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Displaying 6 - 10 of 10 entries.

The unquestioned Self: becoming Real

  • Posted on August 15, 2014 at 10:25 am

Everyone says that going through the surgery is a new start. You don’t believe them of course; you nod and smile and think that this is just the final tidying up. It is that, and you may have read me saying that the feeling is at once brilliant and mundane. It does feel very simply and unexcitingly right. There is no thought of what was before, what is after and how wonderful it is. It’s wonderful simply because it’s right. In that sense it’s quite the antithesis of any operation you might have had before, where something threatened, you accepted…

Reject, abandon, release

  • Posted on August 9, 2014 at 11:49 am
Velveteen Rabbit in the sack

OK, so I had a bad day. Bad night and day actually. I squeaked on Facebook before 5 a.m., probably because I hoped there would be a bit of comfort come my way to help me through. It did, so thank you to everyone who responded in any way at all. It doesn’t matter about the interpretation of the specific advice, being there really is all of it. To be honest it had been brewing slowly, it was inevitable, and I guess I needed to pass through it. It wasn’t hormones, though maybe going back on oestrogen freed my emotions…

Up front about sexism

  • Posted on August 5, 2014 at 12:00 pm
Kiesling statue

A strange realisation came to me soon after my gender surgery. I realise this comes to few people, so I hope the unique perspective is helpful! Take a look at this classical statuesque representation (many paintings are similar): the male naked, visible, and the female with her invisible bits (only) clothed. Prehistoric representations of fertility show statues and carvings of large-breasted women or gods, with stylised dotted triangles representing pubic hair, and maybe not even legs or feet. Boticelli’s Venus stands in her shell, with her hair covered by – her hair. Prehistoric male fertility and power is simply phallic,…

Pride

  • Posted on August 3, 2014 at 10:45 am
Pride flags

I have only actually fully participated in one Pride event. I never knew in advance when it was. My mother always knew: ‘Pride comes before the fall’, she used to say. Maybe that’s it. Pride was a bad thing, signifying arrogance. It meant putting yourself above others. And to be honest, being brought up like that, where even to say you loved yourself was a sin, I could hardly look at gay men in weird strappings and think I belonged in any way. That was before I knew what a lesbian was. That was before I knew why I didn’t…

Snakes, patterns, labels

  • Posted on August 1, 2014 at 11:53 am
know your snakes

Here are two snakes. One is harmless, the other will kill you. You have to know the colour sequence to differentiate a coral snake (deadly) and a milk snake (harmless). This is how living creatures survive, by recognising patterns, by getting it right. We recognise faces similarly, and expressions that mean friendly or aggressive. We are terribly good at it. In fact we are so good, we naturally categorise everything, creating a mental instant index of what is safe and favourable, unsafe and unfavourable. It is best not to have a lot of fuzziness in between, because doubt takes time,…