be referred to a local psychologist. He said that they have one attached to the clinic and wrote out a referral letter for me and said it should take 2-3 weeks and if I hadn't heard anything by then to contact him. I don't want to rush this so I am almost grateful for the waiting, it can be deeply frustrating I expect, but I am trying to see these waits as positive. A chance to take a breath reassess and see if this is really where I want to go and to try and get my body closer to what it is I want.

Whirlwind

2009-08-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

Since I have started this journey, a lot has happened. It seems silly to say I guess, but when I take a look back over these last few months. Look at where I started and where I am now it is lightning fast. For me it doesn't seem that way because in actuality I have been bursting at the seams for these changes since I was 15 when I first told my mother I wanted a sex change.

I remembered this while talking to her and my dad today. We were having our general catchup chat and she was asking that usual mum questions, so how are things, anything new going on? I am seized by a strong urge to say, well you know that whole trans thing we were talking about a few months ago when I said I wasn't going to do anything, well I am and I've kind of started, made appointments, got referrals. I can't tell her this over the phone though, not any of my family I have to be able to look them in the eye, so they can see my eyes and know this is not something I have undertaken lightly. I know they would not think I would but I have noticed more and more when taking to people who do not have a disconnect with their gender that they really don't understand what it is to not be the gender you are identified as. It really is a deeply alien thing to them and unfortunately it is not an easy one to explain.

There is not quick dirty combination of words that's snaps them into enlightenment for this, or none that I have found yet. I keep hoping I will think of them, I don't want the next time they see me to be a me so changed from what they know that it becomes even harder.

When I started this journey in October last year, I could barely say the word trans, I was afraid to tell people and afraid their reactions would be negative. Sometimes I am still afraid but not so much now. I was lucky to fall upon a group of people at Wotever who let me just be me and are supportive and encouraging when I make decisions but don't try and force me to do anything more than I have decided. It could almost be considered nurturing, yes that is a good word for what I have found there.

They respect my identity in a way I don't find anywhere else, I have other groups of people who I love, some even more deeply than those at Wotever but they don't really understand what my identity means to me right now, just how delicately balanced I am between joy and despair when it comes to finding this real me. It's been a part of me so long and parts of me want it so so much, but at the same time I have learned to live with what I am and I am afraid of what I could loose as I keep moving down this road. A part of me desperately wants to be more male, have a more male appearance, use the mens, be called Sir and not then correct to Miss, be one of the guys in a way that doesn't lead to me being singled out as a girl 5mins into the conversation.

I also don't want to stop being one of the girls though I don't want to loose my sisterhood ( for want of a better word ) I'm not going to be a man, I don't want to be a man, I'll be something in between. Not a negative, neither man nor woman, but both man and woman I think there is something beautiful about that. I don't want to deny my femaleness, I just can't find out what that is in me until I have gone through this. I can't explore anything male or female really because all I can explore is the disconnect, I am an uncomfortable me, trying to present me but being called out as something else by people around me.

So now I've started getting referrals and I am telling people about it, I am getting a lot of "But I thought you said you weren't going to do anything about it?" It must seem confusing to them one minute it seems I am hell bent on not, then I am. What I say is simply this, I can't work out what it is I want and what I really want to do unless I start doing it. I can spend my whole life asking myself, do i or don't i? Yes I am scared for a million and one reasons one of which is the very real fear that I may do something irreversible that I don't really want, but I am going to have to just trust my judgement here. I am just going to have to believe that I am smart enough not to do that. I can't of wanted to do this for this long and still want to do this without there being something very real about it and I must now in earnest ask some very real and difficult questions of myself. I need people who have seen it all before to help me deal with those questions one at a time. Work through them, keep me focused on them and that is what I am hoping for by starting this, I need grounding and a bit of reassurance that this isn't something new. I have to do this because if I don't I will just keep running around in circles and getting nowhere.

Not Unexpected..

2009-08-20T01:09:00.000-07:00

I called the GIC this morning still holding onto the referral letter like I am afraid it will suddenly disappear if I let it go. I tell them I have a letter from my GP and he said I should just turn up with it and they said no that isn't how it works. I am not really surprised, I felt it was wrong all along but I really was hoping against hope that I could just magically just turn up with a letter and then I could start getting things done. Well it is an important lesson for me to listen to the people who have already gone through this and not my GP, funny how when in a situation where I am unsure of myself, I almost always automatically defer to the nearest person of authority even if I do not trust that person knows what they are doing. It's a dangerous trait, one that could get me into all sorts of trouble.

Luckily the letter he has given me is not completely useless, I can send it in and they will have it on record for me and use it to contact my GP so it sort of like half of the puzzle key. The other half is to get a referral to a local psychologist, I suspect this could take quite a while so I will need to get onto that, but at least I am doing something I think that is also part of the battle for me. I allowed myself some dreaming yesterday. Wandering through the sites of FTM's who have been through or are going through their journeys. I was excited at the prospect of that being me one day but also sad. The more I look at this the more I want to go forward with it and the more I realize that I have a lot to loose. Those questions won't ever go away I don't think and the thought of no longer being part of the lesbian community because I don't look like a woman anymore is deeply painful. I hope in the time it takes me to change, things will have moved on a little for us and that this trend toward fracturing in the Queer community finally has it's day and we can all just be queer together.

Post Appointment

2009-08-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

What a unexpectedly beautiful day, so clear up there that it feels like you could see all the way to the other end of the universe. I'm looking out the window of my front room, it's darker and quieter in here and darker and quieter in me thinking about how I will talk to my GP about getting referred to start transitioning, though I feel like I'm doing that all the time. I'm unsettled by it all, that the day should be so clear and so beautiful and I should feel so unsettled and disquieted by this. Am I taking steps forward or steps back, is this brave or is it copping out? I can't decide I need help to decide, this is why I am doing this. I feel impatient about some things like the idea of having top surgery, reticent about others like taking hormones. It's funny don't you think that I would feel less concerned about major surgery than an injection?

Walking down the street and it's like I am suddenly noticing men and women for the first time. How they walk differently, look around differently, hair, body parts, I feel like some sort of alien looking at humans for the first time. I my vision slightly tinged with panic, words running round and round in my head, how do I tell this stranger probably one of the most personal things in my life, something I haven't even dared to speak out loud for the last 20 years. How do I explain this, what if he doesn't believe me.

I sign into the doctors office it's one of those new touch screen sign in thingymajiggs, I haven't been in a GP surgery for almost 10 years, they have come along way in making sure the patients do the work, not so much with the waiting times though. I sign in and find myself hesitating over the question am I male or female, I don't know how to answer this question anymore. I know what I want to answer but I think of all the confusion and questions that will probably follow and I reluctantly touch the screen, I feel like a traitor and a fool all at the same time.

The screen says the doctors running -32 mins so I look around for something to occupy my time with reading but there is nothing. I sit there just me and the lady in the burka, who eventually gets up and after a confused exchange with the more pleasant but less than helpful receptionists she leaves the office. I am alone now in this waiting room, waiting for my name to skip across the moving LED panel and tell me to go to room 2, it's always room 2, I don't actually think there are any other rooms here. I sit there reading the moving adverts that tell me to go have a smear test or let the surgery know if I have changed my mobile number ( spelt mobil, should I tell them it's spelt wrong, I don't think they would care ) and wondering how am I going to explain this.

Eventually the sign beeps and tells me to go to room 2, I walk down the hallway and knock on the door. "Come in." Old habits die hard I've never been able to walk into a room with a closed door without knocking first. There he is, sitting at his cluttered desk, watching some sort of video on a computer screen I can't see and he is very careful to make sure I can't see it. It sounds like a movie of some sort and I find myself trying to work out what they are saying but he calls my attention back to the room and indicates he is impatient to get to the point. GP's they are all business no chit chat, in a way I am grateful for the conveyor belt approach as it means generally that as long as you are confident about what you want you get it, but it is still not easy to say the words and what words. He looks at me impatience growing in his face and I still sit there. I look at him, a tall man of African decent, his accent tells me he didn't grow up here, maybe a blessing I think. Round his neck glints a crucifix so tiny dangling there made even tinier by his huge neck but it may as well be the biggest thing in the room. The words still sticking, he coughs gently, his face is not angry, it is a mask of any emotion and yet it is gentleness I sense in him despite his unremarkable GP manner.

Deep breath, "OK, have you ever heard of the term Transgendered?" I look him dead in the eye, I dare you to scowl at me, dare you to rebuke me, dare you to throw these words back and send me out. He looks at me, still no expression of any real note I am impressed by his control. He nods and says he has and then taps some keys and says he must refer me to the Gender Clinic, I am taken aback by his reaction. I am not really sure what I was expecting, I feel embarrassed, deflated even, unsure of what to do next. He says he needs to have my full records first to see what I have had done and I tell him nothing I want to start the transition process and he says he can write me a referral letter to the Gender Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital and I can take it in myself.

I feel confused, "Can I do that?" He seems confused by my confusion and seems to think I can, so I say yes I can do that. He asks just to be sure "So you are a woman and you want to be a man." I look at him, I want to say a million and one things, I won't say the word man, I just say male, I nod and say yes. He asks "Is this something you have always felt or did something happen to bring it about?" I look confused, I'm sure, I think what possibly could happen to someone to make them suddenly wish to do this? I say no I have always identified as male. Again "So you are a woman and you want to be a man." I say well this body is female, I won't consent to calling myself a woman, I've never thought of myself that way and being asked outright, I realize I never have. "Have you had any difficulties in your life with this?" I almost laugh, if it wasn't for the fact that he seems completely sincere when he asks me these questions I would outright laugh in his face for them. I say well of course it is not easy living this way and mutter something about having to deal with depression because of it. I don't want to go into my long and sordid history, I don't think he wants to know either so I decide to save it for someone else, I'm not sure who but I don't think it's him.

He finishes typing out the letter of referral and prints it out, sticks it in an envelope and addresses it to the Gender Clinic, I watch him as he does this thinking he has nice handwriting, kind of artistic and it reminds me of my fathers handwriting. I can't seem to look at him anymore and just keep staring at the posters on the wall. He hands me the envelope and give a little smile saying there you go, a good smile one that's trying to say I am trying to look like I want to be kind and helpful to you. I say thanks and smile back, and for a moment I want to give him a hug and shake his hand and say what a great man he is for being so calm about it all, but then I think better of it and just walk away with my letter clutched tightly in my hand. Now what? I get home ring the number for the Gender Clinic but it is too late and the phone just rings and rings and rings. I will try tomorrow maybe.

I still feel unsettled though, like nothing is really set in motion by this, I take all my nervous energy and use it to clean the flat do loads of laundry and then go out and buy containers and organize my food cupboards. I feel like I should feel like something is set in motion, instead I feel like I tripped over my feet as the starting gun went off. I find myself being afraid that I am gong to get through to the clinic and they are going to tell me I've done it all wrong and I need to go back. If I do then I will no big deal so I don't know why that bothers me. I guess I feel like I should know what is going on that I should of left there with some sort of roadmap, you know like 6 months see Psychiatrist who will work out if you are crazy in the right way or not, 12 months change name legally, take T something like that, but then nothing works like that does it..

Take 2

2009-08-19T04:09:00.000-07:00

Well I managed to get myself up this morning and headed off to the GP, not feeling the best anyway so it won't be a wasted trip I think. The receptionist was very pleasant today unlike the time before maybe it was the sunshine and the warm weather who knows but it was good to not have to do battle with and angry receptionist about why I missed the fist appointment.

So to my surprise she offered me an appointment today, which I took before I could think about it. Now here I am sitting at home on a truly spectacular day in my dark front room, worrying about not saying the right thing to get my referral. I mean I am not in the business of being dishonest about my gender identity but I know that in a system one must meet the requirements of that system to get what one requires, do I meet those requirements? Do I tick the magic boxes? What are the magic boxes? Can my GP refuse just because he doesn't agree with what I am trying to do? Do I even need to ask for anything more than a referral and not even mention my gender issues? So many questions, even more than the ones here. All I can do is trust that what ever it is that occurs I am able to deal with it.

If at first..

2009-08-18T16:08:00.001-07:00

I'm going to try again, get up tomorrow and go down to the doctors and make an appointment to get referred and not forget or avoid going in anyway. I am worried though that he will not refer me. Am I supposed to say some sort of magic combination of words that opens the secret door to transition? Who knows? Guess we will just have to wait and see, I have decided to try and take that approach with this whole thing from reading other peoples experiences this takes a bloody long time and I need to be prepared to let things take a long time. I know I can be impatient when I get something into my head that needs to be done. I'm a feet first kind of guy who doesn't hold back because I could be dead tomorrow so I may as will give it a full measure.

I tend to take that approach with a lot of things in my life, when I was younger I watched a lot of people give up on a lot of things ( myself included ) some made it and some didn't and I guess that has kind of left me with this might as well do it now because tomorrow may be too late kind of ethos. Well for some things anyway. For others I will procrastinate till the end of days because I am afraid of a million and one things that could happen some I want some I don't, but I guess most people are like that really. So yes tomorrow, tomorrow I'll give it another go, stop worrying about the what if's and the what could happens and just get on with it. Hop back on the treadmill and get a running.

Moments.

2009-08-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

I went out the other night with a friend of mine, I'd had a terrible day and he and I went out to party like rock stars as we do every now and then. Needless to say he is one of my favorite people to go out with. So it's about halfway through the night we've hopped in and out of a number of places and I am getting pretty drunk and not really even keeping track anymore.

I don't know how it started but I remember the conversation turns to using male toilets. I tell him about it being one of my big fears being caught out in a male toilet and people being pissed off and maybe even more for me going in and using them. I am constantly challenged going into female toilets but it doesn't bother me in the slightest in fact I kind of like it because it means to me they think I am a guy ( which of course I am ). So anyway I tell him about someone I talked to about this a while ago who told me that he would make fake noises in the cubicles in order to not seem odd for using them in the mens. He thought this was funny and announced that he used the cubicles all the time and didn't think twice about it and in fact he really didn't think anyone in the mens toilet would care at all.

I must of looked surprised and I admit I was and it did leave me thoughtful for a while until the next round of drinks and some more dancing and I thought no more of it. Later on I announced I was going to pop to the loo and he grabbed me by the hand and lead me into the mens. Initially I was shocked, half expecting a pack of angry men to appear out of nowhere and pounce on me, but no one did no one even batted an eyelid. We stood in line with other men waiting for a cubicle and when my turn came he ushered me in. No bolts of lightning from above no mobs, no fuss I had to laugh at myself a little.

Thank you.

A change is as good as a rest

2009-08-12T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well I've been off out in the wilds these last few days and it has truly given me a chance to just take a breath and be myself and not think about anything to do with my body or gender. I went out to a festival ( my first ) and camping ( my first time ) with a few friends of mine who I am very blessed to have because they let me be me in a very unique way. I can be whatever I want and they still very much full of affection for me and I pay them the same courtesy. I suppose that sounds trite to some, used to death, beaten to it's corner, but these are the breaths of fresh air that remind me that it's OK despite all these questions and trying to work out who I am and what I am about. There are some pretty incredible people in my life who think I am pretty dam special and I need that.

When I am swimming about in my mental drama's and turmoils as I am want to do at times, I can get myself back to ground by remembering that there are some very cool and beautiful people out there who think I am pretty cool and worth being around and they don't give a monkey's what gender I am or if I decide to dye my hair pink and start wearing mini skirts. These are the people who make my life worth living, I spend a lot of time worrying about what people will think, how they will react, that I may hurt people with my decisions. These people are the people who tell me it's not about them, it's about me and it's my life and my self who has to ultimately live with this stuff these people are my gold, my treasure and I can't imagine not having them in my life now I have them there. It's funny that we stumble upon each other by accident almost, there is no expectation that at that moment you may meet someone you will truly love for just being them and that they will love you back. This isn't about being lovers, it's not sex or attraction in that sense, but it is deep and sometimes uncomfortably intimate ( for someone who is used to keeping people at a distance ) but it's not something I ever want to walk away from.

Afraid..

2009-08-05T11:49:00.001-07:00

I am afraid, afraid that you think I came across this easily, that somehow it is some childish whim, this dialectic between body and mind. I am afraid that because I cannot find the words to tell you, that the best I can do is point dumbly at a TV screen when something similar to the way I feel comes on. That you see me as some kind of perverse child pointing out the latest toy of obsession from the Saturday morning advertisements. That I am somehow playing with fashion, a desire to be special and cool like the other kids. Not that this has wriggled around inside me for decades, that it eats away at my flesh from day to day. Each time some stranger sees me, the not me, not the me, each time a friend calls me out exposes my un me ness to someone I have just met and am hoping for a second or two that they may see the me ness and know me thus.

It is like I am a boy in a dress, I know I am a boy yet everyone can only see the dress. They do not care that I walk and talk and feel like a boy, they only know that girls wear dresses and so I am a girl. I cannot take the dress off, at least not easily and I am afraid that if I do take off the dress then I will loose a part of me I can never have again. What does it all mean, what does this mean? Am I imagining this? One day I am sure I want to take the dress off and the next I am clouded with confusion, drowning in questions and self doubt. Waiting for some magic answer to answer all my questions and set me down on the road I need to travel.

It's not like this body and I do not share intimacy, we have shared the same space for 30 odd years now, felt the same joys and pains. We have known love and self destruction together and survived and although I know it is not mine I cannot deny like my oldest of friends this body knows me. It bends to my will, whether it wants to or not, whether I want it to or not. I am afraid that if I finally give in to this need to change this body I will be doing it for the wrong reasons. Afraid that in change I will become part of the problem and not the solution. Where does my responsibility lie? And yet here I am again and again and again, the same question, the same need to rid myself of this body and find my body, to keep this body and learn to live with this my body. Over and over again, I am exhausted by it, demoralized that I have come so far and yet it is the same set of questions over and over that I still cannot answer.

Again!?!

2009-08-04T14:29:00.000-07:00

I know it seems almost incomprehensible that I would be posting again. I guess I have hit a prolific patch no doubt triggered by my misery as seems to be the way why can I never write reams of prose and poetry when I am feeling stable that's what I want to know. I've had a lot of thinking towards the poetic in the last few weeks. I rarely carry a notebook with me these days as it tends to attract the attentions of drunks and homeless folk who are then compelled to sit and have conversations with me which I really don't mind but it does interrupt the flow of words I must confess. I have thought about putting them on this blog but my concern there is that my focus will be lost here as I do occasionally wander off the point at times I try and keep it at least roughly in the ball park so to speak so I suppose I may start another just for the more creative rambling it's nice to have that back.

So I was hanging out at a friends today and saw a documentary on sky called sex change, it followed the journey of a MTF having top surgery and a FTM learning to be more feminine and having electrolysis. It was an interesting show I could see that people were trying to handle the subject with some sensitivity but not really understanding the full depth of the subject. I guess a case of too much subject matter, not enough time. As always seeing the FTM having top surgery made me smile and then that familiar twang of jealousy in me as they try on a shirt and walk down the street for the first time, I can still hear myself quietly longing for it still afraid to say it out loud but wanting so much to be that person looking in that mirror at a flat male chest. I am so horribly afraid of it all going wrong I can't afford to go private and the NHS isn't known for the best care. I could of course be wrong I've never been to the gender clinic I don't know what it's like I know a bunch of people who have been and they seem to think it's a good place.

I feel that impatience in me that long standing everyday of my life longing to be a boy again. To wake up and find that these breasts, that belong to someone else, not me, have finally gone. That I am finally me, oh god, it is so tangible I can touch it, that want, that need. Run my fingers over it, feel it's smooth metallic tenseness, it's unyielding qualities, unrelenting, grown thick over the years. Buried deep in my flesh, hot with it's insistence. I don't want to give into it, I don't know why, I am afraid of it's intensity and afraid of what it will surely mean for my future life. What unsurities it will mean for my future life.

Doctor fail

2009-08-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

I missed my appointment today, I don't know if it was an unconscious or deliberate attempt to sabotage myself and miss it because I am scared or if I am just so dam tired and that everything has finally gotten the better of me so I just didn't have enough brain space left to remember it. I am hoping it is the latter, anyway I am going to give myself a break and with any luck it'll give me a chance to get some air in my lungs again. I'll take one of those deep cleansing breaths everyone always goes on about and start again.

I've been slowly but surely slipping off the rails the last few weeks, bit by bit I've watched my triggers of control turn into triggers for self destruction again. I know I am tired and people close to me keep urging me to go and see someone who can help inevitably it makes me more rebellious at the moment like a petulant child I find myself pushing more and more against what little I have left and plunging myself deeper into the icy waters of self loathing. I don't want to lie there and yet it is a comfortable pain I am accustomed to. I hate it and yet it strangely is familiar and reassuring to me. I wish in a way I was more Byronesque in my pursuits, that I would wantonly covet the conquests of innocent ladies and nubile young men and revel in their corruption. Instead I seem only to enjoy the perverse desecration on my own flesh through the abuse of food and alcohol how very disappointing of me.

Maybe..

2009-08-03T13:38:00.001-07:00

Maybe it's the lack of urgency about me, the way I am quite happy to just sit back and wait for my time to come round. The thing is that's fine if your the kind of person that remembers what number is on my ticket, but if you keep forgetting and slipping me down the list of things that must be done. Your going to find that I will finally get tired of waiting and just walk away, I may appear to not be taking stock but I am very much noticing every time you bump me down the list.

Maybe some people would consider this unfair, that I have not given them fair warning perhaps. That I should kick up a fuss or make some kind of indication of my irritations, but let's be fair now. If I was of a more demanding ilk sure I could bully you and bend you to my will, my will is like a steam roller and I can bend you till I break you, if that is what you'd really like, but truth be told I don't think you would so I don't. I'm just quietly watching, waiting to see where your priorities really lie.

Recuperate

2009-08-02T12:34:00.001-07:00

I think I need a bit of time to recuperate, today I slept all day, something I haven't done in some time. I need a bit of time to put myself back into order and normality, there is something to be said for a 9 to 5 existence. I think that surety that lack of change can ground you, give you a chance to take stock and focus on what you are really wanting to do with yourself. I don't have that right now. I thought the freedom of doing whatever I wanted when I wanted would lead me to a better way of working and supporting myself but so far I have just floundered in the sea of endless possibility and though I have many things to do I seem to be getting less and less done. Maybe going back to the 9 to 5 is just what I need.

Brighton ...

2009-08-02T12:05:00.001-07:00

Well what can be said, as I stood out in the rain, clothes wet, cold creeping in through my skin and all around some kind of TV chaos about me. It felt like some sort of post apocalyptic plague movie. People throwing up against the sides of tents, unconscious revelers being carted off on stretchers in the mud, I might of found it funny if it didn't remind me of another more dangerous time or if I'd been high.

Standing there under that tree a group of men behind us inhaling some sort of gas from a canister, the adrenaline fueled howls as the gas soaked up by blood, addled their minds and filled them with what feels like power. Surges of energy flow through veins, exploding the desire to rip the very fabric of the world under your fingers and leave it bloodied at your feet and then 30 seconds later another hit till your nothing but a twitching heap of bones and muscle slipping down that hole not sure your ever going to come out again. I remember you well, but I don't miss you anymore.

That hiss and whine in my ears, the colour of the world not brighter just hyper, less real as my mind skips and misses images, it's like a strobe in my head, maybe I'm fitting. I wish I was fitting I'd rather lie here in this mess and chaos twitch my last twitch and let that last sigh go. Slip down, down against the cold darkness and let it all go. Old me, I remember you, see you there amongst them. I know you would not feel this rain, this cold, these arms around me. Would not see the sky or trees, hear the howling and for a moment the pinch of fear as our mind considers that maybe we are to close to this potential violence. You would be wishing for it, aching for them to bend their violence upon you, that maybe this time you would not have to survive. So dark are you old me, at the edges of my mind you hover I can feel you creeping round, stalking, waiting for the door to creek just wide enough to slip your cold fingers in and take hold again. I do not miss you.

I said it out loud today, the first time the words slipped out while we were talking. I hardly noticed what was said and then, they blew back into my face with the wind and rain. Burnt my eyes, I looked away and focused out into the distance. Pretended I had not said them. I am hoping someone will prove me wrong. I am hoping someone will prove me wrong. I feel like a cheap, badly written novel character.. man trapped in woman's body fights against change, tragically dies in alleyway, shot after being robbed just moments after he realizes he is just fighting the inevitable and should go with the flow. Oh beautiful Pandora's box so rich and diverse, colourful and empty. I can't seem to think straight right now, I need some sort of empty white room, devoid of any kind of mental stimulation just so I can breathe again and let go of this tightness.

An observation

2009-07-31T02:50:00.000-07:00

Still exhausted by this past week, I am hoping that a trip to rainy Brighton and their pride will lift my spirits. Mind you I am not depressed just a little raw inside, bit by bit I am finding myself swapping out self loathing and bringing in self discovery. Sometimes I don't like or I am not comfortable with what I find but instead of making it the stick I beat myself with, I simply decide to change it or live with it. Is this maturity I wonder, this new found self acceptance? Or maybe I am just too tired to punish myself the way I used to, ahh! those good old days ( ha! ).

It's a refreshing perspective, I am almost removed from myself, I am here experiencing and yet observing too, I move between my selves looking for balance and calm instead of madness. How ideal I make it all sound, this constant working to keep constancy, where has the old tortured me gone?

Steps and Starts

2009-07-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

I didn't think it would be a big deal this, walking down the road to somewhere I've been before, the windows frosted so no one can look in, not that they'd want to anyway I'm sure. I've been here before long ago for a whole different reason, same purpose, different reason. This new purpose, new resolve it's a bit like burning, it warms and hurts me. Makes me question so much that I am not even sure I should be doing this. My heart pounds nervously against my ribs, I feel cold and my skin is hot as I fill out forms and give the uninterested bordering on belligerent receptionist my 3 forms of ID.

It's been playing on my mind for months now, this question, I could not find an answer. It twisted it's way around and inside me like wire, cutting and strangling out the small corner of joy and peace I had dug out. I slept on it for night after night turning the question over and over in my mind. What if, why not, but, maybe it's like a nest of worms these questions turning in my guts, strangling the air out of me until I can't think about anything else. I want to talk about it, to anyone who will listen and yet when they are in earshot I can't find a word to say out loud. My tongue rebellious will not speak of it, my guts rot with the questions swallowed by it.

So here I am, I could not ask anymore, I could not circle it one more time, here I am exhausted and broken by myself in this dirty GP office registering to ask for a referral to a Psychologist. They say at best it'll take 7 months for a referral and a part of me sighs with relief I want the time, I need it. I can't rush into this I think secretly I am hoping that in time the idea will wear away, just be a phase or someone will say nope that's not what it is, it's this. Somewhere I'm hoping against hope someone can prove me wrong. Pluck this thought out of me and put it in a jar filled with surgical spirit sterilized and confined so I can take it home and show it off like a gall stone whenever I need to whip out an entertaining anecdote. I remember the time I thought I wanted a different body *big belly laugh*.

I am terrified I won't find that middle ground I am fighting so hard to stay on, I'll be swept away in the promise of it all, find that what I really want, what I cannot deny is to get on that train and ride it all the way...

Dual existance

2009-07-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

I am living two lives right now, my new name means that I have split away from myself in one world and am rooted almost stuck in my old name. They keep invading each other making it confusing not only for me but for the people around me. New acquaintances know me by my new name and yet are constantly confused by me and others referring to me and my old name and when both old and new are together it becomes even more complicated!

I can't seem to commit to either at the moment, the world keeps asking me to choose and I don't want to. It means I have to work that much harder, that I am that much more tired for it but I have only just found myself and part of that me is fluid and changing old to new and new to old, yes it's confusing and strange and difficult but it's more me than I have been in my life and I am not ready to let it go.

A name

2009-07-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a while now, circling about in my mind, not many of them just a few and one by one they faded away until only one remained. Oskar ( Oscar ). It's my name, the name I've chosen, I put the question out what seems like a hundred years ago and now, no longer afraid of the answer I have heard it call me out saying, ' I am your name'. It's not the coolest or fastest or sexiest of names, it's a bit like a bear or a cat or a well worn chair, a little gruff and not overly concerned with appearance more substance and I suppose that is why we have found each other. I've gone for the Scandinavian spelling because I get to keep the K from my old name I don't much care for the other letters but the K has a certain elegance which I have always loved and thus will be happy to keep in my name.

So far the response has been surprisingly positive my friends old and new in their own ways have been very supportive and this always surprises me I must say. I keep waiting for the rejection the derision but there is only ever support and it really does amaze me fill me with such joy knowing that they care enough about me and to show me that it's ok and I do so love them for it. Asking if they can call me by my new name saying that it suits me, that I look like an Oskar. How small a thing to them it must seem to say but it dam near breaks my heart with happiness to hear it, because I suppose to me they are saying yes I can see you, the real you in that name under all that flesh that you don't own I can see you and it helps me again to take a little more ownership of the body I am in.

I met another transguy the other day he's close to the end of transition for him and before I knew what I was doing I was bombarding him with all the questions I should not really ask, but he was gracious and decent about the whole thing and dealt with my questions directly which was very wonderful of him. Once again though I found myself faced with the overwhelming desire within to follow that path. For him it seemed such a normal and natural way, he seemed so much more complete and maybe even a little at peace with himself in a way I dream of being one day. Maybe I was just projecting that onto him I don't know but once again I find myself wrestling with the question should I or should I not? I don't want to keep living in this turmoil it is exhausting and lonely and sometimes just painful. Yet at the same time I keep thinking I shouldn't have to be the one that changes here I am a man and that's all there is to it surely that is enough. It's enough for all the other millions of men out there who are overweight, have man boobs and small dicks, why do I need to change what I am with drastic surgeries and hormones to be more like them? Am I not just falling into a trap here? My transness is not something I need to cure surely? Why can I not find a way to enjoy and be proud of me as I already am? Why can't I just not care about the people who are too scared or confused by me why can't I just stop worrying about this?

Words

2009-07-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

Everyday I try and take a step closer to being the me I dream I am. Everyday I'm a little bit stronger for it, though some days it doesn't feel like it. I've spent so long trying to bury this me away hide him from the daylight so the people I could not bear to be without would not be horrified or repulsed by me. I'm slowly learning that they come round bit by bit once the shock has worn off the truly genuine ones they take a step back and find a way to accept what to them feels like a sudden change and I have to try and remember that. I have to find patience here, I'm bursting to get out and terrified at the same time what has been festering and clawing at my insides for decades now is finally being let out and although I am eager to be the me I have always been I am so deeply afraid of what it could mean, how far will I want to go, what if I can't trust myself to stop when I want to but go on beyond for the sake of acceptance they way I have hidden away for so long for the same. I hope I have learned that lesson and that the support I am finding in my friends old and new will keep that seemly lonely and desperate to please side of me in check.

For so long I have told myself no this isn't right no I don't feel this way and even though now I have accepted that I do vocalizing it and expressing it to others feels so difficult I have to push the words out, they stick in my gut as my tongue point blank refuses to work and the more I want to say these things the more resistant my body becomes. It's like a reflex for me now I feel the desire or curiosity build a sweet question or wandering fantasy grow and then burn into my bones where it is locked away and never spoken. So now I try and float the words before they become so meaningful find a way to say yes before the no reflex has a chance to kick in it doesn't always work but I just keep telling myself it's OK these words are mine and to say them is for me and no one else. I need these words to fly, be heard, draw pictures in the minds of others so that I too can take form and find reference in this world.

Pride

2009-07-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

It's been an amazing year so far and London's LGBT Pride was amazing for me too, I met wonderful people, partied till I dropped and was a rock star for a few minutes. Sometimes you have to really stop and take note of what it is you actually do with your days, they go so fast and you forget to just stop for a moment or two and just recognize what you've been up to. I haven't really connected with pride much over the last few years but this year was different, maybe it was the group I was with, maybe it's because I was me and I wasn't trying to hide myself from anyone, maybe it was just the beautiful weather, I don't really know, but I'm going to hold onto it for the days when I am feeling low. I think it'll be just the sort of thing I can pull out on days when I need to remember that my life really is pretty amazing sometimes.

Heat Wave

2009-06-29T04:16:00.000-07:00

Apparently we are due a heatwave, key advice going out on TV now apparently the most important thing is to keep cool and drink lots of water. Just another random comment in this space..

I'm not doing too well today or for the last few days, in fact I find myself tumbling down further into the depths of self loathing and for what? I know it shouldn't matter but I suppose old habits die hard, I waited so long for some approval but there was none. Even now free of that supposedly here I am sitting around looking for that approval from the same neglecting source, the same ungrateful source. I'm not sure I will ever trust again I seem to be constantly fighting against the selfishness of others, trying to keep myself open to meeting new people and new experience. I guess I am just not able to strike that balance of keeping myself open and avoiding being walked all over and now I am not sure I even want to keep trying anymore. I'm tired..

Tangle

2009-06-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

I guess the more I accept my gender the more comfortable I become with my maleness the more I question my sexuality and this is a tough one. Can I express my sexuality honestly when I am one gender in the body of a different sex, what if those two entities within me have conflicting sexualities? How do I attract the people I am attracted to when my body isn't the body they want? And when I do attract people it's seems only a matter of time before my trans identity seems to get in the way of things. "Well if your a [insert gender here], well I'm a [insert sexuality here] so I can't be attracted to you" It is almost as if my very presence forces these people to question their sexuality, it makes them uncomfortable.

I grew up being taught that people were people ( seems corny I know ) and that if there was that spark or chemistry or whatever it didn't matter if that person was male, female, black, white or purple with pink polka dots. Once again I'm learning what a strange and wonderful family I grew up in. I thought everyone believed that, but clearly they don't and I find it hard not to be jaded by it.

I do wonder

2009-06-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

Once again in the little sanctuary of Bar Wotever I find myself talking to my friend N she's a lovely lady who opened me up to the idea of being a female bodied male by saying there is no problem with transgendered people the problem is with the definition of gender in society. It's a deeply powerful statement to say that it's OK to be me and that it's the world that's got the problem, something I had never considered before until she said it.

I haven't seen her in a while the world being busy as it is so I made a point of thanking her and telling her just how important that was for me to hear. We spent the rest of the night chatting about all things Transgender which is always really great for me, to find someone else who I can feel comfortable with talking about these things is rare but rarer still to find someone with a passion for talking about it someone I can talk things through with who doesn't get tired of me working through my thoughts and ideas but actually finds them interesting. That is a truly wonderful thing.

I talked to her about the unspoken pressure to transition I feel in the transmale community and how it seems to me that it is almost as if transitioning is seen as a cure for the condition of being a trans. That it is seen as a natural progression of the condition that once I have identified as a male in a female body that I would want to cure myself by going through the process of transition, but I'm not sure I believe in that anymore. I don't think I am sick or wrong or whatever word one would like to use. I don't think I do need a cure I have found a richness and diversity in this garden that is my transmale identity, a continually changing and evolving identity that I am beginning to enjoy. Yes I have tough days, days where I am disconnected from myself, where I doubt my maleness and question my decision not to try and make my body look more like the body the world tells me I should have as a male, but don't we all have those days? I also have good days days where I feel at peace with myself, days where I feel as male as any man that walks down the street and real and here and connected to the world and this body I am living in. The fluidity of my existence is more and more important to me, more important than fitting into the box that will bring me acceptance. I have jumped out of my box and I am running around the garden, my hands waving above my head and the wind in my face, I don't want to go back, back there I cannot breathe.

She is right it's not my problem that people can't see past the flesh I carry, in fact it is often the case that the passing glance reveals the real me. It is then that I am addressed as 'Sir' once a closer look is taken then it's the uncomfortable and uncertainty of 'Miss' and though I pretend not to mind it is disappointment I feel in this correction. Yes it's both right and wrong my body is female but I am not, this is a lonely garden few people it seems stay out here. The box is safe full of comfortable pronouns and others the same, sharing similar thoughts and responses and bodies making it all comfortable and safe. You know who you are, your wearing the right skin, and that skin attracts the right people to you.

Depression

2009-06-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

I've been fighting with the dark cloud the last few months and lately it feels like it's winning. I get up every morning, but can't seem to get myself out into the sun or even some days off the sofa. I sleep and sleep and sleep and when I am not sleeping I am eating. Funny how quickly you forget the pain of living with this cloud only a few months ago I was bouncing round the city as if I'd never known the emptiness the spacial silence of this mood destroyer of this living death.

I am resolved to fight it though, I have already given 20 years away to this demon and I won't give in again without a fight. I keep asking myself what is it your so afraid of? why do you let this madness paralyze you and stop you from finding some acceptable existence. I dream of travel and experience nothing excessive mind you. I don't want to be a millionaire or famous, I just want to live the life I dream of the one where I want to do something and I do it, how can that be something to be afraid of?

Reflection

2009-06-04T00:59:00.000-07:00

On reflection, I've come to realize that I was always a little jealous of my brother, he suffered for it being the youngest and me an angry elder child. I hadn't really any understanding of it then but when he was born my place as a girl in the family was more firmly set. I didn't know it but I felt it, he was the beautiful boy I should of been and I was no longer the surrogate son of my father. I could be a tomboy as my mother had been growing up but I would never be a boy.

Earlier than expected

2009-05-27T21:04:00.000-07:00

I woke up earlier than expected this morning, my eyes, full of grit and dry with tiredness against my will, creaked open and forced me out into the world again. I haven't had a dream like that in years dreaming I was lying there quietly knowing, waiting for some dream entity to kill me. I am calm inside, I see it coming but I don't try to run from it like I have before. My dreaming mind conjuring every image or sensation it can in am effort to illicit that cold sweaty terror I don't seem to feel anymore. Finally hands around my throat, it's a new sensation not the usual knife frenzy I knew so intimately in my younger days. It's cold hard hands trying to squeeze the life out of me, I feel myself struggle, the urge to stay alive kicks in and I fight back against these dream hands, then I am awake. It's morbid of me but somewhere in those seconds of awakening before I get out of bed there is a small me in the pit of my gut that's a little disappointed. Here I am awake again, alive again, stuck in this flesh again.

I thought I was past this and somehow here it is creeping back and gnawing at me, I'm angry that it's here, kicking it's heels against my ribs in tantrum. Insecurity and doubt eating at me, filling me with questions again. Is it real or my imagination, how can I say I am this, how can I prove it. Must I prove it, why do I need to change myself now after all these years, I have found revelation and acceptance and here the same old dusty questions come on out again. I went to a trans salon last night, I thought it was more of a forum, I should of read the blurb a bit better maybe. I thought it was about the diversity of the trans community but it was really about transition itself. For the first time in a long time I felt the pressure to change hang in the air around me. That I could not be a male without the hormones or the operations to take away the offending parts and give me the parts I feel I should have. I don't think it was the intention of the people who put on the show to say this it's just the feeling it generated in me. I needed to talk to them but I didn't, I should of, but I didn't.

Dorian Wood

2009-05-08T00:30:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while you get to see magic in action, you may not always recognize it but it's definitely there and you know something is going on but you just cant quite work it out. Last Tuesday was a full moon I didn't notice it till afterwards when I walked out of a sauna like Bar Wotever (BW) and looked up into the sky and saw her looking back at me.

I wasn't going to go that evening, I was tired and fed up and a little angry with the world for being so unresponsive to my worries and frustrations. I thought a quiet night in may be just the ticket and thought again and again about canceling the meet up I had arranged with my friend there. I didn't even know he was playing, I didn't even know who he was. At about 6pm I finally dragged my ugly carcass out and made my way over to BW I was just going to have a quick non-alcoholic drink and then head back, the place was already full and full of faces I recognized either met before or saw before I was a little taken aback by it. The room was humming a little with that quiet excitement and anticipation. So I sat with my friend and talked to her for a bit she wasn't there for the show so I wandered about a little, made a clumsy attempt at wishing Gregory Happy Birthday, luckily no one was hurt in the exercise. It's funny really I never got into school politics but my nervousness around people I want to talk to but can't seem to is kind of like me being a nerd and trying to talk to the cool kids, I know it makes no sense, anyway I digress.

So on talking to some people I can talk to I discovered that a young singer songwriter by the name of Dorian Wood was playing. That he had played about a year ago before and was back everyone was very excited about it and like me I found a lot of people had considered not coming tonight but were really glad they did, subtle magics bring people together. The place was packed by the time Dorian was announced, just a keyboard and a rather imposing figure with his head wrapped in a lace scarf. I had seen him before I remember feeling a touch of intimidation because of that scarf, funny really something so delicate could be used to provoke that in me. Then he plays..

It's been a long time, a long time since I have heard a voice that could sing my heart to pieces and make my soul want to sing out with it. Such depth and tone washed over me, such richness and delicate beauty, and words that grabbed me and shook me and made me drunk for more.

The room closes in around me it's attention swung in the direction of his playing and he sings, what a voice! Every so often you hear a voice that can reach down into you and rip out your heart that's Dorian Wood. There is a richness of tone and emotion that is a rare thing to hear. His lyrics dark and beautiful reminding me of something in myself I had long since walked away from, something I had in the past only ever associated with self destruction he celebrated and used it to create something deeply beautiful.

I was inspired and uplifted by his work and I was not the only one. The audience hung on his every note and when he called on us for reprise many responded with enthusiasm the room was full of the love in his music and we all were affected. I didn't want it to end but sadly it did though the magic of his music hung there for the night, people left calmer, softer and a little happier than when the got there, all glad we had managed to be there to share in it. Thanks Wotever for an amazing night!

Block

2009-05-07T10:23:00.000-07:00

I keep trying to find words for what is happening to me, way to express the things that run through my mind, run through my heart from moment to moment. At times I am strong full of my own self belief and solid in my conviction then moments later I struggle with myself question my decisions, choices and statements. I feel one moment real and the next a fraud.

This is a lonely gender, when I say I am a Trans male all focus is on physical transition, when are you going to transition, oh so your not transitioning yet as if this is in some way a mark of my maleness. I am male my body is not, but I am male, I don't see myself as a woman, I know I am not a man and I don't want to be a man but I am male. How does this work I hear you ask. I have spent my life so far hating the body I am in because I believed that in order to be male I had to have a male body. As a result of that thinking I have lived with self loathing and have in many different ways self abused and tried to kill the body I am in and some nights in the dark with no one around to tell me I was OK I thought I had managed it, but I kept waking up with the sun. A bittersweet sense of relief and disappointment so closely interwoven I could not separate them. If I had had the option of physically transitioning at 19 when I first found a way to tell the people around me how I felt then I most likely would of taken it but back then it was not an easy thing to do and I was more prone to self destruction I suppose. The only thing that kept me alive I think was a promise I made to my mother to not kill myself after she caught me trying to. So with that promise in my head I took the route of slow death as I got older I became more and more despondent more and more isolated and were it not for the tireless care and patience and love of some very special people I may have succeeded but I still could not say aloud the words that burned in me I am male. I want you to recognize me as male.

Finally in my 35th year I realized I didn't want to die like this anymore, I began to look after my body and found that I could make it look more like I wanted it to in my mind this helped me to keep on. I then met some more amazing people who offered me not only acceptance but the option of being male and not physically transitioning. How is that possible? I asked myself and found within me an acceptance of my female body if I was able to define myself as male this has opened my mind up to so much the landscape of my gender and sexuality have been laid waste and change from moment to moment I have no words to define myself anymore I try and use the ones I find in websites, so far I am comfortable with Transmale or female bodied male, and for now I believe I can find comfort in the acceptance of the community around me.

Today

2009-05-06T01:11:00.000-07:00

I feel a beautiful melancholy today, I feel a part of my old life soul back there tapping me on the shoulder and saying hello. It's wrapping itself around my inner discomfort, pressing it's warmth to me and squeezing till the vibrations of my anxiety are smoothed, leaving in the place of silent rattle a soft hum.

I'm not sure why today, maybe it was the revelation that is Dorian Wood, hearing his voice and words. Soaking in a room full to bursting with love and acceptance that made me feel for the first time that, that darkness I have worked so hard to contain and control is part of me and even though it is dark and frightening and sometimes completely bizarre and random it has a place and is part of the magic that is me. What an amazing find in the early hours of the morning, here I am twisted and dark, shadowed and otherworldly lost so long, now here just lying there as if you had never been packed down and forgotten ..

Post Paris very post

2009-04-22T01:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-05T02:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-01T16:17:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-01T05:17:00.001-07:00

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.

The End of the Week is Nigh!

2009-03-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

Hey All,

Well a night of wild dancing abandon wasn't exactly where I ended up more like a sad lonely dance floor gasping its' last breaths and me desperately trying to keep it alive. In general I find lesbians to be not the best at keeping the dance vibe going ( emotive I know and please forgive me my sweeping generalization ) they tend to enjoy groping, conversations ( usually involving making fun of the people dancing ) and getting so drunk they can't speak ( which is sad )

Anyway I had once again over comitted myself so this week I not only missed Switchs' Sexy Mustache party ( which totally broke my heart because I have a real thing for a girl in a fake mustache I don't know why just do ) and then Lynnee Breedloves' show ( which I was again really sad about. It has made me wonder about how I am going to stitch these two very different lives of mine together. How do I bring my old friends whom I love dearly and my new friends who understand parts of me that I have never been able to talk about together? Is it even possible. I don't want to give up the history and time invested in these relationships but a lot of my old friends I have never even discussed the idea of Trans identity with. They know me as a female and not a transgendered entity. How do I talk to them about this?

My new friends ( well I hope they will be ) I feel we have clicked and I want to spend more time with them they have stories to tell that I want and need to hear and I have things I want to share with them. I want to be part of these amazing experiences seeing people getting up and talking about things I am still terrified of saying each time giving me more and more hope and more and more courage to take another shuffle down this road. I'm not moving fast some would say I'm hardly moving at all but that's just the kind of person I am I guess. Inside there is a battle going on, the part of me that doesn't want to mess things up with change and is afraid of where this will take me vs the part of me that says life is too short and I'll be damned if I'm going to look back and wonder why I didn't have the guts to do it. I think I know which side has won already but still I've not found the strength to move into the next step.

I guess I'm afraid of being hurt, which at the end of the day is silly, I'm hurting now, people hurt people that is just life. It cannot be avoided and what defines me is not the hurting but how I respond to it, do I have the strength to pick myself up and find a way to be a better me or do I lie down and cry about it? I want to be the one who pick myself up and shows a bit of courage but right now I just feel like a coward.

I met an old school friend a while ago now, we hadn't seen each other since we were children together and he told me that what he remembered about me most clearly was one assembly the teachers were ripping us out for water balloon fights that had gotten out of hand and they were going to punish the whole year if the offenders didn't confess right there and I stood up and admitted to the water play and defended our actions as being the way we as teenagers released our aggression and that is was in the grand scheme of things pretty harmless and they should show some understanding.

I had forgotten that incident, but I want to have the courage of that young me back then, the me that said to hell with the world and I'm going to do what I think is right, and I'll take the consequences. Oh to have that courage again, I weep for it, in the darkness of night when I lie alone I search myself for it and find I am wanting. I know I must make my choices I cannot lie in this darkness forever hoping someone else will switch on the light for me, consequences be damned I must find a way to do what is right.

Hump Day

2009-03-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

Hey world, it's been a tough week, I'm feeling lonely and frustrated and in need of some wild abandon on the dance floor to melt away the weeks stresses and strains. I've been a lone girl in a room with no windows full of men and they haven't let me forget it for a second I am a little demoralized by it all and long for Friday when I won't have to see them anymore.

I don't know if I am feeling a little bit more fragile than I usually do because I don't often let stuff like this bother me. Most days I just play the one of the boys card but I can't seem to bring myself to do it here. Their comments are testing I can feel them probing with their wife jokes and eye candy comments to see just how far they can push me, will I snap, will I run away and cry no I just pretend it doesn't happen even though it does wear me out day after day. What is it they are trying to achieve with this? I am intimidating them that is obvious but I don't really understand why and I am too tired to care right now.

Roll on Friday, Friday night of music and drink and dancing till my legs and hips feel like they will fall off. It is one of the few times I enjoy the femaleness of my body when I dance the rolling curves and curls of back and hip that I never really see men do. It is one of the few places I enjoy feeling female though this too comes at a price what does it mean for me in terms of my gender identity. I feel more and more that I cannot choose one or the other when it comes to gender that for me choosing one is to reject the other and I am not sure that is the right thing for me to do with myself I am learning and finding parts of myself that I am enjoying like this dancing me. Maybe it is selfish but I don't believe I should ave to choose one or the other I think it is a limitation on society to not be able to find space for me as both and that I am all kinds of people in the world who would enjoy being both instead of one or the other suffer a little and sometimes alot for it.

A Quick Note

2009-03-24T17:38:00.001-07:00

I know I need to find some time to sit down and write something here, right now I am being distracted away by the allure of exercising and getting a body that looks and feels more like the me I imagine myself to be I don't know why I have wasted so much time ignoring my body and abusing it when all I had to do was work it until I at least had something closer to the lean mean body I imagine myself to have. Funny how something so blindingly obvious has taken me so long to work out for myself. I am relishing every change as the fat melts away I can see myself becoming more and more the masculine body I have always believed was there I am excited by it and want to just keep on going. Running, cycling and weights are my new friends and they make me very happy. I really am very excited by this discovering of a new me under my fat and I can't wait till I get a binder and packer and truly transform into something I had always dreamed I was, obviously the adrenaline from the nights bike ride hasn't worn off yet.

The Pronoun

2009-03-23T15:40:00.001-07:00

So I have been thinking about this alot the last few days, in fact it has strangely dominated my train of thought making any other kind of posting on other musings quite impossible. Usually in the day to day I don't really think much about what pronoun is used in connection with me it all seems much of a muchness and quite pointless I guess because I mainly feel a bit of both one day this one day that sometimes both at the same time and I don't really know what that means at the end of the day, but then something kind of strange happened.

I was at one of the shows I have been going to see and someone asked which gender preferred to be referred to as and I gave my usual oh it doesn't matter thing and they then used the she pronoun. I was instantly irked by such a thing and I am not sure why, I had just given my permission to use either yet when 'she' was chosen I was upset by it and since then I have had to think very carefully about this, I've tossed it over and over in my mind and still could not work out why it bothered me. Then a few days later it happened again this time in a different place, same circumstance I gave my consent to use either and they chose 'she' again I felt my gut twist with something akin to but not quite pain as the sound touched me. It sounded alien and as if it didn't belong to me and yet everyday I am referred to in this manner why does it bother me now?

I have to ask myself am I afraid to be called he? Is that why I give my permission to use either? Do I secretly wish that people will see the inner male and choose that pronoun? And why an earth does the pronoun even matter to me so bloody much, I must admit I am angry with myself for what feels like childish behaviour. I suppose on some level it is just that, the people I have been mixing with they accept trans identities and I want to be recognized for that I suppose I am secretly hoping that they will see the inner boy or man or whatever it is and say 'he' instead so that I can for a moment be somewhere where I am not a freak or have people embarrassed because they have mistaken me for a man and see how it feels for me to be 'he'. Of course it is completely silly of me to think that anyone would be able to know this and me begin in the positions of those people would do exactly the same and use 'she' so this is about me again.

I am very seriously looking into some binding and packing options, still a little bit scared to buy them but I keep getting on the web and looking at the websites and I have asked a few people on the TF board about it and they totally recommend it so I think I must try and find the courage to get on with it and give it a try and then see if the pronoun I secretly wish for is used, I hope it is and this way it means I really can be both male and female in this body and I think that could be quite beautiful and I think maybe I could live with that or at least I hope I can. We shall have to see, it's funny though that the thing that is the scariest and the hardest is this, to become more me.

First

2009-03-20T16:05:00.001-07:00

Well as I said Thursday was a big night for me, I met loads of people ( for me anyway ) I was practically a social butterfly I spoke to so many people, I flitted from group to group chatting and laughing then moving on it was pretty spectacular. I met new people who just up and talked to me which was very cool, ended up at the beginning of the evening talking to a lovely butch lesbian who I'd never met about the state of butchness today and how butches do seem to be a breed that is dying out in the lesbian world ( but more on that later ). I sat with her and her lovely friends during the show and then during breaks and at the end hung out with the gorgeous TFers, met a few new people from the GB boards all very cool :)

So on the on stage spectacular was over we had a bit of the old dancing, not many people stayed to dance which was sad as I do like to dance till I drop, but it was a school night I guess, some of the hardcore remained and we made the best of the dance floor. It was good fun I got to shake my thang had my boobs poked ( definitely a first for me ) but it was done in a spirit of fun as opposed to lechery ( though it may well have been a clever disguise ) so I didn't object ( I have known worse on the dance floor, maybe I'll even talk about it one day, or god help you you'll be in a club with me and see it for yourself ha! )

Anyway I was just finishing off the last of my G&T ( the only thing I drink ) and I got pulled in as an impartial adjudicator for a discussion on hair (of which I have little ) between a very sweet and tall gentleman and a rather pretty white haired lady. I don't think they needed my impartial observations on the matter I feel it was pretty much settled, but I did get a very nice pat on the cheek ( my face naughty reader ) and she said ' What a handsome boy. ' Now in all my years of being mistaken for a male I have never had a girl pat me on the cheek fondly and call me a handsome boy it was a truly beautiful moment. I instantly broke out into a smile and I could feel myself fill with happiness, she then asked me where I was from then proclaimed me boring and I was instantly dismissed when I said I was from London, but I didn't care I listened to her call me a handsome boy all the way home in my head.

Stripped Bare

2009-03-20T03:09:00.000-07:00

This was a crazy night full of things but right now I am just going to talk about this, other stuff can wait:

OK so as mentioned before I went to see Stripped Bare - Killpussy, I didn't know what to expect and I've never seen her perform, but I suppose on some level I was expecting the same sort of directness as the previous shows and I don't think I was the only one. There were more people than the last shows due ( I was told ) to her following and I think they had their own expectations as well.

This made her job all the harder I think, I had to take time to think about this show not only because it had a different format but also because it was a different type of performance. Killpussy took a more theatrical approach, I loved this show because of it's cleverness it required that the audience look beneath the surface and I was a little frustrated by elements of the audience that didn't afford her the attention I felt this deserved, but in the end I managed to tune them out and give her my full attention.

I can only go by what I have gathered so far but the performers for Wotever Sex are laying their lives out in these shows. Experiences are real and close and deeply personal and there was a lot of content in her show, it was complex and layered that kept me going over parts, wanting to decode and investigate. It made me want to know more about what lay beneath the performer.The whole show was in a way a tease giving glimpses of her experience, just enough to tantalize us and make us hunger to know more.

This was a reflective journey she took on the persona of her future self and looked back through her life taking us with her and letting us see the moments that shaped her. Her work was clever, funny and full of her intelligence.

Beneath the bravado there is a sense of vulnerability, right upfront she lays it on the line, I'm shy ( said tongue in cheek and drawing laughter from the audience ) but it is Killpussy who is bold and unstoppable and without fear. Killpussy who has demanded to be born and to explode into the world. Time and time again she comments on not going out because it isn't safe and yet in her domain she is quite unquestionably Mistress of all she surveys.

I love the subtlety of this performance and I find myself asking again and again why these clothes over all the others in this whole shop full is it the significant moments they represent or are they even more, are they like she says at one point physical manifestations of herself. Are those parts still there has she evolved and moved into other suits, does she carry them with her still? All these questions. I love the outfits the playful red nightie with the polka dots, the poignant white dress suit. The tale delivered defiantly it was the one that stayed with me, stuck. Something ( or someone ) discarded and left broken, filthy and worthless being found and brought back to life, glory and being loved is something that will always tear at the heart, the sheer joyousness of Nukie Nana and even the satiny pink Princess gown found a place in my heart.

The finale is the birthday suit, which of course brought raucous joy and approval from the crowd to a song proclaiming 'I like you better when your naked' tied it all together, a long and difficult journey through hard choices and hard times uplifted and celebrated with self love and acceptance ( and floaty feather fans ). It made me ask myself when will I find that freedom, that courage, to love and accept the all of me. There was also the lightly touched upon idea that we should be constantly evolving beings in our sexuality/gender identity I love this idea and hope to see more of it in the future. I do have a fondness for the idea that we are and should constantly evolve, that means different things to different people of course but it is important to explore, get out of our comfort zones and see where it takes us, how it changes us.

Thank you Killpussy this was a beautiful show it left me turning it over in my mind, wondering speculating and I still am asking that big question how do I find a way to accept all the parts, all the memories, mistakes and seeing some of your journey through that was inspiring. I look forward to seeing how this show develops and I am sure I will be watching it again.

Head Cold

2009-03-19T04:08:00.000-07:00

Seems of little relevance having a head cold maybe, just thought I'd use it as a title. Well since emerging from my funkiness I have brought with me a bit of a head cold which is not a big deal. It does make my head hurt and allow me on some level to continue a bit of self-pity the wistful fantasy of having some nubile beauty nursing me back to health is always one of my favorites and who knows one day it could happen.

I have also had a chance to look up again and see the sun, feel it's warmth on my face and remember what it is to be hopeful again. I have found hope in some unexpected places as of late in people I had not expected. In friendly hands extended in good faith and kindness and that is quite an amazing thing, who knows what will come of it or where it will take me but they are beginnings and beginnings are always full of hope and promise and possibility and I thrive on that. I am not really much of a planner, more of a float along and see where the world takes me kind of person, which is why when people assume that I am after something in particular I tend to get a bit annoyed. I like to see where something goes not plan it out, I know this often can lead to danger and disappointment and hurt and scars but, I survive and sometimes I even learn something about myself which is always good.

I'm off to see another show at the RVT tonight despite my cold I do not think I can bare to miss it, I am very excited to see what Stripped Bare by Killpussy will teach me or show me about myself. I am really quite sad too that these set of shows will only be seen once especially as I am going to have to miss two of them due to previous commitments. I do hope somehow in the future world there will be a space for them to be shown again. I am sure that elements of these shows will turn up in other things but to see the six run again I think would be very exciting and important.

I hope Wotever realize just how much they are appreciated, I think it's important that they feel the huge love and appreciation I have seen for them from their members and I add myself in that too. Before Wotever I had no place where I could learn to be myself. I have struggled to be what other people have wanted of me for years and only found confusion and self loathing. I had seen Wotever around but had been to scared to go on my own ( unusual for me, but that's how close to the center this was for me ) I met a friend who took me to Bar Wotever and opened the door for me, since then I have looked for ways to be with them and get to know the people there and I have been welcomed and people have shared with me about things I could not even speak of until a few months ago so this really has been an amazing place for me and I hope I'll continue to be a part of this because it is a beautiful and rare oasis where you can be yourself and be accepted. Thanks Wotever!

Returning to the middle

2009-03-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

Well I've had a couple of self indulgent pity days I guess, moping around in my head feeling sorry for myself and waaaing at the world. Now I am over it I feel better and a touch sheepish about it as per usual.

Most of the time I'm pretty happy with myself I like my wit and intelligence ( oh such boasting ) I just don't like the body I'm in and I'm making changes to try and like it more, but it takes time especially when I have spent the last 20 years filling it to bursting with bad food and refusing to move it around. I became the worst kind of body and deep inside I guess I was hoping to kill it off as soon as possible. I am trying to fix that now and am making progress, I am not the same fat slob I was say 6months ago but a smaller quicker fat slob so I'm getting there and in time I'll get to lean and maybe even catlike ( which I'd really like ) but this is done with small and gradual stepping not instantly and I have to keep reminding myself of that.

Last week I wanted to be the lean catlike me I think I am inside right now and seeing the smaller fat slob in the mirror made me angry and frustrated which then lead to pity and tantrums so next time hopefully I'll read this and remember that I'm getting there slowly and as long as I keep the tantrums at bay and keep putting one foot in front of the other I'm gonna get there.

Hard Choices

2009-03-17T05:40:00.000-07:00

We all need a bit of physical contact, usually a hug from a friend and I've been thinking about this. What does someone touching you say, on a very unspoken level for me touching says I am accepted. That I am not some kind of monster or diseased or wrong, it says I think you are nice enough inside and out to make me want to physicially connect you to me in a non-sexual way.

Lately thoguh I am finding it harder and harder to let people touch me, it's not that I don't want it because I really do and in a way that is the problem. I crave that physical contact in a way that when someone does give me a hug or touch my arm it is so intensely personal fo me that it is uncomfortable. I miss the physicality of people only recently have I found people around me willing to touch me in a friendly way and it is addictive. I must keep acceptable boundries even though I am not sure where they are. I cannot allow myself to crave that contact the way I do, I may have to go back to my glass bubble just to keep my sanity.

Priscilla saves me!

2009-03-16T17:21:00.000-07:00

I was wondering around in my funk feeling sorry for myself, but luckily it couldn't last as I was booked to go out with my friends to see Priscilla! No one on this earth can compare to those fierce beautiful creatures ( I just know I'll get in toruble for saying that ). Otherworldly the perfect mixture of power and delicacy, so seeminly fragile but so undaunted by the world surely they are the fiercest of us all to stand head and sholders above the rest in their sequins and makeup and proclaim to the world that it cannot break them even when they are broken they will not surrender. I love them.

They are the larger than life, completely unapologetic and without compromise, the toughest of the tough. You just don't mess with a Drag Queen unless you want to hurt. They are my heroes.

I always remember going to a cocktail bar near Warren St when I was much younger with a female friend of mine. We were two lesbians in a bar full of Drag Queens, you could feel the strength in that bar. I was both terrified and excited all at once to be near them, they looked me over with a cold stare assessing me in the kind of way only a Drag Queen can. I smiled back and laughed when they made jokes at my expense, they are allowed to, they make a coward of me in this world. They relax a little realizing I am not one of those crazy take offense at anything lesbians and we have a few drinks and chat about nothing in particular and it was easily one of the top 10 nights of my life.

Dark Places

2009-03-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'm in a dark place today, I stood in the shower turned the hot water right up and secretly hoped that if the water got hot enough it might wash my breasts away and leave me with something closer to what I feel underneath. It sounds strange I know stupid even, I suppose I hope somehow that the need to make a decision I can settle with would be taken away from me and I could just somehow fall into being physically more myself without having to deal with the confusion and uncertainty I seem to have to deal with to get there.

I wonder sometimes quietly in the back of my mind where I don't want to say out loud if I'd be on some level a bit relieved if I was diagnosed with something that would require me to have my breasts removed. I thought I was comfortable with my body or at least resigned to it but today I feel trapped and alone and desperate to escape this flesh. I am in a dark place today.

Gin and Confusion

2009-03-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

Well It's been a few days since my last post mainly because my weekend seemed to begin on Thursday and didn't finish till Sunday night. I feel like I've been on a bit of a roller coaster from the heady highs of Thursday at RVT to the weary lows of Sunday night. In between that I partied and drank and generally had a good time, but there were also moments over that time that now I am filled with confusion and some regret over.

Funnily enough maybe because I have spent most of my weekend thinking about it I noticed some posts come up about coming out to people and whether or not you should or if it's any of their business etc. A really good question and I am starting to wonder more and more, do I really need to tell people who are not like myself about my gender identity. It doesn't make me feel good about myself to tell people who don't have these questions, in fact I feel childish and attention seeking and once again I am finding myself avoiding the word transgender and feeling as if I don't have the right to use it because I am constantly in conflict about it and scared and I feel like I should be more sure I guess.

It all comes down to one moment over the last few days and nights I guess. In general I have found gay men to be more accepting than women about my thoughts. Most of the time women react in a rather shocked and disbelieving way. There is no obvious disapproval but I can't help but feel behind the surface there is something there that finds this aspect of me to be not just unattractive but on some level abhorrent. I suppose it is not really surprising as on the surface it can be seen as a rejection of the female gender, I suppose I could just be projecting that because of my own questions but I have yet to meet a woman who gives me the impression that it isn't a big deal.

Gay men I have known on the other hand seem unfazed and even in some instances encouraging of my feelings and maybe this is why I was lulled into what I think now may have been a false sense of security. So I was out partying with my male friends, I am naturally more at ease with men I feel I can be myself and they seem to understand the way I am. We partied late into the night and at about 3am started just chatting generally in a fairly drunken way and I mentioned I had gender identity issues ( which is how I tend to refer to it as I am still a little uncomfortable with the word transgender I guess ).

One of my friends had heard it all before and was fairly uninterested in the whole thing but the other had not and he asked me about it. I explained as best I could in my drunken state and then the subject was dropped. The next day upon sobering I looked back at that conversation and felt unsettled by it and I think my friend may have been too as we avoided each other pretty much for the following day. Which only served to expose and grow my feeling of unsettledness and I started to think to myself that maybe it's not really a good idea for me to talk about this stuff with my friends.

I need on some level to talk to people about it because, by talking it helps me work out what I mean in my own head, but I need people who can understand and don't mind telling me how they have dealt with it. It's difficult for me to come to terms with this because I can't physically grab hold of something and say hey here it is this is what it looks like. It has no real tangibility except within me, beneath the surface and when I talk to people who can't feel that I find myself questioning those feelings and questioning myself.

Sex Education and Stone Femme Shoes

2009-03-13T00:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to see Stone Femme Shoes at the RVT, the second of six shows put on there by Wotever about sexual and gender identity and other stuff too often drawn from the personal experiences of the performers themselves. So far there have been two shows Sex Education by Josephine Wilson and this week Stone Femme Shoes by Jet Moon and both shows have blown me away. Their courage to lay it out there for the audience to look at astounds me. Some of the content is raw and it pulls at me in a way that says this is something real not imagined but felt and touched and from the real world.

Josephines' work was personally affecting to me because I could see so many parallels to my own life. It touched me in a way that was immediate and direct. Her open venerability her journey, not quite fitting into the world and searching for that place you can call yourself home reached right in and opened up old wounds I thought long buried, but also fueled a new hope that I could find that place and that even more importantly I wasn't alone. It sounds a little tired I suppose but I refuse to apologise for it, we all want to feel like we aren't the only ones be it hard or easy sharing experience is part of what builds our humanity connects us to each other and the world.

So I came to see Stone Femme Shoes thinking it would be interesting, but not really expecting it to have the same kind of resonance that Sex Education the week before did. I could not be more wrong. It was just as raw, Jet was incredible, allowing us to see her not just unapologetic and powerful but also human and real and breathtakingly honest. She shocked me and shook me made me look at myself and ask what my perceptions of femme were and how had they been affected by my need to be male and my years of suppressing my femaleness. I've been guilty of making femmes invisible in my time, I've overlooked and simplified. I couldn't do that after seeing this show. My perceptions of the femme landscape have been fundamentally changed and I'll admit I am more than a little ashamed with myself for not being smart enough or brave enough to explore this on my own. This show spoke to me or something in me and I really wasn't expecting it to, it's going to take me a while to digest it I think.

These shows so far have been so powerful to me, I think it is so important for people like myself who are asking the kind of questions we are to have people like Jet and Josephine to share themselves like this, they comfort and disturb, give us answers and questions. I am so looking forward to the shows to come and do so hope that these shows aren't a one off and that more people get a chance to see these and that I get a chance to see them again!

Here's the thing.

2009-03-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with a bit of male power dressing as of late and going out, what I mean by that is basically that I wear a suit. Now I like suits, I like the cut and the line, there is something very protective about them almost like armour.

I've had some interesting responses both from other people and more surprisingly from myself. People are either intimidated or intrigued by me in a suit, not really all that surprising and not so different I guess from me normally. Some people have commented on how they like the way I look in a suit and others avoid eye contact at all costs as if I may attack them if they do, which of course I wouldn't

But here's the really big thing for me, I don't really like myself in a suit. It's a recent phenomena, since I have started taking care of my body and loosing weight. I have decided that I am not lean enough to look good in a suit weird eh? I put on a shirt and tie and all I can see are curves and bulges, it's is almost as if the maleness of the suit exposes me as being female and it makes me uncomfortable.

I am genuinely surprised by this, I find myself thinking about chest binding ( I've not really thought of that since I was a kid ). I just feel like another butch dyke in a shirt and tie, which makes me feel kinda sad, I'm not sure what it means for me because I do love the old shirt and tie. Anyway I took off said shirt and tie and put on a t-shirt and I instantly felt like my old male self again this really is one of the strangest things I think I've ever noticed about myself. Maybe my feelings will change once I drop some more and start looking a bit leaner but if not what does this mean for my relationship with the suit?

Loosing to gain.

2009-03-12T08:28:00.001-07:00

I came across an interesting comment yesterday by a trans person who talked about their feelings of loss for the gender they were leaving in order to be the gender they are meant to be. This really struck a chord with me. All too often we are presented with the requirements for absolutes in this world and humans just don't work that way. We give and take, weigh out the pros's and con's in order to find what we hope is a decision we can live with.

When I was much younger I was a much more black and white person and had I had the opportunity I am fairly sure I would of ploughed ahead with transitioning not really considering much the cost of that change. Maybe I would of been happier, maybe I would of adjusted to the world more readily, but maybe the answers I was looking for in that transition would not of been there. What then?

Basically I hated my body to the point that I denied it's existence, the very thought of taking off my clothes on my own ( much less another person ) was torture. I went through years of depression and self loathing, but in time I formed a sort of truce with my body and now I am not so sure I am willing now to go through what I would of so readily run into as a young person. Those years have changed me, made me something I didn't even imagine as a youth was possible and now I look to explore avenues which simply weren't there for me years ago.

I'm not saying this is the way it should be for everyone, no way, I wouldn't wish those years of being invisible and inconsequential on anyone. Of feeling worthless and without hope, I'm just noticing for the first time that not taking that option hasn't stopped me for evolving and adapting to find something new in myself a place where I have decided I can exist and have for some time I think. I don't know if it'll be that way forever, probably not. It is in my nature and I think the nature of all people to change a little bit everyday. So who knows where this might take me especially now I am finding doors that lead me to new people who share these feelings or at least ideas.

It really is like a new world out there and how quickly the world opened up, maybe because it's finally the right time to go out and find the parts of me I am missing. I am also wondering about the parts of me I already have, what do I keep, what do I give up, why should I give up anything?

Small Steps 2

2009-03-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

So I have been accepted onto the messageboard I registered with and spent my usual blogging time on it hence my lack of a post. How exciting, I am trawling through posts like a starving creature drinking in everything I can and trying to think of things to say and get involved. I'm probably trying too hard and am still nervous about the whole thing.

You would think I'd feel comfortable really but after so long not being able to talk about how I feel even now in a place where I can I worry about saying something that will make people disapprove or think less of me for it. I for all my claims of Independence and not giving a bleep just want to be somewhere where I can fit in and sometimes that need in me no matter how much it annoys me does turn me into something I'm not. It's a destructive behaviour which I need to gain some sort of control over because I shouldn't be hiding who and what I am, but finding people who will accept me and like me for who I am unhidden. Easier said than done, but it's down to me to put myself out there and not hide that's the long and short of it.

So far there people on the boards have been very welcoming and have encouraged me to post and get involved which is truly lovely and makes me feel excited about getting to know these people better, share ideas with them and hear what they have to say about their experiences. Already I have seen posts that have voiced things that I have felt in my life and it grabs at me in a way I don't have words to explain, it's frightening and alluring at the same time. I just want to dive in, get to know who these people are and tell them about me. They are getting involved and doing whatever they can think of to put their content out there. The energy is amazing and contagious and I do so hope I find a way to be a valued part of this world.

Small Steps

2009-03-10T06:11:00.001-07:00

So today, I have registered on a transgender noticeboard, approval still pending. It is a small step into a place where I may be able to talk about things I am thinking and feeling and seeing what other people have to say and think about themselves. I have noticed a plethora of subgroups within the wider transgender umbrella and I find myself wondering what subgroup do I fit into? In my very basic understanding of the whole definition thing I believed I would come under transgender which I do but that covers all kinds of people that I am also not, so what am I?

More investigation is obviously required. Do I really need a label? Should I label myself? These feel like questions I should of answered years ago, it feels unfair and in a way childish to be asking them and yet I know ask them I must or i'll never work out what I'm about. It is quietly exciting but also very daunting to find myself at what feels like the begining all over again. Hopefully they will accept my registration and I can find out a bit more.

Thought for the day. 09/03/09

2009-03-09T11:01:00.001-07:00

I have over the years kept quiet about this subject as mentioned before. I have told myself to forget it, get on with things, that its all just in my imagination, a flight of fancy. I could keep on that way I suppose, but when you do that, deny the existence of part of yourself you loose more than just that part. You loose the ability to trust in yourself, you stop believing in quiet but very important parts of yourself, like intuition and self assurance. It took me a long time to realize this, I guess I'm a slow learner.

I have to believe I'm not making this up, I've carried these feelings around for basically my whole life. If it was just a flight of fancy surely I would of just let it go by now and for the first time I am accepting it I am finding happiness and confidence in myself. A desire to be better in myself and more me and to explore me, surely this means something.

I still haven't really talked to anyone who is out as a transgendered person about this stuff. I am still nervous about talking to another person and saying the words I've kept quiet for so long out loud. I'm not sure what I'm scared of, rejection, that I'll find myself wanting to change in ways that will upset the people I love again, that I'll get carried away into a place I wasn't really meaning to go, I don't know all these things and more. Even if these things come to pass I have to find a way to say out load and talk about this with other people who understand I need to grow and find a way to make this part of who I am not something I hide away and let eat at me from the inside.

Looking back

2009-03-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

When I started to consider that I may have gender issues ( which was how I used to describe myself, someone with gender issues ). There were only really two alternatives as far as I was aware, I could be a butch lesbian or become a FTM transsexual.

I considered the latter very very carefully not only because it is a huge thing to do and very difficult to find someone to do it, but also because of the way the people I loved reacted to the idea of me having operations to change my sex. To them I was a beautiful person inside and out and the idea of me having operations to remove my breasts and have male genitalia was just mutilation. I guess I could of ignored them and just gone ahead because it was what I at the time thought was right for me, but for whatever reason I didn't do that I put myself in their shoes and tried to see where they were coming from and I did see to enough of an extent to hold off. ( Just to clarify here this is purely to do with me and is in no way a comment on the way I think all people considering sex reassignment should think, everyone has do what's right for them I believe that very strongly ). Part of it was that, but the other part was because their reaction made me feel like what I was feeling was wrong and somehow dysfunctional. I stopped trying to talk to them about how I felt about my gender because I was afraid of upsetting them and for many years I stopped talking.

My behaviour became more and more destructive as I tried to find a way to reconcile my body image with my actual body. I was like a man dying of thirst in the desert, if anything come on TV about transsexuals I would drink in it but never satisfied and slightly tortured because I could not speak to people I trusted about what these things made me feel. If I'd had the facilities to access sex reassignment when I was younger I think it would of been a different story here, I think I would have had those operations. Now I am not so sure, but it makes me wonder. If I had had that chance what would I be like now, would I have gone the whole way? What would my name be? Would all the years I spent hating myself and ignoring my body of been happy and productive years? I am now happier with myself than I have ever been and I'm learning to find things to love and explore in my life rather than let it waste away but still I cannot help but wonder a little.

Why one or the other? ( Thought of the day 8th March )

2009-03-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

As I have grown older and come to accept myself a little more I have started to ask myself why do I have to be one or the other? Why do I have to be male or female?

Surely most of my internal conflict through my life has been the result of the idea that I could only be male or female. This thought came to me ( maybe not the most orignal thought, but hey I'm just starting ) for the first time about a year ago now when I was at the LGBT film festival and I came across a film about someone called Papi who referred to herself as a transgendered entity ( I didn't get to see the film all booked up, but I'm still trying ) I'd never heard this expression before and for the first time I asked myself why can't I be both?

Beginings are never easy.

2009-03-07T00:38:00.000-08:00

Hello out there,

Now where do I start? I was born biologically female, but all my life I have lived in a sort of grey space between genders.

Mostly without even trying I am mistaken for male and I don't really mind to be honest. Sometimes I'm proud of it. Gender to me has always felt kind of fluid, I've never been comfortable in girls clothes, wearing makeup, playing with girl toys. I've always preferred the rough and tumble and directness of boy's I understand their logic, I am comfortable around them.

Girls make me nervous, I don't know how to act around them, I don't seem to understand the verbal or socail cues they expect me to. Maybe that's a result of exposure rather than biology I don't know. Even as a young child I was treated like a boy by other people, people would call me a my father's son etc. I didn't fight that or get upset I embraced it even that young. My mother was a tomboy and saw nothing wrong with my non-girlie behaviour. I am a girl, but not one too maybe that's why I feel out of place.

What this meant as I grew older is that I was left with a question hanging over my head, not just the obvious one that other people asked themselves, is it a man or a woman? But a question in my mind that I have carried with myself all my life, what does this mean to me?

When I was young, in my mind I had no gender I was just me. Admittedly I played superheroes with the boys, not with dolls or my little pony's' but I thought nothing of that. I was different from oher boys physicially, some of those differences frustrated me but generally I could live with them. Funny how looking back and remembering this now accepting that I am of a transgendered nature I get it, I knew the word girl referred to me on some level but in my mind I was a boy which is why puberty was such a shock. My mother prepared me for the whole thing with a detailed chat on what was going to happen but again somehow I just didn't feel like it applied to me. I thought I'd be the way I was forever.

I think could of lived with most things, but the day I started growing breasts was quite possibly the worst day of my life. And as if life had a personal vendetta against me I wasn't one of those girls who was going to always complain about their lack of endowments ( I would of so been happier with that ) I had all the curves not in excess but in abundance. I could no longer deny my gender it was there right in front of me whenever I looked down, and other people could see it too and all of a sudden I was a girl and me no more. I know it must seem a trivial thing, but for me at the age of 10 or 11 it was like my body had rebelled against me, betrayed me. And I began a long walk down the road of ignoring my body, I just simply pretended it wasn't there anymore. I didn't look in mirrors and I didn't look after it.

So now I was a girl in everyone elses eyes I could not deny it, could not blur the lines and slip between like I had before. I was trapped, locked in and without escape. I was put in dresses, sent to an all girls school where I felt very alone. A few girls I met I bonded with because of their boyish nature but we were all girls there and growing up to do what girls do, get married and have kids was what everyone was about. What we were all expected to do and most girls seemed happy with that. They all talked about boyfriends and getting married, how many children they wanted. They also talked about careers and what they wanted to be when they drew up I must add but all of that seemed secondary to the whole meeting a man and getting married bit. For a while I worked on accepting that, there were no alternatives really available to me in that life. I like most young girls accepted that that must be what lifes' all about, but something still nagged at me and I think it must of shown as grew older less and less of the girls I had met there kept my company. I became a loner, not ridiculed or excluded actively, just not sought out for company. I was strange and different and that made them as uncomfortable around me as I was them. Having said that I did still have a great time there, I was sporty and they had loads of sports to keep me occupied and it was a good school. Just this feeling sitting there in the back of myself never left me this, not quite right feeling.

It was also the first place I came across the word lesbian, one girl in my class was teased ruthlesly for being one though at 11 I doubt she actually had made that decision yet. It was more just a word girls could use to be cruel and hurtful to her for not being pretty enough or something. Looking back now I should of actually talked to her about it but I lacked maturity and in my desire to fit in didn't want to start bringing attention to myself by association with her ( sounds terrible I know but these are the thoughts of my childhood ) This did though introduce me to a new type of possibility for my future I started to consider the word homosexual. I learnt the word, what it meant but that was about all. It didn't scare me or shock me it was just something else if anything it felt kinda comfortable in my mind. At this point I should probably mention that I have an incredibly liberal family and this allowed me to find the space to do this at a young age I know there are people out there who don't get the chance to ask these questions until much later and I am deeply grateful for my family.

Then a few years later I had a stroke of luck and we moved my very colonial environment to London, city of opportunity. Where peoples are as diverse and varied as snowflakes. I was terrified.