Given that passing is allegedly the holy grail of all transition,it might come as a surprise when i admit that it has me thoroughly floored.
For twice, now, in the space of 48 hours, being accepted as who i am has had me in a tizz, wondering whether i ought not to out myself “just in case”. Read the rest of this entry »
Grief! What is going on? I mean: really, what is going on?
Out and about again yesterday evening, doing my best to maintain the pose of a freeloading hack (and failing miserably: I scored a meagre couple of canapés, a slice of cake and a cranberry and vodka cocktail).. . and I appear to be passing. Again.
In spades.
Read the rest of this entry »
Very strange. I was on the train to London. Across the aisle, a bunch of less than couth northerners quite blntly discussing Thailand, ladyboys and sex change. And it had nothing whatosever to do with me.
Two wonderully quirky assumptions this week, both making me smile, though for rather different reasons.
The first, part of one of those introductory conversations you have when you meet someone and start to compare background: friends, family, kids… I mention the boy, and how i’ll be keeping him entertained over the weekend.
“Nice”, come back the response. “And who does he live with?”
“Huh? His parents”, i reply, slightly mischievously.
“Oh. So you’re not his parent?”
Er, hang on! This feels like a good point to abandon the direction this conversation seems to be veering in. No. His parents haven’t split. Yes, I’m a parent: and no, i’m not a grandparent.
I am not sure which i find more odd: the assumption that if one transitions, one must automatically split: or that i am a grandparent. Grrrr! Not for a few years yet, I hope.
Next up is another quite similar conversation, with another new acquaintance. Or rather, an old acquaintance who has always previously been ever so clightly arms length. No particular reason: just we haven’t had call to chat intimately…and yesterday, we did.
Friends, partners and offspring, once again to the fore. The boy comes up again, and i mention that he is joint effort by me and andrea.
“Oh.”
There is an obvious pause. Wassup? Did i just put my foot in it.
Not exactly: I’ve known said acquaintance for a couple of years now. And she has never known me as anyone except Jane.
OMG! I realise the number of people to whom that applies must now be growing. And she…well, she’s always known me as Jane…pretty much always thought of me as a woman.
So for one brief moment, before realisation set in, she assumed we’d opted for IVF and…was about to inquire which one of us had been mum. I like that.
A fair bit better than being thought of as grandma. 
jane
xx
Very much looking forward to tonight’s episode of “Transsexual Summer”.
Rather less looking forward to the theme that i know already is gonig to emerge amongst some of the tweeters, along the lines of how “unconvincing” the girls look. OK: that’s slightly better than a thread during the week on the army scut board, which appeared to settle on the consensus that, “if it has a hole, its probably worth fucking”…but that’s military “humour” for you and little to be done about that.
Its a shame. The very idea of judging someone exclusively on looks is something that cis women have had to put up with for a long time: and this is no more than a continuation of rude sexist/misogynist attitudes under another guise.
They are also quite wrong: as i posted several times last week…those not close to the trans community just don’t know. The irony of this programme is, i suspect, that it only works so long as the people in it HAVEN’T fully transitioned.
Because once they have, a fair few just wouldn’t be recognisable as trans: whereas for now, you have mostly pre-op; very early days indeed, in Sarah, and Karen presumably shown at her worst, during the pre-op phase where she has to come off hormones.
There’s personal resonance there, too. A close friend of andrea’s, recently, was overheard describing me: apparently i look just like a middle-aged woman. Hmmmph! Middle-aged!
But that’s really as it should be.
If anything, i am starting to find passing quite weird. From spending so long looking wistfully over the fence and…just assuming i never would, the boost effect of hormones post-op…my increasing confidence in myself…more and more, i am greeted as Ma’am, no questions asked, referred to as “this lady”…and pretty generally seen wherever i go as female.
Good.
The only problem i have…maybe an issue i (half tongue-in-cheek, half not) need to talk thru is that it is taking me by surprise.
No. I never believed it would happen. Wheres now, there are odd occasions where i get “sir’d”…but they are fewer and fewer, and stand out like a sore thumb.
Initially, i thought it was just niceness…political correctness even.
Finally, though, i think i am going to have to start to accept that no: maybe it is real. It is how i am genuinely perceived – and that is beyond my wildest dreams.
jane
xx
I’m moving on. Not yet. Not quite. But there is definite movement in the air.
The tents have been taken down. Most of my stuff is back in the rucksack. and its time for one last look round and a mug of coffee before going back on the trail (though why i’m reaching for a camping metaphor when you wouldn’t find me terminated with extreme prejudice under canvas nowadays, i dunno).
Moving on, that is, from trans 101: i’ve done the interviews (and the documentary): done the early stages, and the middle stages and the big scary op; the obsession, too, with clothes and nail polish and boobs. A fair few people, i think, misconstrued the latter.
Really, all that public exposition was about two things: the Brave New World experience…the sheer joy (and wonder) of crossing boundaries for the first time and just looking at where i was. Understanding, in some small way, differences between the before and after.
Also, it was about insecurity and checking. For me – and this i SHOULD write about – transition was as much about acceptance in my identity as bodily change. Though, since the latter has happened, i am utterly amazed by how much difference so small a modification to one’s body makes.
Because its about acceptance its not about conformity, exactly: but there is a strong sense of needing to know what “normality” is, in order thereafter to be able to decide for myself whether i do or do not wish to conform. So its checking, checking, checking – and at every step of the way desperately seeking feedback.
Not done with that: not by a long way. But i am growing more confident in just getting on with being me.
Which brings us back to the moving on stuff…and the somewhat weary view of a certain poster on here – Liz – that “i’d learn”. By which i think she meant that as i travelled the transition route, i’d be less and less inclined to identify as trans – and therefore, by being as public as i have been, i’d in time come to regret that.
Well. Half right. Still no regrets whatsoever on the public score. Maybe i’d have had a different take if i’d transitioned younger: but at fifty-something, one has too much past ever to put it aside completely. There will always be many in my life who know where i’ve come from, no matter how they see me, how they treat me, now.
All the same, I do agree with Liz in terms of how i feel. I suspect i once thought i’d always view myself as “trans”. Increasingly, though, i don’t. I’ve not finished transitioning: in one sense, no-one ever does.
But where i live, where i belong, where i spend my time increasingly is campaigning alongside other women on women’s issues. I don’t believe i’ll ever turn my back on trans issues: nor that i would go “stealth”.
But its a shift and therefore, it means a bit of a shift blog-wise. There’ll still be loads of personal experience on here – but i suspect the personal will be less and less trans, more and more campaigner across a load of sexual rights issues.
I hope that makes sense: in time, though, everything moves on.
jane
xx
Friday was strange.
Something was missing. But what? As i walked down the street, in the middle of London, it came slowly, slowly into focus. The looks: those rapid sideways glances; where were they?
Sure: the occasional shifty look – but about as many of those at my boobs as at me!
I was bemused. Befuddled. Where have all the gawkers gone?
One more time: i can’t believe its because i pass THAT well! But maybe i have passed the tipping point. Or London is incredibly tolerant. Or they’re so bored of trans persons they can’t be bothered to look. Or for the vast majority, i am no longer in any way exceptional.
Underground, i kept flicking my eyes back at passers by. Had they just got more subtle? Were they still looking, but only as i was almost past them? Nope.
It has its downside, of course.
I was wearing sandals (ultra-blingy, natch!) and on Kings Cross station a large burly man just bulldozed past, wheelie suitcase following. He ran over my toes! I squeaked in protest – and he just kept on walking.
No. Its definitely strange. I don’t exactly want the staring back… but i’ve grown so used to it, i’ve maybe forgotten just how omnipresent it had become.
As someone helpfully observed. Not! This is the lot of middle-aged women: to become invisible. So if no-one can see me, i’m passing.
Perhaps i should start staring at the other folks. Or take a leaf or two out of Vivienne Westwood’s style book.
jane
xx
Two small encounters at the weekend. Yet maybe they are telling me something.
Yesterday, I stopped in to my usual coffee bar (one of the Costa’s in the centre of Peterborough) to be greeted by a new barista. “What would Madam like?”
“Does Madam, want milk with that?”
“Could Madam help by paying over this side”.
OK. Maybe he was just being very canny, but it didn’t feel that. Didn’t feel remotely pc, for once.
The day before, chatting with a woman I met at my local (where they had music and revoltingly bitter rare ales for the bank holiday) her daughter cut in. Not with the usual innocence-of-babes remark along the lines of “is that a man or a lady?”
But instead: “Mum: that lady sounds like a boy”.
Huh?
I mean NO! Really? Really, really?
I don’t believe it. I don’t know how to believe it. But it makes me feel like crying just to think its becoming true.
jane
xx
P.S. a minor coda to the above (and maybe evidence that the speech therapy, too, is beginning to have some effect).
But i am getting good at launching phone conversations several tens of Hertz higher than i used to. So I picked up the phone to andrea’s mum a few minutes back and… she didn’t recognise my voice. Thought she had a wrong number.
Wow!
Once again, i don’t quite dare to believe. But she isn’t the first now to notice.
Double wow!
So there was a point to the last post. Over and above what I actually had to say in it (though its something I’d been wanting to write about for a while now).
A week back, I had a brief exchange with a certain Sophie, who said two things: that she thought me brave for being so “out” and so prepared to link back to my past; and that she herself had gone a long way to break links to her past.
Bravery over-rated
On the first point, I’m not sure what to add. “You’re so brave” is one of those things I keep hearing and not understanding. I’m not. I’m just not. “Brave” would be feeling what I feel and pretending still to be a bloke: it would be (pointlessly) living out the rest of my life in silent suited anonymity. Or maybe that would just be stupid.
But this? Brave? Nah. Its what I am and the fact that people sometimes laugh at me for it and sometimes try and hit me for it – that’s just occupational hazard. Still, in line with my newfound politeness (not modesty) I’ll try and agree with folks who say this in future. Or at least not push them back.
Accepting the past
But what about the link to the past. Ah. Now there I know I am in two minds: know also that my view is shifting.
Back at the start of transition, I felt I’d always keep my past in full view. I’m not so sure about that now. Not that I’m planning or thinking I’ll ever go full stealth. But because I’ve shifted.
The old me – the me that I tend rarely now to name – is growing ever more distant and yes: ever so slightly alien. Was I EVER him, I find myself wondering.
Well, yes, of coure: and I’m not unproud of my achievements. The me who exists now the me who can build a scoring system, write an academic article, or pen a short story: that me is the direct linear descendant of the old me, the “he” who learnt those skills.
And yet.. . and yet.. . I feel increasingly estranged. I noticed it the very first time whilst filming a couple of months back. The crew wanted to see me reading something work related. I picked up a random piece of paper and – it was something relating to an old contract. A piece of paper with HIS name on it.
(see.. . there’s him and there’s me: I even think about us that way).
I covered the name. Whatever film we are making now is about me: not him. And I hadn’t quite realised, ‘til I did that, just how far I’d come, how strongly I felt about this stuff.
Out and proud
So maybe I’m not quite as out or as brave as I sound. I’m very publically trans: though maybe that is in part my own take on how passable (I think) I am.
I always had a media presence, and that has been exacerbated by “becoming” trans. I believe in standing up for people – and it makes sense to stand up for those I am now closest to in terms of interests and characteristics. So, of course, I’m out and trans and proud to be part of that community.
But yes: if I happened to be more confident of passing, would I be so loud?
Interesting question. I’m a pragmatist. I don’t worry overmuch about being linked to my past, because I know we all are – and I know that the past fades quickly enough.
Right now, I just have no belief in ever quite passing fully. So I don’t object to being openly trans. If that changes, though, will i?
Good question – and one to which I have no instant answer.
jane
xx
No, before you switch off in your droves. This is still the personal blog, dedicated mostly to hopefully interesting snippets of comedy and tragedy from my transition journey. Anything philosophical or heavily political sits across the way at the “Sex Matters” blog.
So this is not some incredibly thought-out critique of post-modern feminist thinking – or equivalent.
Rather, i have been noticing an odd sort of trend lately. Its blokes: blokes stopping and holding doors open for me.
Andrea reckons its cause i am starting to pass more more often. I still don’t believe that. I think its more mixed: that on spotting me out of the corner of their eye, others on the street initially categorise me as female and respond accordingly – albeit deciding a few seconds later that my status is rather less clearcut.
Still, those few seconds are all it takes for the cultural over-ride to set in, and for blokes to be stepping ahead and holding doors open for me or, contrariwise, standing back and letting me push my shopping trolley in first.
Weird. Its only noticeable because i’ve had a lifetime of it not happening – or rather, only rarely happening.
So, if door opening is evidence of the patriarchy’s stranglehold, its still pretty much got a headlock on society.
Not that i do believe that. Remember, this is the light and breezy (mostly) daily experience blog. But it does highlight how deeply ingrained social habits must be.
jane
xx
