Review of 2017

Well, it’s the last day of the year and that means… it’s time to review my fem life this past year. The review of 2016 was one of the most popular posts on my blog so maybe you’ll like this one, too.

Life itself has been exceptionally difficult and so the days I managed to get out and about and be treated as Sue were precious. I forgot to write up about some of those events so this post is not a repeat of the past.

I went out with Sarah in February for a day out in London (http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/another-day-out.html), a day’s shopping in March (http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/and-out-again.html) and met up with the Brick Lane girls later that month (http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/the-old-familar-faces-and-happy-routine.html). But I didn’t write up about meeting up with Gina in April. Gina’s popped up from time to time in my posts over the years and she contacted me as she was spending a weekend in London.

We met in Greenwich for the Star Wars exhibition at the O2 (the Millennium Dome as was). This was chiefly a display of props, models and costumes from the films, and in that respect was rather special.

But to pad it out you developed your own character, choosing species, psychology, role, etc. I ended up as this critter:

Fighter pilot, female (oh yes, believe me).

After a bite to eat we saw the last of the tall ships that were sailing downriver, some on their way to Canada apparently. It’s an annual regatta. 

And we went up the hill to the observatory, too. A nice day with a nice friend.

One evening in June I met up with my lovely friend Steph whom I hadn’t seen for years and we enjoyed dinner together in Chinatown. We had no idea what this flower-decorated car was all about but obviously it was a photo opportunity!

July, of course, was Sparkle (http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/sparkle-2017.html), when it was so good to meet up with old friends and make new ones and take part in such a massive event.

October saw a gathering of girls in London for lunch (http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/absent-friends.html), which was a nice little meet-up in old haunts.

A lot of the time I have spent in more androgynous mode, especially on holiday (see October). I have been pretty devastated by last year’s news from my doctors that there isn’t a cure for the eczema that has ravaged my face since 2014, and although I have been able to change my makeup so that there is now little serious effect, it has made me consider the possibility of presenting nominally male but feeling and looking a little more female. It’s not really me, though, as my femininity is important to me, as is being treated as female, so just wearing women’s clothing doesn’t satisfy. However, I did manage to have several worthwhile and desperately needed short breaks at last, to Lille in France, to Germany, to Wiltshire and Somerset, and to Prague with Sarah.

As for next year, 2018, I am hoping that I will be able get out more now that I have, I hope, a little more time and a new makeup regime that doesn’t seem to cause my face to flare up.

Here's my avatar for next year.

 

Thanks for reading and let me wish you a happy, prosperous and fulfilling 2018.

Love

Sue x

Seasons Greeting

Wishing all my readers a very happy holiday time.

We all need a winter festival in the darkest days of the year, whether it be Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah or other. In the last few years that I have worked for myself at home and have to close the curtains at about quarter past three on December afternoons, I tend to put up a Christmas tree early in December as well as other lights and decorations or it would be too gloomy.

My tree fairy

I'll be spending Christmas Day with a sister (not the Anti-Lugbutt one) and Boxing Day will be my usual alternative Christmas at home with a nice dress on and my favourite food.

Hope you have a good break

Sue x

Christmas shopping

The last post was a very serious one so here's something lighter.

I don't have a big family so Christmas shopping is actually quite quick and easy, and not too expensive either since some people only want nominal gifts. I confess I usually give myself a little treat, too, traditionally a pair or two of fancy tights. But this year I've bought myself another bottle of my favourite perfume, Versace Crystal Noir.

In the last few years I've also put up a Christmas tree in early December. Now, traditionalists will be shocked: when I was a kid, the tree went up on Christmas Eve and came down on January 6th, after Twelfth Night. But now I prefer to call it my Winter Tree because ever since I started working for myself in my own home, I find that having something bright and cheerful in the room for 2-3 weeks before and after the winter solstice makes all the difference to my mood. There are only about six hours of proper daylight here and the winter grey is desperately gloomy otherwise.

I also wonder if it's time to buy a new frock. (Hey, isn't it always time for a new frock?) Boxing Day is when I have time to myself and it's nice to dress up smartly, which is never an option on Christmas Day with family. I'm thinking red this year. Let's see what I can find in the shops.

I hope your Christmas preparations go well.

Sue x

Historic child abuse update

Three years ago I wrote about the appalling abuse that went on at my school. Since writing, there have been several successful prosecutions of teachers who sexually abused children or who downloaded child porn – including sick torture porn. And several unsuccessful prosecutions, including one slippery character who seems to avoid jail every time he is taken to court. I think witnesses feel too intimidated to give evidence.

My previous blog post is here: http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/historic-child-abuse-new-hope.html

This post is not going to be any easier.

The local education authority has written to ask for help with their enquiry to prevent such problems arising in future. But in my view not only will this do nothing to cure the problem (which has been going on for over 50 years at that place) but it’s just another way of the authorities saying something has been done when, in fact, nothing substantial will have been done at all. Lone wolves will still be predators and, when caught, the school authorities will close ranks and cover their behaviour up again, probably more so as they can’t afford a second scandal.

In parallel, the national investigation into historic abuse by senior figures, especially politicians, is constantly experiencing delays and difficulties and has run through no end of chairmen without getting very far. I suspect the powers that be will kill it off eventually. The Prime Minister is being accused in some sections of the press of orchestrating a cover-up. There is never anything really resembling justice in any of this. Most of the perps are dead for a start.

As ever, the emphasis in all this is on sex, but sexual abuse is actually one manifestation of the abuse of power and not directly about sex. Puritan sexual mores are still a British obsession. My complaint – and that of many of my peers – is about the violence and abuse we were subjected to, of which inappropriate sexual behaviour was a part (though undeniably the worst part). Children as young as 9 kicked and punched and slapped, heads banged on walls and against each other, their clothes ripped by teachers. The evidence given in court regarding boys being subject to oral sex and sexual spanking rituals made me feel ill and angry.

Obviously, being transgender at a school for boys was especially hard, and I can think of a couple of other pupils in my time who might have been trans, too. In many ways it served to put me right off macho culture and when I went into higher education and there were girls there I felt a whole lot happier and more relaxed, although the absence of violence and abuse was the best thing.

Here are just three images from my time at school that are burnt in my mind and sum it up:-

- Aged 10, a teacher gets irritated with a boy and he is asked to stay behind after class while the rest of us go for the afternoon break. Ten minutes later the boy emerges, face twisted in agony, barely able to walk. He has been kicked in the shins so many times that he hobbles for days and has livid bruises for even longer.

- Aged 11, a teacher gets irritated with the boy next to me and slaps his face repeatedly and with such force that his nose bursts. I can still hear that loud crack of meaty adult fist on child flesh. This boy, incidentally, is the class bully, but I feel sorry for him. His father, also a teacher at the school, is the most evil man I have ever met; even after all these years, nobody has ever beaten him for malice, and I’ve met some nasty characters in my years. The dad did nothing but beat this boy at home with his belt. It seems that the boy had little to look forward to in life but brutality at home and brutality at school. No wonder he was a bully. I guess he reckoned that’s how you get on in life. But we all knew of his horrible existence and didn’t therefore hold his nastiness that much against him. It was as well to be able to fight, though, and once when he attacked me I replied with a left hook that knocked him down and became legendary. He certainly respected me after that. We had an uneasy friendship and, like I say, I felt very sad for him. I don’t know whether he has made good in life or has gone to the wall. Maybe it’s best not to enquire.

- Aged 13, a teacher gets his amusement each lesson by selecting a pupil to answer a question and then slaps that pupil's cheeks in turn until he gives the right answer. It hurt all right.

And on and on and on and on, not to mention the sarcasm and verbal abuse as well, the constant, never-ending threats and random punishments. At least you could go home in the evenings. Well, all apart from those pupils who somehow are cajoled into teachers’ homes and rooms to be sexually assaulted. A longer description of this place is given in my earlier post.

One of the reasons I haven’t had kids myself is that I wouldn’t want someone, especially my own child, to go through that. The friends I’ve asked about their schools didn’t experience anything like this, though. That makes me doubly angry.

I doubt I will waste any more time talking to the authorities about this. It’s authority that is the problem in the first place, and with a current political situation here as deranged as it is I know that kids of the future are going to be brutalised as well. I am beginning to feel that conquering evil is impossible.

Sue x

Transgender battles go on

I’m very pleased to hear that several transgender candidates have been voted into office in the USA, notably Danica Roem in elections to the Virginia state legislature. What’s especially appealing here is that she ousted Bob Marshall, the incumbent and self-styled “chief homophobe” whose obsession with oppressing trans and gay people makes one wonder about his mentality. But then I have that kind of obsessive in my own family.

Also good news from Australia where a public vote has shown over 61% support for same-sex marriage. I’m delighted for gay Australians who might want to marry and gain the same legal rights as straight couples. Improvements in trans rights tend to follow on behind gay rights.

Now, I know I am not a US or Australian citizen so you could say that these things are none of my business. However, as we approach Transgender Day of Remembrance, a memorial to all trans people who have been murdered or who have killed themselves around the world, it’s hardly possible not to feel affinity with trans people in countries other than our own.

This week has seen especially vile articles in the British press attacking trans children and organisations that support them or try to understand them, another easy target for the bullies who dominate the badly regulated print media industry. The British print press is probably the worst in the world (unlike broadcast media). The government, on the other hand, seems to be taking a positive view of improved trans rights. That sounds good… but regrettably, this government is quite possibly the most dictatorial, destructive and nasty since Cromwell’s, over 350 years ago, and I feel uncomfortable with any improved rights for trans people being associated with measures being enacted at the very same time to reduce human rights, employment rights, parliamentary scrutiny and other frightening developments.

Being trans and out is difficult and scary. Thankfully many members of the public are supportive. But our enemies are cruel and unscrupulous. What a horrible era that’s erupted all of a sudden, so let’s be glad of any successes.

Sue x

Absent friends

Ages ago, back in early February in fact, my lovely friend Roz, whom I visited at her home in Orkney last summer, booked to come to London at the very end of October and stay with me for nearly a week. And then, mid-way through October, she was forced by circumstances to cancel. I'm very sad about this as we'd planned all sorts of stuff. I hope that all will work out well for Roz.

As a number of girls from the locality had been looking forward to seeing Roz for Sunday lunch, we decided to go ahead with that event anyway.

Long-term readers of my blog will be familiar with Salieri Italian restaurant in the Strand in the heart of London and it was there that Ange P, Sarah C, Emma W and wife Jackie and I met to enjoy a good meal and catch up.

After which, Emma and Jackie and I went to a lovely watering hole, the Chandos, just off Trafalger Square, and had a good long chat. Because of my illness, it's been years since we were both out in London as women.

Dear Roz was sorely missed, and we toasted her. For me, it was still delightful to be back in familiar company in familiar places again.

I mustn't forget to mention that I also saw Grace Johnstone and Mrs Grace last Thursday. Grace is the trans woman who wrote the short play Face2Face Time that I reviewed back in June. Originally we had intended to meet with Roz, of course. Sadly not to be, but it was lovely to meet Mrs Grace for the first time and rejoice that here was another natal woman who supported the trans community. Grace came out to her 18-year old son a few days before and was delighted with the positive response. I have a lot of faith in the younger generation of today.

A nice couple of meetups that made me very happy to be out as a woman again.

Sue x

Androgynous holidays 3: Prague

So I conclude this little collection of posts about getting away by describing a long weekend in Prague with my friend Sarah.

This is indeed a beautiful city. World War II didn’t touch it, despite (or actually because of) its being in the heart of Hitler’s empire, so a thousand years of history remains layered everywhere. The buildings are beautiful, and so is the setting among steep hills with the river flowing through, and there is an abundance of things to see. It’s all very walkable but the public transport is also cheap and efficient. I’m less excited by Czech food and beer, I confess, but that’s a minor point (once the food gets grim there are plenty of Italian and other foreign cuisines to be had).

Prague Panorama 1: from the Castle

Prague Panorama 2: from Letna Park

Prague Panorama 3: from Zizkov Tower

We spent our first day visiting the obvious sites: the Old Town Square, the Tyn Church, the Old Town Hall with its famous astronomical clock and caught the procession of figures striking the hour, the Charles Bridge and the Castle complex on the hill.

Beautiful buildings everywhere you look

Bridge gatehouse

So much decoration on so many buildings

Castle, churches, statues

The next day, in contrast, we ventured out to what has been described as the “World’s Second Ugliest Building” (I couldn’t tell you what the first is) – a futuristic Soviet-era tower built to jam West German TV, but opened just as the Iron Curtain collapsed so its only function now is to provide a view of the whole city. Its most bizarre feature is the giant babies crawling up it, artworks that were taken away for repair just a few days after we visited. Don’t ask me their significance!

We also wanted to visit the nearby Military Museum to see the V2 rocket and other stuff (Sarah is a rocket scientist) but it was closed for a major refit so instead we tramped up the steep hill to the National Monument which contains the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

We then went to the National Technological Museum. Bohemia, later Czechoslovakia, later the Czech Republic, has always been a major mining and manufacturing area and the Czech-built planes, trains and automobiles were interesting, as were the galleries of mining equipment and astronomical instruments (we both like astronomy). Mining is in the lowest basement, astronomy on the top floor. Seems appropriate! The gallery of illusions was great – rooms that appear to make you shrink or so steep-floored that you have to lean to appear upright... Pretend you’re Alice in Wonderland! An excellent museum.

Day III and we went to the Museum of Communism. Not many exhibits as such, mainly information boards, but the message was clear: communism was a dirty fraud and the Czechs with their mineral resources and highly industrialised were thoroughly exploited to the benefit of the Soviet Union and other less productive parts of Comecon. The social ills, material shortages and bullying culture were pretty bad. Of course, Czechoslovakia rebelled in 1968, an uprising that was crushed by Soviet tanks. A grim chapter in history indeed. To look at the city now, with its shops and restaurants, you would hardly know it had been part of the Warsaw Pact. Mind you, the downside to that is that city centres all now have exactly the same shops!

I wanted to take a river boat and on the way to the landing stage we stumbled across something I had very much wanted to see but hadn’t yet planned, which was the crypt of the small orthodox cathedral where the agents of the Czech resistance were holed up after their assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, arguably the very nastiest of Nazis, head of the Gestapo, Hitler’s Man in Prague where he was known as the Butcher and the Hangman, and very much the driver of the Holocaust. It’s a national shrine and the history of Operation Anthropoid, the only successful assassination of a leading Nazi, is told in the anteroom. The German reprisals on the Czechs were horrific but that finally convinced the rest of the world that the Nazi regime was deranged and evil. I intend to come back to describing this emotionally moving location in another post as contemporary politics are throwing too many shadows of this sort of horror onto life today.

Our boat trip was a pleasant break from this history of oppression and evil. I was especially delighted by the famous, brooding Vysehrad rock with its fortress and monastery, immortalised as a symphonic poem by local composer Smetana. I’m sure there was a legend of a ship-swallowing monster connected with it, too, but our boat chugged by unmolested.

River Vltava from the Charles Bridge

Prague Castle from the river

Vysehrad rock

On Day IV, our last, we paid a brief visit to the Jewish Quarter. This area, full of synagogues survived the Nazis, even though the inhabitants didn’t. Perversely, Hitler wanted to keep the area intact as a sick museum to an exterminated race.

And then we went on to the remains of the giant pedestal of the Stalin Monument, the biggest ever Soviet-era statue – 17,000 tons depicting blissed-out workers admiringly following Uncle Joe Stalin. The wretched artist and his wife committed suicide before its unveiling in 1955, a year before Kruschev came out and condemned Stalin. The whole thing was blown up in 1962 – a process that took two weeks. There was an film of an interview with one of the masons who worked on it in the Museum of Communism explained that the Czech women on the left hand side appears to be to be laying a hand on the Soviet soldier’s gun for protection. She’s actually reaching for his genitals, a symbol of Czechoslovakia’s rape. There don't seem to be any free photos online but you can read about it here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_Monument_(Prague) There’s now a giant working metronome on the site (I don’t get its significance) and we were pleased to see that the plinth is now an unofficial skateboard park, a deconstructed monument to a trivial activity but one so symbolic of freedom and personal skill.

So apart from history grim and gorgeous we also enjoyed some good meals. I’m not so thrilled by Czech beer, I must confess, and dumplings are something that really do stick too severely to the ribs, but we fed ourselves well on the whole. Particularly outstanding were this rolled rabbit loin with stuffing with barley risotto. I also had a classic goulash at the Cubist building, the Black Madonna. The best dinner was at the Cafe Imperial a few yards from our apartment. Sarah says her tuna was amazing (my salmon was pretty good) and the local white wine was pleasant. The tiled décor was extraordinary.

Rabbit loin roll

Cafe Imperial

As for trans life, I didn’t go out in full female mode. It’s partly because I’m a little distressed about my loss of trans freedom and I get the blues when I have to go back to male mode (most TGirls will recognise that feeling). But I was also a little uncertain how the locals might take it. Besides, Sarah has been living full-time female for a while and now needs to exist as an independent woman without me inadvertently outing her. So no full femme, although my shoes, bag and so forth remain female. One day I will travel abroad as a woman, I have promised myself.

Photogenic Sarah - lovely lady and good friend

Do go to Prague, it's beautiful.

Sue x

Androgynous holidays 2: West of England

By popular request, here’s part 2 of my androgynous holidays, with pictures.

I went away three times in September, for different reasons each time, but always with the aim of clearing my mind, which has been troubled of late.

My first trip was to Wiltshire, which is really the first county west of London where you no longer feel the gravity of the capital drawing you towards it. I wanted to fulfil a few promises made to me when young, and to be as feminine as possible whilst still presenting as male.

Avebury is a wide and very ancient neolithic henge of stones, ditch and mound that was partly encroached on by a houses in the Middle Ages. No-one knows what these ancient monuments were for or why they were built but the effort required to construct them and the many other ancient buildings and artefacts in the area suggests a place of great significance. You can look up a lot about it online. I went because the more famous Stonehenge was often on the itinerary when we went to Wales or the South West for family holidays when I was a kiddie, but my father always said Avebury was bigger and better, yet he never actually took us there. So it was something that had always been on my “To Do” list.

Avebury

It’s certainly a beautiful spot with ancient buildings and sheep encroaching on the stones. My bed-and-breakfast hotel was lovely and the village pub provided a good dinner.

Avebury

The next day I fulfilled another promise to myself, which was to walk more of the Ridgeway, possibly Britain’s oldest road that has been used for maybe 5000 years. I did some stretches in Buckinghamshire as a teenager with my father. This time, however, I was kitted out in my girl clothes, though not presenting as female. My walking boots and purple socks are women’s (as I explained in my last post, I have tiny feet and I often can’t get men’s shoes and socks in my size), as were my T-shirt, fleece and trousers. I’d rather be all woman, but clearly my skin health problems have made me very cautious about wearing makeup except on special occasions. I wear women’s clothes every day anyway as it’s the most obvious connection to my feminine side.

The area around Avebury from the Ridgeway Path on Fyfield Down. The landscape is full of stone age sites.

The weather was perfect and the walk was wonderful. I felt tired but calmer in spirit when I arrived at my destination in Ogbourne St George where I stayed in a cosy old hotel and had a fantastic dinner in the wonderful pub called the Inn with the Well, which does indeed have a well – 97 feet deep, right in the middle of the floor with reinforced glass flush with the floor so you can walk right over it. The warm mackerel starter, rabbit casserole main and warm chestnut & choc pudding, with local lager to drink, made an excellent dinner that I will remember for a very long time. And the road leading to the pub goes into my book of daft place names …

 

Mind you, the little River Og, which gives its name to the village, is a pretty odd one, too. I should explain that when I was 10 my classmates and I found in a school geography book that there was a place called Bushy Bottom in Sussex. As 10-year-olds we thought that was hilarious. Since then I've kept a note of places with ridiculous names, like Batman in Turkey or Bastard Butte in Wyoming. Sadly, Butt Hole Close in Yorkshire has recently been renamed. Apparently people had been posing in illustrative fashion by the street sign. Such models who feel dispossessed can now venture to Ogbourne St George if they prefer. It's all very silly ... and I am doing nothing to stop it.

On a related note, the train to Swindon (from where I took a bus to Avebury) whizzed passed a weird sight: a man standing in a cornfield, naked but for a pair of tiny blue briefs, holding a 15-foot pole vertical. There was some device on top pointed at the train - a camera, speedtrap, I know not what. The sights of England, eh?

I digress.

The next day, I went to beautiful Marlborough, which has always been a favourite place to visit, though I haven’t been there for years. It never changes: the broad high street, the curious alleys, the old shops, the weed-stocked River Kennet flowing gently by. The Green Dragon pub where I had lunch put me in mind of the fictitious Dragon of Wantly inn that appears in Anthony Trollope’s Barchester novels. I think Trollope is a marvellous author and Marlborough is very much a Trollopian town.

A lovely trip that calmed me after a lot of troubles with plumbing and other stuff to deal with in August.

Bath Abbey. Picturesque, but places of worship are rarely transgender havens.

The following weekend I went to Bath and the distressing conversation with my sister about Lugbutts (LGBT people) has been recorded. Despite that, there were walks to be had all along the River Avon, especially on a disused railway line that’s been turned into a path and cycle track running all the way to Bristol. The irony is that my sister didn’t seem to spot that my shoes and socks and shoulder bag were women’s! I did clip my nails so they wouldn’t be quite so feminine. The previous time I had visited her I forgot to cut them and even remove the clear varnish, and I could tell that she was staring at them. I hate this double life and after her revelations about her anti-trans and gay campaigning, I don’t think I’ll be seeing her so much.

Let’s pause here for now and I’ll tell you about Prague in the next post in a few days as that’s more significant, especially as I went with a trans friend.

Prague - we're getting there

Sue x

Androgynous holidays

The illness that disfigured my face for over three years has subsided and, with a new, cautious makeup regime, I can be seen in public identifying as female again. But it has left me very distressed because just a few years back I was aiming at living nearly full-time female. That can’t now happen because when the problem arises again (as it does periodically) then I will be back to presenting as male only. It’s taking me a while to come to terms with this.

As I mentioned in the first post of this year http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/those-biggest-resolutions.html it was in 1997 that I resolved finally to accept that I was transgender. I have dressed as a woman every day since, though that’s not the same as presenting as female all the time.

Most of my clothes now are women’s items, so even though I have had to revert to presenting as male for much of the last four years, I still feel connected to my trans side through what I wear and through manicuring and varnishing my nails, eliminating male type hair and so forth.

I therefore check out the latest clothing styles to see what may pass as male attire even though it’s female. Fashions these days are actually quite samey across the genders, as it happens. I have been blessed by being petite and having small feet (UK 5½ or European 38/9, US 7½) so women’s shoes, socks, T-shirts, jeans, etc. are easy to find. Having small feet has always been a problem, though, when wanting men’s shoes as the ranges usually start with a 6 or even a 7 and even before finally accepting my trans side I would sometimes have to opt for women’s styles in shoes (the shop assistants being apologetic whilst I was secretly pleased!)

So on my recent trips to Wiltshire, Bath and Prague I have been presenting as male, but with perfect nails, women’s shoes, underwear, shirts and shoulder bag. I feel connected to my trans side but nobody especially spots the understated femininity in my walking boots or socks or top or bag. Perhaps this is one aspect of my future as a trans person. Not a future I envisaged or wanted, but one that may have been forced on me by necessity.

Anyway, I’ll tell all about my adventures and provide some more pretty pictures in my next post. 

Prague in autumn

Sue x

Hello, Lugbutts

A number of people commented on my sister having become an anti-LGBT campaigner in my last post, so I guess I should go into more detail.

As mentioned before on this blog, my family are all very religious. Or rather, they are religious fundamentalists, and their faith is not actually very mainstream. They are pretty bigoted and intolerant of many things because their god disapproves. I left their religion over 20 years ago and barely speak to my parents now, partly because of that but mainly because of my father’s violent threats and his race hate that is really horrible to hear. They don’t know I’m trans (not as an adult, anyway) because I fear abuse and, even worse, their attempts to convert me back to ‘the right path’ again.

My sister was telling me of a new group she’s joined within her religion. “It’s my job to deal with the lugbutts.”

“Who on earth are the lugbutts?” I asked. 

“You know, those LGBT people. Lg-bts or lugbutts. They are extremely rich and they use their money to catch out religious tradespeople by ordering things that the trader can’t, in all conscience, provide [presumably double-bed hotel rooms for gay couples or cakes with pro-gay slogans]. They also use their wealth to influence the politicians and schools to corrupt and brainwash people. This turns impressionable people away from reality so children end up saying that they’re not really boys or girls but the other, or you end up with boys dating boys or girls dating girls.

"If your genes are boy genes,” she pronounced, “then you’re a boy. I mean, dur! isn't that obvious? These lugbutts are really persecuting so many people and damaging Britain and I feel really threatened.” 

What … the … hell…? Apart from the fact that my sister has never had a boyfriend or been in a relationship, so interfering with others’ relationships is pretty hypocritical, it’s also pretty vile when persecutors project their own behaviour onto others and yet claim to be victims. 

And there was me in front of her wearing women’s shoes and socks (though very unisex).

I put her right on genetics, but I really do now give up on anything but a nominal relationship with my family. It’s a sad choice – they’re obviously the closest people to me – but her insane, nasty, ignorant rant has made that choice easier.

Many trans people have a difficult time with families but I do wonder if I didn’t pick one of the very shortest straws here, and I feel very distressed about it. 

So, my dear fellow lugbutts, we just have to keep on being ourselves, being visible and, sadly, combating this sort of ignorance and prejudice.

Sue x

Mixed fortunes, mixed gender

I haven't posted for a month because of domestic problems (mainly involving plumbers and engineers) and because I really needed some time out. It's been stressful all right.

Things are getting mended at home - society's requirement seems to be that girls are really not good at heavy domestic maintenance and should leave it to the men. Now I was born with a man's body (and birth certificate to prove it!) but frankly my hunky bod has its limits in terms of energy and competence, so the professionals have been tramping over the Richmond estate for a while now.

I tend to write posts on separate themes so I will go into more detail another time about the relaxing break I took in androgynous mode in the ancient places and trackways of rural Wiltshire, which helped clear my mind and reduce the stress, although as a townie I'm really not used to such long walks and was pretty tired, though it meant I slept like a log!

A small part of the vast Avebury stone circle

I also went to stay with one of my sisters. Again, long walks with her along the River Avon around the city of Bath. But this time I was in brother mode, which requires making up flat-pack furniture because that's a man's job, right? But it was when she revealed that she is a member of a religious group and is campaigning against LGBT rights that I felt very depressed. That merits a separate post as it's a Big Thing.

My work gets very quiet in August and picks up again in September, so I have been easing into it with a gentle start. I work from home so at least I can dress how I please. The recent stresses have made me pick very feminine floral dresses and skirts these last two weeks.

Sigh! How many of us trans people spend our time picking our presentation to match our environment in order to feel safe? It's fine to dress and be ourselves at home alone, it's OK if toned down and alone in public, it's impossible with family. What a lousy way to live.

Sue x

Six years of blogging

Six years ago today I started this blog just to put something about me out there and to encourage other trans people to live a more as their authentic selves.

At the time I was testing to see if living full-time as a woman was viable and it looked like it would be. Then in 2014 my perennial problem - eczema - settled on my face and I couldn’t shave or wear makeup, so presenting a more feminine appearance was no longer possible.

I’m a lot better and can wear makeup again, provided I’m very careful, but obviously life is not the same. I have struggled to come to terms with my loss but have maintained my blog as I still want to provide support, information and news to anyone who might find it helpful.

So, here’s the current status of my blog, a little roundup I do every year.

I’ve always felt the stats that Blogger provides are a bit wonky and temperamental. I’m close to 100,000 views now, with visits increasing all the time, and 43 subscribers. Welcome to this year’s new subscribers, Rossanna Gabrielli and Rhonda Tipt.

The five most popular posts have changed quite a bit this year and by far the most read is the TGirl Bar 2013. And why not? Who wouldn’t want to be served a drink by this group of attractive, polite, hard-working, well-presented, sexy ladies? Or even be there working with us?

 http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/tgirl-bar.html

Next comes the old favourite, Nottingham Invasion, from January 2012,

http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/nottingham-invasion.html

My Resurrection, a post from late last year about returning to living outside again,

http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/my-resurrection.html

Nostalgia Trip to Pink Punters from 2012,

http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/nostalgia-trip-to-pink-punters.html

and last year’s Annual Roundup

http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/annual-roundup.html

Of course, I'm delighted to have been given an award recently for this blog by Feedspot (see previous post).

Thanks for reading. The trans community is facing troubled times from certain world leaders. I’m not going to be intimidated and will continue to express my reality as a transgender person, here and in real life.

Love to you all 

Sue x

Top 100 Transgender Blogs award

Thank you Anuj Agarwal, founder of Feedspot, for featuring my blog among the Top 100 Transgender Blogs.

http://blog.feedspot.com/transgender_blogs/

I'm very flattered to be given the recognition, especially as your selection includes important transgender resources such as national newspapers (the Guardian, the Independent), Pink News and Snopes, organisations such as the National Center for Gender Equality, great blogs such as Femulate, Hannah McKnight and Male Femme and especially those of friends like Lynn Jones and Mandy Sherman (links on the right).

It means a lot when I get recognition because my aim here has always been to share with and encourage other transgender people and, I hope, inform non-trans people about trans life.

So thank you, Anuj and your panellist, and thank you, subscribers and readers.

My blog is six years old next week. 

Sue x