Another day out

My friend Sarah wanted to meet up in London and I have been needing to try out a possible makeup solution that won't damage my delicate skin so badly. So today I put the two together ...

Instead of what I have done for years, which is to use primer, then orange or pink beard cover then several layers of oil-based foundation, powder and concealer, as well as eyeshadow, liner and mascara, all I did was use my immunosuppressant cream as primer and put water-based foundation over with just enough powder to hold it. No eye makeup, just lipstick. It did sting at first and I almost aborted the mission but I persisted. My worry was that any beard shadow would show through the rather more translucent makeup. Throughout the day I kept asking Sarah to check my chin and let me know if I was developing visible shadow but it seems like I didn't.

Anyway, we went for a morning stroll through St James's Park where snowdrops and daffodils were in flower. The lake there always pleasant, even in winter. We ended up outside Buckingham Palace and then walked on into Green Park.

Coffee at the rather nice Cafe Concerto in Piccadilly was followed by a further walk through the bustle of the West End and lunch in Soho.

We then walked down to the River Thames and ended the day with a cup of tea at Somerset House as evening fell.

It never fails to be a joy to be a woman, especially just blending in with the crowd and just going about one's weekend like everyone else. And all the waiting staff at all the places we stopped for refreshment unfailingly addressed us as Ladies or Madam. For me, that affirmation is what it is all about.

So I am very happy to have had a day out en femme with a much-loved friend, especially after such a hard week's work. I have to see what ten hours in makeup does to my skin, and that will be the real test. I was a joy to be treated as a woman again.

Sue x

Ramping up the mojo

I've been needing to try more makeup experiments on my face to see how my skin copes. My infernal eczema is neither cured there, nor even specially quiet. But it's hard to get motivated in the gloom of winter (and the days have been very dark with low clouds for weeks).

However, there are a few things to look forward to so as to get my T spirit back. This weekend I am planning to meet up with the fabulous Sarah whom I've know for years. I am also trying to book a hotel for Sparkle. I really would like to get there this year after last year's aborted plans. And, very excitingly, after years of pestering her, my lovely friend Roz is travelling 600 miles to stay with me this autumn. My Social Organiser Brownie Badge is already being polished up for these occasions.

This wretched illness has not only prevented my putting makeup on but, more significantly, it's wrecked so much of my social life through not being able to participate properly in TGirl meet-ups. Hence much of the collapse in my mojo recently. I really need a break!

Sue x

Gay men pardoned

When I was little we enjoyed the game of "fortunately/unfortunately" where you take it in turns to make up snippets of a story where good turns of events alternate with bad ones. This is a bit how I feel today after the Policing & Crime Bill (commonly called the Alan Turing Bill) received royal assent.

I welcome today's news that thousands previously convicted of homosexual acts in Britain before such acts were decriminalised in 1967 have been officially pardoned. Too bad most of them are long since dead and this is of no actual benefit to lives and reputations that were ruined. Still, it's another step in the right direction.

There are still sentences that won't be covered by the new law and I do have fears that recent political developments may halt further progress in this area for a while. Given how people are convinced that being trans is connected with being gay (and it's partly our fault for being so closely connected politically with gay rights movements) it's a worry if things move backwards after this.

Still, let's rejoice that society has been reducing the age-old persecution of gay, lesbian and bi people by steps like today's. Slowly but surely.

ADD: 2 Feb. One surviving victim of the war that was waged on homosexuality does not want to apply for a pardon on the grounds that he did nothing wrong, it was the law that was wrong. The age-old paradox that by accepting a pardon you acknowledge the crime. I feel so sad that so many men suffered - and still suffer - in this Greek tragedy of human instinct versus social norm.

Sue x

Farewell Mr Obama

I usually comment on politics only when it affects transgender matters, so that's not often.

I'd just like to record that life as a resident of Planet Earth, and especially life as a trans person, has felt so much pleasanter, calmer, less fretful with someone like Barack Obama in the place of 'most powerful man on Earth'. It's been good to have someone personable, rational, thoughtful, considerate and calm as a politician, let alone as a major leader. Like most people, I am less confident about life with a bullying narcissist like Donald Trump in power, especially in respect of people like me who don't fit the more standard social mould.

Most powerful man on Earth, the phrase is. Depending on time and place that might be the Pharaoh, the Persian or Roman or Chinese Emperor, the Sultan, the Pope... And, yes, almost always a man. Yet few have seemed quite as brazen a misogynist as we now have in the White House.

I shall continue to fight for my worth as a woman. Most of my trans friends are a stroppy lot, and I suspect they will do the same! I'm hoping that my fears are just that, abstract fears and nothing more. But we must be on guard.

Farwell, Mr Obama. I've appreciated your work, even though I don't live in your country.

Sue x

The joy of shops

I like shopping. I really do. That doesn't mean I have to buy anything, I just like pottering around the shops looking at what they've got. And if it's clothes or shoes, I might try something on. Even after I'd started going out in the big world as female, it was a while before I felt courageous enough to use the fitting rooms, but I quite like trying things on now, especially when it saves me making a bad purchase.

When I last went out, in November (My Resurrection?), I decided to end my day by visiting the shops and headed to Oxford Street where all the main store chains have their biggest outlets. I was really looking for a new coat, but was there any harm in looking at tops and skirts, too? But chiefly it was a joy to rediscover the pleasure of just pottering around among the rails, being treated like any other female shopper and, frankly, nobody paying me any attention as I browsed. I suspect that no-one who isn't trans understands the complete satisfaction of doing normal stuff in one's real gender. It's the banality that's actually the peak of feeling complete.

Debenhams has now been completely refurbished and rearranged. Some bright spark had the idea of installing a piano for customers to play, maybe in the hope of encouraging an undiscovered Liberace to entertain the shoppers for free. Such pianos are popping up all over; the one at St Pancras station is particularly popular and actually gets competent players sitting at it, professional musicians who are waiting for a train. The Debenhams piano, on the other hand, attracts small children. And whilst my trans joy may be unalloyed, I find it hard to appreciate a tuneless ploink! plink! ploink! going on for hours. Best get to the fitting rooms for a bit of peace!

You know, I don't recall ever taking a fitting room selfie before. There are still some firsts.

I got a coat in the end. And a boost to my femininity and self-esteem after two years of being out of it.

Sue x

Those biggest resolutions

Happy New Year, everyone.

I hope that 2017 is a really good year for you. Most people I know had a bad time in 2016 in one way or another so let's hope for a much better year this year.

My brief roundup of 2016 is here (a link, as it disappears in the archive at New Year: http://suerichmond.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/annual-roundup.html )

Well, my New Year Resolutions 2017 are:

- to continue losing weight (that's been going well ever since I rejoined Slimming World - more on that another time - although, strangely, I seem to have had a bit of a setback in Christmas week!)

- to post here much more regularly than I did in 2016

- to carry on with my New Year Resolution 1997.

Huh? What? 1997 was, like, twenty years ago, Sue.

Yes, and it was on January 1st 1997 that I resolved one vital thing. I vowed I would stop purging my female clothes, would accept and embrace the fact that I am transgender and never try to suppress it again and, to prove it, I would dress as a woman every day.

And I have kept that resolution since. Twenty years with no purging or denial. I am trans, that's what I am. And every day has been a testimony to that. Sure, the intensity ebbs and flows, as I've mentioned here from time to time, but fundamentally I know I am trans and have actively lived a trans life since.

I remember moving to my current home a few weeks before that New Year and, despite the enormous amount of decorating work that was going on and the quantities of paint and Polyfilla I was buying, I spent hundreds of pounds getting myself a full new wardrobe of women's clothes, from shoes to bras to nighties to skirts, raiding all of London's shoe shops and department stores to do so. I didn't go out dressed at that time so, frankly, I feel proud of my bravery buying all those feminine things in boy mode.

And in those early years after that resolution, like a lot of TGirls, I'd come home from work, throw off those horrid male work clothes straight away and slip into something altogether more appropriate, and declare "I am a woman". "They think I'm a man," I'd say. "I have to act like a man and appear like a man, but really I'm a woman." Maybe I'd not be quite so bold as to make such a black and white statement today, but it was a liberation from the oppression I felt before.

In my last post I mentioned that Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in 1977 had a profound effect on me and I took steps to embrace my femme side. That was a rocky journey for those next twenty years because of so many family and other cultural pressures, hence the many purges and resolutions to stamp out my trans leanings. But these last twenty years have been amazing in my female development and I hope that they are a precursor to two more decades of embracing my femininity.


Here, by the way, is my new avatar for 2017 (which I will get onto Blogger when I can remember how). I always change my profile pics every New Year, usually picking my favourite from the previous year.

Best wishes to you all.

Sue x

Annual roundup

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

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

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

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

Home Makeup Experiment I

Home Makeup Experiment II

Home Makeup Experiment III

In Tapas Revolution, London

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

Home Makeup Experiment IV

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

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

Credit: Absolute Film Archive

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

Sue x

Happy Christmas

I know the message is early but as Christmas Day falls on a weekend it's best to get it out now.

I'd like to wish all my readers a very happy and peaceful Christmas (or any other festivity you prefer).

Here's hoping that you find something nice in your stocking. Preferably your own leg! And that you get lots of other presents that are just what you wanted (not something horrible, like a boy's necktie, yeeuch!).

Don't drink too much or eat too much, though... Bah! who am I kidding! Eat the nice things (and leave the soggy sprouts).

In all, have a wonderful Christmas weekend.

Here's my card to all, a photo I managed to take the other evening.

Lots of love

Sue x

Thinking

It's been five weeks since I last posted, which is a long time away from my blog.

I've been seeing TGirls I know, such as Tanya, Wilhelmina, Joanne, Sarah and Saffy, but with me in male mode as I have been dealing with the bad reaction of my skin after my day out on November 5th. Sure, the medicine works, but it's clear I'm not cured. And seeing other girls happily dressed or transitioning/transitioned is actually not doing my mood any good.

So I'm thinking what to do.

I'll be writing more about all this in due course.

Sue x

My resurrection?

Yesterday, for the first time in two and a half years, I put my face on and went to central London.

Regular readers will know that I have had eczema on my face and neck so severe that it reacted to anything that touched it. And that includes everything a TGirl needs to exist – close shaving, makeup, jewellery and so forth. After much medical and other intervention I am a lot better. So it was time to see if I could be me again.

It was a very cold, windy day and, although I know the girls like to be smart, I couldn't face wearing anything other than skinny jeans and a sweater. For me, warm, practical and what blends in with others take precedence over finery!

I thought I would be nervous leaving the house after so long. But my main fear – that the next door family would spot me – was laid to rest when they went off in their car just before I had planned to go out. So I opened the front door, mentally recited the TGirl mantra, “Head up, Tits out, Girl on a Mission, and Smile,” and, trailing a cloud of Versace Crystal Noir behind me, I went out. Within moments I felt like I’d never been away.

I hit my first obstacle quite soon: trains weren’t working because of that classic British Privatised Railways excuse, “engineering works”. So I started by taking the overcrowded town bus. An old man at the stop and on the bus was eyeing me. He may never have seen a TGirl before. I simply let him gaze as he seemed curious rather than a letch. Still, give an old man a cheap thrill, I say.

It continued to be an eventful journey when I changed to the Underground because the train door snapped shut and separated a little kid from his mum. (Don’t worry, a couple of girls immediately took the poor boy under their wing and staff up the line were alerted to meet him). Finally, after taking two hours to travel 15 miles (that’s what London can be like), I met up with my old friends Rachel, Linda and Gill at the Verge Bar in Brick Lane. It was lovely to be greeted like a returning prodigal with hugs and kisses. It was a cold day and I was glad to get a big warming coffee to drink.

We had great meal at Tapas Revolution round the corner, which I learn is one of London’s best reviewed tapas bars (http://www.tapasrevolution.com/#home). The tapas were pretty good, I thought (we had a wide-ranging selection, from battered aubergine to spicy octopus), but my pudding (crème caramel with nougat) was outstanding.

My lovely friends Gill, Linda and Rachel

One reason to go out was that I desperately needed a new coat and eyeshadow, so I kissed my lovely friends goodbye and took the Underground to Oxford Street where bought a coat from the Oasis concession in Debenhams, and some new eye makeup in Boots. The sales assistant at the No. 7 counter, whom I guessed would identify as genderqueer, had great makeup (well, it’s part of the job, I guess!)

So, missions for the day:

1) wear makeup for a day – accomplished

2) get out of my own front door again – accomplished

3) enjoy lovely TGirl company – accomplished

4) buy essentials – accomplished

No wonder I’m smiling in my Train Home Selfie.

I have to see what happens with my face over the next few days. That will determine if I’m better or not, and where I go from here.

Sue x