Day 40: Competing For My Sympathy

Been having some problems with a a news story recently. A beauty contestant, a contender for the Miss Universe title (which I had previously assumed was a body-building competition, but apparently is not) by the name of Jenna Talackova was refused entry to the competition for being trans.I don't recall having been torn by a story so much in a long time.


I'd like her to be accepted as a woman, sure, but I'm also aware that as someone born male she has a natural advantage in being broad shouldered, tall and slim hipped, a current standard of beauty that most women would struggle to attain, and which sets a false standard for women. I kind of feel in the same way we ban people born as different genders from athletic events, we should ban them from these.

I don't believe it is a fair standard of female beauty. It is the kind of thing that encourages anorexia and general low self esteem. No natal woman can match this skeletal structure. The pictures in magazines may be exactly this shape, but that's because they are photoshop-enhanced. I'm not sure it's healthy to confuse the issue this way.

This encourages the vast majority of women within the median range to believe they don't meet the standards of beauty. I'm not looking to convince anyone here I'm right, I'm asking for clarification. I don't know the solution. If you ban her, it sends the message you don't believe she is a woman. This is wrong. I don't believe she should ever have been banned.Once banned, if you reinstate her it highlights how much her body is similar to the other, natal but genetic outlier women. Perhaps then they'll pick a smaller, wider hipped winner. That could only be a good thing. But if she wins, it will get ugly. She will be used as a punching bag for every radfem transphobe in the world. It will play up to the idea that we do nothing but buy into the patriarchal view of women as objects, that we objectify ourselves in the process of becoming female.

I don't necessarily think the concept of beauty is something to be opposed, much as I'd like us to take everyone at more than face value it isn't going to happen anytime soon. I don't know enough about this particular competition to say it's better or worse than any other.

Like I say, I'm torn. I'd love this kind of validation, and envy the likes of Andrej Pejic modelling fashion. But there has to be something wrong with a world where our standard of female beauty is such that it can only be attained by a tiny minority of biologically freakish women and those of us born with male bodies.

What's the answer? I don't know. I'm not saying she should be barred, or that everyone should. All I'm saying, I guess, is that it is not as cut-and-dried an issue as our narrow self-interest would have us reflexively believe.

Day 39: An Englishman, Irishman, and a Transman...

Hilarious, right? Reddit certainly seems to think so. I tried to voice some objections but got quickly beaten down in a flurry of upvotes. /r//funny is not the best place to put liberal objections to anything, of course. Because free speech, etc. The children that inhabit this place are very fond of pontificating about that one. And I agree, to an extent. You have the right to behave like an ass, of course, to be as rude as you like. I have the right to think you're an ass for doing so. And sometimes a deliberately offensive joke that flies in the face of received opinion can make us re-examine our own attitudes, as well as be very funny.

This isn't that joke, though. This is yet another recycling of "Transsexuals, aren't they weird?" for big laughs. There's nothing clever or original about that. We've seen it a million times before. How about this one, for instance? (All these may be triggering, so don't watch if you think it may upset you; they certainly did me):

Because the transsexuals aren't women, d'you see? Funny, huh? Or maybe this one from usually reliable Russell Howard?

Bleh, can't even begin to comment on that one. I could go on, there are hundreds of examples. All of them with one thing in common: There is no joke.

Nothing. De nada. Go on, try and find me a joke other than "LOL Transgender". But it isn't just that these non-jokes exist, it is that there are no alternatives either.

Lots of things are funny about being trans. Hormonal emotional reactions, physical changes, changes in your perspective on the other sex, the unexpected reactions of cis people... There truly is a goldmine of comedic potential here. But of course bigoted cis comedians, that see the sexes as like alien races to each other, indeed that have comedy that is often heavily reliant on emphasising the difference between the sexes, have no either interest in mining it or understanding of it. 

I saw a trans comedian recently and was thoroughly disappointed with how little she chose to speak about her experience. I can understand that, one doesn't want to have your whole life be about being trans. But if we don't, these cis idiots will. And they will get it so, so wrong.

I want to hear some proper trans jokes in circulation. Ones that start with something like "This trans woman walks into a bar". I don't mind being in a joke, I'm just sick to death of being the whole damn punchline. Anyone have a good one to start us off?

Day 38: I like JAM

ohmygodohmygodohmygod

Why did nobody tell me? First poor advertising for the Apprentice, and now this? BBC, your publicity department needs lining up against a wall and shooting.

Given this is the internet and it has young stupid people on it, I should probably add I don't really think they should be shot. This is what we call hyperbole, or deliberate exaggeration for effect. Jeez.

Anyway, Just A Minute is on the telly! Not just someone talking about it, but the whole complete actual series. I love panel shows, and JAM has been one of my favourites since my mother, a Radio 4 addict, first introduced me to it back in the days of Kenneth Williams being the reliably funny one, a mantle since taken over by Paul Merton.

If you're not familiar with JAM, it's a show where people are given topics, with no advance notice, and have to talk about them without repeating themselves (i.e. they can't re-use words, though small words like and and the tend to get ignored), hesitation (so no stopping for thought or stumbling over words), or deviation (no getting off the subject, using English that doesn't exist). You get points for stopping someone talking with a correct challenge, and thus taking over the subject, and for being the person that finishes the minute.

It does not hold you to being factual about the subject. You can talk absolute nonsense, as long as you keep to the subject (although if you say things that are provably untrue, you may be challenged for deviation). JAM was on TV once before, an abomination on another channel, where they missed the point completely, and aside from having Nicholas Parsons managed to have none of the really good contestants that are actually funny, and seemed to be focussed entirely on playing the game. Who cares about the game? As Nicholas himself often says on the show, it's about the contribution, not the points.

I know people are often very snotty about panel shows, and maybe I'm one of the few winners at this particular time of austerity. The expensive stuff; costume dramas, sport, sitcoms, etc, have no real interest to me, whereas interesting people talking, be it on comedy panel shows or interesting documentaries, are my entertainment bread and butter.

I'd be awful at Just a Minute, though. In conversation I hesitate all the time, or I rant about things that are a deviation from the interest of those around me. As I get older, I catch myself repeating anecdotes and worry that I've said it to this person before as well. But hey, it's about the contribution, right?

Day 37: Apprentice Sadness

Went over to my friends to watch Episode two of The Apprentice.

The UK version, that is. I don't understand how anyone can watch the American one. Donald Trump is a complete ass, who's been bankrupt, what, twice? He made his money by inheriting it. He had all possible advantages and pissed them into the wind, and only made it back again by having connections from people so invested in him as both a person and a business that they couldn't ignore it. The third time, he got lucky, and then proceeded to be one of the least generous and most underhand ruthless business tycoons in the world. He's racist, ugly, and completely unlikeable. Why would anyone want to be apprenticed to that?

The British one, on the other hand, has Sir Lord Alan Sugar. Who is funny, brutally honest, suffers no fools, is a self-made man who came from nothing, both socially and financially. When he criticises you for being an idiot when it comes to a business deal, you know he has been there, you know he understands the choice you made and knows when it was fucking stupid. He may not have the money that Trump has, but he has enough to be considered a success by any measure.

The main delight of the Apprentice, though, is the opening sequence, where they point a camera at the contestants and appear to say "Say something to make yourself sound like a cock" to them. And boy, do they deliver. Alternatively, this could be the audition process, where they have random business wannabes walk by and say something about themselves, and the most cockish are given a spot on the programme.

My friend and I have a little competition each year where we make a table at the start, with points for close guesses at the losers for each week. I was going to post this years table here so you could join in, but I missed last weeks episode completely due to the woeful advertising job they did for it this year, and was then slow about posting this. I figure at this point joining in at the third week isn't worthwhile. Sorry. Next time maybe.

Day 36: Is David Wong Single?

Was directed to this Cracked post, which is one of the better explanations of patriarchal indoctrination that I've ever come across. Hot on the heels of the same author's socialist manifesto that I previously posted I began wondering abstractedly what the author looked like. Apparently the name is a pseudonym, so probably not Asian, not that that matters, but it's helpful to form a picture. I kind of went out with (i.e. I mostly stayed in with) a boy with a very similar name, so it's certainly not off-putting.

I posted the link to my Facebook and M posted a very angry, self-righteous response, which made me laugh. I didn't start to explain, as I didn't want to get into a public argument somewhere i couldn't explain myself fully. M is very tolerant, certainly not deliberately oppressive in any respect, but also very heteronormal, and it reminded me once again that the questioning of one's gender, and the nature of gender itself, is something that most people just never have to do.

I've always questioned the presentation of gender in the media, amongst my friends, and society in general, cramming us all into these stereotypes, and it coming so naturally and so often one generally assumes that everyone else does too.But most of you don't, do you? You don't mind being painted with that broad brush, because it is a colour you wear naturally anyway. Previously I just questioned being forced into a single box, now I am happier that switching to this other one fits me far better, but I'm very aware that for many people who are more in the middle it is horribly restrictive.

More culturally androgynous people stuck on each side of the genders like to claim that they have it worst. Men have an internalised fear of being caught out being remotely feminine, being put in physical danger by their own sex and danger of rejection by the opposite sex, whereas women are made to feel constantly never quite feminine enough, forced to strive visually, at least, for an impossible ideal (on which, if you are interested, see this), but at least now allowed to act in a more traditionally masculine way.

I would hesitate to say which is the more oppressive, it is not a simple answer. For naturally masculine men, there is no problem at all, I would just point out, whilst trying to achieve the impossible, and being made to feel like shit for not acieving it, is a problem for all women. As Cindy Crawford once said "I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford".

Day 35: A Brighter Day.

Back to hospital again this afternoon for another ear check-up. Came in late from noticing I had a very under inflated  tyre, need to check on that again in a couple of days, might be faulty, as it's just been replaced. All the others seem fine.

Checking them and re-inflating made me late for hospital though. My appointment last time was in the midst of visiting hours, so I hoped this time would be less busy in the car park. No such luck. It's almost as though when they built this Victorian hospital they didn't take cars into account. How short-sighted.

I drove round the car park getting frustrated at people in front of me lingering for ages when it was obvious there were no spaces. I just wanted to get out, but they were acting like a car might just disappear if they wished hard enough. Happily though, once I got out of the car park I found a perfect space in the short term parking just over the road, which meant I didn't even need to pay pay-and-display charges. Score.

Took an age to be seen, but once I was the doctor made a useful bit of diagnosis regarding the rest of my pain, suggesting I had a couple of torn muscles (neck and shoulder) that seem likely candidates. I'll take that to my GP on Friday and see if they have a suggestion; the doctor at the hospital suggested I might need specialist physiotherapy.

Went back to the ward I was staying on and picked up the few things I had forgotten when I left the last time, which was much less difficult than I had imagined it might be. The day was bright and sunny and warm, that end of March pre-summer lift that we always seem to get. Even the lights seemed to be with me on the way back. .

In the evening I went to have a drink for a friend's birthday. Just a single, as I was driving, but it was nice to get out for a bit. All in all, today was a good day, and I felt in a better mood than I had in months.

Day 34: Grammar Not Seen

I ended up attacking someone today for their repeated ignorance of proper grammar, and being attacked in return (but not by them) for just being picky.

For the record, I am not a grammar Nazi. What I am is dyslexic.

When we speak, we use a dialect that is appropriate to our audience. We may be used to our own, but those that are the most steeped in their own special culture are the first to complain when presented with a dialect outside of their sphere of knowledge. There is a terrible hypocrisy amongst some people against those are literate. The insinuation is that as long as they can be understood, it doesn't matter how difficult they make it for anyone outside of their particular dialect.

Written English is the lingua-franca of the internet. People whose first language isn't English make an effort to learn it so that they can converse with ease with people across the world. Usually with such great success that it's impossible to know if the person you are talking to is French, Serbian, Japanese, Indian, or from just around the corner. Yet when it comes to first-language English speakers, they have a terrible laissez-faire attitude.

They make you stagger through pages of misspellings, through word substitutions, through misunderstandings of idioms born of never actually reading anything but Facebook posts, and have the arrogance to tell you to get over it.

As a dyslexic it took me far longer than average to learn to read and write, was looked down on as slightly backward by some of my peers, and I still maintain an intellectual inferiority complex because of it. I left school with barely a qualification to my name, something that only changed years later when I came at education through interest rather than competition. As a dyslexic, bad writing hurts.

At the moment, while I have a constant migraine it turns from being a faint irritation to a squeezing of my cranium. Normally that means if something is badly written I just don't read it, so please understand if I point something out it is because I wanted to read it, because I thought you had something worthwhile to say. Take it as a compliment, and a point of sympathy.

If you have a lack of education, or difficulty with reading and writing for any other reason, I have sympathy with that. If someone picks people up on every other word, every little typo, then you have every right to be annoyed. If someone points out, though, a repeated mistake you are making, take it as friendly advice, and use it.

Day 33: Insomnia Go-Go

Got around to 7am and decided to give up on trying to sleep. The worst bit about taking co-codamol as your painkiller of choice is that as they are paracetamol-included, if you value your liver there is an enforced limit on the number you cab take in a day. If I don't manage to get to sleep within that stretch of the day they will cover I'm screwed, I just have to lie in bed with the left side of my head pounding away like a jackhammer. And I can't lie on the left side at all, as that's just too painful anyway, so my night time sleep pattern; start on left before rolling to right, is broken. I notice parts of me have become extra sensitive in the last few days, as well, which isn't helping.

I haven't suffered insomnia this bad in years. I used to have it all the time, often having to miss a night's sleep altogether to reset my body clock. As it happens, today is a good day to be doing that, with the clocks going forward tonight, so one less hour to stay awake through.

Ended up going back through my TV recorder to find something to watch and finding Whitechapel. I sat down and watched through the series like a boxed set. Whitechapel is a splendidly dark series, and very apt for a day of insomnia. The first series was about a ripper-copycat, and I didn't know what the second series was about, as I appear to have missed it, but this one was just like a televised modern series of horror-comics. I love it; so dark that it edges into unwitting self-parody. ITV can't make a decent drama to save their lives, but sometimes it kind of works anyway.

Came around for my second wind in the evening and eventually got to sleep around midnight anyway. My body hates me.

Day 32: Ear Today

Woke up in the midst of an anxiety dream about having left my ear re-dressing too long that my ear dropped off. I'm told the top ridge of my left ear has basically gone, thanks to bouncing along the tarmac about a week and a half ago now. Focussed my eyes slowly and realised I had just a couple of hours to get to the hospital for my rescheduled Ear, Nose and Throat clinic appointment.

Checked the car in detail for the things that one is supposed to (oil and water, mainly, as the tyres had just been replaced, although looking at one tyre later it looks as though I should maybe have checked that as well) and set off for the hospital, following the sat-nav, which of course sent me to the wrong entrance, so I had to retrace my steps to get to the right bit. Then I spent a while driving around looking for a parking space.

Eventually I saw someone preparing to leave, and lurked to swoop down on her space when she left. As I turned to go into the space I needed to straighten up, but people were being particularly stupid in this car park. I don't know whether it was something about being close to casualty giving a kind of laissez-faire attitude, but they seemed determined to have an accident. There were 5mph signs plastered around the very tight car park but people were still screeching around it. One man stopped far too close for me to be able to move out, and I had to wave frantically at him to go past for ages before he got it, and then another woman nearly drove straight into me as I reversed back slowly, then having the cheek to honk her horn at me. I nearly got out and gave her a mouthful, but I was anxious about being late for my appointment anyway.

Having parked at the wrong end of the car park I shuffled with my painful foot to the clinic, where annoyingly I sat for about half an hour waiting to be seen. Annoying both because I had thought I was late, and I realised I had left my mobile in the car, so I was both bored without it and anxious for its safety.

I was eventually seen by a very junior doctor, who told me it was infected (I'd guessed it would become so, I'd asked for antibiotics on several occasions without success) and proved to be yet another nonplussed as to how to dress an ear. I'll grant it's an awkward thing, but if you're working in the ENT department you should be good at it, surely? Oh, well. I still haven't seen the state of it as yet, but at this stage I'm kind of resigned to having a funny-looking ear from now on. Could be worse. I'll put it down as a being windswept and interesting thing. Happened when I was fighting pirates. Or werewolves. Or aliens. Something like that. Leave it with me, I'll think of something.

Went and bought myself a pair of shoes on the way back to cheer myself up. And ordered a load of clothes from a catalogue sale when I got home. Fuck it, if I'm being made to go into debt again I might as well have some fun on it. If you'd have told me five years ago that buying shoes and clothes could become a fun thing I'd have laughed in your face.

Day 31:En Passant

Yesterday M came around as promised, bringing painkillers aplenty (you're only allowed to purchase what currently constitutes for me two days worth of paracetamol at a time, so I have my visitors bring some as a kind of ticket for entry) and took my car to the garage for me. He got anxious about taking the car without some sort of contact with the owner first, so I called the garage and let them know what was going on, priming them to give me a quote for both part-worn and new tyres, depending on individual costs and number of tyres that will need replacing.

The garage owner, who doesn't know me, started calling me 'love' almost from the start of the call. I generally pass on the phone fairly well, and indeed always have (I frequently picked up the phone at my mother's to have her friends immediately launch into a conversation before I could politely say this was all very interesting, but perhaps they'd like to tell her?) and pleasing as this is on one level, I'm always a little torn between my trans and feminist sides when it happens, as it's also quite a patronising way to be addressed.

I'm a bit torn about passing in general, to be honest.

I recognise that I am a woman only in the sense that that is a description for the collection of psychological expectations we hang on the thing we call my side of gender. There are some physical and cultural experiences that go with being born with a female body and assigned that gender from birth that I will never have. I wish I could, trust me, I'd gladly trade a lifetime of menstrual cramps for being able to bear a child, for instance. Sadly medicine has not yet reached that point yet. Once upon a time I would have felt it was vital that people saw me as a natal woman at all times, were never aware of any other status. But I've reached an understanding with that side of me. I am content that I just be me, and have people treat me in a way that is appropriate to me.

I am not, though, a man. I reject that more utterly than I assume being a woman. If someone wanted to call me a third gender I won't object, but that seems to be bending over backwards in denial. I'm a more stereotypical woman than almost any other one that I know, so if it is a cultural assignment of a definition then I can't see the point in assigning me any other one.

But I am not ashamed of my past. I'm annoyed about it, annoyed at the wasted years of living a lie, angry at some people for forcing that on me, irritated at my own lack of knowledge and grateful for the more recent legal protections that make it safer to be honest. I'm aware not everyone has the benefit of those protections, and amongst my trans friends, some are more nervous than they need to be. They lack the perspective of how much better we have it than 95% of the world.

There are some things about passing I do have anxiety about. I have anxiety about not being seen as a transvestite; this is not a fetish, I dress to advertise what I am, to change how people interact with me, I'm not changing what I am so that I can dress a certain way. I have an anxiety about not quite passing; there is nothing more irritating than that knowing look that says I have found you out. I'd rather not pass at all than that.

The man at the garage kindly dropped the car back today, and I saw his double take as he dropped it off (which did not otherwise register in his actions). It amused me. As much as it irritates me the fact that trans people are a go-to easy joke in our society, dear cis people, please know as much, if not more, as you laugh at me, I am laughing at you.

Day 30: Hero and Villain

One of my favourite people, on chat shows, review shows, and for comments on current affairs, is Germaine Greer. I've always loved her on everything I've ever seen her on, and while she might at first sound as though she is being reactionary and unpleasant about something, she always has a well thought-out point of view that I generally find I share. She has a way of cutting through the bullshit that I find particularly endearing, and is able to engage with the modern world without seeming massively out-of-touch. She is able to send herself up, and appear in the most lowbrow as well as the most highbrow of places. She is one of my all-time heroes.

But.

I just don't understand her attitude to trans women. She seems to have said things that are massively transphobic,  as detailed here. But they seem to be the words of someone who has had very little contact with trans women, and she seems to be rushing to conclusions which are just bizarre.

I mean yes, I can see how some trans women are like drag queens, and dress and act completely wrong for their age and level of attractiveness, but that's true of some cis women as well, surely? I can understand that position, even if not sympathise with it, but I feel like her real position hasn't been drawn out yet, all we have are a few out of context sentences in wider-ranging texts. Are some trans women horrible people? Of course. So are some natal women. And some men. You can't write off millions of people because of blind prejudice.

For the record, I don't agree with the principle of transexuality being just linked to a brain sex difference. I suspect that difference is also present in a lot of effeminate men who end up just identifying as gay, for instance. I think a lot of people who end up being trans probably don't have it at all. It is just the gender you identify with, and that can have a million disparate causes. I am with the feminists on the notion of gender identification being largely cultural (which means, individually, psychological). And no, that doesn't mean you can be talked out of it, any more than you can be talked out of your sexuality, or dyslexia, or epilepsy, all of which may also have psychological roots.

What I have trouble understanding is why, knowing/believing that as she apparently does, she thinks that identifying as a female requires having been born with an inny instead of an outy. If gender is cultural, then not identifying with that culture is open to all. If a woman can choose to be masculine, I can choose to be feminine. If she wants to argue over the words alone, she is assigning them too much weight. If she thinks a woman should not be limited to a role because of that, I should not be limited to a role because of this either. We choose our identities. Women are freer to choose now than men are, and hence transition to male much more rarely. I hate that gender is so damned important to everything at all, but while it is, and while it makes such a difference to how people treat you, and how we think of ourselves, transition is necessary.

I despise the Men's Rights movements that I've found thus far, because while women's rights movements are about the choice to be more male, in their power, rights, roles and responsibilities, the men's rights movements are about the choice to be allowed not to have to change. I want the choice to be feminine, but I am so constrained by society that I recognise I cannot be happy in myself or accepted in society without transition, at least socially. Greer appears to want the movement all one way, as though she feels that all female roles are inherently inferior. That is wrong, on so many levels. And I would love the opportunity to confront her about that, and either make her justify or explain her position. Because it is one on which I believe her feminism stands or falls.

Greer is a very clever woman. There is not one subject I have heard her discuss at length upon which I have not agreed with her. I have not heard her discuss this at length, and I refuse to write her off because of what may just be a couple of badly thought through sentences. I reserve my judgement until I have seen my questions posed and answered to my satisfaction.

Day 29: Mostly sleeping.

Spoke to the local garage this morning to see if they'd come pick up the car to do the tyres, and they didn't seem too keen. Fortunately a friend, (having trouble with friends names, lets start code letters, shall we?), fortunately M called and asked if he could help anyhow, and I said yes, he could take my car around to the local garage for me (since he's the only other person covered to drive it).

When I got my shopping delivered last Friday they'd delivered about three times as much steak as I'd ordered. I'd called them and complained and they'd refunded the difference, and so I'd offered to share it with my neighbour, J. Today was, ideally, the last day to be having it, but she had to cry off from sharing it today again. I hope it will keep till tomorrow.

Mostly today I slept. My head throbs with pain so much but if I get into certain positions the pain is oddly, hypnotically soporific. Then I wake up feeling like people have jumped up and down on me again. I could do with an IV,

Day 28: Ow.

Hard to write anything today. Couldn't sleep last night, eventually went under through sheer exhaustion around 5am, and annoyingly had to call through to work before 9am as I didn't have a sicknote through to them yet.

Felt really down around 3am, sat on my bed crying. Posted a plea for attention on Facebook:

Thanks to being hit by my own car by people stealing everything hurts, breathing hurts, I have constant migraine so i feel sick all the time, The stress has mad e my eczema flare up so my skin hurts. I can't sleep and at the time I wrote this I had so much to do. I can't drive my car anywhere, despite having paid the police a small fortune to get it back, because the thieves have ruined the tyres. I look like shit because my face has puffed up and I can't even wear makeup thanks to the eczema.

I sat here last night trying to think of a quick way to kill myself that I had available. Everyone seems to think because I'm out of hospital i must be fine now. I can't even get to a doctor to express how not fine I am. I've not felt so low in years and I'm struggling to keep some perspective.

Couple of people posted concerned replies, suggesting Samaritans. I'm a very emotional person, I feel strong highs and lows, but I don't really have depression. When my life is crap I feel like crap, but it improves with circumstance. I'll live. My mood will improve with my health. I've called them before, and just having someone to talk at did help, but it's not what I need right right now.

Now I just want the pain to stop, please.

Day 27: Hello Mum

I miss my mother. Every day, in little ways, but sometimes so deeply it hurts. On Monday, in hospital, for instance. I really, really wanted a hug from someone, but I had no-one I could rely on that way.

My mother had many flaws, as do we all, but I would struggle to think of a better one. She was kind, and generous, and caring, and proud of me no matter what. She had no bad word to say about anyone, One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't come out to her while she was still around. She had enough clues, and dropped enough hints that she knew. She wouldn't have cared. If I'd have understood myself well enough that I was able to tell anyone else, then I would have had no hesitation in doing so.

My mother died around seven years ago now, of a recurrence of breast cancer. If anyone is reading this and has been putting off checking themselves, then go do it now. Beating it can be done, she did it twice, each time it coming back completely independently. My mother was incredibly unlucky. Chances are you will be much more so.

Today, on Mother's day, I raise a glass, to you, mother, wherever you are. If there is an afterlife, I hope you are happy in it. If there isn't, then I will keep you alive in my memory. My mother, the woman I will love above all till the day I die.

Anyone out there reading this, if your mother is still with us, call her today. Be honest with her about yourself. Chances are nobody else will ever accept you in the same way. And those rare, awful mothers that do not; be ashamed.

Day 26: Hello Dad!

I gave my father the address for this blog today, so in theory he could be reading it. I doubt it, though.

A perusal of the stats for this blog show no readers that weren't directly linked. That means my best friend and my father and my therapist, the only people I've directly suggested it to, haven't bothered to take a look so far. Generally I'm OK with that, I just think it's curious that 488 relative strangers can think something is interesting enough to take a look at (my highest pageview for a single entry so far) whilst close people you would think would want to know out of burning curiosity couldn't appear to give a damn.

I guess I've always found it curious that people find reading such a chore. I read as easily as breathing these days. As a dyslexic, it took me a while to pick it up, but once I did I raced past my peers. I don't retain facts from text very well, I'm better with a narrative, but zip around the internet reading things all day.

The best I can imagine reading for those who do find it a chore is the way that I read French; that is, I can manage to pick the sense out of most sentences, but it's difficult, and slow going. It might be more that it's like reading Cyrillic Russian, though, and even making out the characters is hard. So I sympathise, I really do.

It's odd giving the keys to your diary  to your father. Not that this is a diary in the strictest sense, I don't reveal everything of myself here, though that was the original intention I quickly decided making it nsfw was too restrictive on any audience. Still, of all the people in my life that probably has the most skewed image of me it is probably my father, so seeing the person writing some of this might come as a surprise.

I'm by no means unique in wanting to live up to what my father expects of me, but I am quite possibly an extreme in terms of lack of ability to live up to that. Feeling that I was a failure because I couldn't do that, when there were a perfectly acceptable other set of standards that I could have easily met, had I but known myself better. It's tragic, and I blamed my father for my low self-esteem for a long time (even thought he wan't there most of the time). It's only relatively recently that I've come to understand it isn't his fault, but society as a whole, and if I was so unaware of all the baggage I came with I cannot be surprised others were.

I've made so many bad mistakes in my life, mainly down to lack of knowledge. For the longest time I felt guilty over them, depressed, felt worthless. But I've come to the conclusion that we should only be ashamed of the things that we do that hurt people, and even then only if we did them knowing that they would. Otherwise we make reparations where we can, and where we cannot we let them go. World, you made me be born into this body, and all that that means in our society, but if you let me ignore it from now on then we can let the past go together.

So on the off-chance that you are reading this, Dad, know that I forgive you, and I love you.

Day 25: TV Time.

Woke early this morning, having learnt the lesson from yesterday, with a bottle of juice by my bed and painkillers at the ready. Had trouble remembering whether I'd taken three or four lots of co-codamol by the end of the day, so my last one for the day I made ibuprofen, to be on the safe side.

Had another few long phone conversations with the police, the garage, and the insurers, eventually agreeing to put pretty much everything off till Monday. In theory I would be back at work on Monday, (given this is officially my holiday, wheeee!) but given how crappy still I felt whenever I did anything as reckless as standing up I had a feeling that wouldn't be happening anyway. And I had to go back into hospital on Tuesday.

I spent much of today catching up on the last few day's TV, or groaning in bed. I was going to make myself decent for when the groceries were due to be delivered but in the end, unshaven and unbrushed I just pulled a skirt on under my nightie and answered the door like that. I'm sure I must have looked insane but by this point I was well past caring.

They delivered about three times as much sirloin steak as I wanted, policy being apparently to deliver closest size they had no matter what the price difference, which of course they charged me. Nearly nine pounds worth of steak. I had wanted to treat myself, but this was ridiculous. I rang them up and said so and they begrudgingly refunded the difference "as a one-off". I should bloody well think so. I guess my lovely next-door neighbour will get a treat, anyway.

In the course of putting the shopping away I dropped a jar of jam on my already painful foot. They probably heard me scream in Asda. A perfect end to a perfect day.

Day 24: Maybe I spoke too soon.

Woke up feeling like absolute death. Didn't appreciate those early wake-ups with painkillers etc. in the hospital,  but now I get it. I turned off my alarm clock last night to get a good sleep, and woke up with everything having worn off and feeling like a steamroller had run over me in the night.

Everything hurt. There wasn't anywhere I could touch that didn't cause pain. Alright, that decreased when I used a different finger, but still, new pains were showing themselves with every movement. I had painkillers by my bed, but nothing to take them with, so I groped my way woozily to the kitchen and swallowed a small chemist-worth of paracetamol and codeine, then lay on the sofa till the room stopped spinning.

I got a call from the police to say they'd recovered the car and arrested someone, partly based on my description. Great. They didn't seem to think there was any damage to the car, but I'll believe that when I see it.  I received a letter shortly after from the police garage threatening me with grinding my car into tiny pieces if I didn't collect it by the 21st. Nice. On my planet, we have this thing called tact, you might want to look into it. I gave them a call and asked if they could deliver it. Well, yes, normally, except the detectives had taken the key away, and wouldn't be back till the next evening. And I was paying for storage every day while they sat on it.

Both they and the police, when I queried this, said not to worry, my insurance would pay for it. I explained to them through gritted teeth that if there was no other damage, as they said, then it wasn't worth putting through my insurance, as I would lose my no claims bonus for something that cost less than my excess anyway. I'd spoken to the adjustor and confirmed this, so them twiddling their thumbs mattered. Not to mention the fact that effectively they were committing insurance fraud. No wonder our premiums are so high.

My neighbour checked on me again to see that I didn't need anything. She offered me a pie for dinner, but I was feeling in too nauseous a state for such a thing. I said I'd have beans on toast later, but in the end made do with a microwave pizza. I ordered some shopping online to be delivered the next evening.

Took a late bath and gave my aching everything a good soak. Took a risk, when washing my filthy hair, on dunking my tattered ear, but the dressing stayed on through it. even once dried again. I think it might be glued on for life now.

Day 23: I Am Not Going to Die: Official.

Again woken at six for painkillers, and I suspect I growled a little, but frankly any interaction in this place is something. I hobbled around to see Irene again, but she'd been discharged early, so I'd missed her.

I needed discharging by the doctors, but before I did I wanted to get my foot X-Rayed, as it had looked overnight at one point scarily as though it was going to pop the club foot stitches from when I was two. However they managed to miss me on ward rounds, and we were again doing a hunt the doctor game. Eventually around lunchtime they managed to snag a passing doctor long enough for him to say, "That needs an x-ray" and I was whisked away by a female porter with a very snazzy way with a wheelchair.

The nurse who brought me back said I had a visitor waiting to see me, and I was surprised as for the friends who had said they were coming down it would be a bit early yet. It turned out not to be theme, but yet more police, this time to take photos of my injuries. Probably the best ones I'll have taken all year.

Shortly thereafter my friends did turn up, and I went over the events in great detail. One was more concerned with chatting up the nurses than me, I think as I appeared disappointingly intact, but they chatted for a while until the doctor finally came and released me. Officially nothing broken, just bad bone bruising.I felt like I'd spent a year in the hospital (so much seems to have happened I feel like it should be another day, but I've skipped most of it as it's either repetitive or TMI), so I was anxious to get out. I think I left my phone charger and electric toothbrush, annoyingly, in my haste.

I made it home and managed to make myself and my other friend something to eat, as I hadn't eaten much over the last couple of days, hospital food generally making school dinners look like haute cuisine, and then packed her off in a cab before crashing into bed.

Day 22: Where Am I?

Woke up in hospital being wheeled into a private room, the management obviously being undecided what gender of ward to put me in (this trans thing had to have some perks sometime). Police came to see me but I was groggy, in pain and feeling nauseous, so they decided to come back another time. As a concussion patient I was woken up every couple of hours to have lights shone in my eyes and check I knew what my name was and that I could move everything I was supposed to. Given I really needed to sleep and was being woken up for this I am surprised I passed. I was given painkillers and had blood pressure and my temperature taken. I guess they were looking for signs of internal bleeding, of which none showed up.

Doctors came and prodded at me, to determine my injuries. Two deep cuts to the left side of my head, a chunk of my left ear missing, pain but no apparent external injuries down the left side of my upper body, to the extent that lifting my arm on that side was next to impossible, bruising down my inner right leg and an acutely painful but apparently only slightly scratched right foot. A pounding head and painful foot were nice bookends to my misery. I was more concerned about missing work than anything, and got a nurse to call them at around 4am. One of the advantages of working for a 24 hour company is you can always leave a message.

Later in the day the police showed up again, a different set of detectives this time, to take a witness statement. I was surprised how much I did remember, and they seemed pleased with their several pages of notes. I expressed anxiety over the security of my house, which I hadn't finished securing, and they said they'd go back and sort it out. Dozed in two hour sessions throughout the day, being woken occasionally to be ferried to x-ray,  but was wide awake by the afternoon, and bored, so begged for magazines to read. I soon went through them and was again bored, so made my way, hobbling, to the day room to watch TV, where I spent a few hours chatting with a lovely lady called Irene, who was very generous about me passing given the state of me, before the Police came back with the news of having secured the house, and bringing me my bag and a few toiletries.

And, possibly more importantly, mobile phone and purse. I could now both contact people and pay for bedside TV. Not that there was much on, I'd forgotten how dull most live TV was. I called my neighbour and was told that far from being unconscious during my blackout I was very active, ranting and raving, calling someone to have an argument over the phone (please don't let it have been my ex) and bleeding everywhere.

I went back to the day room to talk to Irene again. By this point whenever I passed nurses they were remarking on how swollen by foot had become, and I should get that x-rayed. A doctor was called to give the nod to that, but must have been busy as despite a couple of reminders, they never showed up that night. In a strange bed, and given I'd been napping most of the day, it was around 2am before I got to sleep again.

Day 21: Where Are My Keys?

Woke up feeling groggy and tired, scraped myself out of bed and off to work with difficulty, forced myself through it, went to Asda and picked up some bits of shopping and came back and treated myself to a massive cup of tea and some cinnamon whirls to bring myself around. Left the key in the door while I carried shopping inn, no free hand to take it back out with, and remember thinking to myself, I mustn't leave that there. Heard a small noise at the door and went to see what it was, nobody there so must have been the wind. My keys weren't in the lock, so I must have brought them in.

Made my lunch, a very nice ham and mascarpone pasta, and watched something or other on TV before getting ready for work again, got everything together, stuff in my bag, shoes on, ready to go, just need my keys.

Where are my keys?

Now it's a product of my dyslexia that I am particularly adept at losing things. I can lose things within an arms reach. I lose the TV remote several times a night. Whatever it is in your brain that enables you to keep a visual after-image of the last few things you looked at, doesn't exist in mine. So I just tutted and set to looking in the places I might have put them. Kitchen counters, wrong sections of my bag, mantelpiece, draws, down the sides of cushions... Nothing. Starting to panic, I went out to my car, which I'd left open, to see if I'd dropped them there. My neighbour came out to chat about something and I snapped that I couldn't cope with conversation while I was panicking.

I went inside and called work to tell them that I was going to be late, and they said to take it as emergency holiday. I love my employers, for the record. I got changed into jeans more suitable for rummaging and, a little calmer, I went to my neighbours to explain and apologise for snapping, and she came back and ended up helping me search, still to no avail. 

Around this time I voiced the deeply paranoid sounding thought that during that brief time my keys were available, someone had taken them. It sounded absurd even saying it, but I had to admit it as a possibility. My neighbour suggested I disable the car somehow so nobody could take it, a good thought but one I was unsure and unwilling to have to do given my keys would probably turn up in the freezer or something. She had to go and see to her son, and I carried on searching.

After failing for another little while I stared into my engine, knowing nothing about cars. I had hoped a rotor arm or spark plug or something that I could easily remove would be visible, but everything seemed to be sealed up. Damn modern cars.I went back in, with the intention of finding a website that would tell me how to do it, and got sidetracked by clearing the passage to my unused other door to use in the meantime, to keep the house secure (as I'd have to keep the other double locked, as someone possibly had a key). I sat there moving shoes, lots of shoes, out of the way.

And heard my car start up in the driveway.

My heart lurched. Suddenly on pure adrenalin I ran out of the door in time to see my own car reverse from my driveway. I stepped in front of it, waving my arms for them to stop, getting a good view of its two passengers. They drove up to me, pushing me back. I wasn't moving, and banged my hands on the bonnet. This is my car, and you aren't having it. The car scooped me up, feet off the floor, and I travelled on the bonnet some distance.

Then I blacked out.

Day Twenty: Identity Night

Radio One were having a sexuality night tonight; that is, a discussion of sexuality. They've been running a trailer for it the last few days with people reading out a card with different sexualities on it:

"lesbian, gay, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, transgender..."

...Wait, transgender? Surely that's not a sexuality, is it? If it is, we need to put men and women on there too. Being only attracted to a third sex might well be a sexuality, but being it isn't. I, for one, am resolutely monosexual these days, in a heterosexual stylee. I wrote to Aled, who was hosting, on Twitter to say so:

@ahj @BBCR1 Has anyone pointed out for you yet that Transgender is not a sexuality?

He replied:

@AndiWatts yes. But we want to include it on the night because it IS about identity. We'll explain it's not sexuality on the night

@ahj Fine. But by including it in the trailer you've made an incorrect statement to many people who'll never hear that bit of the night.

@AndiWatts the trailer is about listing all the terms we're going to be talking about on Sunday

@ahj Yes, as part of sexuality night. Do you not see my point? As a trans woman I could be gay, straight, bi, poly, sub, dom, asexual, even.

As I've posted before, I do not feel being trans is a sexuality. It doesn't define who you want to sleep with, just who you are. So to me I don't feel it merits inclusion in this at all.

However as the night began Aled introduced it with a an assertion that it "wasn't about who you wanted to sleep with, but your identity".  What followed was an acceptable discussion, given that disclaimer, but I still can't help feeling that the trailer damaged more understanding than the actual show helped.

Day Nineteen: My Politics

Came across this test of where you are on the political, and libertarian spectrum, which was quite interesting.

Not sure I agree with all of the questions; for instance it asks if companies should have social responsibility other than making money for its shareholders. I don't believe it can and survive in the marketplace. If social responsibility is voluntary then the companies that shirk it will succeed at the others expense. But I believe it is the responsibility of society, and government, to ensure a framework which makes not having social responsibility makes you less money, either by having your customers leave you or having financial penalties imposed. In a good society, running an evil business is running a bad business.

That said, I thought it made an interesting snapshot of where you are politically. This is me. Try it yourself and see where you fall.

Day Eighteen: My Privilege

Browsing the internet recently I came across an excellent article about the things rich people need to stop saying. Whilst it is perfectly summed up, it misses one point. Being rich is a privilege which makes life easier to live, one that people don't notice while they are living it. But life is full of those. When I was at school, my teachers of a religious bent expressed this as counting my blessings, and it is a shame that it has caught up in that particular world, because even as atheists it is something I feel we need to remind ourselves about from time to time.

It is expressed by some as privilege, which I think sounds accusatory. Most of these things you can't help, and whilst we may be envious of others, I wouldn't wish for most of them to be taken away from those with them. Just maybe that we work to do our best to confer them on those without. None of them are absolutes, either, so we need to recognise whatever we have of them. Indeed, many are fatal at the zero level. So, in no particular order, here are my blessings:

Health

I'm writing this watching an athletics championships on the TV (yes, I know that's a sport, get over it).All of the people on this have much better health than I do. Sure, I'm an asthmatic, and running to my car recently left me speechless for several minutes, rather pathetically. But, as far as I know, I don't have any fatal diseases, have decent nutrition, plenty of water, feel well and fit enough to get about and do all of the things I need in a day. The main things that are wrong with me I could solve by putting in a little more effort, doing more exercise and eating foods I don't enjoy so much. I have friends waiting for operations, or suffering with ongoing conditions. I have nothing like that hanging over me as of this moment.

Ability

On the subject of health, I was born with two arms and two legs, a brain that mostly works to move my body in the right way, enough strength for the things I need and want to do every day. I can negotiate stairs, have a house that I can live in without special modification. I can see, and hear, and feel, and smell and taste without any handicap. Sure, I'm dyslexic and dyspraxic, and was born with a (long since fixed) club foot, but on the scale of disabilities I could have these are barely anything. I'm not disfigured, indeed I have been told, almost uniquely, on separate occasions, that I am handsome and beautiful, which in my mind cancels each other out, but that's a product of my situation. Which is a mental disability of a sort, but there are far worse ones. I don't have voices in my head, or shout things out, or problems understanding my fellow man.

Wealth

Now, I'm no Bill gates or Donald Trump, but I'm not really poor either. I'm sure there are people in my kind of situation that do consider themselves poor, and many people with more money than I do that would consider themselves poor in my situation, but I'm aware it could be so much worse. I live in my own house, I have a car, I have electricity, water, somewhere to sit, somewhere to sleep, clothes, and so on. I don't have to share any of these things with anyone. I see people who moan about giving money to those abroad when there are still people at home without, but generally what they mean is that people abroad have no food while we have no decent trainers. My biggest food decision is not where my next meal is coming from, but what of all the million choices available to me I wish to eat.

I'm also privileged to be living in a western country with roads, and a national health service to look after me, and a police force to protect me, and an army to defend that country, and so on. That may not be part of my personal wealth, but it is something I still get to take advantage of.

Social

On the subject of eating, in a little while I will message a friend to meet up for lunch. Tomorrow I will go to work, and talk to people there, as well as customers over the phone. My facebook racks up invites to events on a daily basis, most of which I decline for lack of time or interest. I live in a city, with groups who share my interests a short journey away meeting most days of the week. My facebook, which unlike some I largely restrict to people I actually know and like, but which by no means contains everyone I know, has racked up on it some 120 friends, close to the limit that people can reasonably actually have friendships with.

Not so long ago, I was agaraphobic, had lost contact with almost everyone I had ever known, shut in 24 hours a day. Even then, through the web, I had contact with real human beings across the world, I had books, and films, and TV, and radio, to keep me in contact with humanity. None of these things apply everywhere. Some places people are absolutely, utterly alone. I see people on the web complaining how alone they are, unaware of the irony in doing so. Sure, you are alone. But it could be so much worse.

Love and Sex

A more acute and focussed form of sociality, the human need for love is strong, and you might think, single as I am, I had more grounds for complaint here than anywhere else. The love of my life is gone, with no-one on the horizon to replace them, and I haven't gotten laid in an age. But as the saying goes, it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. I have been in two long term relationships, both of which were, for a time, worth a century of loneliness. I can picture those and cherish the good memories whenever I want. And if I really wanted it, I know I could be with someone in a matter of hours. My choice to have sex is just that, a choice, for I know that I am blessed with enough attractiveness that I don't have any trouble attracting a partner.It is just that, for the moment, I do not want any partner that would want me as I know am. Once this awkward transition is complete and I feel more myself, then I will open that door again, but right now in that department I am content alone. There are those who feel unable to make a connection with anyone, ever, and I can remember an age when I thought that of myself. But I've lost count of the number of people I've slept with over the years, so it would be churlish to complain of their lack right now.

Nationality and Race

An odd one, this. Wasn't sure what heading to put it under, but this will do. I feel embarrassed even to mention it, as it seems so unimportant to me, but I suspect it feels unimportant because of my privilege. I am white in a country, and indeed a world, that seems to value being white above all else. That thought makes me feel a little sick, and makes the bile rise in my throat. I refuse to value it, I refuse to be thankful for it, because that validates the opinion that it is in some way better. But to deny the fact that it has made my life easier is to be blinkered and foolish.

Freedom

I am allowed to write these words, because of the social agreement of the country that I live in, that I can express my opinions. I can say that all religion is bullshit, that socialism is a fantasy, that capitalism is amoral, that our leaders are selfish and stupid, all without fear of being woken at three in the morning by a firing squad, or being carted off to a concentration camp. Sure, my freedom isn't perfect. I can't, for instance, roll out of bed naked on a sunny morning and pop round to the local shop before getting dressed, because we have this odd taboo about nudity, with people wearing ever tinier patches of clothing to cover them up from revealing this nipple or that pudenda, to prevent them from being obscene. But on the scale of things, it's pretty small. And sure, if I had better wealth, then I could buy more freedoms with it, ones that I can't even think that I might need right now. But it could be so, so much worse.

Gender


Ah. Well, I'm sure you think this is where I'm about to point out I have a total lack of privilege. But, again, it could be worse. Sure, because I was born with a penis I have certain expectations of me that I was never comfortable with. Worldwide, we stick people in boxes based on what happens to have been between their legs when they were born. I happen to exhibit all of the characteristics of, and therefore identify with, the opposite sex, so we say my gender does not match. But the whole concept of gender is a social construct, and whilst I have tried to step outside of that and deny my identity in the past, I've finally come around to the fact that it would be easier if I just stop trying, and change my sex to match the gender I cannot change. There are plenty of people for whom the difference isn't so extreme, that batter at the walls of the one restriction that blights their lives, banging their head on the glass ceiling that keeps all of us down in fields that do not allow for our particular gender.

But it could be worse. I could have been forced into an army where I would, potentially, have been bullied to death. I could have felt so powerless and unable to change, so physically distant from how I wanted to be, that I killed myself rather than live this way; I am at least androgynous enough that I can live with however this comes out. I am at least in a society that largely accepts my transition, and imposes legal penalties on those that try to block it. I am at least in a country that gives medical assistance to those that need to change their sex without huge expenditure.

Did I miss anything?

Day Seventeen: A Night at the Opera

I know I'm given to oblique blog titles, but this one is neither about the Marx brothers, nor albums by Queen (both of which I do, though, heartily recommend) but instead is, more prosaically, about going to the opera.

Yes, I know I've said before about how I thought opera was crap, but that's modern opera, pasty white men in leotards and sweatbands singing about their bad day at the office. Classic opera is different. It's great stories  told with beautiful and stirring music, performed by musicians at the height of technical perfection. Isn't it? Well, isn't it?

Well, truth be told, I had no idea. I went through a classical music phase for a while when I realised that I loved well played acoustic instruments, and there were certainly plenty of examples of great opera music on collections that I bought at the time, however I'm aware that buying classical music on a greatest hits basis doesn't exactly make me a candidate for radio three listener of the year. But everything I'd seen of opera had led me to think of it as, in general, elitist, oversubsidised drivel.

So when a friend asked on Facebook if anyone wanted to use a spare ticket to the opera that evening I sat on my sofa and thought hell, why not? I agreed to meet her at the theatre for a performance of La Traviata.

Maybe you're au fait with the plot of La Traviata already, but for the uninitiated it boils down to this; woman with a bit of cash, kind of a Paris Hilton type, gads about town going to parties and such, takes a lover and lives in sin with him, giving up her life of leisure for, erm, well, a more quiet life of leisure, probably just an excuse as she knows she has a fatal disease, probably something social, I wouldn't put it past her. Her lover's dad turns up and says his daughter is upset by it all (what it has to do with her is never really addressed) and so she leaves her new boyfriend in an act of supreme self sacrifice, whereupon after a duel that never really amounts to anything,(and takes place off-stage, spoilsports, or that might have been a good bit) and a lot of  bemoaning her lot, runs out of money and promptly drops dead.

Sound a load of old piffle? Well have I got news for you! Oh, wait, this just in, no I haven't, because that's exactly what it was. Much of the music kind of meandered at trying to be some kind of a tune, but never really got anywhere, God knows how they ever remember it, because it's not exactly a foot tapper. The theatre hover a message board where a translation of the lyrics, like live subtitles, serve only to amuse: I am going now, alright you are going, yes I am going, go then, now is the time that I am going, I wish you well, I thank you as I am going, here is me going, there I have gone, oh wait, I forgot my hat... On and on and on. If you wrote this stuff in a musical it had damn well better be a comedy, but somehow in an opera nobody ever dares to point out the emperor's clotheslessness.

That said, the performances were very well done, the soprano was quite spectacular, though the overall effect was more like that of a dog standing on its hind legs than anything else; not actually entertaining, but remarkable. I would probably have enjoyed the orchestra more, but the singing often drowned them out, and with a curtain separating us from them didn't even get to see them much. A balcony seat might have been better. My friend, herself an opera virgin as well, rated it five out of ten as an experience. I think that's probably fair. Maybe a little generous.

There is one good bit, that occurs fairly near the beginning, and only serves to make the rest of what follows look pale and pathetic by comparison:

There you go, that's officially the only bit of it worth seeing. I just saved you about thirty quid. Feel free to send me a cheque.

Day Sixteen: So Tired

Really, really tired all day today. Wednesday is normally my lie in but I forgot to turn the alarm off least night, so it went off (twice, as it has two alarms). I slapped it off both times immediately but the cat has been well trained, and started his morning routine of coming to wake me up. He stares at me from the pillow beside me for a while, and if that doesn't elicit a reaction will poke at me with a paw, or try and worm his way under the covers. About this time of year it works quite while, when I should be getting up at dawn, but in midsummer it becomes quite tiresome. He does have a snooze button, but that consists of shouting at him, and usually I'm too tired to do that first thing.

Had a bath and then lazed about on the sofa until it was time to go to work. I was late getting ready for work and set off about five minutes late, which is fine as I usually sit down with about fifteen minutes to spare, but then then the traffic was unaccountably really bad, and so I dashed from the car and into work with only five minutes to get signed on. And then realised I didn't have my keys to open my locker, so had to run back to the car to pick them up where I'd dropped them, lock the car (as apparently I hadn't done that either), and then run back into work. The unaccustomed exertion set off my asthma, and despite getting signed on in time had to shortly return to the car to pick up my emergency inhaler, which I haven't used in over a year. I should really start doing some more exercise again.

I was due for a one-to-one with my manager today but she's off sick. I felt tired enough that maybe I should be off sick myself . I've managed to  not miss a day since my gastric flu of last summer (not a pleasant way to get time off work, trust me). It allowed me to plod my way through work uninterrupted, though. I fell into bed without much delay, and went to sleep. Today was a day I didn't want to linger over.

Day Fifteen: CSI Bradford

Finally able to set the series link for the new series of CSI which starts next week. Not sure how I feel about Ted Danson in CSI, but I shall reserve judgement till I've seen it properly. CSI hasn't really been the same since William Petersen left, but the same doesn't necessarily mean better or worse.

I like CSI. Yes, I know it's ridiculous, and has very dubious scientific operation duplication, especially with regard to what things cost and the length of time they take (I'll be back in five minutes, I just want to check the DNA on this...), but at least it understands scientific method, and tries to impress that upon people.

However the subsequent spin-offs move further and further away from reality. New York is presented as having almost limitless wads of cash (hey, why not have a virtual reality autopsy right here?) and Miami might as well be an SF show for its out-there presentation of how things are done.

Here in the UK a sketch show presented a running joke about writers who wrote about various settings for their stories (cricket, hospital, outer space) without doing any sort of research beforehand ("Stand back, I'm going to use the electric shock that's sort of medicine if you're ill, but can make you very ill if you're fine, clear, *flatlines* oh no, he was fine, but now he's poorly from too much electric").

I'm convinced that the way CSI writing teams go about research is this: CSI Vegas picks the most TV-worthy stories from actual cases, with advice from actual proffesionals, and a little bending of the truth for dramatic purposes. CSI New York writers watch CSI Vegas and make a series based on the methods they saw, but bend the truth a little for dramatic purposes, with advice from actual police officers. CSI Miami Writers watch CSI New York for research on the method, but bend the "truth" from this for dramatic purposes, with advice from actual people who live near Miami.

The next step is to write another series, just watching CSI Miami for research, with advice from actual lunatics. They've talked about making CSI London for a while now. I'm convinced the only reason they haven't gone ahead with it is any treatment they come out with ends up breaching the copyrights already set down by JK Rowling

Day Fourteen: Misgendering at the Doctors Part 2

Dear Practice Manager:

I wish to complain at the service, and the system, in place at your practice in regards to the operation of what should be a simple procedure; the changing of my name and title, as a transgender woman.

I went into the very full doctors on Thursday 1^st March 2011 for an injection. I took a seat at the only available seat, facing the majority where everyone could get a good look, thanks, and was then called in to see the nurse with my old name on the screen above my head.

Now I first asked your practice to change this  about 6 months ago, bringing in my proof of name change for the reception staff to take a copy of. They said at the time it would be simple, and they would see to it. I was called in for an appointment to change it, and the doctor said that he had spoken to the people making the software, and once an account was set up they couldn't change the gender on it.

Now, for a start, this is absurd. I didn't argue it at the time, but people changing their title should be a pretty common thing, surely? Maybe I should just become a reverend, would that be easier, or oh, I don't know, a doctor? Why did the people making this software make the political decision that they thought a gendered title was inviolate? And, more to the point, why did the people buying it accept that? Should I take this up with my MP, or was this a practice choice?

Whatever the reason, I was told he only thing to be done would be to create a whole new record, and copy my details over to it. Fine, I said, whatever; as long as my records didn't then assume I was a natal female, because I'm not, and for medical purposes that should be known. The doctor said he would see to it.

Then I got a letter asking if he was alright to go ahead with this. Yes, I thought we'd dealt with this? I called in in person and waved the letter at the reception staff. Yes, go ahead with it. Do you need it in writing for me, or what? I was told by staff they knew about it, and would see to it..

So with it still not fixed, I went to the counter to remonstrate with the reception staff, and while I was waiting the nurse, Jo, came out right next to me and called my name out to the assembled fifty or so people waiting. I had to say 'Yes, but that's not my name' as quietly as I could. At least she had the good grace to look embarrassed and realise the situation. She'd not been handed the letter detailing what the shot I was getting was beforehand, so to be fair to her she had no way of knowing in advance how crass she was about to be.

She apologised profusely during the ensuing administration, and said she would see to it.

This morning I got yet another letter asking me to book yet another appointment for apparently the purpose of yet again humiliating me in front of whoever was around at the time so that I could say yes a little more loudly. I rang up the practice to make a complaint and explained the situation to the reception person. I was trying to keep my cool but was, as you may be picking up by now, more than a little frustrated and angry at the apparent hoops I was being made to jump through.

I was called back and had it explained to me yet again that he needed my permission (which I had already given at least three times before) to go ahead with the record change. I again went through the details outlined above, and was told that getting angry about it was unhelpful. I was being told off for being frustrated about the incompetence of either staff or system. Somehow, this was my fault. I felt like a serf being ticked off for having the temerity to question the lord of the manor.

I am told you will write to the people administrating the software, and thereby wash your hands of it, and I am to cross my fingers it gets to them and actioned correctly. Nobody there will check on it or anything. Forgive me if I don't have a great deal of confidence in that.

Now I set foot into the NHS gender system with a great deal of trepidation, having put it off for more than twenty years, because I knew it would be a physically and psychologically difficult process. Over the last two years I have patiently waited for appointments, been a good little girl, accepted the gatekeeping and the delays and the waiting lists, ignored the contraventions of international standards, bit my tongue, let it all wash over me because it would all be worth it in the end. To have this, this minutiae, this tiniest spot on the administration of what is a huge process, become such a big deal smacks of either gross incompetence or deliberate tampering.

A reminder; all I asked was to change my name and title. That's it. I work on a computer system with the records of every person in Yorkshire. I can change it for a customer there in less time than it takes to type these words. My own father, who knew my old name and was using it before I was born, accepted my new name within a day. Why is it so difficult for you? Why is it such a big deal?

Day Thirteen: Benned

I spend quite a bit of time on Reddit. It's interesting to see what the internet is vomiting forth each day, perhaps help someone that needs it occasionally, Unfortunately it's also a place to be reminded about the depths to which humanity can sink.

Reddit, like any group of people online, is a microcosm of society, in this case largely western society. And by western society, I mean mainly American. 

I first started browsing the fledgling internet back in 1995, when I started university. By the end of the first semester I was training people in my department on it, not by dint of being a computer whiz, just by being more competent than the average arts student. Back then the conversational tool of choice was Usenet, which has all but disappeared from view in the intervening decade or so. I'm not even sure if there's a tool for accessing it on this computer. It fascinated me. I wooed my now ex with witty emails I never quite matched the promise of in the following years. Well, I remember them as witty anyway.

This is the thing, though, isn't it? What seems witty and brilliant when you're in your youth can be embarrassing and rude when you look back at it with the benefit of hindsight and experience. You have no way of knowing at the time how you are coming across, the mistakes you are making. The further back you go into your childhood the truer that is, until you get back into your early teens, where your arrogance and self confidence are supreme,. you are so sure of all your opinions, you will not brook any argument, but will argue with anything and anyone.

Teenagers pick up their parents and peers prejudices, and are often, if not usually, the least tolerant people of all. Oh, don't get me wrong, they will be tolerant of whatever their little in-group says they should be tolerant of, in a way that older bigots won't understand, but their opinions on race, gender, class, politics, culture.are hideously reactionary and pompously righteous. And lack of life experience stops them having any kind of rein on their cruelty, not having the empathy that comes with either first hand socialisation, or even second-hand through fiction (most teenagers don't have the patience to watch a movie that doesn't have things blowing up every two minutes to keep their attention, let alone read a novel).

When I first went on reddit I was appalled at the way that people spoke to each other on occasion. Then slowly I began to get it. The internet has a few older people like myself, a technological elite (and I mean that in the smallest self-flattering way, most people I know my age find even the simple idea of podcasts mind-bogglingly beyond them), maybe twenty percent of the middle aged. But it has maybe eighty percent of teenagers, who have grown up with the internet, cannot remember a time without it. People for whom the 90s is nostalgia.

That cuts out the very bottom twenty percent, but still leaves a good thirty to fifty percent of people that you would cross the road to get away from. I remember being a teenager, and the vast majority of them I never want to see again, for all they may have matured and mellowed. It shouldn't be surprising, therefore, that teenagers on the internet are foul. The difference is, perhaps, that adults get to see their foulness, caught there in words on the screen like flies in amber. 

In Reddit there is a little bit of the site that takes such dross and shows it, not for contemplation but for ridicule. I took it, as many others do, I'm sure as a way of making yourself feel better about the foulness, a reminder that other people were as repulsed as you, and that you are not alone in thinking that rudeness, cruelty and prejudice were things to be reviled. It indulged in it itself about what it found, but I accepted it there as ironic satire. That bit of the site is know n as ShitRedditSays, or SRS.

Recently there was a particularly acute example of the grossness of it all in the comments to a post to a section of the site specifically for teenagers. I wrote a short, pithy response, I thought:

"They're teenagers. You were expecting mature intellectual discourse?"

I was immediately set upon. Downvoted to hell, teenagers taking it as a personal affront, and banned from that section of the site. Why? Because I was displaying ageism, apparently. Yes, suggesting people might be too young, is ageism. Ageism, the only prejudice that time alone will cure, right? 

Well, no. Ageism is about writing off the old (what I encountered in comments, ironically). Youth is a position of privilege. But this appears to be the privilege too far, the one they can't see. And why? Well, of course because they are still subject to the whims of their parents, so they don't see it. Yes, they are that young.

So, I'm banned, but for a reason that makes me feel kind of icky I was there conversing with them in the first place. I now see why they indulge in such cruel judgement on their peers. It isn't satire, it isn't justice. It is because they are teenagers, and anyone that is not in their group is fair game. No empathy, no sympathy, no understanding, no limits.

No maturity.