Filtering Out The World

I was bullied throughout my school years. Well, most of them, anyway. The war of spite, put-downs and vicious mockery started when I was about nine. Not so coincidentally, about the same age I started self-harming, but that’s another post. The bullying continued whatever school I went to, so I reached the seemingly obvious conclusion at an early age that it was me that was doing something wrong, and that other people were justified in whatever they were saying or doing to me. Not good for a little head.

After a few years of that, I think my brain started putting up a filter, so that I was able to go about my business in some ignorance of what was going on around me. An example of this is one occasion where I got off the school bus, aged 14 or 15, and someone I knew asked “Are you ok?”. I replied that I was fine, and asked why. She looked at me a little oddly and explained that throughout the journey a group of my schoolmates had been shouting comments at me, laughing and joking at my expense, with an audience of the whole of the lower deck of the bus. I genuinely hadn’t heard a thing, and there’s not a lot wrong with my hearing. Thank you, brain, for filtering that one out.

Whilst I was still having problems with bullies when I left school at 18, adult life brought relief. Over the years, as my self-confidence reasserted itself, and I didn’t need the filter any more, it gradually disappeared. And I grew to miss it, as I once again became aware of the negativity that goes on everywhere.

A lot of people hold strong views about trans people, and all too many of them think it’s ok to direct their venom at us as a community, and at individuals. I am fortunate in that people I know and mix with have either had the courtesy not to say anything hurtful to my face, or at least lacked the guts to.

However, without my filter against the world, I am very sensitive to whispering and stares, but with the wonderful advent of MP3 players, I have managed to create a reasonably effective filter for myself – music. By creating my own personal white noise, I find myself much more able to zone out others around me, and help the Paranoia Monster lay down and sleep for a while. I firmly believe that all the people who go through life with earphones permanently attached are probably doing much the same thing as me.

Sadly, I can’t do this all the time, particularly not with social networking, the internet generally, and the media skewing and attacking wherever it can. The trouble is, I tend to take criticism of my community generally very personally, and this snaps me straight back into being a child.  If someone somewhere in the world posts an article claiming that parents who decide to transition are selfish and disgusting, I start wondering if they’re right, despite being a logical(ish) intelligent person who knows that’s just a personal opinion, and a bigoted one, at that. Reading that another trans person has been vilified by their family fills me with fear that the acceptance I have been offered by my family isn’t genuine. The more ‘evidence’ I see that very many people consider my path in life to be wrong, the more that I feel everyone must think that about me. And so the Paranoia Monster operates.

There are a couple of logical solutions to all of this – firstly, put things in perspective, and secondly, don’t read it. To look at the second first (!?), I do try to limit what I see online. I ‘hide’ stories or pictures on Facebook that set off an unwanted emotional response, and avoid the Daily Mail Online like the plague. It’s actually not all that often that an online newspaper says anything so stupid it can’t be written off to lousy journalism, but the comments below any article to do with LGBTIQ stories are often horrendous. So much hatred and mockery, directed at people like me, or like those I love, is far too triggering, so I leave well alone.

But I am an “out” trans person. By writing this blog and making my own YouTube videos, as well as contributing to a collaborative channel (details to the right of this page) I am putting myself to some extent into the public sphere. I don’t want to build myself a little cocoon and hide in it forever, as I feel it is important for me to fight for the rights of people like me (and those unlike me, too). To do that, though, you need to know what’s out there, and respond it it. Otherwise, the haters really will win the battle and scare us into submission. To face up to these challenges, though, you need to have some sort of filter in place, or you’ll fall apart. Just as my childhood brain recognised.

So, perspective must be important, and it is this that I am working on, as my adult-style filter. You know that saying “It’s not all about you”? When seeing things online, or hearing them on the street (if they’re shouting loudly enough to drown out the Red Hot Chili Peppers) or reading them on Facebook, I have to reaffirm that it’s not all about me.

Funnily enough, some recent trolling on one of my videos bothered me not one bit, despite the comment reading something along the lines of “People like you shouldn’t be allowed to make videos. You’re disgusting, you f****** f****t”. Why would that not upset me, but someone commenting elsewhere online that ‘trans people are clearly mentally ill and should be locked away’ make me feel attacked?

I’ve a long way to go on this one, and I’d be interested to hear how other people keep their heads when all around them are losing theirs.

Man enough?

Throughout my life I have spent a lot of time trying to see both sides of arguments. Even in situations where I feel very strongly, it’s always been possible to see why the other argument has been made. In many ways this has been a blessing, in others, a curse. It is hard to be really rabid about something whilst simultaneously appreciating the opposite perspective. Not agreeing with, mind, just appreciating. Perhaps it is this that means that whilst I hold very strong political views, it is rare that I choose to bang my political drum. And all the more upsetting that when I do poke my head above the parapet over an issue, it has been seen by some as ‘unnecessary’. Trust me, if people were aware of the strength of my feelings on a lot of issues, they’d realise how much I choose to hide, out of consideration for ‘the other side of the argument’.

From the perspective of a trans person, it can be helpful to recognise and appreciate that not everyone agrees with or applauds the right of a person to determine their own gender identity. Unfortunately, if I do happen to get into a conversation about the politics of gender, some people can be quick to level the accusation of some sort of ‘gender evangelism’, or to be more crude ‘shoving it down their throats’. To bring up a side-issue, this also happens because I am a vegan. I can be happily chowing down on my chosen meal and a fellow diner will then ask ‘Well, WHY don’t you eat X?; so does that mean you are JUDGING me for eating X?; what about X ludicrous scenario involving a desert island and a tub of Philadelphia?’ Funnily enough, I’m not crazy about discussing food-production techniques at the dinner table, and am happy to say so, but you can bet that if I actually answered the questions, I’d be seen as trying to thrust my views on others. This also seems to be the case regarding my transition – people ask lots of questions (which is fine) but not always in the most appropriate setting, and not always without seeing the answers as an attack on or affront to their own gender identity. No, honestly, I’m not recruiting.

I have come across the idea on more than one occasion that choosing to hide your beliefs, feelings, etc. can be seen as a favourable attribute in a man. ‘Stiff upper lip’, ‘sucking it up’, ‘manning up’ and so on, tend to refer to putting aside what you feel and ‘getting on with it’. There have been plenty of times recently where I have had to swallow my pride and refrain from saying what I actually think or believe, because I don’t want to be seen as someone who constantly flies the flag for the Kingdom of Transgender.

As I have mentioned previously, I am very honest, and find it hard to lie. I was at a birthday ‘do’ recently – very few of the people there actually knew me, and those that did were, let’s face it, not sending out an addendum to the invitation reading “Attention, there will be a transgender man at the party. He is short, wears glasses and looks kinda masculine, but not quite. Please do not refer to him as a lesbian” Because it wasn’t all about me, nor did I want to stick out.  We were sat with some really nice people, and chatted on and off throughout the evening. At no point did I make any reference to myself, my business, my gender ‘stuff’ or anything like that. Later on, one lady asked ‘so, how long have you and your wife been together?’ I replied we’d been together 7 years, and married 18 months. At which point she looked me in the eye and said ‘Ah, is that because it’s only recently been made legal for couples like you to marry?’ Did I put on my poker face and ask ‘what sort of couple do you mean?’ Did I give her a brief but thorough run down of my transition, and how it has affected the status of my civil partnership? Did I hell. I smiled sweetly and said ‘that’s right’. On reflection, I’m pretty sure that the majority of people there saw us as a lesbian couple (but MY wasn’t the short one with glasses BUTCH?!) and it would not have done me any favours at all to pitch my Kingdom of Transgender flag in the middle of the birthday cake.

So maybe I am ‘man enough’ to take this kind of situation on the chin, but what are the immediate psychological consequences? Hard, actually. However much I realise that these things are just going to happen, that people don’t mean it, and will have gone home completely oblivious to any identity crises on my part, it hurts. Of course it hurts to be misgendered (and yes, I KNOW how easily that happens/that it’s early days yet/etc. Please see first paragraph re: The Other Side Of The Argument) but it hurts more to have to hide how much that hurts, for fear of being seen as a freak, or even worse, an attention-seeking freak.

 

The Pregnant Man

No, I am not. Nor do I ever plan to be. However, some transmen do, for a variety of very valid reasons, choose to bear a child. Whilst this is rare, it’s not actually that rare. We only see those cases where the man in question has come under public scrutiny, either by choice, or through media intrusion. Other transmen and their partners have chosen not to seek out media attention, and so the public at large are still inclined to believe that That Sort Of Thing only occurs once in a blue moon, and far far away in heathen countries.

Which brings me to the point of this post. Somewhere in the UK, a transman has given birth recently. The press in general, and Sun journalists in particular are desperate to find out who that person is. Desperate to the point of contacting Trans support groups and asking if they know him, desperate to the point of nosing around trans organisations, and inviting members of the public to ‘out’ the man in question. A large box is displayed on The Sun’s online article about the issue saying “Do you know the man? Call The Sun newsdesk on 020 **** 4103″ The paper also kindly provide an email address for people to contact them with the name of the man they’re looking for. I’m not that well versed in press practices to know if this would be rewarded with money – what’s the odds?

Now let’s get this straight – this man isn’t a murderer, rapist, paedophile or Great Train Robber. He’s someone who, to the best of my understanding, with his long-term partner, has made what must have been an immensely difficult decision. A new parent, who must currently be terrified. Natacha Kennedy of Trans Media Watch compares the behaviour of some journalists with their own claims following recent action over controversial methods used to gain information: “The Sun…claims that its journalists are subject to a witch-hunt. If this is not a witch-hunt par excellence, I don’t know what is”.

Whatever your feelings are about a transman giving birth, and mine are very mixed, that isn’t really the point. I believe passionately in an individual’s right to choose their own path. Some people choose to go about their business in the media glare, others do not. This transman has the right to respect, privacy and protection.

To paraphrase Kennedy, as trans people, supporters of trans people, and just plain old supporters of a human being’s right not to be hunted down, it is important that the press are told nothing, so that this man and his family can get on with living their lives.

Anybody being hounded by any journalists on this issue can contact Trans Media Watch for support and advice or call the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) 24 Hour emergency advice line on 07659 152656.

Does this face look bovvered?

When I first started to transition, not being seen as a woman was EVERYthing. After all, before testosterone started to work its magic, and even before I was taking the stuff, it felt like the only things I had to *prove* I wasn’t a woman were clothes and attitude. Oh, and my name, of course. But even as I introduced myself, I knew that people were not thinking “Oh my goodness, he’s called MARK, what a fool I was to think he wasn’t a man!” More like “Mark? That’s weird, she’s got a man’s name. Oh well, I’ll go along with it…”

So I worked hard to try and present myself in a way that would ‘point people in the right direction’, and, let’s be honest, got a bit upset when people persisted in misgendering me. I guess part of the problem is that I knew myself that I was not a woman, and had very quickly disassociated myself from my old female name and presentation. Very early on in the process I moved headspace away from female. That’s not to say I have crossed some metaphorical canyon – I don’t believe gender works like that – but with self-acceptance, validation from the medical profession and a concrete decision to transition came a shift in something that I can’t even think of a name for. My ‘me-ness’, perhaps?

One of the upshots of this is that whilst the sensible person that I am realises that when strangers misgender me, it’s because they DON’T KNOW and CAN’T TELL, there’s another, big part of me that is genuinely surprised that they can’t tell! That sounds crazy, I know, but I now identify so strongly as not-female that it honestly seems illogical for people to call me ‘she’ or ‘the lady’. However, that’s my problem, not other people’s.

Armed with this knowledge, I have moved on from a point where I wanted to tell everyone how mistaken they were, in some bizarre antithesis of David Walliams’ ghastly “I’m a LADY” sketch. After all, there’s not a lot to be gained from embarrassing a stranger, and really, if I’m not going to see someone again, I’m unlikely, these days, to bristle too much when Will and I are referred to as “you girls”. Though actually, after nearly a year on T, I’m tempted to suggest someone referring to me as a girl needs to go to Specsavers.

Perhaps I am more mellow about other people these days because I do ‘pass’ a lot better, and fewer people use feminine pronouns or words to refer to me. It does still happen, though, and probably always will. I’m unlikely to ever look like The Rock, so a certain amount of ‘sucking it up’ will probably always be needed.

However, and this is an important however, I am talking about strangers here, not colleagues, family or friends. I think it’s reasonable to expect that the people who know, love, live or work with trans people do need to make the effort to think about the language they are using, and what it says about their attitude to the trans person in their life. Sure, mistakes happen, but as I’ve said in an earlier post, a quick ‘sorry’, correcting the mistake and moving on works wonders. Just remember how powerful a small mistake can be for the recipient.

Back to my strangers. People on the street will use gendered language without thought (and hopefully without malice), but I do have a particular bugbear with people in shops/service industries/professional customer facing environments using ‘lady’ and ‘gentleman’ to refer to people. In an ideal world, I would like it if people in shops and so on learnt not to refer to others with a gendered word. For instance, I went into a shop a while back, and had to see the manager and I was asked to wait whilst they were called. The person serving me, when the manager arrived, pointed me out and said “This lady needs your help”. Of course I sucked it up, but really, how difficult would it be to substitute the word ‘customer’ – just as polite. And I don’t just mean using more neutral language around people whose gender you are not sure of, but for everyone.

The way we refer to people doesn’t have to be gendered – have a look through some of my blogposts: whilst I don’t always manage it, it’s very rare that I refer to someone specifically by their gender. That’s not the way I think about people…but that’s a whole other blogpost!

 

5 Ways To Keep Your Trans Loved One Happy

Do you remember those books that were popular in the 70s and 80s – with titles like “The Vegetable and Herb Expert”? They taught us how to nurture our plants and help them grow into strong, beautiful things. I wanted to make this something similar, but thought “The Trans Expert” might be overreaching myself a little. Besides, I’m no expert.

There’s a million and one issues involved in living with another person – be they your partner, child, parent, sibling, house-mate, etc., let alone when that person identifies very differently to you. Personally, I find other people quite ‘tricky’, and frankly, it’s a miracle that my partner has put up with me as long as she has. But she has, which is all that counts.

There’s an assumption, when someone comes out as being trans, that suddenly there will be a lot of drama, upheaval and heartache. I’m going to be looking at the impact of this on personal relationships sometime around Valentines Day, so won’t go into that side of things too heavily now. However, it needn’t all be about drama. Here are a few things to help you look after the trans person in your life:

1) Don’t assume ANYthing. Sure, read about trans people, watch the documentaries, check out Chaz Bono’s book/TV programme/etc. if that does it for you, but please don’t assume that YOUR trans loved one will necessarily conform to all, or any, of the things you read/see/expect. We are all individuals, and just as (say) every person with blonde hair is different, so is every trans person. Despite the jokes made about both groups of people.

2) Don’t call us ‘brave’. I’ve talked about this before, but really, I’m just me and I can’t say I’m particularly brave. Going to the dentist last week practically made me wee myself, and I’ve never rescued a small child from a burning building, so no, no bravery here. Feel free to focus on your loved one’s specific acts of bravery (eg: coming out to a family member who has traditionally had an issue with LGBT people, for instance) but please don’t call us brave just for being who we are. And on a related note…

3) Don’t call us ‘inspiring’. I’d love to think I’m inspiring, perhaps through my writing, or my YouTube videos, or because someone I know has found me helpful at some point. But please don’t call me ‘inspiring’ just because I’m trans. Focus on someone’s actions, specifically what they have done or said that you admire, not just the fact of their existence. Trans people just exist.

4) Appreciate that if we are taking testosterone we are going through a lot of changes, but that we are still basically the same old people. Don’t let people get away with sh*t because they’re transitioning, but at the same time, be prepared to accept that life can be a bit roller-coastery for us at times. And remember that, like anyone, sometimes we need a big hug, and sometimes we need space. Talk to us if you want to know which.

5) As much as you want to be involved in helping us match up our outsides with our insides, be very wary of giving us advice on “how to be more like” the gender with which we identify. Just because I ask you whether my new shirt makes me look manly or not doesn’t mean I’m giving you free rein to say “well, whilst I’m at it, you look really girly when you stand like that”. Sometimes I do ask my partner for pointers, but this is negotiated, and you won’t make your trans loved one happy by pointing out to them on a regular basis how UNlike the gender with which they identify they currently look/act.

Most of all, though, please do what Elisha Lim and Rae Spoon sing in this video. And yes, the first few seconds are minus sound…don’t adjust your sets.

Get primped and pretty at the Butterfly Beauty Shop!

I have always loved Lego. I remember I had a big flat box full of Lego goodies when I was little, with an actual working engine that you could make stuff move with. I also had a big toffee-tin full of Lego bricks. They were great.

It’s quite easy for people to assume that as a transman, I must have been a really boyish child, refusing to wear skirts, skinning my knees all the time and playing with my cars and toy construction set. Not true. I had a few dolls, and an amazing dolls house my Dad made. It had little electric lights, carpets, and soft-furnishings made by my Mum. Very cool. I was musically minded and fond of reading, so you’d be more likely to find me practising my flute (I started young) or sitting with a book than setting up a teddy bear’s picnic or trashing a Hot Wheels car. Then, as now, I suppose, I was a little bit of everything.

It has always disturbed me that catalogues such as Argos actually had a “Girls’ Toys” and a “Boys’ Toys” section, but to be honest, it was only reflecting a similar segregation in stores such as Toys ‘R’ Us, and just about any conventional toy shop you’re ever likely to walk into. These days, Argos no longer labels its toys by gender, but by type. A small improvement, but you’ve only got to flick through the catalogue for it to be blatantly obvious which products are aimed at which kids.

Now fair enough, I know that playing with pink stuff occasionally did not turn me into a raging feminine Stepford Wife-type. Equally, insisting that my daughter had a wide variety of not-particularly-gender-specific toys when she was growing up did not stop her enjoying so-called ‘feminine’ things as she grew older. Hopefully, as parents, we can bring up our children to realise that whilst pink is a lovely colour, toys can be fun whatever the colour, style and what section of the shop/catalogue they have come from. In an ideal world. But children learn fast, and a scarily high percentage of what they learn is not from us parents…it’s from Out There. The majority of kids want to fit in. I’m sure a sociologist could explain better than me why this is, but I’m guessing it goes back to cave-dwelling days and the need to be part of the group for survival. Hence if a boy gets it drummed into his psyche by media, marketing and his peers that pink is for girls, that’s going to stick, however much he might wish to go against the flow.

Surely if companies insist on making toys that are explicitly aimed at girls pink, encouraging girls to play with them in a stereotypically ‘feminine’ way, then however we try to educate our children, they will think that girls and boys *are* those stereotypes. Children who believe that are, I believe, far more likely to find it difficult to accept people who differ from the gender binary, and will undoubtedly struggle if they find that they themselves do not feel comfortable trying to fit into the gendered roles that media and marketing are trying to slot them into.

So, back to Lego, my favourite childhood toy. One of the things that has made it so lasting, I believe, is its total flexibility. With my toffee-tin full of bricks, I could make absolutely anything I wanted, even adding, say, a working windmill with my little Lego engine, or a Lego car. Did I make stereotypically ‘girl’ or ‘boy’ things with my Lego? Who knows – my memory isn’t that long. But at least I had the choice to make ANYthing I wanted.

Lego have just brought out a new range: “Friends”. It’s aimed at girls. How can I tell? Well, apart from the general pastelly purply pinkness of the colour schemes and the Bratz-like, slightly sexual female Lego characters (yes, I did say sexual…did YOUR Lego characters have make-up on and short skirts when you were young? Oh, and ‘lipsticks’ that look suspiciously like…well, you check out the picture) the blurb that describes the toys online could never be accused of gender neutrality. You know, if I try to deconstruct this any more, I may cry, so here’s a taste for you to look at yourself:

It’s a busy day of beauty fun down at the Butterfly Beauty Shop! Emma loves this posh little salon at the center of Heartlake City! Shop for lipstick, makeup and hair accessories! Emma and all of her friends will look fabulous with bows, sunglasses, a hairbrush, mirror, lipsticks and new hair styles. Get the girls ready for any event with the salon where you can rearrange the interior! Includes Emma and Sarah mini-doll figures.

• Includes 2 mini-doll figures: Emma and Sarah
• Features fountain, bench and salon furniture
• Accessories include a money brick, hair elements, lipsticks, a purse, bows, sunglasses, a hair dryer, hairbrush and a mirror
• Give all of the LEGO® Friends makeovers
• Gossip out on the bench by the scenic fountain!
• Shop for makeup and hair accessories!
• Pay with the money brick!
• LEGO Friends pieces are fully compatible with all LEGO bricks
• Collect all of the LEGO Friends sets for a whole world of LEGO Friends fun!
• LEGO mini-dolls are LEGO minifigures made especially for the world of LEGO Friends with thousands of customizable hair and fashion combinations
• Measures over 4” (12cm) tall, 6” (16cm) wide and 6” (16cm) long

I do not believe that questioning gendering of our children’s toys will turn those children into super-accepting adults, willing to embrace the sexuality and genders of themselves and others with joy, peace and understanding. I do, however, believe very strongly that whilst we continue to accept the ruthless gendering that is being forced on our children, we are potentially making it very difficult indeed for children and young people growing up and questioning their gender identities to accept themselves, and seek and receive acceptance from others.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

20th November 2011 is the 13th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is a sobering day on which we remember the hundreds of trans people across the world who have been killed because they were transgender. According to statistics summarized in a 2010 report by the Transgender Europe (TGEU) Trans Murder Monitoring Project, every second day a homicide of a trans person is being reported. According to the same group, 116 transgender people were murdered globally in the first nine months of 2011.

Reports of the deaths are often horrifying. Trans people have been raped, stoned, stabbed, shot, strangled, burned to death, because someone somewhere did not like their gender identity or presentation. More often than not, someone they knew, even a family member.

Many of these people’s murderers are never caught. Sadly, in a lot of cases, not a great deal of effort seems to go into finding the perpetrator, or charging them appropriately. If they are caught, some are proud of their actions, others claim that they have restored family honour, and more again claim a “trans panic” defence. In this, a defendant claims that when discovering that someone was transgender, he or she acted in a state of violent temporary insanity because of a little-known psychiatric condition called “Trans Panic”. Give me a break. Fortunately, this defence is rarely upheld in court, but the fact that it even exists as a defence in the first place sickens me to the core.

You want to know how many trans people have been reported as murdered since 1998 (when records were started by concerned organisations)? Please spare a couple of minutes to look at this list: Remembering Our Dead 1998-2011

Now bear in mind that these are only the murders that have been reported. And that it doesn’t include suicides. Thousands of trans people globally have committed suicide over a similar timescale. Because of fear, harassment and lack of understanding from their families, friends and those they come across day-to-day. Because of rejection, sexual abuse, violence and being made to feel that they are perverted, freakish and crazy.

We need to see an end to the objectification and villification of trans people. We need to see an end to the idea that being transgender is just about your genitalia. We need to see an end to the idea that somehow some trans people deserve to be killed, for crossing whatever social or religious line someone thinks they shouldn’t have. We need to see a radical change in police attitudes towards the deaths that are going on, and the seriousness with which reports of harassment, abuse and threats are treated.

More to the point, people need to realise that it’s not just the murders that are the problem. It’s the trans people who are afraid to leave their homes because of threats of violence. It’s those who lose out on work when people realise they are trans. It’s those who are beaten because they don’t fit in with society’s rules of what it’s ok to look like. It’s people who are rejected by their families for being honest about themselves. The ones who have names shouted at them by people who think that’s ok, because they’re not, somehow, “proper people”.

People like me are being victimised, abused, murdered and left believing that the only way out is suicide, every day. We are just people, like anyone else. The senselessness of these crimes is that a lot of people actually think they’re justified.

For more information about the Transgender Day of Remembrance, please take a look at the TDOR website.

A Life More Ordinary

I’m sorry this post is a little later than usual. I’m usually quite a punctual type, but this week’s ramblings have drifted a bit. I was away for the weekend, and whilst I probably had time to do a post on Friday, before leaving, my head hit a blank, trying to think of something fresh, zingy and exciting to write about.

This normally isn’t a problem, as things usually crop up during the week that make me think/make me angry/make me laugh, so it’s easy to pick a topic. So far in my transition, there’s usually been something happening that has been uppermost in my mind (preparing for x, worrying about x, explaining x, recovering from x, etc), but actually, this week, life has just been, well, ordinary.

I have been asked by a few people about what my future plans are, and they are currently pretty simple. I just plan to get on with my life. I am on testosterone, which is going well. I have had my chest surgery, which went well. Now I plan to enjoy living with myself for a while. Enjoy the changes as they happen. Now, don’t get me wrong, there will still be plenty of things to write about. It’s Transgender Day of Remembrance next week and I also have a whole post on Masculinity in development, to name just two things. I really enjoy writing about things that people are interested in, so message me if you have a request!

But being trans, even though it can often seem like there’s lots happening, is largely just about being ordinary. No more drama than anybody else, really. I’ve been told my life is interesting. Whilst I can see that some of the stuff I do is out of the ordinary, I also go to work, clean out the litter tray, worry about spots, lose entire evenings to dreadful television shows, etc. etc.

Most of all, trans people are ordinary people. Whilst the media still wish to make us freaks (witness this recent headline: “INCREDIBLY, 39 year old Hannah was BORN A MAN”), we won’t be seen, or treated, by others, as normal or unremarkable. The day when something like that fails to make it into a newspaper, not because we’re being censored, but because we’re just not that interesting, is a day, in my opinion, to look forward to.

Now, I’m off to CONTROVERSIALLY SMEAR MY NAKED BODY IN TESTOSTERONE, then pack my lunchbox for work…

So how ARE you? IN YOURSELF?

Do we look unhappy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those of you who know Peter Kay (the best thing to come out of Bolton since Reebok shoes and spun cotton) may remember his sketch, that goes something like this:

Concerned person: How ARE you?

Other person: I’m fine.

Concerned person: (Looking meaningful) Yes, but how are you IN YOURSELF?

This sketch continues when talking about someone else:

Mr Curious: So how’s your son? IN HIMSELF?

With the latter part of that query accompanied by a screwed-up face showing concern, tenderness, and not a little meddling nosiness.

“In yourself” (or “him/her/themself”) implies ‘inside’, ‘emotionally’, and generally on a level not adequately covered by the answer “fine”. It is a way of implying that there are Deeper Things to be uncovered and discussed, whether or not the person being asked really wants to spill their guts. I find it’s also often a way for people to be dead nosey, hidden under a veneer of concern. But then, I’ve always been a bit cynical, and transitioning hasn’t made me any less so.

My partner and I get this kind of thing quite a lot. People no doubt have the best of intentions, asking me, perhaps, how my transition is going, or how my partner is dealing with my changes, but if they’re told “fine”, or a longer equivalent, things sometimes get a little too personal.

With me, it sometimes doesn’t seem to be enough for things to be going ok. Which they pretty much are. 46 blog posts later, I don’t think I can be accused of holding back on how I feel, but, you know, sometimes things really are just fine. Sometimes they’re not, but can anybody honestly say that they don’t have their downs as well as their ups? You may just catch me on a day when I don’t feel like explaining something that’s troubling me in detail, particularly when 9 times out of 10 people assume that anything that’s wrong must be because of My Big Decision.

(Quick note to any other trans people reading this – how often do you hear “Wow, that must have been a Really Big Decision”. No sh*t!!)

As for Willemina, people assume that she must be going through emotional hell and is just hiding it because she is brave, and doesn’t want to upset me. Now, she has assured me that’s not the case, and we have sufficient love and mutual respect going on that there’s enough honesty between us for me to believe her. But other people sometimes seem to find it hard to do the same. We’re not Super Couple, but we’re plodding along through life just the same as we always did, and whilst it’d be stupid to assume there’s been no impact by my transition on our relationship, it’s a shame to assume that either Willemina or our life together are about to fall apart. You know what? We’re fine.

Which brings me to another, more personal area. When was the last time you enquired about the sex-life of a couple you know? If a couple you are friends with have had a lot of things going on in their life, did you ask them if they are still sleeping together? If that couple went through life changes of whatever sort, did you ask one of them if their sex-life was still satisfying?

There can be an assumption that because my transition is based around gender, that somehow it is also connected to sexuality (via genitalia, I’m guessing?). This leads to the further assumption that because I have chosen to transition very openly, sharing areas of my life that you don’t often learn about, that I don’t have boundaries. Of course I am open about my gender identity, but that really does not make it “fine” to ask us about sex, or our relationship, or to assume that these might be under attack by my transition. Or that if we say things are “fine” we must be hiding something. Just as I have maintained in the past, and still maintain, what is in my pants is my business. In the same way, what my partner and I do in each others’ pants is not up for discussion.

To quote Hillary Clinton, hopelessly out of context:
“I believe in a zone of privacy”.

 

Tomboy

Last week I introduced the wonderful film ‘Tomboy’ at Cinema City. The place was packed (much to my consternation…I really thought when they said they’d sold out that they were joking). I wanted to share the talk I gave on here, as I feel that the issues raised should be shared with as wide an audience as possible. Plus if I write it down I can include all the bits I forgot to say last week!

As human beings, we have a very powerful need to label things. In the spirit of labelling, let me introduce you to a few of the labels I have – my name is Mark, and I’m a queer transgender Sagittarius.

From the moment we are named by our parents, we are given a label, and as a baby and toddler the people around us seek to help us label our world. Think about the interactions you have with young children – a significant amount of time is spent naming things. Once a child has grasped the importance of this exercise, and has developed the capacity to ask, they spend almost all their time asking what things are. My own daughter spent a good year or so asking ‘What’s that?’ ALL THE TIME.

It is natural (if not necessarily desirable) for us to make assumptions about people and things by the labels that we first learn to allot them. We assume that if someone acts a certain way, then they must be a certain type of person. As a child grows up, and behaves in a certain way, we immediately ascribe certain personality traits to them, and even start anticipating their future.

To a great extent this process varies through culture and decade. In the 40s, if a ten year old girl ‘acted the tomboy’, the assumption might have been ‘she’ll get over it, grow into a woman, marry’…and so on. In the 70s, that same behaviour might have been met with ‘do you think she’ll grow up to be a lesbian??’ Now, in this and similar countries, more and more people have heard of people identifying as transgender. So our ten year old tomboy might find that people think ‘do you think she’s transgender?’ I am no gender historian, nor sociologist, so please forgive my simplification of a hugely complex issue. I think you get what I’m driving at.

Chaz Bono [yes, he's finally made it into my blog] was interviewed by E! News about Shiloh Jolie Pitt – he was asked what he thought about her. He replied “I would love to talk to [Brad and Angelina] at some point. To at least let them know we have this resource for them if they ever need it.” Chaz is not my favourite guy, for lots of reasons, but despite his rather crass attempt at implying Shiloh may be transgender, even I don’t think he deserved the flack he caught for this statement. What should have been questionned by all the media types who pounced on this is that the child’s gender-identity should ever have been up for discussion in the first place. E! News asked a loaded and inappropriate question; Bono, clutz that he often is, fell right into it. Rather than all of us sitting round discussing Shiloh’s identity, it is up to that child, and that child alone, to grow up as they feel right.

As a transman, and before that, in my days of identifying as an ever-so-slightly butch lesbian, many people made the assumption that as a child I “must” have been a tomboy. Just for the record, I was never a tomboy. I had girl toys (the only red-haired Sindy in my primary school…beat THAT!) as well as what might be seen as less gender-specific things. Most of all, I had my books [which may not surprise you] from which I voraciously sought to understand a world that I found very bizarre. I still do find the world very bizarre, but at least I’m reasonably well read. My clothes were a mixture – it’s fair to say that I never leaned particularly towards ‘very female’ or ‘very male’. I skated along somewhere in the middle. Though I did cry when I discovered I had grown out of my silver party shoes. See how stupid those labels are?

Making assumptions about our children based on the labels which we have given them is dangerous, and presumptuous. You just cannot tell, based on how a child is, what they feel inside, and what beautiful person they are destined to blossom into. And I use the word destined in its loosest, least spiritual sense.

If anyone reading this has ever seen ‘Tomboy’, or if you ever have the opportunity to see it, you may understand that the director, Céline Sciamma, seeks to deliver a message about identity that allows us freedom to make our own judgements…hopefully not based on the label ‘Tomboy’, but on the character themselves.

On a final note, I read a comment under the YouTube trailer for ‘Tomboy’, describing the lead character as ‘creepy’, because the commenter could not tell if the actor was male or female. I find this very much reflects my own experience, in that when people are not immediately able to assign you a label, they become very uneasy, and this lack of ease often results in animosity. All the more reason to re-think a lot of the labels we assign people, as they rarely allow for diversity or movement.

Do try to catch ‘Tomboy’ at some point, wherever you are. It is a beautifully filmed piece. I tend to avoid films on the ‘gender exploration’ theme, because they can be so ‘black and white’ and almost inevitably end with the person exploring their gender either changing their mind, or being killed. ‘Tomboy’, thankfully, simply presents us with a carefully painted picture of a time in a child’s life, and leaves us to make of it what we will, without forcing ‘an ending’ to tie up the loose ends. This is 86 minutes of your life you will not regret handing over to a film.

And if anybody would ever like to discuss being queer, transgender or Sagittarius, do get in touch.