Day Nine: The Problem Of The Washing Up

This morning, after a bath and a change of patch, I washed up. That shouldn't be a big deal, but I have revelled in the joy of a dishwasher since I moved here, and last week the bit, whatever it was, that takes the water back out when washing packed up. Until I feel like paying out for a repair (after next payday, maybe) I am stuck washing up like a normal person.

Trouble is, I'm out of the habit. I've always put off washing up, and since the dishwasher I got into the habit of not running it until it was full or I ran out of cutlery, which is generally about every three or four days. Without the dishwasher, except as an oversized draining rack, I really must start doing it more often.

Washing up has always been a source of pain to me. My mother was always trying to get me to do it, and I avoided it whenever possible. Living on my own I left it a couple of days at a time before cleaning anything, and while married my slightly OCD ex took a long time to come around to steadfast refusal to wash up several times a day as she preferred.

But I'm by no means immune to mess. When living as a student I lived with several people who seemingly would never wash up at all, and after prodding them a few times just gave up and accepted washing their leftovers along with mine. You will never see me on How Clean Is Your House, because whilst I do have an annoying tendency to just leave things where they fall (because I'm dyspraxic, and I do that a lot), my tolerance for such things lasts a week at most. I usually have a clean and tidy a couple of times a week, to coincide with the start of my days off.

The trouble is with these things that it is an iterated Prisoner's dilemma. For those unfamiliar with game theory, the prisoner's dilemma is the scenario where you have two criminals and they're presented with a choice: confess to the crime and implicate your friend, and receive a small sentence, or keep quiet whilst they do and receive a death sentence. There's also an unspoken third option, of course, of both keeping quiet and walking free. Since the worst option is so much worse, the logical course is not the one most people pick, of keeping quiet, but rather of confessing. For some people to see it's easier to see if you assign numbers to the values (n this particular set of values the idea is to come out with the lowest score possible)::

The iterated, or repeated, prisoner's dilemma is slightly different. This is the much more minor scenario, like the washing up, where the pattern is repeated. In this case my punishment for not washing up may be vastly different from yours, as in myself and my ex. If that applies, then it doesn't matter that I still have a punishment for not washing up, which builds day by day, the other person will always reach their limit before  I do and do the washing up, as with myself in the student house. It might look, in that case, like the person you are living with is a complete slob, and just never washes up, or cleans, or tidies, or anything, but all it may actually be is that their tolerance is the tiniest amount higher than yours.

In the iterated PD, we find a model for much of life. We find the greatest store of happiness in a society served by co-operating, but sadly for an individual the occasional defection can pay dividends. Right now it seems we have a society where 1% at the top of society are constantly defecting, and we aren't punishing them for it; indeed we heap reward after reward upon them for it. What does it take for us to turn around in our much greater numbers and say wait a minute, this game is rigged?

Day Seven: In which I May or May Not Be Hormonal

I started taking Oestrogen a Week ago, but I have yet to have the blockers for my Testosterone, and I'm told I should expect a spike in Testosterone for about a fortnight after that as well. So inside me at this moment T and E (or O, depending on your spelling) are fighting a war over control of my body. Or, to put it another way, my body is deciding which it prefers the taste of.

Now I've seen my mother go through hormonal changes, and other women too, and so I have a subconscious expectation of those symptoms. Hot flushes, headaches, dizziness, sickness, general tetchiness, this morning I seemed to have them all. Or did I?

It's so difficult to separate psychosomatic symptoms from real ones, even in yourself. How do I know that these are real symptoms, not just the ones I was expecting to get? Merely being aware this might be the case does not stop it being so, or we would get trapped in a circle of I believe it so it's not real/If it's not real I don't believe it/if I don't believe it it might be real/if I believe it's real it's not real... And so on, ad infinitum.

I could be hot because I overdressed for the work environment (to the extent of having to break to nip to the toilets and take off my tights to avoid keeling over). I could be dizzy because once again I'm just hungry. I could be tetchy because I actually am talking to idiots. I could have a headache and  nausea because I didn't get enough sleep. Lord knows I have them often enough before. None of these things are new to me.

I've spoken to many people in the trans community and they seem to be very either unaware of these phenomena or so willing to put everything down to the miracle of HRT that they accept everything unquestioningly. If I have the audacity to say that anecdote is not evidence I am always drowned out in a sea of dissent. It makes me wonder and worry whether such people have really applied any kind of critical thinking to their situation as a whole.

Day Eight: In Which I Am Reminded Of Childhood

This lunchtime, while I made my dinner and ate it, I finally got around to watching Fantastic Mr. Fox. This film bears little relation the to Roald Dahl book that inspired it (indeed, it's mostly a bunch of George Clooney in-jokes) and must have gone completely over the head of most children watching it in the cinemas. I'm all for films being watchable on two levels, but I'm not sure this had much of a child level at all.

It did serve to give me a very vivid reminder, though, of a specific moment from my childhood, sitting on the sofa in our living room in Horsforth reading the book, in its entirety (it's not that long a book) out loud to my grandmother. I used to love reading out loud, it was one of the things that pushed me into acting later. When I read out loud to my mother, though, I stuttered and stumbled over my words, because I lacked confidence.I'm glad to say I was over that by the time my mother was in the midst of her what proved to be terminal illness, and I'd spend the evenings reading Terry Pratchett to her in bed with nary a hiccup.

Reading to my gran I didn't stumble over my words, because she was far less intimidating. Bless her heart, my gran was never the smartest person in my life, and there were few books that I could read out to her that she would have followed,. Reading that book, at that age, was a perfect confluence of my ability, her understanding, and her tolerance to put up with a child wanting to enjoy the sound of their own voice for once. It is a lovely memory that I thank the film for conjuring.

A much less welcome reminder of childhood was delivered in the evening with children from the local estate again throwing something at the window. They're trying to bully me, into what I'm not sure they've even thought through, and have been doing this on and off now for months. In the snow they threw snowballs, in the rain they threw mud, and previously the banged on my door before running away. It's more than a little pathetic, but I'm not sure what to do about it. It isn't consistent enough for the police to do anything, and I'm left with the personal choices of ignoring it or chasing them down the street, which is both inelegant and unlikely to yield the desired result (given they're prepubescent and I'm unfit and 42). Either of those options is likely to lead to escalation, which is the only thing I really fear.

Day Six: In Which I Don't Watch Football

Sunday morning, and after a bit of a cheeky lie in (you will get used to those), which I will pay for tomorrow, I went for my customary Sunday Lunch with my friend Matt. I've never been a fan of pub food, it all seemed a bit redolent of school dinners in the past, but I have to say that, relatively speaking, I've never had a bad meal at a Wetherspoon's pub, and their Sunday lunch is excellent value. I'd ask for a freebie for saying that if anyone was reading this. Sometimes we go to mine for some afternoon TV afterwards, as I have a much bigger TV (and a really big dog, in case any burglars are reading this), but on this occasion he wanted to flip over between the Rugby and Soccer football matches that were on, so we parted ways.

You might be asking why I just didn't generously invite him to come watch those at mine as well. The answer is simply that there is no way I'd have stayed silent while he did. I'm sure my constant interruptions would have become wearing. That or I'd have had to sit chewing off my own foot out of sheer boredom.

I am not a fan of sports. In school it was part of that macho bullshit that, for now obvious reasons, I didn't want to be part of. I'm not competitive as part of a team, I'm dyspraxic, I didn't and don't feel any kind of a bond with team games and have zero interest in them. In fact, that's not true, I have negative amounts of interest in them. Single person games; tennis, and snooker, and so on, I have a passing interest in. I shall watch some of the Olympics later this year. But team games I just don't get. And whilst American Football,rugby, Polo, and so on I can see the interest other people have, I can understand the attraction, that game the Americans call soccer, and the rest of the world just calls football (the rest of the world being right, in this instance) really arouses my ire.

I just don't get it. Yes, I get it's quite difficult but initially accessible. So is self harm. Why do people put themselves through it? It's expensive, the people overpaying are overpaid, those watching are often the least able to afford the huge prices, nothing is ever settled, the player's aren't local, it's all either about who has the most money or the most luck or a combination of the two, the games are interminable often with nothing being reflected in the score lines at all, everyone might as well have stayed at home and picked their nose for two hours.

In Rugby, stuff happens, tries (is that the plural or not, I don't know?) are scored and converted, there is activity and scores changing all the time. In football, some people run one way, and then some people run the other way for a change. They aren't racing each other or anything, just running up and down. In the terraces people start cutting lumps off each other out of sheer boredom, and on the way home they vandalise a shop or two out of sheer frustration. It's sheer damn insanity, and I'm afraid I just do not get it. Please don't try and explain it to me, It will not go well. Just be aware I think you are all goddamn loonies.

Day Five: In which I don't get an award

This evening I went to The Equity Partnership LGB and T awards. Several people I knew were up for an award, one of them won, (as part of a large group, so it doesn't really count), I got chatted up by several people I didn't want to be, and failed to chat up several I wanted to, stood on my dress several times, didn't bring enough cash for drinks, was blown away by some of the entertainment and extremely disappointed with others, and all in all had a thoroughly average time.

Did I cover that? OK, good.

To return to the beginning. LGB and T. And T. And. If it looks to you as though that T has been tacked on there as an afterthought, that's because it has. It didn't get added until quite recently. Indeed some pens they were handing out on the night still didn't have it on.

I have mixed feelings about the separation, myself. In this case, I feel it is a reflection of the cis prejudice against trans people that is probably more rampant in the lesbian and gay (but not so much bi, in my experience) community than in the wider nation in which I live. I can understand their (misguided) arguments, but the belittling ways they let their beliefs inform how they deal with other people because of it is, frankly, rude and unacceptable.

But tacking on the T as an attempt to deal with it is totally wrong headed. Trans people have some special needs, but those are mostly medical, and not something such an organisation is set up for. The whole point of being trans is being accepted for what you are socially, not sexually. The point of LGB organisations is to express that who you are sexually does not dictate who you are socially. They are polar opposites, surely? LGB has more in common with BDSM than it does with T.

Which is not to say that T has to be excluded. Remember that whole being nice and tolerant to people, even ones you don't necessarily agree with? What we used to call Christian decency, until the religious right perverted that into something hateful. If you have an LGB organisation, or night, and you want to accept trans people in, then do so. It doesn't require any change of your constitution. Because believe it or not, most trans people are lesbian, gay or bisexual anyway. I sat on a table with mostly trans people for much of the night, and I think only one was straight, and I may even be mistaken about that.

Technically I suppose I must be bi, having had only two long relationships in my life, and both of those with women. Now, however, I am a woman only interested in men. Doesn't that make me straight? How does an LGB group cater for straight people, exactly? Can we have straight nights? Can we have special straight groups where we might get to socialise and meet other straight people? Can we get special training on dealing with the legal problems when people find out we're straight and show prejudice to us?

By offering straight trans people an inclusion you devalue the importance of what you were originally trying to achieve, or you remove my identity as my gender. Yes, cis people stick us in the same category. That doesn't mean they are right. On that basis you should probably allow in Jews and Gypsies as well. Not just ones that are already LGB, I mean.

So thanks for the offer, but I think if I want trans help I shall go to a trans group. If you want help I shall give it,  because I am a human being, and I help others when they need it. You have my support, and you have my friendship, and you have, for the most part, my benefit of the doubt in your motivations. But you do not have my membership. Until the day I decide I'm attracted to another woman again, that is.

Day Four: In Which I Don't Catch A Train

Woke up late this morning (fortunately I work afternoons on a Friday) and had one of those panicky anxiety dreams where it takes you a few minutes of reality to come to terms with it just being  a dream. I had to catch the tube (I don't live near an underground station) to get to an urgent appointment (I'm not sure what to, but it seemed very pressing at the time). And the station was complicated, and the connection was slow, and people were standing still on moving walkways, and they wouldn't get out of the damn way, and time was ticking, ticking, ticking...

A few days ago in a conversation with a friend I mentioned I don't like public transport. She assumed that that was because of coming out. Nope. Always hated it. I went to school on a bus, and work, on a bus, and to various voluntary and social meetings on buses. And. They. Were. Never. On. Time.

To be clear, by never on time, I don't mean occasionally a few minutes late. No, I mean just, like at random times of the day. The timetable was, at best, an unwieldy firelighter or an inabsorbent emergency toilet paper. I had to show up at the stops at least ten minutes early, and the only time guaranteed that the bus would not turn up was the time that it was "due". Sometimes I had to wait hours for a bus that was due every half hour. When I moved to my current address I got a car as soon as possible, but on the one occasion I thought I'd get a bus into town (to, you know, drink alcohol and stuff, like normal people) I waited an hour and a half for a service due every ten minutes.


You call up where these places come from to ask, like, what the fuck, and are greeted with nothing but an audible shrug. I even wrote in once, and eventually got a written shrug. You wanna know what a written shrug looks like? Well, I can't remember, it was along time ago. But somewhere I still have it. Future generations will find it and record it as the beginning of a new phenomenon, that you get a lot more since the advent of Email.

0Trains aren't so bad. But they leave you stuck in a station, which doesn't even give you the opportunity to nip into a shop and buy a magazine or something to while away the hours. The time I've wasted staring blankly into space waiting to go places. This is before podcasts, admittedly, which don't make such waits so bad anymore, but my hatred runs deep.

You try different tactics to make the things turn up. Pleading, swearing, screaming (best done when you're alone at the stop, of course), standing in the road, daring a bus to come and run you over. Nothing works, sadly.

Point is, I was traumatized more than you might think. I had to lie in bed, sweating, for a good ten minutes. If ever I get on Room 101, public transport is first on my list.

Then I found myself weeping at the TV later. Not many things make me cry on TV anymore, ironically. As a child there was one thing that was guaranteed to have me in floods. Animal stories. Lassie, The littlest Hobo, you name it, no matter how trite and obvious, if it had cute animals in peril, then pass the hankies. Now, I am largely immune to such simple manipulation, honest. No, what sets me off these days is documentaries with men crying. Men cry so rarely that I find anything where they can't stop themselves an instant faucet. There, I'm going now a little even thinking of it. Then I watched this documentary on Channel 4. You gotta be kidding me, guys, what chance have I got?

Day Three: In which I am on TV.

I was sitting down to begin my day off and catching up on emails with the TV on, still tuned to Channel 5 from whatever I was vaguely watching last thing last night, and The Wright Stuff was on. Now this isn't a programme I watch, as a rule, though I have gone back and looked up the odd episode online when someone interesting was a guest. If you are unaware of it, it's a talking heads panel show where they take some issue that other programmes might spend an hour analysing, and then are reactionary about it for maybe five minutes. They usually spend longer teasing the subject than they do actually discussing it. 

On this particular episode, they suddenly announced they were going to be talking about "dragging up", thanks to this story from the papers this morning, and whether it was offensive. Now my first reaction was to think, oh yes, that might be interesting. Then I thought, oh God, they're going to have nothing but people defending it for being a laugh or transphobes saying people shouldn't ever cross-dress. Maybe I should call in. Humph. I half-heartedly rang the number, but to my not-at-all-surprise it was engaged. Oh well. I sent them a short email giving them a pithy one line opinion and, as an afterthought, put my number on it.

And they called back, almost immediately. Yes, they'd love to put me on. I'm guessing the rest of the "transgender community", as they had put it on the show, wasn't exactly lining up to be on, and I can't say I blame them. Er, OK then. 

I tried to marshal my thoughts. I knew I would have only a brief window to get my point across, and it shouldn't be confused. I wanted to say that it was all about intent, and if men wanted to dress up to convincingly play women that was fine (as is vice versa). If they wanted to dress up because they liked the clothes, that was also fine. The only problem was when men dressed as women because haha, isn't that an inherently hilarious concept. You don't need any other jokes or anything. That in itself is too funny for words. Kind of like large breasts used to be in the seventies. And that the reason it is "funny" is misogynist, because men see women as inferior, of lower status, and so dressing up as them has to be a joke.

That was what I wanted to say. But just before he introduced me the presenter, Matthew Wright, jokingly said that the very pretty young girl who passed on the phone calls "used to be a man", and much laughter ensued. Now, I have a particular problem with this type of joke on two main levels. It has an implied insult to her (she looks masculine), or she looks so unlike a man that it is absurd to imagine she might have been born male (because nobody born male can ever be pretty, right?).

I was kind of knocked for six by that, and rendered speechless for a moment. I voiced my offence, probably badly, and because of that jumbled the neat, structured argument that I had for the main topic. Hopefully I did not make too much of a fool of myself. If you are in the UK you can judge for yourself here, at around 1:07.

The only other caller they got on was someone defending it on the grounds of tradition, which is always a stupid argument for anything. Slavery was traditional, once. Arranged marriages are traditional. Fox hunting was traditional. Most people don't defend these things anymore. So I guess I slimmed down the time available for bullshit, if nothing else.

On the same subject, spent the evening watching this section from the Leveson Inquiry, which was fascinating, about Trans representation in the tabloids. If you'd like to watch, the relevant section starts about 54 minutes in.

Day Two: In which I eat

So I woke up with a woozy head, but I had my customary Midweek lie-in to doze the majority of it away. It stayed there through the rest of the day, and I started to worry that either I was having a bad reaction or maybe cis women go their whole lives with this dull throbbing at the back of their heads. Or perhaps my body was trying to do things it just didn't have the fuel for.

Now my relationship with food has been very stormy, over the years. As a child, like most children, I was naturally a picky eater, not wanting to try new things. That was exacerbated by the fact my mother was an awful cook. I mean really, really awful. She burnt everything. Oh, except potatoes, which were always underdone, and a little crisp against the teeth. For years I thought the proper way to eat sausages was to find the strip of sausage that was unburnt and scoop out the insides, leaving a small row of black sausage canoes behind on the plate. I once announced I was going to be vegetarian, not for any moral reasons but because I couldn't face another crunchy burger. Lasted about four hours till the next mealtime, when I remembered I didn't actually like vegetables either.

When I was a teenager I'm ashamed to admit I used to pinch money from my mother's purse and use it to binge eat sweets for my lunch at school (school dinners were pretty much a reproduction of what I got at home), with the odd bacon sandwich for protein thrown in. I'm surprised, looking back, that I didn't make myself diabetic. The high sugar diet kept my weight down for a while as I was constantly active because of it, but when I left school and started cooking for myself it began to creep upwards. By the time of my divorce, five or so years ago, I was around five stone heavier than I should be (for you Americans, that's seventy pounds). Since then I've cut myself down to one main meal a day, and improved what I ate, and reduced that to put myself, if anything, slightly underweight.

Today, though, I decided my body needed a boost. I had Fish and Chips, for my lunch, and gave my body a treat with soup and sandwiches when I got back from work. May not sound like a big deal to you, but it's the first time I've eaten like that in about two years. I feel much better for it, the head has returned to normal and I feel back in control. A little too back to normal, if anything.

At work my manager had arranged another session with the woman that assesses our workstations, ostensibly to get me a second monitor to work from so I'm not flipping between programs trying to remember things so much. I'm dyslexic, and I can't remember much at a time, and it slows me down. She also reassessed my desk and decided I needed it raising (I'm 6'2").  She also gave me a boost by not remembering she'd assessed me before and I had to point out she'd have done it with me under another name. Took her a pleasingly long moment to twig. It is a small victory, but I shall cherish it for a while.

Day One.

So...

I stuck on my first Oestrogen  patch tonight. I didn't expect it to have much of an effect straight away , especially as doctors keep denying any kinds of psychological changes at all, but as others have said it did on them I was at least prepared. I'm so grateful for that.

Now, I should probably preface this by saying your mileage will probably vary. I used to have severe eczema, and have very, very fair and soft skin, mostly from forty years or so of throwing every lotion and potion at it I could that purported to help. Consequently it's quite possible that I take in things through my skin much more readily than your average man and/or woman.

So I had a bath, made sure I was good and dry, selected, as directed a hair-free spot below my waist (no mean feat in itself, I'm like a damn faun) and slapped the thing on. It wasn't quite how I expected it to be, just a sheet of clear cellophane with nothing apparently on it but glue. Initially I was more concerned with it not coming off overnight . Have you  any idea how difficult it is to find a three inch square flat part of the body, that won't be under elastic at any point? Eventually  I slapped it on my thigh and pulled an unflattering pair of pyjama shorts on over the top to stop it coming off in those first few hours. Went to sleep about midnight with my hand resting on it protectively.

Woke up about three am feeling... Well, drunk, is about the best way I can think of to describe it. Lest anyone think that was what it was, I should add I don't drink much at all. One with Sunday lunch is about my lot. The last time I got properly drunk was about ten years ago, when I sat on a toilet at my friend's house, realised I needed to vomit and tried to stand up to rush to the sink, slipped, and broke a rib on the edge of it, whilst spraying his bathroom walls a lovely Guinness-black. Kind of put me off.

My head was pounding, I was sweating and my body was hot and aching and tingling all over. If I'd shaken and split open down the middle while a new me stepped out and shook itself I wouldn't have been in the least surprised at that point. Pressingly, though, I also really needed to pee, or I'd have just stayed in bed and groaned. I managed to clamber out of bed and into the bathroom, but before I made it to the toilet I fell into the bath, scattering bottles everywhere, landing on my back with my feet hanging over the edge.

The bath felt so cool against my skin I actually think I went to sleep (rather than passing out, I don't know how that's different but in my head it matters) for a couple of minutes. Then I roused myself. I can't lie here in the bath for the rest of the night. The cat already thinks I'm enough of a loony for getting in it when there's water in it. Managed to stagger up and out and to the toilet where I peed for about half an hour. I swear I hadn't drunk that much in a week. Maybe I was so drunk I don't remember drinking it? Or buying it. Or carrying it home. Man, that would be some binge.

Cooled by the excursion, at least, I crawled back to my bed, where I just dealt with the pins-and-needles and the slightly woozy head. The former has gone away, but my brain still feels a little as though it has come loose. I'm afraid to waggle my head around too much in case I can hear it sloshing.

So, anyone else get this? Or am I just a unique special snowflake?