To Lincoln, where I have agreed to be interviewed on BBC Radio Lincoln about the Rachel Millington case. In the end, it turns out to be an interview about me. Ambush? Probably not.
Trans stuff is in the local news, and they can hardly be blamed for surfing the news wave. So I chat amiably enough with Melvyn Prior, the show’s host.
Most of it is pretty easy stuff…until we get to what is probably a fair question, but actually hurts rather more than I expected. He asks me about reactions I get on the street, seeing as my look is still very much on the “manly” side. I am minded to kick him, but there is a large desk in the way.
It’s a fair question, going, as it does, to the heart of the disparity between the world as we would wish it to be, and the world as it is. I might wish to be taken as female, to pass effortlessly in public, and to do so after two days of hormones and a dash of make-up. But I don’t.
It echoes the good doctor’s suggestion, the previous week, that I should investigate facial feminisation surgery before I go for the full gender surgery. Blithely, I brush it aside. I know all the stuff about gender being social construct: how its far more than the way you are perceived by others.
Besides, my hair is a mess…hair appointment scheduled for this evening: roots to be redone; highlights touched up. I’ve left my eyeliner behind, and a rush make-up job in the cab just can’t compare to my usual more measured morning routine
But, but, but…it hurts.
The rest of the day is spent pondering which particular bits of cosmetic surgery might be worth considering: which likely to collapse as I reach my dotage. In the evening, at the hairdresser, I glare at a reflection that glares back at me. My features remain stubbornly, intractably manly. Damn.
Not a happy bunny.
Jane
xx
P.S. If you want to catch up on the interview, it is likely to be here for the next week or so, from about 30 minutes in…
P.P.S There is something about Lincoln. I am used, now, to Peterborough and the muted level of background transphobia I encounter on the streets there. Either I was unlucky today, or Lincoln is just that bit more transphobic…which might explain something about Rachel’s case.
