So ... Pride

 I feel out of sorts. My world has been unpredictable and stressful for years now and I am worn out with it. Things are getting better despite droughts, wars, pandemics and emigration but it'll be a while before I feel perky again. 

I did want to ask, as Pride month officially ends, how it was for you? I recall the exuberant Prides of yesteryear which contrast starkly with the situation in places like the UK now where open hate and discrimination against trans people are indulged in by all sorts of people and are endorsed by government, and the US where Trump's legacy and religious intolerance are a real threat. In Europe, extremism is waning, thankfully, but mockery and hate continue to be spread by many. We had been thinking some years ago that maybe Pride events would fade into memory, that being LGBT+ would one day be something no-one needed to distinguish, but now we have a full-blown war against us.

I hear good things from Pride events across the world and I'm glad that people have had fun and have had the courage to be seen. But we still need these events, this constant raising of awareness and mutual support, as much as ever. This ever present need adds to my distress. 

I have been collecting positive trans news, as I try to do as much as possible, and will share these items next month. But tonight, as the official Pride month ends, I don't feel as chirpy as I used to do. 

There are many more Pride events still to come this summer. We had local Pride events back in April. What with Trans Day of Visibility in March and Trans Day of Remembrance in November, maybe saturation coverage all year is the way to go! 

Drought news

My last post explained a bit about the drought. Fortunately there was a fine big thunderstorm two days ago that dropped the temperatures and humidity and cleaned the air. In fact, there has been red dust from the Sahara lying everywhere since it got washed out of the air. This has delayed any emergency measures for a little while, so there is still swimming to be enjoyed and I can use the hose on my plants. Without  a lot more steady rain, though, it's only a matter of time before we have a ban on hosepipes, swimming pools, municipal fountains, beach showers and the like. First World problems, I know, but in a country with more water than almost any other in Western Europe (see the pictures of vast Lake Como in my previous post!), this is unexpected.

I'm pleased that I am regularly visited by a fat gecko and a tiny lizard. They seem to like my little green oasis. I hope to get a good picture of either of them soon because they are cute. 

Travel news

I had hoped to go to England next week, for the first time in nearly 3 years, but what with flight cancellations, train strikes, the impossibility of renewing my British passport whilst there, rampant Covid and other craziness, I have decide to spare my stress hormones and jangled nerves for now and maybe try again in the autumn. What a mad time to be living!

 

A dip in the archives

I haven't dipped into the photo archives for ages. Here's one I rediscovered recently, from ten years ago when I was in Nottingham, England. I remember that silver top, close fitted jacket and sparkly pendant with fondness. An era of smiles.

 

Sue x

Drought

 I've been enjoying the summer. But the temperatures are above the norm for the time of year and the rainfall in 2022 has been way, way below what it should be. The River Po and its tributaries, one of Europe's largest water networks with vast glaciers, lakes and winter snows to feed it, is at about 25% capacity. The drought is now serious and I expect water rationing soon.

So before that happens I'm making the most of my swimming, and I enjoyed a day on Lake Como, one of the large Alpine lakes. Not the greatest photos, but they make a change from the coast. 

 

 

The heat haze (it was 36C = 97F) made viewing from the top of a nearby mountain difficult but here's the view into Switzerland:

From some vantage points in these mountains looking south on a clear day you can see for hundreds of miles.

The problem with the heat is that it also raises the likelihood of forest fires and there was a bad one locally a few days ago. 

It's not like me to wish for rain in summer but I feel we need some relief. 

The one advantage is that the heat lets me enjoy my summer clothes: shorts, little skirts and light tops. I did my makeup properly for a chat on Zoom the other evening but forgot to take a selfie, so you'll have to take my word for it! 

I hope Pride month is proving supportive for you. There have been several pride events not far from home and they have been well-attended, and allies and outside supporters have been visible. I was pleased to hear that the pope had a special audience with a group of Italian trans women. His religion has been one of the worst attackers of trans people and a mellowing of its views would be welcome. We shall see.

Sue x

My favourite day

 Solstice. The longest day in the Northern hemisphere and my favourite day of the year. I worship the light, the sunshine. If you are in the Southern hemisphere, dont worry: the days get longer from now on.

For me it's been a day of simple things: I went swimming in the newly reopened pool, I bought some melons and oranges to turn into cool sorbets, I planted some herbs and flowers and I have just come back indoors after lying outside with candles casting a pretty light in the slowly gathering darkness. I'm dressed in my cute little shorts and a long T-shirt. That's all, apart from my soft cotton underwear. It's not glamorous, not sexy, not trendy ... but its feminine and still a statement. There are times a girl wants to be simply dressed, simply as a girl, on a day where the drowsy warmth and straightforward pleasures of life mean the most. 

I love the summer solstice - Midsummers Day, litha, whatever you want to call it. The peak of the year when one really feels alive.

 

Passport

 Thank you for your comments on my last post (and emails, too). I appreciate them very much but I am still unable to reply individually to Blogger comments as yet. I'm not sure what's causing this problem but somehow it's time to resolve it.

Sue x

Rights secured

 Nothing directly to do with being trans but yesterday I went back to the police station in Milan where the smiley cops work and, after rummaging around for a bit, they handed me this. 

 

It's what I've been working towards for six years. Yes, six years. This passport is now way more powerful than the British one I used to have. It gives visa-free access to more places, affords more protections and is welcome without trouble. Unlike British passports that are less accepted and more troublesome after Britain's self-imposed exile from the European Union and because of its aggressive foreign policy. The same applies to US passports, folks: they're not as welcome. 

I can't work and play without this.

One day I may be able to get the sex marker changed to F or simply X, but it'll do for now. I'm not properly full-time female after all. Mind you, I'm certainly not full-time male either. Which does suggest such markers have little realistic value.

Six years of bureaucratic delays are not acceptable, though, even when Covid is taken into account.

 

Fun 

I've had a good few days, too, seeing a sister of mine after three years, enjoying beautiful Alpine scenery, revelling in sunshine and swimming... but I'll save that for the next post.

 

Sue x

Pink and bubbly?

 This made me chuckle. I saw this cute little bottle of pink fizz in the supermarket. I've probably been casually overlooking it for years. Maybe because it's Pride Month or something it suddenly caught my eye. 

The reason for it standing out is that the manufacturer's name, Maschio, means "male" in Italian. Is this the perfect analogy for a male-to-female trans person? Male on the outside and according to the label, but all pink and bubbly inside? Or is that too silly and not a little sexist? No matter, I couldn't help chuckling when it struck me.

We're about half way through Pride Month now and this meme is doing the rounds:

I'm not normally one for wishing bad things on people but in the last few years the hate that has been directed at the LGBT community across the world has been ferocious and depraved. In the first few years of writing this blog I felt we were achieving something, that life as a trans (or gay) person was getting better. And I am in little doubt that, actually, as far as everyday folk are concerned, most straight/cis people are quietly supportive or at least not hostile. The loud phobia now may be just the last gasp of the haters who have latched onto the LGBT community since they have failed to segregate race, failed to oppress women and there are not many groups left that they can oppress any more. I hope that is all it is. But given the bigotry and active homophobia/transphobia of the family I come from that continues to tax me, I do feel that the slogan in this meme is apt this year. I can't see what else to do but make them feel ashamed or uncomfortable or angry since reasoning serves no purpose.

Blogger comments

There are still problems with my replying to comments. Thank you for your comments which I value immensely. I am working on the problem so thank you also for your understanding if I am unable to reply immediately.

Sue x

Authority, luck and us

 I've been away this week to try to complete the last things required to settle in what unexpectedly became my new home, in Italy. Considering I first moved here in 2018, it's been a ridiculously long time dealing with this. Yes, Covid is partly to blame but also both the notoriously draining and stupid bureaucratic systems there are in Italy and the shambolic, abusive way the UK left the European Union and most other European organisations. Let me be blunt: I hate government and its ways. In the same way that you are of a nationality if a government decides you are, you are M, F or trans if a government acknowledges you to be, never mind what nature chooses. The false narratives of nationalism and statecraft make me sick.

There are some nice photos of Milan below to show my trip had highlights, too. But just to summarise, I first went to the forbidding, fascist-built courthouse to get a birth certificate created as my one is unsuitable for registration with the local council. Go figure. The court staff were lazy and abusive and tried to give me the runaround. The more I insisted that they were to do what was requested in their very own instruction book, the more abusive they became but I managed to get them to accept all the required forms in the end. They really don't want to do the work, do they? But that's what happens when you give someone a guaranteed job for life. They were abusive to all the other members of the public there, too. 

What a contrast with my bank who were more than helpful with various changes I needed making.

The next day I went to apply for a passport. This is done at specialist police stations and, again in complete contrast, the police were smiling and jovial and cracked jokes with the applicants and even called them by their first names. It looks like it's fun being a cop! Who knew? Well, maybe it's fun if you can sit in an office chatting with the public rather than chasing gunmen or clearing up murders, so maybe that's why they were all smiley. Anyway, a much better experience. I might even get a passport out of it. I say might as nothing ever seems certain these days.

Here are your classic tourist highlights of Milan. A huge medieval cathedral with 4000 statues, 

 

beautiful glass-roofed arcades, 

 

the world's leading opera house (La Scala). And perhaps most amazing of all are the trams, nearly 100 years old now, which have plied the streets every day since 1928. Here's one in front of La Scala:

Going back to the arcades that link the cathedral square to the opera house square, two little known cultural facts are that the glass dome had a "gas rat" and the mosaic floor beneath has some lucky testicles. Yes, you read both those right.

Photo by Marco Pagani

The arcades were originally lit by gaslight at night, which required a team of lamplighters to go round in the evening to light the gas burners. But sending men to light the burners in the dome would have been difficult so the architect designed a little mechanical lighter on wheels that would trundle round the base of the dome lighting each lamp in turn. People would turn up just before dusk for the pleasure of watching the "little rat" do its round to illuminate the dome.

On the floor there are mosaics symbolising cities of Italy: a white cross for Milan itself, a wolf for Rome, a winged lion for Venice and a bull for Turin. 

 

When in Rome there's a custom that if you toss a coin over your shoulder into the Trevi fountain, then you will return to Rome. (Or you could just set yourself a reminder on Booking.com). Here the tourists stand on the bull's testicles and spin three times. This is said to bring good luck. So this is what these tourists are doing:

It may bring luck here but, elsewhere in the world, treading on a bull's particulars is considered inadvisable. I have no idea how these mad notions arise, but I post this here for you to muse on any truths and cultural indications that may come to mind. 

I have a feeling that people's beliefs in magic and luck and invocation and prayer over the ages represent means of dealing with impotence at the encroachment on our lives of the rulers of the world. You get a passport to travel if officials say you do; whereas our ancient ancestors wandered where they pleased and any bad places or events could be walked away from. As humans settled, kings and priests demanded taxes, tithes and tribute, and bureaucracy took hold. How to combat their encroachment? By getting some gods or spirits to intervene on your behalf. So, frankly, gyrating on a mosaic bull's testicles is as good a method as any of trying to have things go better for you.

As usual, my passport and birth certificate will have a big fat M for male on them. Yet these state entities demand my respect and my taxes. 

Sue x

Quite dysphoric this week

 Gender dysphoria varies in intensity, from person to person and over the course of a lifetime, and even from week to week or day to day. Usually in the springtime, as the days get longer, warmer and sunnier, my own mood lifts and I find my femininity waning a bit. I doubt that's a coincidence. But this week I have been fiercely dysphoric, even my dreams have repeatedly gone over my life as a university student and how differently things would have been (in a positive way) if I'd come out as trans then. I have no idea why these dreams and ideas have arisen all of a sudden. Perhaps the stress of difficult bureaucratic appointments to prepare for next week. But my head seems to have been playing a record of what might have been had I had the knowledge then that I have now.

I was on a small course, just 20 students. Two were legally male (i.e. me and one other) and 18 female. I know the girls on my course would have accepted my being trans, as would my lecturers, and the university had a policy of letting LGBT students live the life they wanted. I don't recall if we used terms like LGBT and transgender in the 1980s, but things were pretty cool back then, even in a fairly staid, respected institution like mine. I regret my lack of courage, but the idea of news filtering back to my severe family that I might be dressing as a girl and liking it was one of the things that prevented my doing so, and stupidly getting involved in university societies that I thought my family would approve of meant I lost that wonderful early opportunity to break away from my conditioning. Instead, I joined religious societies that eventually made me miserable because, far from enhancing my religious upbringing, revealed a serious contrast between the mainstream religion I was nominally brought up in and the idiosyncratic cult run by my parents. When I tell you that at home extreme religiosity was coupled with racism and homophobia, you may not be surprised. But when I tell you that, among many things, eating pizza, wearing jeans or calling anyone's parents Mum or Dad were activities that provoked wrath, then you may start to realise that life was actually bananas on the homestead.

On a practical level, I had to prevent myself damaging my credit card yesterday when I was tempted to make bad purchases of summer dresses. It took effort, despite the items being misshapen and ugly! Dysphoria ebbs and flows, I know this from, well, so many decades of being a woman struggling with physical and official restrictions. But it can still be hard. As for the 'alternative personal histories' that have been plaguing my dreams, I hope they go away since the regret is distressing. I know better dreams are available.

Afterword 

I did buy a cute pair of summer shorts, which are very stretchy, so ideal for girls with yoyo tums and a different structure around the hips; and some straightforward girly flipflops. Cheap, practical and yet ideal for being feminine in summer. You don't have to be flamboyant to affirm you are a woman.

Blogger comments

Thank you for your comments. Blogger seemed to be resolving its comments issues, but now others have arisen. So I will reply to comments on my previous post when I am able to override the weirdness. Bear with me.

 

Pride

For many this is Pride month. I hope we regain ground against the many abusers and haters who have arisen and been encouraged to arise in the last few years. I will (as ever) be tackling my bigoted family. It won't stop their bigotry, but it will make it more difficult and frustrating for them. If pride is not a sin for you, then be proud of who you are.

Sue x