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?

Baby Its Cold Outside

The staple of many a festive playlist Baby It's Cold Outside is no longer such a staple, with some banning it. Having re-listened to the song, I think the most generous thing to say about it is that it's problematic, displaying attitudes that were common at the time but are no longer acceptable. Less generously it's downright rapey, where she says no many, many times and he's still trying to have his way with her.

Brussel Sprouts Flavoured

I tried the Brussel Sprouts flavoured crisps today.

I can confirm that, as you'd expect, they were vile.

Fighting Nazis on Many Planets

Based on past experience I was expecting the faceless trolls to pile into the current series of Doctor Who and newspapers to cull these unrepresentative tweets as evidence of a backlash, given ratings are up, many collum inches written and there is actual evidence that new fans of the show have been created the BBC will be hoping for many more of those kinds of backlashes. 

Those talking about the Darleks conveniently forget they weren't exactly subtlety coded as space nazis who frequently preached racial superiority and purity, I can also point out attacks on Thatcherism or just Robert Holmes essentially moaning about having to pay tax.

Is Die Hard A Christmas Film?

Been pondering  that not-so age old debate about whether the film Die Hard can be counted as a Christmas film. In the end its a subjective judgement, much like compiling a list of companions from Doctor Who, there's a definite yes pile, and then there's a few up for debate does Kamelion count? Or Adam from the post 2005 series'? In the end its just a bit of fun, much like Alan Rickman's performance.

Btw it is a Christmas film.

Binders

So the Mail on Sunday, following on from their expose of food banks a few years ago which gave the shocking revelation that they were willing to help someone who said they were in need. Comes their wont-somebody-think-of-the-children comes the story of a organisation helping young trans men access safe but not cheap binders. The alternative being trans teens resorting to methods that are potentially dangerous and among the many things this blog supports is that if you're binding do it well, and take care of yourself.

Eating at Desk

One thing I've noticed after having many office based jobs is that the smellier your lunch is the more likely it is that you're going to inflict your weird onion and garlic fishy diet on everyone around you by eating it at your desk. Which is certainly near the air conditioning / heating unit which amplifies the smell further and makes those not next to you smell it and hate you as well. All the while you go into some strange state of oblivion to everyone glaring daggers at you and start thinking of a egg, very mature cheese and extra onion mix to bring in tomorrow.

Monday

It's only Monday and I'm shattered already, politely opted out of the work secret Santa and treated myself to a dress partly using the savings from not buying someone a gift they probably wont like and buying something I definitely will. 

Mummified Hands

Being around with a free period to spare I took a look at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery in what is a converted house with a little extension for the art displays. Being a converted house there are lots of little rooms and narrow stairs to navigate and explore while enjoyable, the whole collection is crying out for a more modern and accessible space, which hopefully they will get one day.

Blogmas 2019

I've hired Shakin' Stevens (ably assisted by his elf) in his chart topping era pomp to say merry blogmas everyone!

Its Christmas month, a time of traditions none more than my miscellaneous series of short blog posts leading up to the 25th.

Reworkings in minor key are not allowed.

Shakin' Stevens - Merry Christmas Everyone (Official Video)

Transgender Day of Remembrance 2018

On November 20th we remember them.

Another year, another grim list of those trans+ people whose lives were lost because of anti transgender hatrid and violence. One such person was Naomi Hersi who died after being found with knife wounds, of the few reports several misgendered her and/or tied it into their agenda over knife violence in London and coded comments on race ignoring the specific issues which contributed to her death. There's many places around the world where it is unsafe to be openly trans, more closer to home the current coverage from the UK media of misinformation and moral panics from the 80s Section 28 play book can only make things potentially riskier and encourage those already emboldened in their hatrid over the last few years to take it out on a trans/ nb + individual.

If only that powerful trans cabal the media talks about actually exists.

After The Shitshow

So after the shitshow of the GRA reform consultation, the relentlessness of which was way too triggering for many. Still it enabled us to see many in their true colours and be grateful for the support of allies who came out in support. You can probably work out my responses were on favour of a non beuroctatic (I'm trying to avoid the loaded and slightly misleading term, ' self declaration '), that it poses no threats to women's rights and the Equality Act and to more recognition in law for non binary people.

I'd like to say you can rest but with other attacks like trans erasure happening you sadly can't.

Students Starter Kit

As term starts and students start accruing debts they will spend the rest of their working lives trying to pay off Waitrose were being roundly mocked for putting out a very Waitrose type student starter kit containing such ingredients as Rose Harissa paste and after spending over a tenner you've nothing actually to eat. My own starter kit included a big bag of dry pasta, jar of coffee, pepper, tins of spaghetti and tomatoes, cheese and some frozen vegetables. That along with jacket potatoes (something so simple even I couldn't mess it up) along with far too many takeaways and Guinness' formed a large part of my student diet.

But apart from the diet or lack of, it is a great time to find yourself and come out, (like spending your bouillon money on a pair of tights) if that's what you want to do and please don't isolate yourself there are many great support network's and councillors, on and off campus.

Finally one essential piece of advice it is to not buy value bin bags, they will disintegrate as soon as you take it out the bin, let alone to the door and you really don't want to clear up what your flatmate put in the bin a few days ago believe me. Love your blogging mum.

Curly Hair Problems

..and more of my curly hair problems. Sadly living in an intemperate climate moisture of some kind will land on your head turning wiggly squiggly and not in the direction you prefer.




My top tips for those with curly hair are as follows;

1. Shampoo and condition.
2. Buy a good anti frizz cream.
3. Find a hairdresser whose done a lot of curly heads, preferably specialises.
4. Move to a dry climate.

Or spend several hours with your hair straighteners and cover your hair with a plastic bag.

Top 10

Hello again, time to stare at that blank screen and put something down. I'm apparently a top 10 LGBT blog and its all thanks to me (and especially all those very good writers who have either deleted their blog or not posted for several years).

More than once I've had a thought and made a mental note to mention it, only my mental filing system is jumbled with lots of little screwed up pieces of paper that are now totally unreadable. I did see Barry Humphries has doubled down on his transgender rants which he first made in 2016, blaming primary school teachers. I'd have thought the teaching profession was too busy with other things than to be turning children trans. Its all too similar to the 1980s when evil teachers and librarians showing children lesbian and gay books turned those young innocent minds homosexual. He was, and presumably still is a smart man and you'd hope he's talk to someone other than Germaine Greer on trans issues or even better meet some primary school teachers.

One media outlet has noticed celebrities wearing skorts more often them more. Being the kind of place that has used chopeing angle paparazzi photos do they really have to ask why.

Melty Puddle

Its a hot and dry period, which means trying a "light" make-up regime that doesn't descend into a melty puddle. Its also time to find the strong sun crème and go and an open space between built up areas you didn't know existed which has encouraged lots of butterflies, bees and dragonfly's which makes a change from the flying ants everywhere else I suppose.

And an church, which was closed a few years ago, its remaining online presence is a notice promising a website is coming which presumably will never arrive. Apart from the broken windows, overgrowth and other signs of neglect, it looks all neat and tidy inside and like they could hold a service at a moments notice though is more likely to be someone's house soon.

There's also the Mechanics Institute being propped up with scaffold until they finally get round to saving it or let it fall down.

. 

Increasingly Hay Coloured

Where does the time go? I publish something, soak my feet in a fountain and before you know it you watch your national team by all objective measurements, overachieve at the world cup, the grass become increasingly hay coloured and nearly a month has passed.

Birthday Bits

Anyway the footieball global cup has started, you may have heard something about it or the many ads which portray fans as "passionate" consumers of gassy larger, pizza and metre wide TV's.


So my birthday passed off uneventfully,  I've found a few more grey hairs though unlike many nearing their 40's my knees seem to still be working and I'm not sure how. I recently saw a marvellous range of medical technologies aimed at supporting the joints and extremities without the need for major invasive replacement surgery.


A headline claiming a trans prisoner was to receive a £20000 operation, I could have sworn those things were only costing the "taxpayer" £13000 a year ago, a more expensive surgeon? Or are they plucking these figures out of the air and adding a few thousand to keep the sensational headline.


I visited my niece who chose to watch Look Whose Talking Now over the 100's of other better films available on demand. For those who stopped after the sequel, they made one several years later where the children were old enough to talk for themselves so it's their pet dogs who were given voice overs, shenanigans ensue and John Travolta's English boss sexually harassing him seems to be the main plot. There's then a weird so-bad-its-good video over credits, with the main cast and the 90's brief phenomena toys come to life in which toys come to life.

Polluting The Well

I wasn't intending to discuss any more trans news/ media stories but just when I thought I was out something happens to drag me back in. I got sent some synopsis for Channel 4's Gender Quake programmes a few weeks back, after sighing about C4 going into this well again and polluting it with several tones of elephant dung. I politely replied I thought the whole thing sounded ghastly and I had no interest in it. Besides I've got the mountain of GDPR emails to delete read from sites I last visited years ago.

Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin

"..a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.

It's the 30th anniversary of The Local Government Act 1988 and it's infamous Section 28. It's worth reminding how things were at the time, a quick peck between two men on Eastenders generated massive controversy and to The Sun newspaper being gay was probably the worst thing you could be, god help you if you had a left wing standpoint as well. Despite two women running into the Six O'clock News studio and other efforts to stop the bill it was passed and remained on the statute books until it's repeal 2003.


The result was to stop any queer literature appearing in public or school library's whether it was overtly pro LGBT or just featured a LGBT character and local authorities weren't buying it, then it probably wasn't going to get published. But it wasn't authors that were the target of this law its was a sop to homophobia and an imagined morel panic where leftie teachers were planning to make children gay.


Over thirty years later its impossible not to make parallels between then and the anti-trans media coverage with those won't somebody think of the children headlines and conspiracies thoeries almost being cut and pasted from those times.


Today Eric and Martin are wondering when Jenny is going to put down her avocado toast and move out.

Gold Star Transexuals and Changing Labels

People change and you can change how you describe yourself if you want to.




Much like gold star lesbians, nobody cares if your a gold star transsexual and it doesn't make you the traniest tranny in the trannyverse .


Some people know they're trans as soon as the umbilical cord is cut, its not worth acting superior because of it. Many don't and that's ok, its fine to transition in your teens its fine to do it in your forties and so on, its fine if you don't do it at all.




Many people online couldn't fathom how Eddie Izzard has gone from using transvestite to using transgender. It's not as if there's a form you had to tick which means you're sexuality and gender expression is stuck much like the foreboding speech that when choosing my degree course that I would be stuck with it, thankfully that's not true and the same is true with how you wish to describe yourself. There's been an explosion in the tags you can use and one may better show how you are.


When I was young in the pre online days, the only two tags I was aware of was transvestite and transsexual and I didn't explicitly feel either though I identified with parts of both. Today there's not just A or B there's A,B,C,...X and beyond.

TDOR 2018

A day late (and definitely a dollar short) with the transgender day of visibility, well, smearing half a jar of Vaseline on the camera lens takes time you know. It was pleasing to see so many photos, not just girls but guy's, nb/enby, poc's and many more abound. Of course there's no rules that say you have to be visible, other things take priority, especially safety, just know we're visible for you too.

Being Edgy

Its been another of those months where a millionaire comedian confuses edginess with mocking a marginalised group while a internet streaming service chucks hefty wedges of cash to film it all. And isn't it a pity that they can't do those jokes they could tell years ago, unless it was Little Britain and you pretended it was post modern and successfully flogged that dead horse for many years past its sell by date.


But hey, gay panic jokes are still a thing.

Trans Fetishes

When it comes to transvestic fetishism there is a degree of kink shaming not just in wider society but also within the trans community. Whether it ranges from underdressing to engaging in sexual activity as/with someone dressed there still is a tut and a no way. And to those anti-trans fantasists out there, they are not planning to jump into the ladies toilet the first chance they get, we're more worried about you coming in and trying to make some point because its where scaremongering really doesn't meet any evidence.




Yours truly is not innocent of this either, some of this was to do with feeling the need to deobjectify / desexualise your identity, but in a society where trans visibility is greater then ever and not limited to seedy transformation services and the adult video shelf there is no need there days.  I do not want to see your willy in or out of knickers but there are many who do and as long as the content is marked as sensitive and shared with other consenting adults offline or online then it's only a problem if it causes a problem.

Smarch

Hope you're well. It's was a little cold, going beyond my usual winter outfits which have served me well during the comparatively mild winters of recent years but not an artic blast and then changing back to spring like in a very short period.


Another month another trans film, time was I would have watched it all in the same way I would have any Superhero/ comic book movie but these days a glut of both means I tend to pick and choose with the latter and avoid with the former. This time its the turn of ITV News (Tonight: 'Trans Kids - the Right Response?) focusing on the rise in referrals to the Tavistock GIC and those youth of today and their refusal to accept ridged gender constructs all of which would annoy the baffling number of terf's following me on Twitter.


Drag Queens is also a current topic, thanks to, what can be best described as Ru Paul's unhelpful/ outdated comments. Language, both queerness and labels has evolved, the "drag queens" mentioned in reports of the Stonewall riots would be more accurately described along the trans spectrum and even that may change in another few years. When you search media around the time this blog started "transgendered" was still a commonly used work

January

A little late finishing this, busy etc etc.

I started January on my sick bed having finally succumbed and drifting in and out of feverish states. There's still a Christmas pudding in the cupboard which body could face at the time and now nobody feels quite seasonal enough to eat. Although we have got through the chocolates and wine. It's about the time the media is full of healthy recipes and abstaining (apparently 3 million are participating in dry January). It also led me to add quinoa to the long list of things I've pronounced wrongly in my head having previously picked it it up and not having had to verbally order it.

Drifted away from my generally androgynous bits and tried on some more dressy type outfits not having been anywhere for a while my social anxiety kicked in. Also tried to find out what the fuss about contorting was, and concluded it was a good idea but still a work in progress. Found my scrap book, which reminded me is been a while since I've added anything new, so that's one excuse to be looking for some day out /event to go to.

Take care and have a good kissmas and pancake day.

MMXVIII

Light the fuse, pop those poppers, lets go for another year.


Hope you have a good one. x