N is for 'Normal'

What is 'normal'? - In this world we're living in there seems to be a prevailing attitude that 'normal' constitutes white, heterosexual, cisgender and western. We've seen people globally fighting and destroying reminders of a history of oppression, bigotry and money made through hatred and murder. We've also seen JK Rowling's extraordinary tirade against Trans people, and the erosion of human rights in the US - and the strong hint of more to come in the UK courtesy of the 'Minister for Women and Equalities' Liz Truss.

Today's music choice is from The Doors - it seems to resonate right now.

I'm not going to use this post to examine the output from JK Rowling - it's been done already and better by people more articulate than me, here and here for example. What I will say, because it hurt the most (I cried myself to sleep twice through the words and reactions to them) is that minimising the risk of self harm and suicide from being denied my (our) humanity is very real, I know having attempted twice and spending years in contemplation of not carrying on - to dismiss that as being 'theatre' is grossly offensive, cruel and heartless. It's just over a year since I came out and took to the dam in Belgium and it's been something of a roller coaster of a year.

In the space of that year I have gone from being closeted and miserable - but outwardly living a 'normal' life - which was undoubtedly better for other people, but certainly not for me to living a decidedly 'abnormal' one - with multiple compromises, largely for the benefit of people I love, but living in a way which approximates a match of my body and brain for the majority of the week.

Just this week I was taken back to thinking about the famous accusation levelled at trans people who come out late in life - 'why didn't you say something earlier' (usually in the same breath as 'children can't know about their gender' - The Schroedinger's transphobe argument if you like... I've spoken a bit before about my attempts to reconcile my gender when I was younger, and the disastrous consequences of it, so I won't retread that here, but I did remember another incident from my school years - from the year 1990 to be precise (which for some reason mathematics tells me was 30 years ago, which cannot be right).

At my school we had a number of subject options to choose from, and there were two subjects which divided people into some strangely tribal camps - 'Business Studies' or Economics - I took the latter as it was apparently a more academic discipline. One of the projects we were asked to complete was on the subject of used car prices - I can't remember the economic point, but what I do remember is that we needed to acquire copies of a magazine called 'exchange and mart' which existed in print between 1868 and 2009 - it was a magazine full of adverts for all sorts of things - besides cars. In writing this blog post I picked up a copy from 1990 on ebay and there are a few "interesting" adverts

I wonder if anyone made their living from earthworm breeding?

There was however another section which drew my attention, titled MISCELLANEOUS - Adult Interest, it had a particular advertisement which captivated me and entirely overtook my thinking for a considerable period afterwards - I mentioned that I was writing this post on twitter yesterday (without mentioning the particular advert) and three or four of my friends there knew EXACTLY which one I was talking about.

I wrote for the information pack - and nervously waited for it to arrive - hoping my parents wouldn't ask what was in it. I'm glad they didn't. The thought of being myself (albeit a prospect not open to the 14 year old me) was intoxicating, but I was troubled by the sexual undertone of the experience. There was a lot of stuff about 'forced feminisation' and 'TV Fantasy' - which seemed like I was being some sort of pervert.

* Now - this is a sensible point to make something clear. I'm not kink shaming, or denigrating people who identify as transvestite or crossdresser - and some people do identify as TV before coming out as Transgender. I also know plenty of trans people with kinks - me included but not any trans people who see their trans identity as a kink.

It was this conflation and the placement of the advertisement which I think fuelled the shame and guilt I felt from that botched coming out in 1987 to last year (2019) when I addressed my gender identity. The same page was filled with premium rate sex lines which reinforced the sense that being trans was some sort of sex game (and one with atrocious use of English grammar too)

At that point I couldn't get to grips with this fantasy of being 'forced' to be female - for me the pain of my physiology developing the wrong way was very real, and the thought of developing breasts, as an example, seemed like something natural and denied to me.

On Saturdays I used to sometimes take the tube 'into town' - usually to go to Tower Records in Piccadilly Circus (RIP) or the old Games Workshop store in Hammersmith (also RIP)

But I also made a tentative trip to Euston to see the Transformation shop - knowing I probably wouldn't go in - but just to see it. I walked past a few times, nonchalantly looking in the display which rather reminded me of the shops of soho - the clothing on display was very 'french maid' and didn't chime with the things I wanted to be wearing at that age, which were much more along these lines... (I never really left the 80s)

Having passed by a couple of times, my feelings being further entrenched as being some sort of private perversion I went back to Euston and had a burger. The proprietor of the Transformation empire was Stephanie Anne Lloyd, who rejoiced in the self description of 'Britain's most famous transexual' - she was depicted in advertisements in a 1980s Page 3 girl manner; and indeed had been the subject of the usual British press's prurient intrusions into her life. I knew no more than her public persona and that the 'Daily Mirror' had effectively outed her in a sensationalist way in the 80s - I felt no connection with her at all, and it was only in the preparation for this post that I learned more. Her (now defunct) website tells her story, which in many ways is very familiar indeed - which makes the way that she blends the transvestite and transgender experience into something purely sexual more surprising and disappointing.

What was worse was on the opposite page. On of Stephanie's other ventures was the 'Albany Gender Clinic' - which on the face of it, and according to the Transformation story was set up as a serious medical endeavour for 'transexuals' to access support in transition. The claim is that this was a loss making venture and that the family were happy to support it. My only experience of it was calling one of their phone lines to try and better understand who I was - this was a stupid thing to do, Itemised phone billing had not long been introduced and my call to a service costing 48p a minute was bound to be noticed (£1.09 in 2020 adjusted for inflation). The call was very similar to other sex lines (E&M is full of them!) - lots of breathless pauses, people talking as slowly as a British person on holiday speaking English because they don't speak the local language, and peppered with titillation - mostly clearly intended to arouse.

As far as I can tell, the 'services' the clinic offered were little more than those offered by the transformation business - with some 'herbal' remedies for breast growth and potentially some signposting to the scant (even more than today - if that's possible) gender services available at that time. Needless to say I got a massive bollocking from my parents, who being pretty tight for money didn't thankfully call the number to find out what sort of sex line I had been calling but just assumed I was being a hormonal teenage boy - which of course I was, just the wrong hormones.

Looking back now, I can see where all the shame came from. I don't mean that being TV/CD is shameful - but when it's a deeper identity issue at stake and it's treated as if it can be solved with a pair of frilly knickers and a wank, in my head it just jarred; I saw nothing that would or could help me. It's one of the reasons that I am so pleased that services like Mermaids and youth Gender services (such as they are) exist. Had they been there in 1990 I would possibly have been able to seek help there; rather than wandering about outside London railway stations (which back then were not as nice 'destinations' as they are today), nor would I have been sexualised.

Again and again the organised transphobe lobby hurl accusations at youth gender services - accusations driven by hatred, ignorance and bigotry; I sense that they preferred the days where anyone with any part of the trans spectrum were relegated to the 'MISCELLANEOUS Adult Interest' pages - where a whole section of the population can be distilled into the category of pervert and kinkster, not reflecting the joyous diversity of life that I have found by opening myself to the trans community.

I guess this also goes somewhere to explaining my thoughts on the spectrum of trans experience - the question was posed today on twitter 'Are CDs part of the trans community?' - to which my answer is 'yes' but we are not the same. CD/TV folks are stigmatised in society and as such I think deserve the community and support that any marginalised group should expect, but there needs to be an understanding that in my experience at least, the ability to go back into 'boy mode' is painful and distressing, I have just done that for a week in support of my family and it's been REALLY hard, my sense is that this is not a pain felt by those in the CD/TV community. Also, when it comes to clothing choices, my observation is that the CD/TV folks will often gravitate towards the more 'sexy' end of the spectrum, which is not to say that I don't sometimes want to feel and look sexy [mostly failing at it] - but I am as comfortable in a Denim maxi skirt and t-shirt as I am in a floral print dress and tbh I don't bother with stockings at all really - they're a pain to keep up and suspenders are a faff.

It also doesn't mean that trans people cannot have kinks and fetishes, I think on the whole as long as they are consensual and don't cause harm, they are pretty healthy, but being trans is neither a kink nor a fetish. Nor do I condemn anyone for sex work, I have friends who I love dearly who are sex workers - not none of them are sex workers as a direct consequence of being trans, albeit employment discrimination needs to be tackled to ensure that nobody feels compelled to do sex work through poverty.

One final thought on this trip down memory lane... Did you notice what was missing from all of those adverts and phone lines? Trans men. Nowhere is there any recognition of Trans men and their journey. I honestly don't know why this is, other than the common invisibility of AFAB trans people's stories, and the lack of tabloid prurience around them.

We all have different journeys to make peace with the bodies we are given, and it's time for society to catch up with a part of humanity that has existed since humanity has.

As for me: Here I am, living my life, doing my job, providing for my family. I'm nobody's fetish.