Things being various

 I end July with various little things.

 

Beauty regime

I'm pleased to say I've overshot my weight loss target of 4 kg (9 lb) this month, which I'm really happy with. I've set a target of 3.5 kg for August.

Not so great this morning was, when smoothing my legs with a razor, I nicked my ankle. It was a tiny scratch and I barely noticed it at first but before long the bathroom was covered in blood like someone had been murdered. I can't believe such a small cut could create ... well, literally a bloodbath! 

I'm sure I'll recover! But this big plaster is spoiling the look of my legs which I wanted to be gorgeous! So instead of me, here's a picture of local morning glories instead.

 

 

News from London 

I hear that last weekend's Trans Pride in my old home city of London attracted around 100,000 people. This is an amazing turnout and yet it doesn't surprise me given the anti-trans policies of the government there that is continuing the abuses of the previous one. This is one of the main reasons I left there.

By total contrast, I notice that the Tate Modern gallery in London has an exhibition on of Leigh Bowery, the bizarre performance artist who was a bi-gendered, non-gendered or even super-gendered being in the non-binary culture of the '80s, influencing music stars like Boy George then and even people like Lady Gaga now. This art and style gives me the creeps a bit, I have to say, but I do support alternative lives.

 

Facial feminisation update

I'm pleased to hear that Roz feels her facial feminisation surgery has gone well, although the bandages are still on. She thanks everyone for their kind wishes.

 

Earthquake

Another small earthquake shook my home two days ago. It's epicentre was at Tende, a few miles away over the French border. Unlike the last one, there was no damage this time. 

I was going to grumble a bit about living in a seismic area and then a few hours later the massive earthquake and tsunami off Kamchatka occurred and I have no right to complain! Thankfully, there don't seem to have been any deaths from that but a big one is still a frightening and damaging experience. I hope the locals there will be all right.

 

Tom Lehrer

It's been a bad summer for music with the deaths of leading musicians as diverse as Alfred Brendel (classical) and Ozzy Osbourne (heavy metal). It's sad to add Tom Lehrer to the roll. His acerbic, sardonic and witty songs from the 1950s-70s became classics. 

As well as innumerable sports contests, my school had an annual music contest when each sports club into which we were compulsorily divided pitted its musical skills against the others. I say "music"; it was more like regimented cacophony. Tom Lehrer songs were sung very often in this aural chaos ... and I can't help thinking he'd have been amused to know that. 

As a taster, here's how he wrote a song for the US army, "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier", based on his experiences. Strangely, it wasn't chosen as the US Army anthem.

Sue x 

Chill staycation

 I set this week aside to do very little ... a staycation if you will. And I did very little indeed. A good book or two, ice-creams to eat, a bit of light gardening, spending more time preparing meals, that sort of thing. The most strenuous thing was swimming, which was especially good this week as, for some reason, there were few people at the pool leaving more room for the rest of us. So I could zoom around more. Not that the pool is really designed for sports swimming - its Sixties design is guitar shaped, somewhat attuned to the groovy vibe emanating from nearby Sanremo, "the City of Music", so it's for chillin' in, man. My tan progresses, too.

It's been nice to dress in just a tee and a light skirt or shorts, nothing complicated, apart from my foray into smarter looks on Tuesday. Smooth skin all over is very agreeable.

I keep losing weight, despite the ice cream, and that's good. I expect to have lost four kilos my month-end (that's 9 pounds) and I hope to do the same next month. Warm weather doesn't put me in need of stodgy, fattening food, you see.

 

Face time

Wishing my friend Roz well for her facial feminisation surgery yesterday and subsequent recovery. I suspect she's wrapped like an Egyptian mummy right now!

 

Ozzy Osbourne 

We can't not note the passing of Ozzy Osbourne, musician, reality TV star (The Osbournes did make you question reality!) and celebrity chef who created the live bat canapé (allegedly), simply because of his noted support for the LGBT+ community (and indeed anyone slightly alternative). More accounts than not suggest he was an all-round nice guy (at least, when not intoxicated). 

Sue x 

Trying a smart summer look

 I had a little bit of time this afternoon to put on some makeup and try a couple of smart looks for summer with skirts and high heels.

My first skirt is a very old favourite and was the skirt I wore the first time I ever walked out of my own front door dressed in 2010 (see below). It's a black three-quarter length item with a colourful flower motif in very light material (and needs an underskirt/slip because sunlight will shine through it). I wore black suede kitten heels (a present from Carol many years ago). And a new, loose, short-sleeved shirt, also black. I decided to accessorise with sheer gloss tights (another gift, from Roz) to add a bit of summer shine, and various small pieces of sparkly jewellery.

 

I also wore this skirt on a lovely summer's day at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London, where I went for a picnic with Petra and Joanne in 2011. This is one of my favourite photos. I wore a tomato red T-shirt that I loved and which appears in so many photos from my days in London!

 

At home today again.

 

Then I changed to a shorter black skirt and higher heels with the same top. A more secretarial look, perhaps. I actually changed my earrings, too, to a more dangly pair but I don't think you can tell!

 

It's a hot evening so that was about all I could do with the heavy wig without my makeup sliding off. One of the many problems of being T!

I think there'll be a few more of these quick look posts as the summer progresses. 

 

A dip in the archive

Recollections of leaving the house dressed as a woman for the first time never fade from memory. 

I recommend my friend Deeanna's gripping account of her first trip out of the house on her blog here: The Walk.

I recounted my own first time out (in the floral skirt) here: Getting out the front door. A tale of serious nerves ... and feeling ever bolder as the day wore on.

Thanks for reading. As ever, comments on my outfits are welcome. 

Sue x  

A bit self-conscious?

 Thanks for the encouraging remarks on my look last weekend. And the smooth skin feels good, as it always does. Maintenance takes time but this is the trans life and we put the effort in.  

Beauty emerges from the prickles

 

I have a few more summery items in my wardrobe, some of which are new and some haven't been worn for years. I shall doll up properly over the summer. 

I do feel a bit self-conscious when swimming: am I completely trim or have I missed a bit? My breasts are on display and this is not a topless beach! Maybe they just think I'm fat, which I admit I am but these are not 'man boobs'. ....Thoughts like these intrude. 

With regard to weight, I have lost over five pounds (2.5 kg) these last couple of weeks, so that's good. A lot of lettuce has been eaten!

Healthwise, I've not been so well this week with a bit of a virus or something that kept me in bed for some of Tuesday/Wednesday but I seem reasonably OK now and had a good swim this afternoon. 

The weather's been perfect: warm and bright but not oppressive, with a nice breeze.

 

Gallery

I thought the picture gallery (tab at the top) needed an update since the last photo was from 2020. 

I've also added a link to the music, Left Bank Two by the Noveltones, that was played during the Gallery section on British TV's kids' art show Vision On and subsequent tributes. Some of us can't see galleries of pictures without this playing in our heads. Yes, TV does corrupt the young!

(For more on this fantastic show, with Sylvester McCoy in a frock, see the second half of this post from exactly two years ago: Heat - a hot topic.)

Sue x  

Feminine again, yay!

 So, yeah, last month's plan to defemme for summer ... that's been ditched. I couldn't take any more of the dysphoria resulting from body hair, semi-naked women everywhere and enlarging breasts. You know the thing. 

So yesterday I went to the hairdressers in the morning to see to the topmost part, and then in the afternoon I got down to a long, careful and relaxing defuzzing session. 

And today I put on my makeup and my nice new summer frock and here I am again feeling feminine and way happier. I hardly need to tell my readers that smooth skin, painted nails, a favourite dress and jewellery, and some high heels are the best thing in the universe for a trans girl. 

The sun has been so hot this past month that I have developed quite a tan and was able to break out the suntan shade of sheer footless tights that I bought years ago in England but, as the sun there is too weak to get me this dark, this is the first time I have worn them and they match my current natural tone well. (See my recent post on the benefits of light tights in summer.)

I would have liked to have got waxed all over in one go but the salons here don't seem to offer an all-over session, just different limbs. I wasn't going to have myself done piecemeal over several days (or for that expense!) so I did it myself with a new razor and - a wonderful discovery - Aleppo soap, which is made of laurel oil and olive oil and gives such a smooth glide and such moisturising power that I've never removed hair better or had my skin look so good. Aleppo soap is easily found in the Mediterranean where it's made (theoretically in Syria), but you may need to go to a more specialist soap shop elsewhere (and it may therefore cost quite a bit). Make sure it has a high oil content and few or no cheapening artificial additives; the extra price for authentic natural ingredients is worth it and it seems to last longer than ordinary soap. 

I know I'll need to keep shaving over the summer but I think a pamper session every couple of days is something to look forward to.

 

Swirl

 

I'm wearing an enhancer bra but for next time I'll see if I can get a bra that works just with my natural chest. Just to answer a previous query, no I don't take hormones, never have and would only do so under the supervision of my doctor (I've seen too many girls damage their health by self-medicating). My chest was clearly the gift of the Sugar & Spice Fairy!

It's so good to be a woman. I think you've got to be trans to appreciate this feeling. 

Sue x 

Listen to your body

 I thought a lot about whether to post something this personal. But I am going to.

I had to talk a lot last month about dysphoria as it's been affecting me way more than usual. Thank you again for your kind support. With the heatwave, I've been living mainly in swimwear or very light tees so my breasts, which have been expanding again this year, are very visible. I'm delighted with the extra boobage but, perhaps not surprisingly, I'm rather self-conscious about it, too. The left breast seems slightly bigger than the right, which is fine as asymmetry is normal enough, but what is puzzling (and delighting) me is that they are not the breasts of a woman of my (fairly advanced) years, which usually sag, but are rather perky and springy. Yay!

 

Not me, but an aspirational version of me. (Photo: Daniel Narsco)

 

I assumed that this sudden bout of gender dysphoria, or even body dysmorphia, was because the heatwave had brought a vast army of nubile, scarcely-clad women to the seaside here all at once. Irritatingly, I'd made my decision not to epilate so the contrast between the femininity around me and my current fuzz made it worse.

A four-hour train journey the other night, during which I felt a slight ache in my breasts that so characterised my original breast growth in 2010, set me thinking how my body has been a strong driver of my trans life. 

I will put here something that I have never mentioned before as it is very personal, perhaps unusual (I've not heard any trans person refer to a similar experience) and I've never been sure that I would be believed, but this is a transgender blog and so it is very relevant. In my 20s I experienced what I can only reasonably describe as period pains, a regular 4-week cycle of abdominal cramping. I became concerned enough to note it down, and so discovered its regularity, and I discussed it with my doctor who not unnaturally assumed it was an intestinal problem ...and I won't go into further details.

I went along with that diagnosis, though, even though my guts weren't the problem, as that was also the time when I was most suppressing my trans nature so any excuse for denial was a good one. I managed to spend over a year not dressing as a woman at all (believe me, that's a long time in Sue World), did a giant purge of my clothes, photos and everything else feminine, and even blocked any thoughts about being trans whenever they arose, which was very hard. I was determined to kill my trans desires off once and for all. 

In the end, though, that suppression exploded ferociously ... and the curious periodic cramps diminished as I finally embraced the knowledge that I was trans and started dressing every day. 

Move on several years and in 2010 my breasts grew suddenly just as I felt a strong need to get out in public dressed at last. And now that I have had a very subdued decade due to ill-health, emigration and so on, my breasts seem to be telling me something again.

I won't speculate on whether it's my body that responds in these very physical ways to a lack of fem time, or whether it drives my femininity in the first place and my need to be a woman, or any other theory. But my body has always been very much a living, responding part of this whole transgender experience of mine. I am curious as to whether anyone else has similar experiences, though I acknowledge that such personal things are not something one likes to talk about in public. I rarely do but here I have bared ... well, my breast! And more. This is a trans blog, so there.

The first thing I did once I'd got home from my train journey, despite its being the small hours of the morning, was paint my nails in clear varnish. I keep my nails long and feminine the way I love them. 

 

I'm now looking through the local directories for a waxing salon as, frankly, I'm not sure this "hairy for summer" idea is working this year. Full retirement is now approaching and then it may finally be time to talk to a doctor directly rather than by-the-by as previously about being trans and all these curious body events of mine. After all, breast screening doesn't seem an unreasonable request now, if nothing else, as I have sufficient breast tissue to be a routine concern. And possibly, just out of curiosity, look into any intersex, genetic, chimeric or similar issues that might be relevant here, which I guess I've not wanted to do before for reasons I'm not totally sure about. I remain very cautious about outing myself to the health authorities, though, given the current trend towards xenophobia all over the world, although things are better in European Union countries than in many other places, hence my move to Italy. (My thinking on this in 2018 is more relevant than ever in the UK, US, Russia and so on).

More developments as they happen, I guess. 

So, if I and my breasts may end this rather serious post in a more light-hearted way in Two Ronnies style, it's goodbye from me ... and it's goodbye from Pinky and Perky.

Sue x