Annual roundup

Each year I do a summary of my past year en femme.

Let me be honest, the first half of the year only saw me experimenting with medicines and makeup to see if I could go out femme again. The second half of the year, for reasons not chiefly connected with my femme life, was unspeakable. It is a testament to the love and care that women tend to express more than men that saw many of my TGirlfriends help me out in ways both practical and emotional. My thanks to them all.

So, well, there isn't a huge amount to say apart, frankly, from being glad to see the back of 2016.

I have seen something of my TGirlfriends this year. But mainly I had to be in boy mode when I did so. This makes me unhappy and there's a limit of about three on the numbers of dressed or transitioned girls I can see at any one time before I feel really gloomy that I can't participate fully. The one trip I made out en femme, on 5th November, was lovely, though. The rest of the time I have dressed fully I was at home. There are some good photos but I am still hobbled (if that's the right word) by the eczema on my face that reacts badly to makeup (or anything that goes on it).

Home Makeup Experiment I

Home Makeup Experiment II

Home Makeup Experiment III

In Tapas Revolution, London

With Jill, Linda and Rachel at our old haunt, Verge Bar, London

Home Makeup Experiment IV

The highlight of my year, though, was visiting my fabulous TGirlfriend Roz White and her welcoming family who live in the Orkney Islands. Roz is shortly to go full time and her family have been supportive and so has her workplace. This is wonderful news. I did have a lovely weekend there and saw the most amazing things. Here's my favourite picture, of an ancient stone circle, the Ring of Brodgar, one of many testifying to the civilization that existed there 4000-5000 years ago.

It's been a year when so many celebrity deaths seem to have occurred and, for TGirls, David Bowie and Pete Burns are perhaps the obvious ones. But for me, the death of Carrie Fisher just a few days ago has been most poignant as it was this first sight of Princess Leia in the opening sequence of Star Wars that actually had a direct influence on my femme development. Here was a woman whose small stature, and very similar hair and eyes to mine, hid a feminine yet strong personality. Despite the world Princess Leia inhabited being fictitious, there was something that made me appreciate that I could make my way in the real world as a woman if I adopted that kind of attitude, and I started dressing in earnest and playing with dolls after she came on the scene. RIP Carrie.

Credit: Absolute Film Archive

Thank you to all my readers who have stuck with me in this barren year. Here's hoping for a very much better 2017.

Sue x