Into autumn

I hope you have all had a good summer, or as good as can be when there are so many restrictions on travel and so many people have chosen to stay home. I am living by the seaside in the Mediterranean and I would normally have expected the place to have been packed with holidaymakers these last two or three weeks, but it has been very quiet, even eerily so. This disastrous pandemic has damaged so many lives, obviously from death and illness for those who caught it and the effect on their families, but also for those many who have lost their livelihood as a result of measures to contain it or who have been affected psychologically by isolation and stress. Therefore, I wish everyone a healthy and prosperous autumn in contrast to the worrying spring and summer. Fingers crossed.

Blog style

Thinking about the 9th anniversary blog post earlier this month, I thought I should introduce some changes. The first is larger font - I don't know about you, but my eyes are not getting younger, and it reflects the larger fonts appearing as standard elsewhere. 

I'd like to keep the cerise pink colour of the font - unless I get lots of moans about it.

Given the look-back in the last post, I thought I'd introduce a section in future entries either linking to a past post that didn't quite make the Top Ten, or a dip in my photo archives, or looking at some aspect of trans history. I've been spending a lot of time sorting through my various collections!

So, with that in mind, as an initial treat, here's a look back at all 3.

 

A dip in the archives

Here's a post that was typical from my years in London, a day out with food and company, including accompanying a girl on one of her first trips: London Angels Sunday Lunch

Here's a picture of me by the Thames. I'd just had my nails done at a local salon with a friend, Emma, who stayed with me for a few days before Sparkle 2011.

And here's a picture of some glamorous TGirls at a club in the USA in the 1950s when being openly trans was virtually impossible. Fashion seems to have lost some elegance since those days.

Keep safe and well.

Sue x

Blog anniversary, and the current Top Ten

Every year I do a review of this blog on its anniversary. Here's review no 9.

I first started writing here following a lovely day out at Painshill Park in Southern England with Stella Michaels. The background photo was taken there. It was that day that made me think I should blog my adventures as a memento and as a way of encouraging others to live their trans life more openly.

Blogger has recently revamped itself, which suggests it will be around for a while yet, so this is where I propose to remain. Some features don't work too well and it isn't easy loading photos. To be honest, I never find apps or programs or computery stuff very easy at the best of times but I'll stick to what I've managed to get to grips with here.

Thanks to new followers for joining me, Michelle Hart and Susan Nicole Beach being the latest, and to my longer-term readers.

I won't bore you with all the stats that Blogger provides but just to note that it's now easier to label posts and that should provide a better guide in future than the timeline, so I shall start labelling.

I don't provide a popular posts section as that simply makes the same posts read over and over. As recently confirmed by scientists, success breeds success, so a popular post simply becomes more popular because it's been read before, not necessarily because it's inherently better, whereas I like to think every post has some value. However, I often provide links in these annual roundups so, in reverse order, readers' Top Ten Popular Picks as of mid-August 2020 are:

10 Our Different Journey - my answer to Lynn Jones's survey asking trans women to tell how their lives have unfolded: Our Different Journey

9 Roz White - transgender writer - a review of successful transgender fiction writer Roz White from Scotland, whose "Sisterhood" series is popular and true-to-life: Roz White, trans writer
NB - the links in this post no longer work (plus Roz and I have now managed to meet several times :-) )  but her work can be bought and reviewed on Amazon: Amazon: Roz White 

8 Annual Roundup - my review of 2016: Annual Roundup 2016

7 Sparkle 2013 - a great weekend at the world's biggest transgender event: Sparkle 2013

6 Nottingham Invaded Again - my second trip to the city of Nottingham for a memorable night out with the girls: Nottingham Invaded Again

5 The Boudoir - a tribute - how I developed my look during three makeover sessions at Jodie Lynn's Boudoir dressing service in London: The Boudoir - a tribute

4 My Resurrection? - how I hoped to return to going out regularly after a disfiguring ailment: My Resurrection?

3 Nostalgia Trip to Pink Punters - I revisit a popular LGBT nightclub: Nostalgia Trip to Pink Punters

2 Nottingham Invasion - a great night out with over 50 other girls: Nottingham Invasion

and the most popular by far

1 The T-Girl Bar 2013 - how a bunch of beautiful trans barmaids thrilled the visitors to an adult trade fair in London: T-Girl Bar 2013

I suspect the fabulous photos of us gorgeous bar staff and the amazing burlesque talent on show are what people enjoy most about that post.

Altogether, then, people seem to like to read about large groups of trans women in high-profile public events. I feel proud to have taken part in so many visible and important events like these - the Nottingham invasion's purpose, for instance, was to make us visible in regular places (not just LGBT clubs).

But in future entries I may provide links to other posts that didn't quite make the cut this time, as they were popular in their day.

Enjoy, thanks for reading and for joining me in my tenth year here. Stay safe and pretty.

Sue x  

Good stuff miscellany

Things are still not good in the world so I'm keeping things positive here with a variety of items relating to this week that should be fun to read.

Prides past

Over the past few weeks I've been reminiscing on the period ten years ago when I first got out into the real world as a woman, thus fulfilling my lifelong dreams. Today happens to mark the tenth anniversary of Brighton Pride 2010. By far the largest pride celebration in the UK, the whole town comes out for the fun, whether they're gay or not (let's face it, if you're not alternative in some way in Brighton, you don't really belong!) It also attracts people from far and wide, like myself.

It was my first long-distance trip by train as Sue and was a memorable day: the parade, the funfair, the stalls and stages in the park, the whole atmosphere. Here's a photo of the friends I met up with: Kimberley, Saffy, Angie, me and Lucie, taken by Helena (separate on the right). All still good friends, though sadly it was the last time I saw Lucie (the demigirl from Wiltshire who writes the award-winning Girl Who Should Know Better blog: Girl Who Should Know Better). If you're reading this, Lucie, we need to meet up again when I'm next in the UK after this craziness ends.

In a year with little or no Gay/Trans Pride events, it's been good to look back on this memorable one.

Bugs Bunny is 80

As a lot of fellow trans bloggers have noted, the US postal service has commemorated Bugs Bunny's 80th birthday with a set of stamps including two where Bugs is dressed as a ... I was about to say woman, but Valkyrie and Mermaid don't fit that description. Bugs did so much crossdressing in his cartoons, usually to confuse or falsely seduce his pursuers (mainly Elmer Fudd), that's it's a significant part of his character. The joy of animation is its ability to be very subversive without causing offence, and making any who complain look dumb! ("You're concerned that a fictitious cartoon rabbit wearing a dress will subvert youth? A fictitious cartoon wabbit, I mean rabbit!? Buddy, you need to see a shrink!") But to us he was a bit of an icon for that. For real authenticity, the stamp should wolf whistle when you lick the back!

Trans history

As my last post showed, I have been taking time to look into trans history and imagery. I mean way back, to ancient times, when Hercules lived as a woman for two years and Achilles hid in a girls' school to avoid being sent to Troy! And through all the ages after. I'll put up more pictures and links in due course. Those who say the trans phenomenon is some new fad have no idea what they are talking about.

Hercules (left) enslaved by Queen Omphale (right, who's taken his club) and forced by her to be her maid

Photos

I'm not travelling at present, and frankly nor is anyone else much, what with this Covid disease around. But I am trying to take decent photos of my surroundings to record the plants, the panorama, the sky. It's rather pretty here in the Med at this time of year. Even a few of me.

Plants in the condo garden

Blue sea

Moody moon

Palm grove on the promenade

Seen outside a sandwich shop

Lounging around

So, a selection of items this week with a broad appeal.

Sue x

Trans lives in the 1960s

I have recently come across articles about the work of two photographers who captured trans life in the 1960s and thought it worth sharing them.

A different age in terms of fashion, where we do see to have lost a sense of stylishness, and in terms of safety, where we seem to have gained (at least in the West).

The first covers the work of photographer Lisetta Carmi (now 95) who documented the lives of the trans community in the port of Genoa, Italy, in the 1960s. As a child she wanted to be a boy, and in 1938 her family were forced into exile by Mussolini's anti-Jewish laws. Ever after, she felt strong affinity for other oppressed groups.

Link: Genoa, Italy, 1960s

Lisetta Carmi, I Travestiti, Genova (The Transvestites, Genoa), 1965–67, photograph. 
© the artist, Galeria d'arte Martini & Ronchetti, Genoa, and Galerie Antoine Levi, Paris

The second is about Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm and his portraits of TGirls in Paris in the 1960s, with some lovely images.

Link: Paris, France, 1960s

Sue x

First steps in trans living: conclusion

Over the last few weeks I've been reminiscing on the month ten years ago when everything came together and I pushed myself hard to become a regular girl about town. It's a series of posts that's proved popular with my readers, and I hope it has also encouraged others to live their (trans) lives to the full.

Here are links to the episodes:

Dining out: my baptism of fire
The Great Drag Race
Getting out the front door
Hair and makeup
Sparkle: finding my tribe

As someone who'd only ever been out to the Pink Punters LGBT nightclub earlier in 2010, after June/July of that year I felt confident to do anything. In fact, on my return from the Sparkle trans weekend I planned to go to my local park and sunbathe in my bikini. Perhaps it's as well that rain put paid to that idea - I might have scared the dogwalkers! But the rest of that summer I went out as a woman when I wanted and it was truly liberating, and the real start of a decade of living in my true gender.

Another thing that happened that summer and autumn was almost a second puberty: my breasts grew (and hurt, as female friends I confided in said they do when you go through puberty as a teenager). I began to wonder if I should ask for an appointment with the gender clinic as my body and mind seemed now to be crying out for full transition. I don't know if my sudden need really to be out in the world as a woman was a subconscious response to hormonal changes, or if this gynecomastia and other alterations were a psychosomatic response to this exciting and sudden transformation from closet TGirl to woman about town. I suspect the former but there may be no connection at all, just coincidence.

I've had a lot of ups and downs this past decade - ups in 2010-12 and downs notably in 2014-16 when I was so badly affected by eczema that I wasn't able to wear makeup or shave properly - but fundamentally I know I can be myself and be accepted as Sue by the world at large, which is the fulfilment of all those dreams I had from childhood onwards.

Summer 2010

Summer 2020

Being trans is something innate, not something you choose. After years of purging and trying to stamp out my femininity, I finally embraced who I really was back in 1997. So it took a long time even from that point to get to this stage, including several visits to a dressing service and seeking advice via online trans forums throughout the 2000s.

So 2010 was pretty amazing. I managed to push myself hard and reap the rewards. And here I am, ten years on, enjoying a look back. Thanks for joining me.

Sue x

First steps in trans living 5: Sparkle - finding my tribe

Sparkle is the UK's national transgender celebration, held in Manchester in July. I've been seven times overall and it's always proved the perfect event for meeting and making friends and feeling part of a larger community. The 2020 event, which should have taken place the weekend before last, had to be cancelled, like most other things this year.

In this series of posts I have described how four earlier occasions enabled me to leave home and interact with the real world in the summer of 2010. This last event, Sparkle 2010, was the culmination of an intense month of emerging into the world and made me feel that I was now in a position to live as a woman, not merely by dressing at home or interacting online.

The Sparkle website is here https://www.sparkle.org.uk/

I was too engrossed in the events to remember to take many photos so here are some by another person who was there that year.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_jones/albums/72157624503761614/with/4797366710/

My blog reports on other years' Sparkles give a good idea of the activities to enjoy there but it's a mix of socialising, entertainments, eating out, preening, purchasing, hearing talks, dancing, making friends and catching up with old ones ... a sort of village party weekend.

It was mid-way through the weekend that the thought really struck me as I looked out over the sea of transgender party people and their families crowding Canal Street and Sackville Gardens: this is my tribe. This feels right. I belong with these people.

I know we were having a party at a dedicated event but every person here was, like me, affirming the truth that they were trans, individually and collectively. And for the first time I felt something very special was happening: here was I, being carried along by a flood of others like me and being part of that flood. We trans people are real, we exist, we have a right to be ourselves and be happy.

Sparkle 2010 was very special for me: it clarified that I had arrived where I wanted to be in life and how I wanted to live. The next two years were, without a doubt, the best ever.

Sue x

First steps in trans living 4: hair and makeup

I am continuing my look-back to exactly ten years ago, to the weeks I spent pushing myself out into the real world. If I was going to live the life I wanted as a woman, I was going to have to take serious steps, I realised.

So a few days after leaving my own home for the first time, as described in my last post (Getting out the front door), I decided to investigate two recommended resources for makeup and hair: Mac and Trendco.

Some weeks before this I had visited Doreen's Fashions, where I bought the hair I wore for the Drag Race (The Great Drag Race). I had also bought my first pair of breast forms there. Doreen's was once an excellent resource for the trans community in South East England, a shop in London that specialised in catering for trans and related fashions. It closed its doors on the Lea Bridge Road in 2014 citing new parking and other restrictions, but I suspect the rise in internet shopping by trans people had something to do with that too. Their charmingly old-fashioned website is here: https://www.doreenfashions.com/.

In my previous trip I had taken the London Underground and suburban trains for the first time. This time I was going to take them again and go all the way into Central London for the two appointments I had made with Mac and Trendco. Despite my success in my previous trips, this was still my early days and I was very nervous. I actually walked to the next station down the line just in case I was spotted by any locals who knew the male me. But once I was sitting in a quiet corner of the underground train my confidence improved as we trundled slowly from the suburbs to ever more crowded parts of London.

I had made an appointment with Mac Makeup in Kensington Church Street and a wonderful young assistant, Tabitha, had been supplied to me as she had already had many dealings with TGirls in another branch. It was lovely to sit in the chair in the makeover section and have her chat to me about how their products worked, as opposed to the Kryolan and Dermablend products that the Boudoir had recommended to me. Mac products are very expensive, though, and frankly the super makeover she gave me would have cost about £200 to replicate at home. I did buy one or two items, notably the pore filler which is useful for those with larger, more male-type skin pores. Tabitha was great, knowledgeable, friendly and ideal for putting me at my ease.

Trendco was at the other end of Kensington Church Street and I walked there up the hill, feeling very happy with my experience at Mac. The assistant at Trendco (I'm fairly sure it was Michael) suggested a style different from the others I had picked at the Boudoir and Doreen's. Again, he was very helpful, knowledgeable and never pushy. In the end, I bought a shorter style. The result of my new makeup and hair sessions left me looking like this. Pretty good, if I'm allowed to say so myself.

I went home by public transport positively buzzing. Two great experiences and an explosion in confidence.

That was 6 July 2010. The next day I had agreed to meet Emma Walkey as she was coming up to London again. Unlike our evening out the previous month, which I narrated in the first post of this series (Dining out: my baptism of fire), for me this was a trip from home by public transport again. Yes, I was still nervous, but I knew I could do it now.

I met Emma at Euston station - I think it was the first long-distance rail trip she'd done as Emma as she'd come all the way from Manchester. My memory of events is fuzzier than in the previous trips, which actually shows that my new-found freedom and confidence were becoming a given, so impressions are less burnt into my memory. We had a coffee at the café outside the station, travelled by Underground to Soho, which is the bustling heart of London's restaurant scene, and had lunch at Bistro One in Brewer Street.

And we went to the Victoria & Albert Museum, which is Britain's main museum for the decorative arts. Emma will have to remind me if that was to see the special Grace Kelly exhibition or if that was on another occasion. The best thing about that museum is the overblown Victorian tea rooms! But there was also an ice cream stall in the courtyard, which we enjoyed as it was a hot day. Another successful and fun trip out with both of us gaining hugely in confidence (and probably weight as well!).

When you know you need to do something, be something, you push yourself through all the barriers. I had needed courage in spades over the previous weeks, but it was paying off and I felt overdosed on adrenalin for sure, but also overwhelmed with joy.

There's one more major event to descibe from that incredible summer of 2010 and that will be in First Steps 5 in a few days' time.

Sue x

Add: see Emma's comment below. My fuzzy memory wasn't wholly wrong: she had tickets to see the Victoria & Albert Museum's fashion department's special exhibition on Grace Kelly's outfits. Some truly gorgeous, stylish dresses - the Fifties were a special time for female fashions and Grace Kelly was a - maybe even the - Fifties icon. We were certainly noticed by the tourists but this bothered me a lot less by now than it would have done a few weeks before. Thanks for the recollection, Emma, and thanks for a fun day and for being such a great friend.

First steps in trans living 3: getting out the front door

A great deal of trans life takes place in clubs and dedicated venues. You turn up there or to a nearby hotel, you put on your dress and makeup and then enjoy the fun for a few hours as the girl you really are and then you take it all off and go back to the reality society sets out for you. It's satisfying, but only partly.

So, continuing this series of reminiscences from ten years ago, today I recall the first excursion directly from home, which needed to be done if I was ever to feel free to live as I wanted.

If you have a car then you can avoid some of the difficulties of leaving home dressed. A car is in many ways an extension of your home world, a bubble surrounding you from much public interaction. I got rid of my car years ago as public transport in London became outstandingly good in the 2000s, but that left me with no option but to leave home on foot, with the potential to be spotted by neighbours and therefore outed, which I wasn't ready for.

In fact, the first attempt I made to step out the door I had to abort through a crisis of nerves. What was the world outside going to do to me? Even with much discussion on this topic on trans forums, I still wasn't sure what lay out there. Later that day I left the house with my heart in my mouth, walked around the block and came straight home, trembling. Yes, I was that nervous.

The following day I decided to do something longer. Again, I was nervous as hell but, having stepped out and locked the door, I deliberately pointed myself away from the nighbourhood and walked to the wide main road where I felt the traffic was too fast for people to stop and stare. I walked ...for miles. It was in one way a joy to feel free as a woman out in the sunshine; in another way, it was still very scary, but I decided to go as far from comfort as I could push myself.

I ended up at Kew Gardens, the famous botanic gardens. I had a season ticket. And do you know, the woman on the gate scrutinised me carefully and asked why I had a ticket in a man's name. I'm flattering myself I passed. But I suspect she was being extra rigorous. So, dear readers, the first thing I ever did as a woman on her own, was have to convince someone that my male documents applied to me after all. In some ways, I see the funny side of it.

Having been walking for an hour I needed the loo and for the first time went to the women's public toilet. It was empty, thankfully, as I would probably have been too nervous to have shared the space with someone else.

But in the vastness of Kew Gardens I felt free to move at will and avoid people and that made me much calmer. I took some selfies but they are not my favourite pictures so I won't post one here. Instead, here's one I took at Kew a year later wearing the same floral skirt and red top to give you some idea. My beautiful friend Petra was there with me this time.

I was impressed by what I had achieved and I wondered what was next. I could just walk all the way back home or ... I could be more daring. I had amazed myself, if I'm allowed to say so, and I left Kew Gardens and went to the station for my first ever trip on the London Underground. I only went one stop, to the end of the line at Richmond, where I bought a sandwich at the buffet. That also took a bit of effort as, again, it's not something I had done en femme before.

I ate my boring sandwich on the station bench, reapplied my lipstick and waited for the train to Kingston as I had now decided to push myself as much as I could. Kingston is a major shopping town in South West London and I spent a couple of hours going into department stores to buy clothes. I couldn't believe that here I was just looking through the rails of clothes like any other woman. The fulfilment of a lifelong dream.

I went home by train, barely believing all that I had done on my first day out of my own home. I knew I still had a lot of ground to conquer, but this was a major step.

Sue x

First steps in trans living 2: the Great Drag Race

(c) The X Foundation

An openly gay boss I once had sighed one day, "I'm celebrating my 49th birthday this weekend. Which is 256 in gay years." So, continuing this throwback to ten years ago, before this blog began and the world was newly formed ... OK, no, that's too much of an  exaggeration, but in trans years it was a VERY LONG TIME AGO. My second big trip, just a few days after the first, involved my piggy-backing my need to get out en femme onto an unusual event.

Many trans people rely on fancy dress events to get a chance to be out as themselves without attracting undue comment. Events like Hallowe'en or Carnival, the school prom or the local drama club, and similar. So the opportunity I had to be out in public was the Great Drag Race in 2010.

Nothing to do with RuPaul, this was an event organised by Prostate UK and Prostate Action, charities (now amalgamated as Prostate Cancer UK) that fund research into prostate cancer and look after sufferers and their families. A good cause, not just for men and their families, but transwomen too as, even after transition, the prostate may cause problems. The reason it was a race in drag was to acknowledge the high-profile work done by women for breast cancer care with events like the Moonwalk or Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I'm not a drag queen and, frankly, neither was any other participant, but here was a chance to be dressed in public, with praise for doing so thrown in. Win-win! I had various sponsors and had brought my friend Ange along with her camera.

It was quite a high-profile event, held in London Fields, a park in North-East London, and the compère was Peter Duncan, best known for his TV shows, notably Blue Peter *. A very personable, down-to-earth man in real life.

So although most of the participants being sponsored to run were just men who'd borrowed something off their wives, some of us like to think we were a bit more like the real thing. In fact, as I applied my makeup, one guy looked over at me and said, "You've done this before!"

My official portrait photo from the event is at the top. The unofficial one by Ange is at the bottom.

Now the first thing to do when ready was to break a world record. With ten minutes training from choreographer Lisa Lee we formed a chorus line and danced (or flailed around) for five minutes. Guinness World Records considered this activity sufficient to qualify for the title of Longest Line of Dancing Drag Queens Ever and so, dear readers, I am a world record holder with an official certificate to say so, and if Roy Castle were still alive I'm sure he'd tell everyone on his show about our outstanding achievement. Dedication and all that. *

The race itself was 10200 metres overall (six and a third miles), representing the 10200 people who die from prostate cancer in Britain each year. It was a warm summer's day and, frankly, running that far in a wig is no joke. The hair I chose was a cheap but light purchase from Doreen's fashions (a shop for trans women that sadly now exists only online). I did wear sensible running shoes but swapped them for four-inch court shoes for the last lap, and waved a pink umbrella too! Frankly, such shoes are not for running in - I bruised my toes!

It was exhilarating being out in a very public place in this way and thereby gain more confidence. I spotted another TGirl there. You could tell, we actually looked different from the rest. It was her first time out in public and, incredibly, she came on the Underground dressed already. I didn't actually talk to her because of our unspoken etiquette that you don't point out to a TGirl you may have spotted that she's a TGirl, even if you both are. I won't give her name as she's changed it anyway, and has been living and working full time female for some years now, but it was good to know that someone had had the same idea as me. We have become good friends since.

There's not a lot online about this event any more although I did find this on YouTube which gives a bit of the flavour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5G9bcwOf9A

Thanks to Ange for giving moral support and taking the photos and for the people who sponsored.

More out-and-about capers soon.

* Note for non-British readers:
Blue Peter is a children's magazine show that has been running on BBC television since the 1960s.
Roy Castle was a musician and entertainer who had a TV show for children called Record Breakers. "Dedication" was the lousy theme song that he sang at the end of every episode.

Sue x

First steps in trans living: dining out, my baptism of fire

This marks the tenth anniversary of my first public appearance in my home city. This January I wrote about my first ever night out ( https://suerichmond.blogspot.com/2020/01/big-anniversary.html ) but the difference is that that was in a dedicated trans venue whereas this was my first time in an everyday environment. And it was a baptism of fire that, frankly, did a lot to boost my confidence and kick off a month of exploration that led me from shy debutante to confident girl about town.

Here's how it went. I can recall the details perfectly as the evening is indelibly printed on my mind.

I'd agreed to meet Emma Walkey at her hotel in London and we would go for an evening meal. Now, Emma had invited me to join her as she assumed that I was already confidently out and about; and I agreed to join her as I thought she was, well, confidently out and about. We were both wrong: neither of us had done this before!

Having got dressed and made up, Emma rang down to reception for a taxi. "Do you know any good taxi firms?" I heard her say. I was about to suggest, "Ask for a black cab" (i.e. a standard London taxi) but then I thought, "Doesn't matter. Reception will know".

Very nervously, I left Emma's room with her. We got to the hotel entrance and waited for the taxi they had called. And we waited. And waited some more. Half an hour late, a minicab (private taxi) arrived. I told the driver where the restaurant was and he started to punch the name into his satnav. "This doesn't look good," I thought. It sounded a lot worse when he said the fare would be £25! Obviously, he was used to shuttling people to and from the airport and never went to the central maze of streets.

Being my first time out in the real world I had really wanted to avoid complications because I was very nervous, but I had to act and said this really wasn't what we were after. The driver was decent and realised that there had been a misunderstanding with the hotel and he left us for free on the Bayswater Road to catch a black cab. Now, if you know London, you will know that the Bayswater Road is one of the six-lane main arteries of the city and at seven in the evening it is packed with traffic. And I had hoped for a discreet, quiet time and not being too much in public view! So there we stood on this busy main street in our finery with the traffic trundling past until we managed to hail a black cab that swerved across lanes to pick us up. Phew! That was quite a baptism of fire given how nervous I was. I rang the restaurant from the cab to keep our reservation open as we were going to be very late. For comparison, the fare was about £12.

My first appearance in the street

We arrived at Sarastro's in Drury Lane. This place has featured a number of times in this blog as it's a fun place to go, with extraordinary décor and a mainly Turkish menu ( https://www.sarastro-restaurant.com/ ).

We enjoyed a good meal and very nice treatment from the staff. I had booked it because I had assumed they would be trans friendly. Of course, as time goes on, you realise that everywhere in big cities is actually trans friendly. After all, trans money is as good as anyone else's.

In a dining booth in Sarastro's restaurant

Emma suggested we finish off the evening at a pub. "Wow! This is an evening of firsts", I thought. "First time out in my home town, first time out in the street, first time in a taxi, first time in a London restaurant and now first time walking about and going to a bar."

We walked through Covent Garden and it was the longest I had ever walked as a woman. Negotiating the cobbles in high heels was a new skill to learn! It was getting on for 11 pm and it was hard to find a pub open. We went all the way to Wardour Street, very much the heart of the West End. There happened to be lots of elephant statues in London that summer, painted by different artists, and we came across one in the covered galleries of Covent Garden Market.

In Wardour Street we found O'Neill's fake Irish pub and rounded off the evening there.

A blonde and a brunette walk into a bar ...

We made friends with a couple of students who were very complimentary about our appearance. We like people like that!

Well, after that we caught a taxi back to the hotel, had a last photo and returned to the humdrum world.

Emma and I have been firm friends ever since this day

My journey home by night bus took a very long time and the dawn was about to break by the time I got to bed. It had been the most amazing night out, breaking so many barriers. It was what I had dreamed of doing since I was a little kid. And now it was real.

Sue x