The Pride tram, rebel witches and weird food

 I'm away from home for a few days and have gone to Milan because of the good shopping to be done there, and for a bit of culture and eating out. Yes, the diet is on hold while I munch my way through some very interesting dishes. Traditional local food uses some weird cuts of meat, like beef shank sinews ("nervetti") and sweetbread (veal pancreas) and I'm not sure I can recommend them, but there's compensation in good pizzas and a wide variety of foreign restaurants. Last night's Spanish tapas were amazing, as was the cava to wash them down.

I've also been making photos and short films of the very old trams here. I've mentioned these before, but the backbone of the Milan tram fleet is still made up of the 1928 model streetcar that is still in daily use on half a dozen routes. I think it worth recording these because they will eventually be retired, and because one beloved trans friend of mine has a passion for trams so she'll want to see them. A trans tram fan! But I was delighted when one painted in Pride colours happened to trundle past on Route 1. Pride month is over but this will presumably not be repainted to standard livery for a while yet as it costs money so we have a moving Pride advert for the time being! 

 

I was pleased to hear that a whole subway train in Rome was similarly decked out this year.

Another local thing is a passion for artistic decks of playing cards, either normal 52 card decks or traditional Italian decks, which have different suits and usually only 40 cards, or tarot cards, and so forth. Lots of artists are commissioned to do their own take. I got a friend a present of a set of tarot cards depicting "rebel witches", i.e. nonconformists including a lot of LGBT icons like Ziggy Stardust, Ursula Le Guin, generic lesbian lovers, etc. I think they'll appeal to her.

 

Unrelated, but it's worth mentioning an unusual sight on the train here, which is the mile upon mile of paddy fields around Pavia where they grow Italian strains of rice. The crop is not full grown yet and is a brilliant green, poking up from the muddy water. Posted every fifty yards or so is a small white heron waiting for little fish and frogs to make the mistake of passing by. It's an unusual but attractive sight. Risotto with fried frogs is a local dish in that area, both ingredients coming from the same field. 

And we're back to odd food again! It's a bit of a fixation!

Have a good summer.

Sue x

Transgender arts and culture, summer 2024

 There are lots of cultural events and art shows with a trans flavour this summer. I won't be able to comment on them all in one post so here to start with are the two big ones ... and a more personal note of interest.

 

The Expressionists, London

Let's start with Tate Modern in London, which has a major exhibition on "The Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider", which I went to see with a couple of friends in May. I'm not sure it was really my thing (and the £22 entry fee certainly wasn't!) but the record of the crossdressing performances of Alexander Sacharoff certainly were (Room 5: performing gender). Marianne Werefkin's striking 1909 portrait of Sacharoff is one of the exhibition's icons.

 

 

The exhibition describes these artists' gender outlook as follows:

Traditionally, theatre and performance offered safe environments for the exploration of sexuality and gender. Performers could switch gender and power roles, and engage with transgressive themes. Artist and patron Werefkin was attracted to the free arts of street theatre and popular entertainment for their freedom of expression and potential to disrupt the highly regulated social structures women were confined to.

Werefkin experimented with expressionist painting while also grappling with questions of identity. This included navigating the legal and social barriers of gender inequality. Her privileged upbringing and financial independence allowed Werefkin to assume a position of power, acting as patron and supporter of the arts – a field traditionally monopolised by men. In this period, such women were given the pejorative label ‘manwoman’ to denote their being ‘unnatural’, members of a ‘third sex’. This perspective was critically explored in the writing of contemporary philosopher and minority rights activist Johannes Holzmann.

Resenting gender binaries, Werefkin stated: ‘I am not a man, I am not a woman, I am I.’ She shared affinities with artists challenging traditional gender roles. This is reflected in her support of performer Sacharoff. Presenting androgynously both on and off stage, Sacharoff explored gender fluidity through new styles of performance that activated form through free movement. Believing that dance resembled music or painting, Sacharoff said: ‘In the art of dance the body must be an elaborate instrument capable of expressing the soul. In this sense, it must be as valid as the word, the sound and the colour’. Performance was central to both Werefkin and Sacharoff’s investigations and constructions of self-identity.

 

Some photos of Sacharoff's performances are here:

 

To be honest, though, it was August Macke's paintings of ladies enjoying the displays in milliners shops that appealed most to me!

Venice Biennale, Italy

The Venice Biennale is a contemporary art exhibition that dates back to 1895. The theme for 2024 is "strangers everywhere", focusing on art outside the mainstream, such as the art of lesser known cultures and queer art. The connection between the words strange and queer here is not accidental.

Trans or gender varied works and artists include:

trans man Rindon Johnson; 

non-binary artist Shalom Kufakwatenzi;

Electric Dress and A Sculpture for Trans Women by Puppies Puppies; 

Black Men in Dress by photographer Sabelo Mlangeni;

the mixed-gender, cigar-chomping skirt-sporting traditional Ekeke figure by Violeta Quispe;

and a degree of gender mixing in the Fashion Girl sculpture by Taylor Nkomo.

 

Other queer art at the Biennale that seems especially noted by the art press includes works by:

Omar Mismar from Lebanon and his paintings of male couples in the style of Greek mosaics;

Louis Fratino from the USA and his modern gay take on Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon;

Xiyadie from China, a gay farmer, explicit yet not, who mingles nature with humans aroused;

Salman Toor from Pakistan and his scenes of everyday life in the queer community.

 

Nearer to home

I find that my brother-in-law is actually a keen collector of contemporary art, a lot of which is quite fun (such as ceramic space invaders by Invader, who had a major exhibition in Paris earlier this year). He doesn't necessarily keep any item long but aims to sell it on. But he was quite excited about a piece by everyone's favourite crossdressing contemporary potter, Grayson Perry. It must have cost him a lot so I hope he gets a good return on his investment! But he was saying what he thought of Perry, aka Claire, and just accepted the alter ego as a necessary part of the artist's persona and production. The art world is very accepting of gender difference, as I found myself when participating in shows as Sue and I'm glad my brother in law is no bigot, which is more than can be said for the rest of my family.

 

Queer art from early twentieth and the early twenty-first centuries, then. More soon. 

A dip in the archives

I haven't dipped in the archives for a while but, for those interested in Grayson Perry, I saw work of his at the Photographers Gallery in London in 2018 with my friend Ange: Photography exhibition.

I also saw his less enthusiastically reviewed show, Provincial Punk, in Margate in 2015. Here's the review of that exhibition in The Independent.

Sue x

Voting with my feet

 There are many significant elections in 2024. Tomorrow is the UK national election and the current government is universally predicted to lose. 

That government has caused me so many significant problems that, although I was living - and expected to live - my life in the United Kingdom, I felt compelled to leave in 2018. 

I now live in Italy. That's partly for health reasons since the naturally grey, dank climate of the British Isles was causing me many problems, but also for the significant economic damage, xenophobic abuse and now transphobia that has been pushed on me by that government since 2016. Italy afforded me a path to alternative citizenship through a very old law of theirs that anyone who has had an Italian ancestor from 1860 onwards is automatically an Italian, too. That connection merely has to be proved with suitable documentation. Thanks to Italian emigration in the last 165 years, a significant proportion of the world is now Italian! That's why pizza is the world's favourite food, right? Check your ancestry to tap into any benefits. Anyway, that was my ticket out of that hate-filled chaos of Brexit, the UK's crass, corrupt handling of the Covid pandemic, and the current brazen transphobia there. Italy has an officially extreme right-wing government now ... but one that's essentially pro-democracy, pro-Europe, pro-NATO, upholds the rule of law, constitutional arrangements and rights. Unlike the UK government that is so extreme it has seriously considered leaving the UN, human rights organisations and courts, and is frothingly enraged by vulnerable boat people, and by any organisation with "European" in its title, such as the European Atomic Energy Agency ...that oversees power stations!

This extremist insanity has been countered since 2016 not by reason or concerted opposition but by the government's own incompetence. The government has been made up largely of people educated in Britain's private education system (which is, with typical British perversity, known as the public school system), the chief function of which is to give its protegés the aura of competence in command and a right to rule but without providing them with any practical know-how at all. And it is only this failing that has prevented the UK from becoming a new Nazi state, though it came close with Boris Johnson's coup-like antics in 2019. Hitler, by contrast, was not an unimaginative guffawing dimwit, which is why his destructiveness was universal, not merely local.

It is beyond my understanding how a new government is to combat the corruption and criminality left by the outgoing one; the cost of living crisis; the decades-old housing crisis; the financial strains and damage of Brexit isolation; the ongoing banking crisis recession; the loss of international reputation because of the visible incompetence of the last few years; the ownership of much British public and private estate by private equity, shell companies in tax havens and foreign investors; the extreme right-wing leanings of most of the few owners of Britain's media and their corruption of the once politically neutral BBC; and all the other challenges of the 21st century for a country that has a constitution forged in 1689. I'm out of it and am glad to be so. Life in Europe has its complexities, stresses and problems, but nothing like as bad. I feel safer and less put upon. Trans rights are not very developed in Italy but they are not, so far, under that much threat. When I started this blog 13 years ago, Britain was progressing with trans rights, now it's regressing and the Labour Party leadership that is widely tipped to win tomorrow has said that it intends to accept many findings of the recent dishonest Cass report. The UK is a worsening place for trans people now.

When I went back to Britain in May I did renew my UK passport. That's simply to save hassle at the border after the harder effects of Brexit come into effect in due course (Brexit hasn't been fully implemented yet, you see.) But my Italian passport has more value and clout in the world than the UK one right now. How are the mighty fallen.

Incidentally, the UK government made a huge fuss about the return to blue passports after the years of European ones in plum colour. My UK one is unequivocally black, or 'blackshirt' as I call it. They couldn't even get a colour right! Or manufacture the passports in Britain (they are made in Poland, an ongoing member of the European Union). 

So I don't greatly care what the outcome of the election is tomorrow, although the eradication of the current malignant government that has caused me so much direct harm would give me some pleasure for a few hours on Friday. I'm staying in Europe now, like the hundreds of thousands of other Brits who've left and sought a life and citizenship elsewhere. Human rights, liberty and peace are essential to me. I will go where they can be found. The crazed state of the world scares me right now but I have my passports and I will go where it is safe. I hope you may find the safety to live peacefully, too.

Sue x

Return to routine ... and the bulging wardrobe

 I'm quite tired and I slept nearly 12 hours last night. This month I got back from five weeks in Britain and then hosted guests twice. I need to get back into my own routine again. 

My last post stated that the climate where I now live is deemed the best. I have to say that the weather this year has been poor all over Europe, though, with above average rain, cloudier skies and, these last two weeks, a Saharan sandstorm that keeps dumping red sand over everything. I have access to a beautiful open-air swimming pool but it opened late for the season because the sand was clogging the filters and machinery. I keep washing vast quantities of sand like brick dust off my terrace, and all my clothes on the washing line end up dusted with it. You should see that state of the cars! OK, first-world problems and all that.

I did bring a number of old favourite items back from Britain, including that floral dress I wore when I went out with Stephanie.

Also lots of items of underwear and hosiery from my vast collection that's still in Britain. I keep buying new clothes here and I'm really going to have to get a new chest of drawers to cope. A TGirl never has enough space for all the clothes she needs. Yes, needs! And she usually has to have some items for "his" wardrobe as well. I'm almost rid of that "double collection" of his and hers now, though, by buying clothes off the women's racks that can do double duty as menswear when I have to present as male. I know that my clothes are women's clothes, so that keeps dysphoria a bit more at bay, but the rest of the world doesn't know they are unless they look very closely at, say, my jeans and see that they do up the "wrong" way. And what are you doing looking at my fly anyway, you pervert!

I also need to get back to my slimming routine, which has been interrupted for two months. Inevitably, I put weight on because I lost some control over what I was eating and drinking whilst away from home or whilst catering to guests. But I'm getting straight back to the plan. 

I'll also now have time to post the adventures from my time away, transgender art news that's been accumulating, and tell about my new feminine purchases. Watch this space. 

Sue x

Mellow midsummer

 I'm writing just as the sun's path reaches its northernmost point in the sky and we in the Northern Hemisphere get our shortest nights and longest days. I feel at my best. Like a walking plant, sunlight is my ultimate energy. Well, that and ravioli.

The Italian meteorological office has just issued a report examining various climate factors since the year 2000 and, of all the 104 provinces in Italy, that of Imperia, where I now live, is the one with the best climate overall. My health has certainly improved since moving here, and that was part of the plan.

 

Guests

I have had the pleasure of hosting my friend Stella and her wife here this week. We were neither in full fem mode - there's a limit to what a flamboyant girl like Stella is allowed to carry on a plane! And I have to be a bit discreet with the neighbours. It was nice to catch up, eat some tasty meals together, and I hope to see them again soon at their home in England.

It was Stella who took the photo that has always been the background image of my blog. It was taken on a picnic at Painshill Park in Southern England back in 2011, a trip that inspired me to start writing this blog. 650 posts later, and I've not forgotten the inspiration.

She also took this fabulous portrait of me ten years ago:

Check out Stella's professional shots here: Stellapix

On Saturday I have my nephew coming for a couple of days. This involves deprincessing. He's a young person and may well be more flexible about LGBT+ stuff than his ultra religious upbringing would have us believe, especially as he heads off to university this autumn, but I won't take chances with the crazy belief systems he's come from.

Trans Youth Are Loved

I'm pleased to hear about this new campaign supported by lots of famous names to assure young trans people that they are seen, valued and supported. These last few years, with the pandemic interfering with life and studies, the increasing polarisation and nastiness of politics, the use of trans people as a scapegoat, it's not a good time to be growing up if you are trans. So I hope the campaign is effective and encouraging. #TransYouthAreLoved

Also glad to hear that there were a million attendees at Rome Pride at the weekend.

Sue x

Pride and preparation

 This is Pride month and I'm pleased to hear of all the various events happening round the world. I notice in Rome there is a whole train on the metro painted in Pride colours, and I was pleasantly surprised to see in my old home town of Twickenham, UK, that the main crossing in the middle of the High Street was a huge rainbow flag.

So if you're participating in an event this month, do enjoy it.

I'm preparing to welcome my trans friend Stella and her wife who are coming to stay this weekend. Stella and I did a whole bunch of stuff together in England, such as the TGirl bars at the 2011 and 2013 Erotica shows, and various events in London and Brighton promoting trans visibility. 

Stella (left) and the girls on Waterloo Bridge in the centre of London

 

Tributes

My friend Ann Drogyny passed away last month. I had too many other commitments to be able to go to her funeral but I hear it was a colourful event, just as she would have wanted. 

There was a last laugh. Apparently, because of traffic, the hearse was 45 minutes late. So Ann, who was always punctual in life, arrived late for her own funeral. That final irony would have tickled her!

I note also the passing of Lynn Conway, trans pioneer, who did something that I don't understand with computer stuff but who is nevertheless one of the better-known members of the trans community. Pink News obituary. May she rest in peace.

Rest in peace also, Stacy Novak, long associated with Transliving in the UK, its events and magazine.

Sue x

The best laid plans ...

 I had hoped to update my blog with details of my progress in the UK throughout last month but blogging is always dependent on there being decent WiFi or phone reception ... and that's not always guaranteed in hotels or rural locations, and there were a lot of those.

I'm back home in the Mediterranean now after five weeks away and here this morning it's sunny and 25C. Compare this with a week ago when I was in bed with a cold after having been rained on again and again. Indeed, it hardly stopped raining throughout my time in Britain ... apart from a glorious time in the Highlands of Scotland where, despite its being said that there are four seasons a day, we actually had perfect spring weather for six days.

Hieland lassie

 

It was a very mixed trip with beautiful, interesting and exciting highlights - details and photos that couldn't be uploaded whilst there will be here soon - but several depressing lowlights. To be honest, although I spent quite some time visiting old haunts, I didn't feel especially nostalgic or that I missed them. I was actually quite glad to pass through the Channel Tunnel into France, enjoy the craziness of Paris and a quality dinner, and appreciate the beauty and warmth of the riviera, all on trains zooming at 300+ km/h, a total contrast to British railways where not one single journey went to plan.

I've managed to break the drought of my public appearances, though (see the last two posts), and that's a very special achievement. I have put out feelers to trans groups here in Italy and I hope to make new trans girlfriends here.

I may be back in the UK in July to catch up with other friends there, and I've been invited to Sparkle, which I'll think about as it's never a cheap event. 

Here's a giant slice of tiramisù that I was served in Paris. Yes, my diet did take a hit! But we're on track for an athletic summer of swimming and walking so I'll be back in my littlest dresses again soon.

 

Sue x

Back out in London after all these years

 I've spent the last couple of weeks away, often in places with little in the way of modern communications, so I'm slow in updating my blog.

But as with my previous post giving a brief description of my first time out fully femme since 2018, there's a similar event I'm excited to report about last Monday when I went out dressed in London to do some shopping, to see how the city has changed, and to meet with a friend. Just like old times.

And I barely felt nerves. As one friend had said to me the day before, going out in female mode is like riding a bicycle even after several years: you never really forget how.

Although it was not a very warm day, I was determined to wear a summery dress. But winter tights couldn't be left behind either.

It was a day of crowds, as it was a bank holiday (foreign readers, in Britain, public holidays are called bank holidays because the banks are permitted to shut). I took the train to Waterloo, walked past the Festival Hall and across the Millennium Footbridge to Charing Cross. There's an elevated walkway above Villiers Street where I took this photo.

I wandered through favourite places like Covent Garden

I was looking for some ankle boots but it's the wrong season as the shoe shops only sell sandals at this time of year. Despite the cold and rain! So no luck. 

I'd been warned by my friend Grace, whom I'd seen the day before, that London has changed a lot and, in truth, most of the shops, businesses, cafés and restaurants I knew have been replaced. The junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street is unrecognisable after the works to install the new Crossrail, or Elizabeth Line as they finally called it.

I tried taking photos in Piccadilly Circus but ended up with this ridiculous one of me wearing an Eros hat!

I had agreed to meet lovely Stephanie Monroe, who I haven't seen for six years, and she suggested we break away from the crowds of the West End and go to see the Little Ships of Dunkirk that were gathered in St Katharine's Dock by Tower Bridge. Here's us by the Tower of London.

At St Katharine's we found a place to eat, Ping Pong, where we both enjoyed the katsu curry and happen to have been served by a trans waitress, which made us feel the world wasn't all out to get us. UK transphobia has been through the roof these last few years.

 We went next door to the Slug and Lettuce (yes, dear readers, this really is the name of a chain of bars in Britain) and had some silly cocktails because why not?

I was tired by the time I got back to my hotel but very, very happy to have relived my trans life in London for a day. 

Many thanks to Steph for her company and for being generally lovely, and for recent moral support in getting out again from Roz and Grace.

A dip in the archives

My last evening out with Steph, in July 2018.

An evening in Chinatown.

 

Sue x

Back out in public at last!

 A quick post but with great news. 

It's been nearly six years since I was last able to get out in public. That's thanks to moving abroad, a damaged leg, Covid lockdowns and having my life scattered in various places.

But today I put my makeup on, tidied up my hair (which the wind promptly untidied again!) and went on a tour of the far North East of Scotland with my wonderful friend Roz acting as hostess, chaperone and driver. She's a star.

We visited the towns of Tain and Dornoch, Dunrobin Castle, and the watery beauties of the Dornoch Firth, Loch Fleet and the Kyle of Sutherland. An amazing day in spring sunshine.

There will be more on my British break soon but I just wanted to share this wonderful news and some photos as proof!

I did feel nervous first thing this morning. After all, it's been a long time. But soon I was back in my stride. I guess going out dressed is a bit like riding a bicycle. Once you have got over the initial nerves and uncertainties, it's something you ease back into readily enough. 

I plan to be out and about next weekend, too.

Rose garden in Tain

Dunrobin Castle

Dornoch Firth

Struie Hill

 Sue x

Checking in, checking out

 Hello blog, just checking in with a short post.

I had a rotten week last week, hence no posts as planned, but all is well now as I have arrived in Scotland and had a nice 24 hours in Edinburgh followed by arrival in Inverness where I an staying with my friend Roz.

Royal Mile, Edinburgh

We have hired a car and today, being a perfect spring day, we went on a grand tour of the Highlands. Much more detail in due course but I feel a lot more relaxed. Thanks, Roz.

Loch Ness

 Sue x