Where I’ve resurfaced

Well, I finally left the last educational establishment. In a couple of months I’ll get my no-doubt dubious final result, and take the rest of life from there. As I type, I’m sitting at the table in my friend’s flat. I’m living with him in a notoriously progressive city, which means (HOORAY!) I can go for a walk without being stared at too much, and nobody has vomited on seeing the production of my documentation thus far. I’m living with him while I work a temporary job at the same place as him. The job is mostly just assisting someone with mobility issues with daily tasks that they don’t have the necessary adaptive tech to do themselves yet. It’s long hours, and quite tiring, but the person we work for is patient with me while I get to grips with the various bits of equipment, and how to be present to assist when needed, but not so present that I end up getting in the way when it comes to tasks that can be done without assistance. It’s made me even more aware of how much the Tories have fucked everyone over. It’s absurd what doesn’t get funded, and what the person we work for has to organise WITHOUT help from the council or a dedicated manager or whoever, such as making rotas for workers and ensuring people get paid on time, etc. All at the same time as studying, campaigning for disability rights, dealing with me looming in to give reminders about medication breaks and trying not to get tangled in the wires when I change the water machine. They’re responsible for training us too, which is scary for both parties, because most people don’t get seen by the boss while they’re still learning a task. Anyway, it’s not a bad gig (touch wood), and it’s good to be in a city.

Living with my friend after a year entirely alone is proving an adjustment for both of us. We don’t have much space in the apartment, and we both have an unfortunate habit of not saying when something is bothering us. So…we’re both in the dark about what the other wants and needs. Well, that’s how I feel anyway. I’m constantly afraid that I’m getting in his way, or that my stuff is in the wrong spot, or that I’m talking too much and invading his personal sanctuary. But I don’t feel able to speak up about my worries and ask for reassurance. I feel like what he likes about me is that I stfu and don’t constantly ask him if he minds me being here, or insisting on over-emotional talks where we pour out our hippy sentiments about how we FEEL about whatever. So I’m kind of…stressed. And in my desire to not be clingy and forward, I think I’m coming across as slightly pissed off with him. Most likely, he hasn’t noticed a thing, and thinks everything’s fine. And maybe it is. But I’m not good at things like, the faces people do (unless they’re fairly extreme faces), or picking up on things like awkwardness or boredom, so if someone doesn’t specifically say to me that they’re fine and dandy and thrilled I’m here, then I sort of wander around in a nervous state of purgatory with no idea how things are. Our hours mean we only really see each other a few hours a week anyway, and the thought of using up that time for serious chat when we’re both shattered or trying to get ready for work is not ideal. Does anyone have any advice? Because, if this was a romantic relationship, for some reason I think i’d be easy to bring it up because that’s what people do in a romantic context, they give and take and check-in regularly that everything’s good. Whereas this is a friendship, so it feels like society expects you to read each others’ mind and just smile and romp about drinking lager or whatever the hell normal people do.

Anyway, I’m rambling, I’m gross, and I need a wash. I’ll try and scribble more frequently now that my course is done, and let you know what I’m up to. Cheers!

The Endless Expanses of Indifference

As time goes on, I find this new establishment increasingly bizarre. The students all wear incredibly conventional clothes, to the extent that they look like they’ve just stepped out of a Jack Wills catalogue. There is no polite, or even impolite curiosity about their fellow human beings whatsoever. Just acres and acres of…indifference, and cold gazes. Even the Queer Society mostly come across as a collection of spectacularly conventional sorts  – they all got excited at the first meeting because the first prize for one of the games was a selection of vegan snacks. There’s nothing wrong with vegan snacks, but I wouldn’t say the promise of them is something I would loudly whoop over. And the meeting was so overwhelmingly tedious that even the committee left early. There’s no fire in anyone’s eyes, and the longer I spend here the more I want to punch myself in the face with boredom. I desperately want to stop one of the information volunteers and discretely ask them where all the interesting people are hiding, but I think that might be frowned upon. There’s a distinct air of humourlessness too. I had hoped somewhere with the reputation this city has would feature creative souls, but I guess they only visit occasionally. It is a lot like being drowned in some sort of grey torture device that was clearly sponsored by John Lewis, and based on the widespread cliquey blandery, my feeling is that a lot of the other students have come from private schools. I still haven’t made any friends, but as I’ve said before, I’m an introvert anyway, and I’d rather have no friends than force myself to waste time pretending to be someone I’m not for the approval of the sort of people I’d rather avoid.

The good news is, it’s only one year. And my living quarters are looking increasingly lovely, and I stumbled upon a lovely park or two in my adventures, as well as a kind-of canal. I’ve had the odd messages from old friends, and, most excitingly, I have paid the deposit for my first tattoo, which if all goes well will get done in less than two months’ time. I’ve ordered a railcard with a gender netural title on it too, so that’ll brighten my days when it arrives.

I’ve been giving more thought about what I want to do when this is over; I’ve decided this should probably be my last outing into education, as, however cool it would be to have more letters after my name, or a fancier title, formal education just depresses me, really. To be honest, I’ve only pursued it this long because it was this or the job centre, and there are few things more hellish than the job centre, especially since (in the interim since I was last there) the tories have been crapping on the unemployed even more heavily. I do quite like this area – not the students, but the people in the wider city seem nice, and the climate isn’t too bad. That said, I still have no idea what sort of job I want to do, and more importantly, despite these years of studying, I’m still not really qualified for anything, and most places would rather you had experience than a smug sheet of A4 saying that you’re THEORETICALLY not completely incompetent. I suppose, obnoxiously clichéd as it is, “finding myself” is what I’ll be trying to do here, in the unlikely event that I have any time spare to do so.

And while we’re here, I’d like to thank all of you who read these fruitless spiels, because strange as it sounds, there’s something incredibly comforting about knowing that somebody out there, however far away and unknown, is listening. So many thanks to all of you who pop by – I hope your respective worlds are well.

Foolishness

I am a buffoon. As a heads up, this post is going to be rambly and full of feelings – and I HATE feelings. I mean, other peoples’ are fine, but for me personally, expressing feelings is like farting in public – it’s not the worst crime in the world, but it is frightfully embarrassing and inappropriate.

Anyway. It started with a boy (doesn’t it always?), and this boy is ridiculous. And since we met last year, I’ve been taking the piss out of everything about him (I gave as good as I got, and it’s never been in a way that shat all over him), except, every so often I found myself wondering if I might rather like him given the way I am around him. And the fact that I’m never not pleased to see him, despite outward appearances. I mean, I knew at one of our first meetings he was…different to other people. He noticed some of my scars, knew what they were and wasn’t a bell end about it. He sees through my bravado. He somehow makes me capable of things I probably couldn’t do, or would have a considerably harder time doing without him. And everything was going broadly marvellously (despite his spectacular ignorance in some areas and propensity to play devil’s advocate just to piss you off), we got on, I was doing an excellent job of reassuring myself that I’d never be attracted to a boorish, old-fashioned cis person with no taste in fashion whatsoever. And then yesterday afternoon when he was making me laugh helplessly in the library despite the fact I’d just come from my referral for the god damn ultrasound I realised I knew exactly what colour his eyes were and that he was the only person I know who I feel on an entirely even footing with, I completely trust, and don’t feel like I have to ‘protect’ from facts about my life thus far, and that somewhere along the line, the wonky smile I’ve spent all this time taking the piss out of had become beautiful, the awkward lack of self-consciousness had become endearing and his embarrassing habit of trying to drag strangers into our private conversations had turned funny. At least, I realised it all, but still tried to convince myself I was just high on the smell of crusty old books and a lack of lunch. And then last night we both went to a party and a bottle of wine offered me dazzling clarity and the inability to retain my denial – just in time for him to leave the party with someone else. I mean, I don’t know why it’s getting to me, because I know full well even if he wasn’t betwixt someone else’s thighs right now, he sure as shit wouldn’t be between mine anyway. I am not his type at all – he tends to go for attractive people (understandably), and people who aren’t sarcastic cynical pricks who are secretly desperately trying not to let anyone notice that underneath the layers of obnoxious bravado is a tragically idealistic twat who may just, god forbid, be capable of human emotions.

Luckily nobody outside this sacred realm of people who’ve never met me has any idea about this private and horrifying revelation. But lets hope that I come to my senses some time soon. There’s fuck all else I can do about it.

Guess Who Needs To Write More

As I say every time I write a new post, I definitely need to write here more. Unfortunately, I’ve been ill / too un-thrilled / buried under assessments for the past month, which has left me with too little time and too much crap. At some point, when I’m less ill and have more spoons, as it were, I will find you seven marvellous blogs, tell you and them how marvellous they are, and hand on the torch of the chain blog award! Until then, I apologise, and here follows yet another random elongated electronic scribble about nothing.

In terms of trans things, I’m currently trying desperately (and failing miserably) to get my hands on a GRC – the volume of paperwork required isn’t drastically unbearable, but when you have 1000 other things to do, and don’t know where to start, and wince at the thought of handing over a chunk of your money for a tiny letter from a Dr, and have to track down a qualified observer, and various bank statements and bills and official ID, it does crush your spirit. As does the box on the form where you need to make genital-based declarations. Speaking of which, I recently sat in a small room and answered genital-based questions. Apparently, at some point they want me to go for an ultrasound, which will be a riot. As much as I know it’s important, I am a thoroughly awkward human being, and therefore, the thought of being in a small room with a clumsy individual playing an internal game of “guess the gender” with me doesn’t sound like a spectacular way to while away an afternoon. Healthcare is such a game of Russian Roulette when you’re trans – first of all, you have to find someone who will refer you, which means finding a GP who doesn’t think trans people are fascinating / gross, then you have to persuade that GP to give you referrals for anything without falling into the trap of blaming every health complaint (and I mean EVERY – I’ve had this weird cough for years which nothing has been done about, and my hearing has been getting worse for years. Despite having a history of proved ear problems, I can’t get anyone to take it seriously. And if you say, “EVERY GP is shit these days, whether you’re trans or not!” I will feed you a pineapple through the wrong entrance). Then if you do get a magical referral to someone who knows what they’re doing, you have to be sure they don’t fall into that trap, or, if they don’t blame a problem on your transness, you have to hope they don’t treat you like shit because of it. If you don’t get read correctly, then you have to endure the crap of them ballsing up your pronouns and making personal comments, and if you do, then you have to give them an explanation about why you’re on hormones, and in either case, you’ll be asked thoroughly intrusive questions that reassure you your reluctance to leave the house really is because the world is full of arseholes. On the upside, sometimes you encounter other trans people in various unexpected waiting rooms – and you both look at each other with a glorious unspoken high-five of long-suffering amusement.

But today could do with more bright sides, as I’m currently exhausting my supply of tissues. That’s not a wank joke, that’s a sod-this-not-quite-flu-and-all-it-stands-for thing. So what are some good things? I recently got back in touch with someone from the pre-coming out part of my life, and she hasn’t had any trouble with my name, and she hasn’t even asked any trans-related questions thus far. That’s not to say she won’t, but, in a world such as this, when someone doesn’t feel the need to make a scene at such an unremarkable realisation when first revealed, it’s glorious. We’ve emailed back and forth, and I gave her a cake, and thus far, touch wood, it’s been fine. The best friends in life are the ones who don’t question your identity or paths that may appear baffling. I mean, obviously if you say you’re about to sue the government for using the wrong punctuation in an announcement on paper efficiency in the workplace, then yes, they’d step in and tell you not to be a bell end, but when they can see you’ve given a lot of thought to something and adjusted life because of it, they shake your hand and let you get on with it. Also, next week is Valentines day, and not only am I holding a small party (cake included, obviously), but I will be surprising myself by cooking myself a nice dinner and buying myself flowers and chocolates when I least expect it. The upside of not being in a relationship also means guaranteed bedroom satisfaction with myself – hooray! As tragic as the aforementioned activities sound, I genuinely am looking forward to it. I’d rather spend a night with friends and gifts I actually want than an evening with a mediocre partner out of obligation. Plus, I know an excellent florist which certainly helps. I’m currently debating whether or not to get flowers for someone who does object to being single on valentines day – purely as a platonic gesture, to cheer them up. The problem is, for one thing they may take it the wrong way, and fervent explanation would either offend them or (in their eyes) only confirm their suspicions. Or be disappointed that the flowers weren’t from someone who genuinely wanted to bugger them…so all in all, it’s probably best not. I also have Pancake Day planned out for making a mess of the kitchen with some friends, before consuming millions of calories in one fell swoop and probably getting thoroughly squiffy into the bargain – hooray!

I suppose I ought to get back to trying to do work now – I hope your respective Valentines Days (or indeed, the boycott of) are marvellous, whether platonic-fuelled or sex-fuelled or romance-fuelled or a concoction of the aforementioned.

The End of an Era – or rather, end of a year-a

Firstly, please excuse the not-quite-pun in the title of this post. Secondly, please excuse how long it’s been since my last post. Thirdly, I suppose that, since it is after all the final day of 2014, I really ought to do some sort of overall-year-evaluation followed by my aspirations for next year.

Transition-wise, it’s been…I suppose on paper it’s been good. I’ve had tit-extraction, and I now have a full beard that has been adequate enough to elicit jealousy from other trans boys. Except, as I’ve often said before, I still get referred to as “madam” the vast majority of the time, when out and about. So although I am vastly more contented in myself, the outside world is as keen as ever to disrupt my contented equilibrium. There really is something quite bizarre about it – what fascinates me is, when I was still presenting in a feminine fashion, and quashing any internal masculine-identifying feelings, I felt sure that even the tiniest hair on my upper lip, or between my eyebrows would be noticed by the entire universe and reacted to with a declaration that I was to be declared unfit of the title “woman”. And I’m sure that’s a feeling many woman-identifying people (or indeed, people who didn’t really identify as women but weren’t yet ready to admit that) had in their teen years.  And yet, here I am, full beard in place, shoulders the size of the backside of a horse, hairy as a mohair rug, still being called “Miss” by perfect strangers. I suppose, if we can extract some sort of bright side from this soul-crushing tomfoolery, it’s that it shows just how stacked full of bullshit the media is. If you’re a self-conscious teenager of a feminine identity currently staring at yourself in the mirror, full of panic that if you don’t wax every inch of you to hairless perfection you’ll be cast out into the pit of monstrosities – save yourself the time. I know it’s easier said that done, and I know I just sound like a preposterously patronising old bastard, but as a man with more facial and body hair that the average house cat, the idea that nobody will consider you worthy of womanhood simply because you happen to have neglected your tweezers of late is an absolute fallacy. I suppose companies make money off insecurity, that’s how weightloss groups have become a billion dollar industry. But the outside world is honestly far less observant of any tiny imperfections you feel you have than you are.

Another bright side of my trans-related business this year is that, one relative has returned. His wife still wants nothing to do with me, which obviously means that their children will not be permitted within a mile of me, but at least it’s something. And if at least one half of the couple doesn’t find me abhorrent, there’s hope that the children won’t be so conditioned with transphobic vitriol as to find me abhorrent when they’re old enough to be permitted to decide for themselves.

I think overall, if I had to encapsulate this year in one feeling, it’s been bloody frustrating. My love life has been a laughable failure, my academic life is struggling due to transition-issues taking up most of my time, and the fact that many staff members are bigoted bell ends, which makes paying much attention in their classes rather a challenge. My social life has made me more certain than ever that I’m an introvert. Family life has been much the same as it ever was. And yet, there were no monstrous disasters this year. I suppose that’s why I’ve complained so much – when truly awful things happen, I just get on with it, and the glorious shitness of whatever’s happened distracts me from the little, prodding daily frustrations, so in years like that I tend to end on a more upbeat note, because I get filled with a weird sort of determination.

Right, so let’s find the high points of the year – most recently, Janitorqueer nominated my blog for the chain-style Very Inspiring Blog Award, which significantly brightened things for me (his blog is spiffing, find it here and READ IT YOU BASTARDS: http://janitorqueer.com/ ) I also managed to make a new friend this year, and although he’s a gangly, inconsiderate and over-zealously religious weirdo, we seem to understand each other somehow. I’ll also be seeing one of my old friends next week, which should be a riot. There’s been some fun gatherings this year, and I finally reached the conclusion that my identity can be summed up neatly with two words: frightfully queer. I’ve also realised that the only thing stopping me from enjoying all the glittery things I used to enjoy is me. I mean, obviously there are many places and many people around whom I need to dress in as dull a fashion as possible (for safety purposes) but, otherwise, why should being masculine-identifying mean dressing like a drab tosser? When you emerge from the closet, (apart from the lucky exceptions) there are so many things that end that you have no control over – given that you’re giving up so much, why shed things that you actually quite like, just to live up to some bizarre, imaginary standard? I suppose if my journey thus far has taught me anything, it’s that I may as well like myself. I may as well be excellent friends with myself, as myself is the one person I have reliable contact with 24/7.  Give it a try – surprise yourself with a box of chocolates, or run yourself a nice bath when you least expect it!

And so we turn to hopes and dreams for 2015:

1. That things get better for trans people everywhere. If that’s too big an aspiration, then perhaps if the small everyday transphobia bits are challenged by enough people, then slowly the big things will start to change too. Or at least, one can hope.
2. That UKIP and the tories don’t win the general election, otherwise we’re all fucked.
3. That gendered sections in toy departments and clothing departments stop being a thing. Or at least, they can still stock things that conform to the “average” shapes and sizes of men and women, only, everything is available in shorter and longer lengths, and if someone wants a dress it’s available both in sizes 10, 12 etc and 38, 40 etc. And no more silly binary bullshit signs. Let’s start a revolution where everyone gets to wear what they feel comfortable in, without having to worry that it negates their identity somehow.
4. That I become hilariously wealthy, and can therefore invest the rest of my existence into more worthwhile pursuits, like buying a mansion, and making it a safe house for all the queer sorts who are escaping from any arseholes in their lives. It can have an adjoining spa, too. And useful things like its own endocrinologist etc, but you can never go wrong with a spa.
5. That tv programmes and films get considerably more diverse casts. Especially fantasy films, it massively takes the piss that any film made in 2014 can still have a cast that’s barely distinguishable from the average major film cast of 70 years ago.
6. That  everyday life is considerably less frustrating.
7. That Adrian Lester is magically cast as the next Dr. Or Laverne Cox, except she’s American, which would probably lead to widespread tutting. And she’s a woman, and given how some of the women characters have been written so far, perhaps we ought to hold off on casting her until someone who can imagine women characters as more than just decorative pot plants to assist the plot can be hauled in to write the series…
8.  That the health care system can recover from the butchering this bastard government have done to it – the jammy, exorbitantly wealthy little shits.
9. That I start getting considerably less crap grades.
10. That the world starts getting better for everyone. Less everyday arseholery, less drastically foul arseholery, brighter and more fair. That sounds hippy as hell, I do apologise.

So, there you have it. My rambly, ill-conceived end of year tirade about nothing in particular. Thank you to everyone who reads this blog – you make the world a brighter place. Happy New Year to all of you, and may it bring you all the joy and chocolate (dairy-free equivalent or otherwise) that you deserve. Happy New Year!

Pandora’s Box of Pricks

This is a depressing post about genital-related tomfoolery, so if that’s not an enjoyable subject for you, please don’t read any further.

Recently, I did something incredible foolish. I posed a question to various cis friends of mine, of various sexualities – I didn’t ask all of them what team they bat for, and in cases where I wasn’t sure I just said variations of, “If you’re not attracted to men sexually or romantically, imagine for a moment you are. Then imagine you meet a man, and you think he’s marvellous, and he ticks all the boxes etc. Eventually, you’re close enough to want to shag him, so you go up to the bedroom, he takes off his pants, and you see he’s got a cunt. How do you feel? Would you stay with him?” Obviously, the answers I got weren’t encouraging. But the one that most…dismayed me was the one I got from the closest cis friend I have here. There was a long pause, and he said that he wasn’t into sex before marriage, so I said, “Ok, so you’ve decided you want to spend the rest of your life with this man, you get married, then comes the wedding night.” And there was an even longer pause, and he squirmed, and admitted that his male partner having a cunt would “definitely change things”, and as he rambled awkwardly, it became evident that he would be unlikely to stay with a man in that situation. The lack of the cunt being mentioned in the course of the relationship was apparently not the issue either. I mean, that would still be bollocks, but a teeny tiny bit less bollocks, if that makes sense. And even now, it’s making me feel gloriously foul. Because, he’s known me a fair time now, and more than anyone else, he knows who I am at heart – who I am behind all the bravado and swearing and twatting about.  I’m not feeling shit about it because I had any romantic feelings for him – I’m feeling shit about it because it means that, to him, any positive qualities a man possesses mean absolutely fuck all if said man has a minge. And given that he’s under the impression that I’m the only trans man he’s ever met, it means that some part of him feels that I don’t have sufficient qualities to negate the beast betwixt my thighs. In other words, either my vagina is so heinously egregious that it could eclipse the qualities of a saint (which I think is unlikely – I actually have quite a pretty ground floor, though I do say so myself) or that I am gloriously devoid of positive qualities.

Could you argue that a cis person wouldn’t want to date a trans person due to the unlikeliness of being able to make children together? Firstly, you could, but that would still make a person quite the arsehole, and secondly, children weren’t mentioned. The vagina the theoretical man owns could be perfectly functioning. Thirdly, a cis gay couple would be unlikely to expect to make children through traditional means anyway. With these factors considered, it really can only mean that the only thing standing in the way would be the reluctance to be with a trans person… I’m overthinking. And I know I am. But it feels like such a colossal prick to the skin. As much as I’ve always known this chap is hardly the most enlightened individual, I always thought he was at least someone who could see people for who they are, and I certainly never thought he’d be the sort to be solely genital-centric. I promised him before I asked the question that as long as he gave me an honest response, I would pretend that whatever he said to me had never been said. He has no idea how I feel about what he said, and he probably never will. If you’re not trans, then possibly you won’t understand why it’s shat on me so much, and if you are trans maybe you won’t understand why his response shocked me. But imagine if you had some physical feature that occasionally embarrassed you – or rather, as much as you thought it was a perfectly acceptable part of yourself, you understood that sometimes when other people saw it they felt it was a bit weird, so you kept it covered. Like an old scar I have on me, I don’t think there’s anything spectacular about it, but on self-conscious days, I might cover it. And you met someone beautiful, and funny, and glorious, and they seemed to feel the same way about you, so you plotted to spend your lives together. Only, one day you left the thing uncovered, assuming it was fine, and nothing to be ashamed of. Only, when they saw it, they looked at you like you were the ugliest thing they’d ever seen, and told you to get out, and asked how you could have dared to think anybody could love you, given what you’d left covered. It’s a bit like that, only worse, because this old physical facet comes with daily discrimination, disowning, physical, and sometimes even sexual violence.

It’s got me thinking a lot, I suppose. I know that, frankly, if someone could only love me because of the assumptions they’d made about my genitals, then they’re not worth the prosthetic bollock ache. But on the other hand, that’s easier said than done, plus…do I really want to even just be friends with someone who couldn’t love someone like me? At the same time, if it wasn’t for this person, I wouldn’t have made it through last year, and I’m grateful to him. But…should I really be grateful to someone who, even after this length of time and contact with trans people still doesn’t really see us as equals?

A Brave New World of Misery

Ok, so that’s probably a fairly melodramatic title, but all in all I’m definitely not enjoying my new educational establishment thus far. The person I was debating coming out to in the last post, I haven’t seen since arriving. So I guess that solves that problem for me…The people I’m sharing house with are a ridiculously mixed bag. I’ve met four so far; two girls, two guys. All cis, as far as I’m aware. Neither of the two girls are my sort really, they’re both long-legged clubbing types. But one of them is actually quite friendly, and we’ve managed to make some sort of conversation, despite our very obvious differences; she knows I have a male name and I’ve been referred to with male pronouns in front of her, but the topic of my transhood has been avoided, and I imagine that’s out of nervous confusion more than anything. The other is an arse. She looks at me like I’m horrifying, and has only said one word to me, which was, “SCUSE ME!” in the shrieking tone of sarcasm. I’m definitely going to avoid coming out to her as long as is humanly possible. As for the lads, I very briefly spoke to the first one to ask him if he’d used the appliances yet, in order to see if he had any ideas about how to work them. He looked at me with terror and disgust etched in his face, so again, not someone I’m going to want to out myself to for a while yet. The last chap is the nicest I’ve encountered so far, and I came out to him pretty much immediately. He laughed nervously, and I think he’s a shy sort. The only thing is, he’s in a different year, and spends all his time in his room, so I don’t think we’ll bump into each other much, and he probably has more normal friends to hang out with.

I’m feeling exceptionally isolated. I know I’ve only been here a couple of days, but everyone else who’s new is already falling about, getting pissed, making piles of friends, and generally being typical noisy shit horns. And I know everyone’s thinking, “Get the fuck out there! Get pissed! Make friends!”, but when I force myself to go to shit parties, I just end up more miserable than ever, and hide in corners looking grumpy, which is not conducive to attempting to endear myself to potential acquaintances.

On top of this shitness, I also have just about a week to sort out getting my blood tests and medication and shit knows what else, and the health centre here is shit awful. Incompetence lurks round every corner.

If I don’t drop out of this hell hole, it’ll be a bloody fucking miracle. PRAY FOR ME.

What happens when I go to parties…

To Be Out, Or Not To Be

Well, obviously, since I don’t pass, I have to be out. However, what I’m pondering today is the right time to do so. My facebook friends currently fall into two categories: people who knew me before I came out (5), and people who are going to my new educational establishment and have never met me (all the rest). Of the latter group, all bar one know I’m trans, because I made friends with them when I went on the LGBT facebook page for the place, and begged for mercy as a lonely trans guy trying to make his way in the big bad world. The one person who doesn’t know I’m trans is someone I added after speaking briefly with them through my accommodation house page. There’s nothing on my page that would explicitly imply I’m trans; my display picture doesn’t feature me, and the stuff I’ve “liked” is mostly unrelated to trans stuff, and obviously liking trans stuff would firstly not necessarily mean I’m trans, and secondly, they would have to go through my liked pages to notice, and thirdly, they may not even realise it’s trans-related. I quite like the chap so far; he’s liked the odd status, I’ve done likewise, but we’ve not really spoken apart from our first conversation. The only problem is, I therefore don’t know if I even need to come out to him. Because, if someone you’d never met and had barely spoken to came out to you, that would probably feel a bit odd. As though they were presuming that you would want to speak to them in real life. On top of that, if I do come out before we’ve even met, then it might cloud his judgement of me, and also he might go around informing everyone in the building who arrives before me that LOL DERE’S A TRANSSEXUAL IN THE HOUSE! LET’S FIND IT! AHAHAHA- fuck everything. Obviously once I arrive I’ll have to tell everyone I’m trans, otherwise they’ll take one look at me and assume female pronouns are the order of the day. Of course, some of them will do that whatever I say, and I imagine I’ll have to do a lot of threatening gestures with cricket bats before the message sinks in. At the same time, if I don’t come out now, then if we do bump into each other and I say, “Oh! I’m friends with you on facebook!”, then he might do that thing cis people sometimes do where they feel they have been lied to, and that you were trying to somehow trick them by being true to yourself rather than going along with whatever assumptions your doctors made about your genitals at the time of your birth. Which could make him even more of an arsehole about my transness than he otherwise would have been. The timing of coming out is a ridiculously tough balance to find, made all the more difficult by how much emphasis cis people seem to place on the importance of birth assignment. Come out too early to someone, and they might decide before they’ve even met you that you’re a freak who is unworthy of their time, but come out too late, and they will feel you’ve lied to them. Either way, you never know if they’ll react violently, or, if you’re entirely attracted to them, you want to leave it as late as possible, in both instances, to put off the moment of pain.

In every way, we’re kind of screwed. If you don’t pass, they bugger up your pronouns, laugh snidely about what a “cartoon” of your gender you are, or make using public conveniences a panic attack-worthy experience, and if you do pass, they insist you’re trying to “trick vulnerable people” into sleeping with you, and ruining people’s lives by making them question their sexuality (despite, shock horror – if you’re a straight man, being attracted to trans women still makes you HETEROSEXUAL! OH GOD NO ANYTHING BUT THAT).

I know I’m over thinking this. I also know I probably won’t make friends with anyone in the first term, because they’re mostly a year or two younger than me, and as such, they’ll all be trying desperately to look cool – and unfortunately, it’s true to say the vast majority will be of the belief that being friends with someone trans definitely isn’t going to make them seem trendy and popular, so perhaps even contemplating coming out to other fresh arrivals before I’m there is a pointless exercise if I won’t even be speaking to any of them. And I realise that anyone who is a shit horn about me being trans isn’t worth an abandoned pube. But all the same, there’s few things quite so shitty as when you tell someone who you are, and they look you up and down, then ask you to repeat your name, then they ask if you mean the feminine form of your name, you say no, they remark what eccentric parents you must have, you explain you’re a man, slowly this time, then they nod with a baffled smirk, and refer to you using feminine pronouns as often as they can. Bugger it all with a pepper grinder.

Not sure if they’ll be pleased or disappointed to discover I’m really a three year old tabby…

Panic

This will be the latest in my current series of “inconsequential nonsense” entries; I will offload my current top concerns, and then try to find some good things to make it all a bit less crappy.

So, first, to the bad things:

1.) I strongly suspect my hair is falling out. Not dramatically; not all over the pillow or anything, but I’ve noticed considerably more cascading when I wash my hair than usual, and my hairline is definitely receding. This would be considerably less worrisome were it not for the fact that not only am I too young to hire a car, but I definitely can’t pull off the bald look. Seriously, I have a face like a large and spherical cheese – my hair is my one saving grace, and watching it go at this age is depressing the crap out of me.

2.) My beard production seems to have slowed down dramatically, and I can’t sing without rasping. Even bloody Busted are probably too high for me to reach now.

3.) I tried to get a GP at my new educational establishment, as my shot is due just after I get there, and all I could get hold of was a crappy answering machine with what sounded like Brian the robot reading out the surgery opening hours like the surgery’s opening hours were the source of all his problems.

4.) I definitely have an extra chin. I can deal with being fat, but what I can’t deal with is having what looks like an emerging scrotum from my throat.

5.) I think I might be allergic to my favourite pet.

6.) I’m really dreading my new educational establishment. Mostly, being in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by piss-ignorant buffoons who need my pronouns hammered into their skulls every five seconds. Plus the colossal amount of work getting my qualification will be. And worrying about how I’m supposed to afford anything, how I’m supposed to make friends, how to avoid dropping out (yet again…) and basically not be miserable as fuck.

Mostly, it’s the hair thing. FUUUUUU- I know being trans means you have to make a piss ton of sacrifices, but this is just damn cruel. Ye gods, my dignity and many of my friends have been taken – why must you take my hair as well?!

Right, so now to brighter things. I can’t really think of any bright things at the moment, so here’s a list of why I’m lucky to have three really good friends:

1.) Despite being considerably better off than me, they never look at me like I’m being silly when I whine about the price of stuff. The other day, I was ranting about some bell ends talking about how thrilled they were that their travel ticket “only” cost £70. Although for them that’s probably a piss in the wind, they all rallied round and said how expensive that is.

2.) They’ve never been arseholes about what I eat. It’s fair to say I am, and always have been, the widest amongst us; but not one of them has ever done the “should you be eating that” face, or asked if I knew how many calories there were in whatever I’m stuffing my face with.

3.) They’ve never held me back. Whatever life decisions I’ve made, and however inadvisable, they’ve always just accepted it. They’ve always been right behind me, however baffled they are by it.

4.) They forgive my fuck ups.

5.) They’re fun.

6.) They reassure me when I’m getting my head stuffed in my arse.

So there you go: six shit things and six reasons not to jump off the planet just yet. I’m going to go and hang out with some hot water bottles now.

Friends And Things

And so, to an update on my friendship situation. Two of the people I came out to at that mini gathering a while back haven’t really been in contact since, although one of them did re-add me on facebook. The other one, alas, did not. The one who didn’t was the guy I spoke to outside, who was a real bastion of decency in a time of none. At the time of writing, I am still at a point where I am convincing myself it’s because he doesn’t go on facebook very often, as I’m not entirely ready to abandon hope just yet. The other guy has been fairly occupied with traversing the globe, so his silence is certainly forgiveable.

On the brighter side, the other three came over the night before last, and jolly japes were had! We watched some crap awful DVDs of school trips and productions, and got all nostalgic despite our school years being an utterly shit time for pretty much all of us. It was good because my best friend from those days is, oddly, the person I’ve spoken to least since then, and after some stumblings, we reconnected somewhat. And in one of the tapes we watched, even though we didn’t have a lot of screen time, it reminded me of just how much we were like Frodo and Sam. Neither of us gave a fuck about PE, we were both kind of half-arsed in our studies, we had weird adventures (like the time we were in France and the teachers told us to stay in one particular play area while the coach drivers had a break – we took this as a cue to run off to the beach, and somewhere in my diaries I have a picture of me on the distant horizon in the middle of a sea, waving). A lot of our adventures were caused by me cheerfully giving the ever-fateful line of, “I know a short cut!” (which always, at the very least doubled our journey time) but my best friend always had the decency to just go with it. In our last year was when things drifted off a bit. We were still close, but both of us had had rather tough shit to go through (hers far more than mine in this case), and I guess…I had always been protective of her. Fatherly, I suppose you’d call it. But this was something that I couldn’t protect her from, and I found that I didn’t know what to say. Because I couldn’t begin to imagine how she felt, and because I hated myself for not being able to…help. Or make things better for her. I felt such a colossal pressure to make everything alright that I ended up just sort of freezing uselessly. And I think she needed people who could manage not to worry about what to say, or try to shield her from stuff, so in my last year she spent a lot of time shopping with some hyper religious girls, and I spent a lot of time beating myself up and sitting alone in the library. After we left school, I saw her twice – once at a small birthday gathering where I spent most of my time flirting with some twat she’d never met, and then one awkward night where she spent most of the night text flirting some random twat I’d never met! I next saw her about two years ago at her birthday event, but she was with her cool, popular new friends and I felt like a prat because I was on strong medication with less than great side affects, so I spent most of the evening hiding up a tree in her garden, and we didn’t really speak for the next few years after that.

But I think we’re getting back on track now. Or at least, I hope we are. We’re both older and I’ve finally admitted I’m a man, and learnt that however much I feel compelled to be some kind of over-protective bell end to my friends, they are not in fact my children, and they must be free to occasionally tread in metaphorical dog shit without my ridiculous hovering.

Overall, they seem to be doing alright with the trans thing, too. There is a fair degree of birth-naming going on, but they take the corrections well. Pronouns haven’t been a big thing, but that may be because I’ve only seen them in smaller gatherings, so there’s been no reason to refer to me using them. One of them did make the awkward error of describing me as “female”, but it is early days, and it was certainly with no malice. I feel uncomfortable sometimes though, because I feel I have to remind them I’m a man every so often, so to them it probably feels like I’m banging on about it – I don’t mean to be, it’s just, when you really care about people you want them to know what life is like for you, and you want them to get on board with the correct name and pronouns as soon as possible so that you can start getting back on track and just having fun. There are some things you find, however, that it’s easy not to get if you’re not trans*. Like when they invite me to things where there’ll be people I’m not out to, or to places where I wouldn’t feel safe as a trans* person, or places where I won’t be able to ascertain what the toilet situation is. Given that sort of thing, I can understand why some trans* folk would be reluctant to venture out of the trans* community. Because the fact of the matter is, there really are things you just don’t consider if it doesn’t affect you personally. Like how you might struggle to give directions to a blind person – when you’re so used to dealing with the world in relation to visual cues, it’s very easy to forget that what works for you is not what works for other people. And I’m very aware that if I turn down invitations to things too often, they might either get the impression that I don’t want to see them, or that remaining friends with me is too much effort. I really do care about them though, and I earnestly hope that we will be able to find a way not to let our friendship flounder; and I like to think they feel the same. After all – what other young bachelor would throw a party where the main indulgence is mint imperials?