Last November I wrote a blog entry entitled shame. I wrote about how I had become ashamed of myself because I was transgender and not acceptable. How I created a false identity. Six months on I have realised a different perspective

It is absolutely true that over the years I had felt ashamed of myself. Of being me a transgender.  Recently I wrote to say that, although I have lots more to do to improve my transition, I have transitioned. I am a trans woman. Previously, I wrote that part of the journey out of the shame and towards acceptance of who you truly are is through confidence. It doesn’t come easily or overnight. By holding your head up high and being able to be yourself is crucial. It does not matter whether you pass or not in relation to this. If you are lucky enough to pass then this I imagine makes it easier. In my case, I guess I have become passable though I do not pass. 

I am clear I have transitioned. I am a transwoman and despite the limitations imposed by lockdowns and the need to be safe I am confident in knowing who I am. Over the last few weeks I have come to realise I am no longer ashamed of being trans. In itself that is good. However, there has been an unexpected side effect of that acceptance. I am not wasting so much time worrying about being trans. I am aware that the continuous dialogue that used to go on in my head, what I call gender chatter, almost at a subliminal level was linked to the shame I felt, reflecting the not being worthy.

The unexpected side effect is that by losing this gender chatter I have so much more time to be able to focus on what I want to do. I always felt I gave life everything I had, but the truth appears to be that my energy was being dissipated into the gender conflict going on internally limiting every aspect of what I could do. For a while I was rather down about how much more I could have achieved if this had not been happening. I realise there is no mileage in such thoughts and that I should celebrate where I am. I cannot change the past. I can understand where I have come up short and maybe understand more the influences that may have contributed to or caused failings. That is all.

There are things I need to do to improve my transition. I still have to deal with the ever growing transphobia in this country. I still am fearful about how I will be treated by other people and it takes resilience and effort to face situations but it is liberating to free from the shame of being transgender, to have increased energy to face and live life. I can only hope that continues.

There are elections coming up shortly in the UK so I have been wondering how I should vote. For various reasons I have not been able to cast a vote for over a decade so whatever I thought of the political parties was academic. In that decade I have transitioned and at the same time transphobia has been growing. In truth I feel disillusioned with politics to the point that I wonder whether there is any point in voting at all as nobody seems to listen and self-interest, lies and deceit seem to be the order of the day.  

Of course, doing nothing is what allows such gross behaviour in our leaders to flourish, so I should try and make my vote count. So what do you do? These are local elections so the flavour of the governing party in Westminster will not change. In local matters being trans is not generally a matter of any interest it is much more about whether our local community should oppose the large scale building development or transport problems etc. 

In my town I have only received the usual propaganda from one party, the Lib Dems. I imagine the Conservatives, with the sitting M.P,  are too complacent to bother (though last time they came second in the local elections), Labour probably view it as a lost cause having only 4% of the vote at the last election. There is no sign of the Green party, they seem to be concentrating on Bristol in my part of the country. If there are any independents I have yet to notice.

So what is the policy in relation to trans people from our political parties. Liz Truss for the Conservatives is back tracking on reform to the Gender Recognition Act and has allowed the committee advising her Ministry on Transgender issues to come to an end. There is clearly no appetite to deliver on their promises. 

Labour have a policy which states “A  government will help save lives not ruin them. We will champion rights for LGBT+ communities across the UK and reform the Gender Recognition Act.”. 

The Lib Dems have adopted a stance against transphobia saying defining people as being a “biological” man or woman as being transphobic. It also states that  “There is still too little awareness of the transgendercommunity and the issues surrounding transgender communities are very often misunderstood. With this in mind a priority is to raise awareness of transgender people. To set an example in doing so Government should lead the way”.

The Green Party states that “the Green Party recognises that trans men are men, trans women are women, and that non-binary identities exist and are valid. We shall respect transgender and non-binary people’s identities as real. The Green Party shall include, and push for further acceptance of, transgender and non-binary people within all areas of society”. 

All of the parties despite their statements have difficulty with elements wanting to protect women’s rights and members supporting gender critical views. It remains a minefield for the political parties. I hope that by calm discussion and raising awareness of trans communities and transgender issues progress will be made by all of the parties in time. However despite  much reading I really am little closer to knowing how I will use my vote apart from not supporting the current majority party in Westminster. Maybe I will discover an honest candidate with integrity before the day arrives…. I can only hope.

I have been reading a book “To My Trans Sisters”. A collection of letters edited by Charlie Craggs written by trans women for their sisters. It has been a really affirming read. Eighty five letters from a very varied set of trans women of all ages.

I realised how times have changed. Letters from trans women of a similar age to me (70s,  I didn’t really admit that did !?) growing up pre internet feeling totally alone and in a very hostile environment where you were basically mentally deranged for feeling as you did. Homosexuality was still illegal and this was worse and incomprehensible. My light bulb book by Jan Morris Conundrum featured in a few letters. It was about the only book available and by then I was in my thirties still struggling with gender dysphoria and not knowing what it was.

All I knew then was that if I could have taken a pill and it would all of have gone away and I could be male I would have gladly taken it. As all trans people know it is not that simple! I have referred to tis before as the need to be true to yourself, to transition is like an unstoppable train, a runaway train. You are going to arrive whether you like it or not. I have always struggled with the thought that “you are so brave” to have come out and transitioned. I do not see it that way. It is not brave to do the inevitable.

Reading the letters this feeling of the inevitable is repeated frequently. The word that comes out of the letters is resilience. Trans people take a lot of stick, get knocked down, knocked back it’s the ability to pick oneself up. Many don’t. Sadly it is too much to deal with. Charlie Craggs, whose letter is the last in the book, she says “I had known she was transgender since she was four. It wasn’t until I was 21 that I accepted I was transgender though. This is because I didn’t want to be transgender. I didn’t think life would be worth living with how hard it would inevitable be, but it got to the point where I was so unhappy living a lie and so dysphoric in my male body it wasn’t worth living that way either.” The inevitable unstoppable train. She goes on to say “as soon as I stopped fighting who I was and accepted myself everything changed”. 

The key is to accept who you are. It doesn’t change anything about your body, you still dislike bits of you. Surgery may help change things s you are more comfortable with your body, ease dysphoria but it doesn’t change who you are. You have to learn to accept yourself, love yourself for who you are. Charlie Craggs goes on to say “it is vital we love ourselves as transwomen, because so many other people don’t. In fact they hate us”. What a dreadful thought. Learning to love yourself is essential.

It is resilience that carried me through. Some might say stubborness. Charlie Craggs says “when I started presenting female my life got so much harder. The amount of transphobia I faced on a daily basis was debilitating and I was scared to leave the house most days. But although my life got harder I was happier than I had ever been because I was finally being true to myself and more importantly loved and accepted myself.”This is so true. In my case a significant portion of the transphobia I faced was internalised, fear of transphobia also very debilitating.

Many letters make another very important point. Do not get so wrapped up in transition that it becomes your life. Transitioning is a period of change and route to freedom to allow yourself to lead a life, a true life of who you are. Having been on this road for a while I have realised I did become lost in transition and am now spending time in rebuilding a life first and foremost while improving my trans presentation continues along the way. It is important not to be defined by transition and being trans. At the same time I do not want to go stealth. I do not want to hide I am trans, it is what I am and I own it. However I do not feel the need to shout it from the roof tops to all and sundry.

One last thought I came across yesterday in the blog Cristi’s Condo who says where a CEO in his, now her, 50s realised he was transgender he said it best. “ once you have come to the conclusion that this is who you are…don’t delay.”

With hindsight that is so true and I wish all my transistors the resilience to take the knocks, pick yourself up and keep going towards living a true life.

Sometimes I have no clear idea of what I want to blog about. Today is one of those days. Usually I have some trans related thoughts going on which lead me to a post. In the last week I have been struck how the transition chatter has disappeared, for now at least and who knows maybe truly disappeared. My concentration now in terms of transition is simply to achieve the best transition I am able to do. There is a great deal to be done yet, I just have to do it.

Losing that chatter has allowed space for other matters which have been there to come forward. I often think about social justice or more accurately social injustice. I have referred to male privilege in the context of transition. However I am also aware that when I left the safety of living with my friends to move closer to my work I played it really safe and picked a “nice” country market town where I hoped I would be able to live without too much trouble and transphobic behaviour. It has turned out that way and apart from people clocking you are trans and looking rather obviously and the frequent mis-gendering, clearly deliberately, I am left to live quietly here.

So when the town’s Facebook page had a post asking the people in our town who feel passionately about the environment (basically litter and build no more houses)  that each and every one of us can extend their local outrage to local and national structural inequalities that we tend to overlook from our ivory towers. The writer asks that there be a focus on the inequality of Roma Gypsy and traveller communities, the governments desire to take away our civil liberties and suggests that it is time to use some of their energy used to protect are lovely fields to promote social equality and to start having the uncomfortable conversations the community consistently turns its face away from for some reason.

Well that touched a nerve. I came here so that I would feel safe, the community would probably be too “nice” to be difficult. Yet I care about the issues the writer raised. I have been feeling impotent about this government. What can one person do? That is really a cop out. One person gets together with another and another and a movement builds.

I have considerable respect for a blogger, Claire Flourish who rights consistently about trans rights and is active politically though I am afraid I have wondered what effect it really has.

So what do I do next. The writer of the post has suggested an evening meeting (wine optional) when restrictions lift. I feel the next step will be to send a PM to her and attend such an evening when it happens. 

Following on from my last blog entry I have been thinking about my interactions with people both in business and generally. This has been highlighted this week when I discovered that someone who had let me down last year in relation to a business deal, having strung it along for months assuring me all was good and that we would be having a completion soon, had been lying to me  for probably all of the time that he was dealing with me. In fact he was in big trouble having acted unprofessionally which has since resulted in him being struck off by his professional body for misconduct. I was quite upset over this.

I recall a time when if someone gave their word you could rely on it. Yes, okay I have been around for several decades and I do know that you cannot live in the past, yet it seems to me the general acceptance of the lowering of standards is something that is just taken for granted. I have always taken people at face value and looked for and believed the best in everyone until I see or experience something different. I feel naïve. As people have said to me on many occasions over the years “business is business”.

I have been reluctant to change my ways and stop being trusting. I have someone who I am dealing with now, who on being introduced said that he could invest a certain sum into a project only to find in a couple of weeks that that is not the case and that approximately slightly less than half of what he said was available is actually available. He is running around trying to find the balance. Why lie? 

In becoming true to myself I find that I am so much less tolerant of this kind of behaviour. It is disrespectful as well as a complete waste of time and energy. I want to reduce and eliminate dealing with anyone who is not able to be straightforward and open. 

Looking back from where I am now, one of the hardest things I have had to come to terms with is that I have been a serial liar. Lying was a way of life because I lied to myself. I lied about my core being. I lived a lie. I built up a whole persona of somebody I was not, to be acceptable to society, presenting a person who fitted in as life should be. 

The real me was a secret something to be ashamed of, to be kept hidden, totally unacceptable. My shame stopped me feeling anything yet I did everything as I should. I cared for people, I looked after people, I was the nice guy. Yet was any of that real, was I that person? I needed to be liked, to be seen as a good guy, the dependable one, nothing was too much trouble. I would go the extra mile to make things happen for others. I always put myself second, that was how it was. I didn’t feel I was being a martyr or sacrificing anything.

So what happened? Maybe I could have gone to my grave living that lie. The problem was my core being, my soul was not having it. I could not deny who I was any longer for my sanity. The real me started forcing its way out of its shell. I knew it was there, I allowed it out occasionally when the effort of keeping it locked down was too much, when it was hurting too much. I let it out surreptitously in safe circumstances where I couldn’t be found out. We could have a “love in”, be happy, have fun then it was time for it to be put away, be hidden again and I would be able to perform as “normal” living a lie.

Skip forward a few years and hey I am leading my life as me, the true me. I am transitioning I do not have to lie about who I am anymore. The trouble is I have been living a lie for decades, do I know what the truth is? I had always considered myself to be an honest person, someone who can be relied on. I was lucky enough to have people around me able to call me out on my behaviour. I didn’t so much blatantly lie, rather I would lie by omission. After all I had done that my whole life, that wasn’t lying. I seemed able to delude myself, believe things were other than they really were. It had become second nature. So that has been a really hard lesson to learn, to be real, be honest to do my best to say it as it is without embellishment. There are still times when the immediate response comes from old habits and I have to check myself and say no. Thankfully not often anymore.

To have friends willing to show me, hold up a mirror so I could see and understand has been and is an amazing gift that they have given to me. allowing me the opportunity to really grow and be who I am.

I feel it is true to say that the effect of gender dysphoria stretches further than simply the physical shell. Having transitioned I discovered with the help of my friends there is a whole new life and a new wholesome way of being to be lived.

I have mentioned before about feeling I should become more active in the transgender movement. I am troubled by the rising transphobia in the press and how transgender people are portrayed. In the same way being an activist has connotations of being someone who attends rallies, shouts and protests maybe having confrontations with the authorities. I cannot see myself being an activist in that way. So how do I go about raising my voice.

The beginning must be to stand tall and be visible. How can I speak if I am in hiding. I am in a reasonably good place. I have come to understand my gender dysphoria and have transitioned full time leading my life as the transgender woman I am. I am transitioning medically, sadly with very limited help from the NHS. I will come back to that. So why do I need to do anything? Well the more I understood about myself and also what it means to be transgender in our society in the UK, I realised how difficult the struggle is to be able to live freely as a consequence, the more I feel the need to try and do something. It is not enough to just carry on life quietly. I have been privileged in that I have largely been able to carry out my transition by funding it myself. I am a late transitioner and so had deliberately plotted a way to enable me to transition without being reliant on the NHS.

I had tried three of my GPs, at different parts of the country where I lived, and none of them considered it necessary to refer me to the GIC. I found the Gender GP and started private hormone treatment. Again none of the GPs were prepared to enter into a shared care arrangement. In time after another move  I found a GP who was willing to assist with the prescribed meds on the NHS, followed, after another move, by a GP who wouldn’t and lastly I have found one more GP who will. The point is this should not be haphazard, the luck of the draw. Then of course there is the question of surgery. You have to be referred. I ended up seeing the leading GIC psychiatrist privately to circumvent the NHS log jam. That should not be necessary and probably should not be possible. The same with the endocrinologist.

Why privately? Well the waiting list for a referral to the GIC clinic is running at about two to three years before you get your first letter of appointment. Then you have to live two years in your preferred gender in the real life test. So that is four to five years! 

I read today the story of a girl in her early twenties who has been on the referral list for five years without receiving her first appointment letter. She has decided to emigrate to New Zealand by seeking asylum from transphobic UK. A woman was granted permanent residence in New Zealand specifically on that ground. What does that say about the UK?

So how to be an activist. Firstly be visible. All of us are activists by simply being out there, by existing and being in the community. Every act however small raising awareness that trans people, gender diverse people exist, are “normal” and entitled to equal rights. One person can only do so much in this way, but by being seen and educating by example it will bring about change which will have a knock on effect that will grow.

Then along the lines which I mentioned in a recent blog follow the path suggested by Paula in her blog Paula’s Place.  Paula considers the slanging match between the TERFS and the outspoken trans activists is often counterproductive. A view with which I agree as the positions are so entrenched the chances of change is remote. She describes it as “being in a culture war that for the vast majority of people is seen as being irrelevant and as a Toxic Debate rather than the fight for survival it feels like.”

She goes on to say ,

 “all the time we are defensive, all the time we are responding, we are allowing a very small, highly toxic, highly vocal, but very small minority to set the agenda. Sure they are well funded and have much of the main stream media on their side, but being on the defensive only plays into their hands ~ we end up playing their game, with their ball, to their rules ~ we simply can’t really expect to win in those circumstances now can we.”

The suggestion is to get the political masters on side. Easier said than done considering the stand taken by the Equality Minister which has caused the recent resignation of three members of the advisory panel over the Government’s position on trans rights in particular. However that means we have to try harder and with some trepidation I feel I will have to add my voice to this task.

International Day of Women.

There is an interesting thought for a trans woman. It should be straightforward. I am a woman. So this must be a day I can celebrate. However to many I am not a woman or as some put it so graphically a “person that menstruates’. Well I wouldn’t anyway as I am menopausal though I appreciate that is note point. I have covered the arguments put forward before as to how one defines “woman” so all i need to know is that I am a woman. I identify as a woman, I feel feminine. I have never felt male and yes I am not a perfect cis woman. So enough of that I am a woman and that is that. I have a day to celebrate if I so choose. So far I have had the opportunity to win a pair of Addidas Trainers in celebration of International Women’s Day. I am not sure that was quite what I had in mind if I am to celebrate my femininity and International Women’s Day.

What I was going to write about today was about toxicity. As with internalised transphobia there is a passive toxicity in being trans when it comes to employment. This was why I tried hard to be self-sufficient and self-employed.  In real terms this worked for me. I am aware that as a trans woman gaining employment is difficult. You cannot give your qualifications or provide any references without revealing your previous identity. There is also a passive toxicity because most employers are not willing to take the risk of employing a trans person in case there is a possibility it might damage their business in any way. So what do you do? Continue living a lie and keep your male identity to stay in gainful employment or do you become honest and straightforward and say this is me. It is one of the challenges I had when transitioning. I knew I had to provide for my family. I was not prepared to damage their lives by being unable to continue to support them. It took a while to plan how I could be self-employed and to build a way of life that might survive transition as nobody was going to fire me. Doing my own projects working for myself seemed the best way forward.

It is important to not allow internalised toxicity from preventing you moving forward. You have to let go of it. For me to do that I had to plan an alternative way of working so I could be true to myself. 

I have been reading, dipping into, Trans Britain Our Journey from the Shadows edited by Christine Burns. Apart from the fact I agree with the comment “one of the most interesting books I read this year: Guardian Best Books of 2018” on the front cover, it is a eye opening book.

I am a mature trans woman who transitioned late in life. My first efforts at coming to grip with being transgender was pre internet. My lightbulb moment came from reading Jan Morris’ Conundrum. Yet the material available to expand on that knowledge was really limited. Reading this book it brought back all the magazines which, with hindsight, were essentially fetish magazines for Transvestites. Nothing wrong with that but not really relating to gender dysphoria. 

It brought back the seemingly impossibility of doing anything about changing your gender. In one chapter written by Christine Burns “ is there anyone else like me” she describes that “it was quite possible to think back then that transition was a thing undertaken by a different more exotic kind of person” going on to say that “the rich and poetic language of Morris’ account underlines that this maybe not something for more common mortals”. it is true that I felt like that. I toyed with venturing to Morocco as Jan Morris had done for her surgery. In reality it seemed too difficult to contemplate, for a mere mortal rather an erudite much travelled journalist.

I was completely unaware that there was treatment available from the mid 60s in England. It was not until later in the early noughties that I read about and came across Dr Russell Reid and determined to make an appointment only to find that he had been censured by the General Medical Council and that was no longer a possibility. 

What I have also found really well portrayed is how with no attempt of hiding various contributors are quite open about their ignorance of the real trans situation. Dr Lynne Jones, a former MP, describes how she was approached by a trans woman’s partner ( as they were too worried about privacy and confidentiality originally ) and herself remarks that “if I am honest what little thought I had given to trans people would have been unthinkingly dismiss them as rather weird in wanting to change sex. The idea that people would actually choose to go through such a mutilating process meant they must be disordered or seeking some kind of sexual gratification. I had never even considered how cruel such a view was or understood that like being gay it was not a matter of choice”. To read that was powerful. To see that in writing and to see it expressed in a way that shows it was frankly the main stream view somehow validated my feelings fears and concerns I had had all those years ago. Dr Jones became an ardent activist and supporter for trans people bringing about change.

What is also good about the book is that it brings it up to date with current topics around activism and how it has developed. A book no trans person should miss. Watch this space as I dip into it some more.

Internalised transphobia. That is not something I have really thought about or considered. It refers to feelings some people have inside them that might not even be aware of with reference to how some people hate a part of themselves and are ashamed of it. It is that thought inside yourself that tells you “You are not a real woman”. 

Why does this happen? It would seem that it is a result of the perspective created by discrimination, ignorance in society against any form of being different. Trans people have been and are a group where it is acceptable to make them the butt of jokes, to make fun of them making them seem “less than, inferior” and an object for derision and sadly violence. By growing up in an environment where this happens on a regular or common basis it is something that one might take in and assimilate whether you believe it or not. It is the natural way of society. It is learnt from people around us before we become self-aware.

Certainly when I was growing up subliminal message are received from teachers and parents when we are really young that any form of gender non conformity is bad. For example, be a man, don’t  be girlish etc… This indoctrination often comes from people of authority, those we are supposed to trust. Parents, teachers, the church.

The trouble then is that if you start to become aware of your own non-conforming feelings, that you are possibly transgender you find out that you belong to a group, a minority that you have already learnt is a group to be mocked, derided and even hated. The result is that you end up hating something which is a part of ourselves, in fact hating our very core. This is internalised transphobia.

People with internalised transphobia feel shame and hate part of themselves resulting in low self-esteem often leading to feeling inferior, embarrassed and unlovable. They start hiding themselves or forging a different identity pretending to be someone else. I did that quite successfully for decades. You end up feeling sad, always unhappy, lonely and often angry; though again you tend to disassociate from those feelings, feeling nothing.

It gets better, the first step is recognising how you feel, that you have internalised transphobia and then step by step with support become accepting and positive about who you are. To learn to like who you are. It takes time to learn to be transphobic. It takes time to undo deeply held beliefs about people who differ from gender norms.

I have been taking those steps and do feel positive about who I am a trans woman. I had not identified that what I had been doing was undoing internalised transphobia. It might have been easier if I had understood it more, I don’t know. It has been interesting looking at my journey through a different perspective.