Transgender Day of Visibility: a dip in the photo archives

Today is Transgender Day of Visibility.

I'm aware that some recent posts of mine have had to discuss very negative matters. And as the news is more than depressing at present I decided to distract myself this week by looking through some of my old photos.

So this year, for Transgender Day of Visisbility, I thought I would share some of these. Some have been posted on my blog before, some never. They illustrate so many ways in which we can be visible: visiting trans clubs or dressing services, going out in public like any other member of society, attending trans events, arranging meet-ups, having a presence online... All the time we are showing the world that we exist, giving ourselves a boost and letting other trans people know that we can lead the lives we choose with just a bit of courage.

In no especial order, here are 15 photos of me over the years, finding my feet, living my life. I hope you can too.

Sue x

At the Boudoir Dressing Service, November 2008. Strangely, this odd experimental outfit is proving verty popular on Flickr.

Six fabulous T-Girls on Waterloo Bridge, London, July 2013. We had lots of tourists stopping to photograph us. L-R: Stella, Linda, Steph, me, Rachel and Irene.

My first night out in the real world, London, June 2010. This was the very first moment I'd ever stepped out onto the street. I was nervous as anything but what a night it would turn out to be.

By the River Thames in Twickenham after a visit to a local beauty salon, July 2011.

Pink Punters LGBT nightclub, Milton Keynes, October 2010.

Official portrait for the Erotica Show at London's Olympia Exhibition Centre, November 2011. I was one of the barmaids at the T-Girl Bar, the first time there'd been a clear trans presence at this major event.

Partying at Nottingham Invasion, January 2012.

Dressed for the Great Drag Race, a charity event in aid of prostate cancer in London Fields, NE London, June 2010. Participants also broke the world record for the largest gathering of dancing drag queens. OK, I don't identify as a drag queen myself, but I will support all expressions of gender.

London Ladies Who Lunch, Cambridge Pub, London, November 2012. Front L-R: Steph, Ann, me, Helen, Stella, Helena; back: Irene, Tina, Rachel.

Aboard the Cutty Sark museum ship, Greenwich, London, August 2013.

The Brick Lane Gang, March 2014. L-R: Joanne, me, Irene, Kay, Rachel C, Stella, Rachel B.

The Boudoir Dressing Service, November 2008. When it all came together and I found my kind of look. A few days later I returned and bought the wig.

Dinner in a restaurant in Manchester, July 2017. With Karen and a giant soft drink!

Barmaids at the Erotica Show, Tobacco Dock Exhibition Centre, London. October 2013. L-R: Helena, Stella, Ria, Sabrina, me, Vanessa (above), Rebecca (below), Amanda.

My first commercial makeover and wig shopping trip, London, July 2010. I had a lovely time at Mac being made up and then went to Trendco for this new wig, both in Kensington Church Street. Doing all this all on my own from my own home and travelling by public transport was scary, but from this point on I knew I could do it and live as I wanted to.

Supremacism and the single girl

Warning: this post contains racist and homophobic language that readers may find upsetting

I have hesitated for years to post much of this next item, but after another white supremacist atrocity (in open, tolerant New Zealand of all places) and several years now of Brexit-encouraged xenophobia in Britain, Trump-promoted hate in the USA, Salvini-promoted racism in Italy, and right-wing and religious fanaticism threatening mixed societies across the world, I think it's time to comment on the problem directly. The world which trans people were at last beginning to feel was decent or at least survivable is showing its brutish roots in cultural supremacism, and people who don't fit the local mould are threatened. As I have said here several times, racism goes hand in hand with all other kinds of persecution of other people outside the main group, and LGBT is almost invariably one of those groups. Trans people who vote for Trump, Brexit, Salvini, Le Pen and other aggressively nationalistic politicians need to think more carefully as to whether their own interests are best served by these racists.

My own father, I am very sorry to say, is a white supremacist. His favourite word is nigger, which he will spit out many times a day: "stinking niggers... bloody niggers... filthy niggers...". Or wog or chinkie or gook or hook-nosed Isey (i.e. Jew). Any person of African descent is rechristened Nigger by him: the supermodel Naomi Nigger, the South African president Nelson Nigger, the BBC newsreader Trevor Nigger,... This is what I was brought up with and I have chosen not to spare the offensiveness so you can see exactly what we are dealing with. Even the Ku-Klux Klan is trying to present a cleaner, cuddlier image and avoid such terms. Yet my father is supposedly a cultured, well-educated man! Somehow, my father's loss of status as an Englishman in the world has hit him especially hard. He is no longer supreme, a winner in life's lottery, but now just one human among many cultures worldwide and at home. As humans, it's been observed, we tend to pine at our losses more often than yearn after something we haven't yet attained. To him, other races, nations, states, religions and cultures are inferior and those who've promoted the rise of inferior people in the world are damnable. Slavery is OK in his view and serves you right if you're weak. He calls himself a Fascist and gets angry when generalissimos get overthrown or put on trial (like Pinochet did). Naturally enough, he feels required to hate and campaign against other minorities, such as gay people (the sodomites, as he calls them), just like my sister who hates LGBT people, or lugbutts as she puts it (see https://suerichmond.blogspot.com/2017/09/hello- lugbutts.html). I haven't spoken to my father for some years now, partly because of his hate and aggression and the incompatibility between us, and this consequent loss makes me very unhappy.

Maybe its inappropriate to write about one's family in a public place like this but it shows that, just like Islamic bombers hiding in plain sight in suburbia or gun-toting white supremacists from decent backgrounds, the enemy is absolutely within our society, our families and our communities.

Xenophobia, the fear of the outsider, arises not from strength but from weakness; from discomfort, uncertainty, misunderstanding and worry; and from impatience too, a wish not to have to make the effort to accept someone because they have some trait that differs. What bothers me about religion in this context is that it is used endlessly to justify political persecution, a higher power sanctifying some brutality. There's always some way that people justify bad behaviour, and listening to people excusing their hate is nauseating. Worse is the exploitation of the weaker-minded by con men. This week I am particularly disgusted by Nigel Farage, instigator of Brexit, 'leading' (for just one hour himself) a pro-Brexit protest march from Sunderland in North East England, which is universally considered to be the one region of Britain that will be worst hit by the immediate economic effects of the Brexit policy. I feel sorry for the unhappy people who have been conned by this amoral man into supporting the one thing that will really damage them most. It's a far cry from the nobility of the Jarrow March of working men from that area suffering in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

I'm unable to offer a best solution as yet. Just as any community needs to tackle its unrepresentative extremists, white people like me need to deal with these madmen. It seems counterintuitive, but actually attacking the haters back simply adds to the animosity and hate, and you can rarely get through to someone whose beliefs are irrational and fearful and to whom acknowledging an error is too embarrassing. Yet trying to extend love and kindness is rarely met with understanding or appreciation. If used non-aggressively, Transgender Day of Visibility and Transgender Day of Remembrance are valuable ways to show that trans people exist and live all over the world. Nevertheless, the current crop of intolerance is getting to me. Solutions on a postcard, please.

Sue x

What's in a name?

A few people have said to me, "Now that you've moved home, Sue, you're going to have to change your name."

But this is to assume that I named myself after the town of Richmond in South West London, which isn't the case (or only slightly, as will become clear). In fact, I lived in Twickenham (famous for rugby), but you don't think I'd really want to be known as Sue Twickers, Rhymes with Knickers, do you?

How do we choose our names as trans people? After all, our parents gave us a name around the time of our birth and that (in most cases) reflected the gender we were perceived to have, and Mum and Dad certainly don't have a pool of surnames to choose from. So when we trans people ourselves realise that our gender is not quite what was originally thought, we have the rare privilege of being able to choose our own name. If there are any perks to being trans, this is one of them.

There are so many ways of choosing a name. Some just change from Dave to Davina (or vice versa) and leave their surname the same, others anagram their birth names or come up with reflections of their status (like my friend Susan Sometimes). There are some very witty choices (personally, I think Helen Highwater and Vanessa Parody are inspired, and they're not even on the drag circuit). Sometimes people want to get completely away from their birth name (as in my case). And often people choose a surname that's their location - I know a Helen Essex and an Andrea Huntingdon (counties), Janie London (cities), and so forth. I also know several people who change names on a fairly regular basis. It's all very personal, and that's how it should be.

Now, I've wanted to write this post about this for some years but obviously the queries I've had after moving have been the catalyst.

Let's start at the beginning, then.

My full name is Susan Verity Richmond.

Susan: a name I've always liked. A recent survey associated it with successful business women and I find it a robust, traditional, no nonsense sort of name. Oddly enough, I've had two girlfriends called Susan, but I met them after I'd settled on it as my own name so I'm sure that's just coincidence. I toyed with the idea of Sophie for a few years but dropped it.

I first liked the name Susan at school, aged 7, when our teacher read us Rosemary Manning's wonderful novel Green Smoke about a girl called Susan who encounters a dragon near King Arthur's legendary Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. She and the dragon become friends and he tells her tales from King Arthur's day. The delightful illustrations by Constance Marshall made me so want to be Susan (and have a dragon friend).

Other influences had an effect on my subconscious: TV presenters like Susan King who fronted a show aimed mainly at girls called Horses Galore, Susans at school, other Susans I came across in media or real life. I guess they all work their way into the mix. I don't even recall when I felt Susan was my name too, but it was a long time ago.

As for Verity, that arose when I got internet at home and needed a distinctive name for email addresses and such. Verity is derived from veritas, Latin for truth, as by now I'd realised that this was the true me. Unimaginative, I guess, and actually not a name I like much, but when I said recently to a friend of mine that I might drop it he was most insistent that I keep it as reflecting an honest assessment of my reality. So it stays.

As for Richmond, well, I am sorry to say that I chose it largely from the name of a soft porn star from the 1970s, Fiona Richmond. Sorry because I'm not sure porn is a healthy thing, popular though it's always been. But Verity reflects truth so I'll be truthful about this too. It was an advertisement for this show that did it:

Except the show was on at Richmond Theatre that week.

I'd never seen a woman wearing unusual clothes like this before. I'm not sure how old I was - before puberty anyway -  but whilst I was well aware that women wore high heels, tights, bras and such, I had never seen skyscraper heels, stockings, suspenders and basques before. Here was some kind of exaggerated femininity and it hit me hard. As did the emphasis of the name on the poster: Fiona Richmond at Richmond Theatre. It couldn't do other than bore into my consciousness.

So I wasn't directly named after Richmond in London at all. And I'm keeping the name, despite its slightly naughty origins!

How did you choose yours?

Sue x

Putting down new roots

I've been living mainly in Italy since November and have started putting down some serious roots as of this week, opening an Italian bank account and getting Italian emails and mobile telephony up and running. I've also started putting out some feelers directly to local trans associations and will test and see if any feel suitable for me, although I confess that I prefer a less formal approach to trans life. Maybe I'll get to make some new trans friends here soon.

There's a huge amount more to do to get settled and I am worried about the slowness, incompetence and stifling nature of local bureaucracy that stands in the way. But given the appalling state that my native country of Britain has got itself into, anything is better than the potential disaster that its toxic ruling elite have created with the complacency and ignorance of its electorate. I haven't slept properly for nearly three years despairing about the destruction that the Brexit referendum has caused. Here's an outstanding item from the New York Times recently that explains part of the Brexit problem very well
New York Times: The Malign Incompetence of the British Ruling Class

The weather all over Europe is unusually warm. It's ironic that, now that I am trying to move to warmer climes for the sake of better health, where I used to live has recorded the warmest February temperatures ever. Still, it's sunny and dry here in Milan and I'm happy with that.

I also appreciate the way people dress in this top fashion capital. I need to up my game!

Sue x

Foreign climes

It's been unseasonably warm in Europe this past week or two and here in Milan it almost feels like spring. Apart from there being no leaves on the trees or flowers coming up.

It was a pleasant journey here by train, stopping off in Paris for a night. It's very hard to take photos from the train of the beautiful mountain scenery as the double glazing and bright lights create severe reflections.

Over the weekend, though, I took a plane to Berlin to stay with one of my friends there. It was a quiet time when I had a chance to look at some of the fantastic treasures in the archaological museums in the city centre, stroll in the Tiergarten (the central park), ride the trams, see how reconstruction of the palace is coming on. I've posted many pictures of Berlin over the years but here are some new views.

The Altes Museum on Museum Island, full of superb Greek and Roman antiquities

Tiergarten in winter

Frederick the Great in Unter den Linden, the main thoroughfare

The royal palace is nearly rebuilt. The crane is for the underground line that they have been digging for ever! Berlin has had no end of building sites since German Unification in the early 1990s. There's a lot of building and rebuilding still to do. Ironically the palace was not so badly damaged by wartime bombing despite being in the very centre of the city but was pulled down by the communists as a symbol of imperialist repression. East Germany then built its parliament building on the site but that was torn down, allegedly because of asbestos, but really because it was a symbol of communist repression.

More obvious signs of war. Missing statue and shrapnel damage.

These pieces of Berlin Wall are left as a memorial. Having been brought up in the Cold War era, these still have the power to make me shudder. So why do today's moron tourists stick their chewing gum and write their names all over them?

It was also the chance to eat out a lot (always a favourite activity of mine). There's cuisine of all nations to choose from and I ate Vietnamese and Indian as well as German. But the one that stood out was the German tapas restaurant, mini dishes of German classics. Here's currywurst and chips, fried chicken and chutney, Berlin meatballs and mini onions. Odd but fun.

There were fabulous views of the snowclad Harz Mountains, Black Forest and Swiss Alps from the plane, the Upper Rhine Valley, Lake Lucerne and Lake Lugano, and the blue line of the Vosges in France were all very clear and beautiful.

Back in Milan now.

Sue x

Some gems

The last two posts about politics and loss were not very positive so this time I'm pleased to report some better news. In the light of my being unable to find my box of feminine goodies, I bought myself a necklace and earrings that I think will suit my eyes and style.

I'm also pleased to report that two trans friends who write books, Roz White and Helena Love, have been receiving royalties for their output. Shows that enough books are being sold that are related to the trans community in one way or another.

On the subject of literature, I'm also pleased to see that a children's book I mentioned in a previous post, "Julian is a Mermaid" by Jessica Love (no relation to Helena) is evidently selling very well.

I'm in the process of packing my bags to go back to Italy for a few months. I actually need to be there for administrative reasons but it means that I can avoid the fallout in the UK if Brexit results in chaos next month. Good luck to the folks at home. I also hope to spend a weekend in Berlin with a gay friend before my British passport becomes a liability. Sadly, for reasons already explained, none of my travels will involve femme time. Although a lot of my clothes are, in fact, women's items, and this always makes me feel connected to my female side and to the trans world.

I'm looking forward to spring arriving whilst I'm away.

Sue x

Lost essentials

Last year when I moved house I had an accident right whilst I was actually doing the removals. Most of my things are in a self-storage depot but one box I specially set aside. It contained my most stylish wigs, my boobs, my makeup and two bottles of my favourite perfume.

I've been back to the depot three times and I cannot find the box. Obviously when staggering around with my leg all swollen and trying to direct the removal men I happened to lose sight of that box. I'm sure it wasn't left in the house or in the van so I can only assume that one of the men used it when stacking furniture and it's somehow ended up at the bottom or back of the storage unit.

But it means my most essential feminine items are unavailable and I cannot present as female. Obviously, it's all replaceable and I have already found a good hair shop and there is Mac and other makeup shops near my new base in Britain, but I still feel upset that the most feminising things I have should have disappeared and that I haven't been able to venture out as my female self.

Things really don't seem to be going right recently.

Sue x

The mess we're in

It's traditional to wish a happy new year in an opening post. I hope you do have one.

Despite that traditional greeting, I have a feeling that there are some very nasty times ahead.

I am trying to settle in Italy at the moment, and am dealing with the world's worst bureaucracy. That's not any kind of laughing matter but an example of the vicious contempt with which governments treat those they have subject to them.

I have been living there since November in order to try to retain my rights as a European citizen. They're silly little things like human, employment and pension rights and other trivial dignities that Theresa May has been determined to remove in Britain. Living in a country with a clear constitution, citizen rights and guaranteed rule of law suits me, but then maybe I'm just some kind of silly twit.

Given the crass utter shambles that the UK has made of Brexit, the UK's credibility on the continent and worldwide is shot. Nobody in politics or the press here on the European mainland now sees the UK government as anything other than a bunch of grossly arrogant retards who couldn't organise a V sign. From a previous position of respect, the UK is a pitiable laughing stock. Well done. Bravo. Clap clap.

Frankly, I don't care how the rest of this moronic Brexit shambles pans out. Britain's medieval parliamentary, electoral, diplomatic and other systems have proved unfit for the 21st century and need to be completely overhauled. Britain has a government that had a mandate from a mere 21% of the population, just one person in five. Go figure. But a thousand years of feudalism means that the populace in England just sits there and accepts whatever the establishment does to it. No gilets jaunes here.

Brexiteers now need to be held accountable for the mess that their gross ignorance, overweening arrogance, race hate and/or sneering malice is creating. They never had any coherent plan in mind, just destruction, like yobs. They have no credibility, honesty or shame. There's ample evidence now of foul play in winning the Brexit referendum vote, not to mention the government's steadfast avoidance of parliament in the process as much as it possibly could get away with. What contempt for the process of government, for law and for citizens! If the UK cannot agree a withdrawal deal with the EU, its main trade partner, for which there is a clear negotiating mechanism, how on earth does it expect to succeed in the far trickier and more protracted business of negotiating with other nations? That was the Brexiteer promise: better, easier, more advantageous trade deals all round. Yeah, right.

The stress of dealing with Brexit fallout on my work has damaged my health so I have closed my business, sold up, and am taking myself, my assets and my taxes away from that failing country and, as I no longer work, I will be spending the time damaging Brexiteer interests in return and actively fighting nationalism and racism. So many people have said to me "Brexit is bad for me but there's nothing I can do about it". This is what I am doing about it

As for Theresa May, the repellent Prime Minister, and her gang of incompetent, narcissistic ministers and supporters, their shamelessness, contempt and cruelty are unpardonable.

"But Sue," the reader starts to protest, "although I agree with all/some/none of the above, you write a transgender blog and what's all this got to do with being trans?"

The one apparently positive thing that May has tried to do is to make life easier for transitioning transsexuals, persuaded to do so by an openly lesbian former minister Justine Greening. The problem is that the association of trans rights with a government with an extremist and atrocious record does the trans community no good at all. I refused to participate in the consultation as I foresee a backlash when May is finally called to account. I think it highly probable that one of the first cuts in services as the economy tanks will be for "non-essentials" such as gender clinics and trans health services.

The other reason is that much of the wish to leave the European Union is bound to race hate, and that is linked to all other forms of xenophobia such as hatred for trans people. Soaring race attacks have been matched by soaring homophobic, transphobic and other crimes.

What a sick and evil mess.

Sue x

That was 2018

It’s been a very unusual year but I did get time to go out at various times, either just shopping for myself or walking locally, or eating out with girlfriends, such as Sarah, Steph, Gina and Jo, and Emma.

The highlight, though, was my trip to Berlin, which was my first time out abroad. I saw all the sights of the city centre and it was a delight to be free to wander around a place where nobody took any notice of the trans woman. That’s how life should be.

The one major change is that I am moving abroad. Although I’m in Italy at present I may not stay there in the long run. The gross and unpardonable mess that the toxic UK government is making of leaving the European Union makes all things uncertain for millions such as myself. The only thing I am certain of is that a racist, isolated, right-wing Britain is not safe for trans people. Consequently, this year I felt it very important to participate in Transgender Day of Visibility and London Pride. That, and my family’s passionate anti-LGBT bigotry. Spain seems to have a more developed trans culture and that may be my final destination. I’m moving chiefly because my health now needs somewhere warmer and sunnier than Britain.

London Pride

One thing I can count on is the humanity of lots of my friends in the trans community and when I damaged my leg during house removals, it was a trans friend who took me in and looked after me for two weeks.

I’ve no idea what 2019 will bring. The one thing I am certain of is that it will be very uncertain. I just hope that humanity prevails over the bigotry now seen in Brexit Britain, Trump’s America and other former civilized countries where unscrupulous populist narcissists are whipping up hate. Here in Italy the loons are in government too but their likelihood of failing is high and I think things will soon return to a more rational approach.

Good luck in 2019, everyone.

Here’s my avatar for 2019, taken whilst on my way to London last summer.

Sue x

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to all my readers. I hope Santa brought you everything you wanted.

Sue x

Christmas tree outside Milan Cathedral