Things

‘Swindon Then When and Now' (2019) Billy Beaumont Artsite Ltd. / @artsiteltd / Instagram

A summer of record breaking temperatures leading to having more than one cornetto (strawberry, preferably), being a fun pibling to my nieces and nephews (I like to think) and normal disorganisation means I'm behind on writing about things so here's a nice mural instead.

Why Do I Still Blog

Blogging is dead. Its been declared dead every year since 2003 and it was definitely dead when I first said hello four years later on this new site. It will be declared dead every year hence, except for 2025 when for a change it'll be moribund.


At the time there were competing attractions, why blog when you can post to that Facebook or send little blog posts to Twitter? The answer to that now is obvious both have become toxic and both kinda feed off the toxicity in the same way YouTube does trying to recommended me conspiracy videos about the New World Order endgame, or far right videos. There was Tumblr and that was great for trans users especially for non binary, gender fluid and f to m users which has withered even before the recent restrictions, again not targeting the problems (spammers, trolls) but a user sharing a picture of their stitches post top surgery. The obvious point is that what's it online will come and go but the personal webpage will always be there long after your MySpace page has been accidentally deleted and Tom has no more friends.


A blog can be haven, a walled garden to experiment as you will. I have spent more time on this site than anything else creatively, some stuff works better than others but it is all mine and my story. Its still also a way to connect with likeminded people, keep in touch with friends and make your voice heard. Yes if you want to build a personal brand or be an influencer then you probably need a Instagram account (I do but its very dormant) but that restrictions may come in which limit what you can post, if anything at all.


Anyway looking for something from 2007 to end on and looking at the best selling singles from that year, and remembering Mika was big in 2007 and then disappeared, much like the X Factor winner Leon Jackson who had one of the biggest selling singles of the year, as they did back then and whose third single peaked at 94 the following November. I could find a piece of media which frequently uses the word "transgendered" instead of transgender or one of many documentaries which jumps from make-up to old photo and back or a world where retrogressive (and strange, you're essentially announcing what genital's your baby has) gender reveal parties weren't as common.


Instead I chose this







Oh and I'm still a top 10 blog.


And here's to many more years. 

Fathers Day and Signifiers

Its fathers day and I hope you have a great day especially gay, trans and queer dads out there. If you are looking for something to give and your dad isn't sitting in an armchair, drinking alcohol, controlling the TV remote, watching football and farting constantly than I'm all out of suggestions as I haven't seen anything else.

I did see posts about the number one on your 14th birthday being done kind of significance to your future or something so I took a look at the official chart website and this is the top ten in Britland at three start of my 15th year.

Yeah, not the greatest collection of songs, The Cure and En Vogue excepted. Two terrible cover versions on the top three and you forgot that KWS's dance version of Please Don't Go was number one for 5 weeks which says more about how static the charts were around this time it also highlights the phenomona at the time of putting a boilerplate dance beat to any old song whereas this decade putting a boilerplate minor key version to a classic dance track is the thing. I blame John Lewis and Gary Jules.

Was Acceptable in the 90's

Following on from the trend of cis people noticing that Ace Ventura Pet Detective was transphobic (and it only took 25 years) are folks noticing Friends hasn't aged well. This spread to the co-creator realising that there was a lot of transphobic gags, not to mention the stereotyping, homophobia, misogyny, lack of diversity, fat-shaming, and that Ross is horribly manipulative.
I also remember Dana International being asked lot of questions about her genitals in interview after interview following her Eurovision win. Sadly asking trans people about what is in their pants  is still acceptable.

Not Up For Debate

The Economist like many media outlets has recently fallen into the trope of framing a story of trans humanity (nay, humanity itself) as something that needs an alternative viewpoint so it can be debated. The tweet linking to a story regarding a Japanese courts decision to uphold the requirement for surgical sterilisation before allowing their gender identity to be legally recognised.

That such a procedure is required is probably surprising for the many who are non-trans or regularly follow LGBT outlets, although the number of European countries requiring similar treatments has fallen in the past decade, 7 jurisdictions is still 7 too many.

The tweet has since been deleted but not before being screenshotted by many readers.  

There is no alternative viewpoint, the answer is no. It should also apply to other invasive procedures not just sterilisation. Whether the individual concerned has, can't for whatever reason or chooses not to.

My Umbrella

Except on windy days I'm all about umbrellas, they’re great and an incredibly useful invention, I especially love big umbrellas to shelter myself and others, like my trans friends. In fact I’ve got one open now and what a great and divergent bunch are under it, all recognising our difference, standing on one level and preparing to level the big pointy end of the umbrella 🌂 at the UK press. But who is this outside the umbrella typing away? Why It’s a group of gold stared trans rehashing old arguments and criticising Stonewall for supporting that umbrella. Pathologizing and the rigid binary enforcement serves no one, In the end there is no trans hierarchy (a trarchy?) and throwing others to the wolves won’t save yourself eventually.

All together now; my umbrella ella ella ella ey ey ey ey ey.

Windmill Mcturbineface

A while back I mentioned wind turbines and how I generally thought them to be a good thing aesthetically and in filling our need for electric especially if we're going to need it for our cars as well. Getting up close to a set of five in Oxfordshire hearing the whoosh as the blades cut through the air and the hum of the generator in a nice touch they asked local primary schools to name one each.


This was a few years ago, as these days the popular ideas would all be variants of Windmill Mcturbineface. Four of the winning names were things you could imagine a group of school children coming up with like Huff N Puff, the fifth was called Zeus, which is like one of those school projects being brought in thats been clearly done by the parents.

Last Minute

Oh hello again, after a little pause I'm back. It's all been a little hectic, a case of January blues, leaving one job for one closer to home, less stressful and better colleagues / company and leaving my tax return until the last minute despite the fact I owe nothing extra to the HMRC and I only had a few self employed invoices. Then there is nothing like a deadline to focus the mind like the heroic all nighters I pulled to finish an essay for the morning deadline. Thank goodness I didn't decide to give up chocolate or alcohol or make any other change based on an arbitrarily decided point where our planet ends one cycle and starts another.

MMXIX

Remembering those those we have lost along the past year and looking forward to new beginnings in the coming year. Take good self care of yourself and have a good time.

One More Sleep

It's the season to be happy and joyous,  unless you're the character on Eastenders whose just declared that "it's going to be the best Christmas Walford has ever seen" in which case you're going to die alone, heartbroken on Arthur's bench with the sound of people partying in the Vic in the background.

Tumblred

For many years Tumblr users have been complaining about porn bots and trolls and instead of taking a scalpel to deal with it and create a better experience for users they've grabbed a big sledgehammer and taken it to huge sections of their user base. The site was for many years an excellent resource for many trans users especially f2m and gender queer/ non binary people's for exploring their identity. The new policy will kill creative expression and harm marginalised groups. I've decided not to close my account, just ghost it like many other users.

Diversity Kills Comics

One big nonsense this year was comicsgate. If you hang around conversations about comic books you will find some guy complaining about diversity and you can be sure that once someone has laid that poop hundreds of other fly's will gather talking about sjw's, snowflakes and other such crap.
What has to be said is that diversity isn't killing comic books, bad comic books kill comic books. At current prices even a small pull list requires a decent financial commitment. It also has to be added comic books have always been political as soon as they started jumping from newspaper strips to their own publications early Stan Lee wrote about refugees, Superman is one and heavily coded Jewish.
A lot of dudes though spend their time and effort attacking on books not aimed at them like Squirrel Girl there are hundreds of Tony Stark Iron Man books out there for sale and so many guys punching guys comics out there.
Like any of those -gate'ers, and they generally are the same people Its pointless to debate them as they're either so stubborn no amount of facts of reason will dislodge them or they're deliberately out to annoy you so save your mental health and block, mute and ignore away.

Legitmate Concerns

"I have legitimate concerns...." seems to be 2018's "I'm not a racist but..." If £10 was donated to Mermaids every time somebody tries to dress up their transphobic drivel in that phrase they wouldn't have to worry about lottery support for their worthwhile work. People can explore and question sex and gender, in the same way you can explore race but using either phrase are red flags and mean I will automatically discount your bigoted opinion

British Comedy

Its fair to say there's a sad terf'y steak running through British comedy at the moment not just lazy hack writers using a deliberately masculine crossdresser to get a cheap laugh although that's bad enough (excusing the fine subversive gender queer pantomime tradition). From a co-writer of a sitcom you really liked to other male self appointed defenders of women and those bravely making other jokes that punch down to other marginalised groups like the poor and sex workers.

It matches the widespread anti trans media from all wings, possibly that's what is acceptable today that will be unacceptable, one can only hope.

Old Jokes

There is the problem with a lot of old pieces of entertainment. Culture moves on not just songs written in the immediate post war period but in my lifetime. There are many things I enjoyed that are not repeatable. Gay panic jokes while admittedly still a thing were much more prevalent and racial jokes generally mocking Asians though one bigoted comedian was still doing his Chalky character on prime time TV. Who knows what will be unacceptable that was accepted today?