New Year's Eve is traditionally the day we look both forward and back, isn't it. I'm looking forward to... losing weight. I want to be closer to 12 stone than 15 stone. I want all my clothes that don't fit to fit me again. So, today I'm assiduously eating all the goodies in the house so that they won't be there to tempt me tomorrow. That's how this dieting stuff is done, right? Time for another Eccles Cake and a bag of crisps.
Looking back transwise: 2015 saw the welcome arrival of Notts Trans Hub, which has been good for me – as was Pride in its way. I've also contributed en passant to a couple of online magazine-type thingies: to an article on genderqueer in Slate, and to Prancing Through Life last month – though not as yet to Queer Feminine Affinities...
I don't know whether QFA will ever surface now. There was a suggestion it might appear in collaboration with the Canadian queer feminist journal Feral Feminisms, but there's been no mention of it on the actual FF site, and I've not heard from either of the QFA editors since last March, so perhaps it's all gone for a Burton. If nothing materializes by next Spring, I'll probably post my own piece up here, on its second anniversary (21st April), say.
It seems almost like something from the past anyway. The notion of straight male femme (its title) is still very important to me, but mostly as a political stance – as an assertion of gender freedom for straight cis men – than one that is entirely applicable to me personally (despite the piece itself getting very personal in places).
Femme – yes, that's still fine.
Straight – hmmm, can I just say it's complicated; bisexual is better, though not quite right either.
Male – *sigh*. Well, if you really insist, then "yes"; and it's "yes" for political reasons (as I've just said); but (as I also said earlier) I'm feeling increasingly non-binary nowadays.
How would I describe non-binary? Jack Monroe wrote a nice piece in the New Statesman, relating their own journey and coming out. But for me it's more like this:
It's curling up in a warm bed on a cold winter's morning.
It's lying on the settee under a cosy blanket watching rubbishy telly.
It's a hot bath with bubbles, a book, and a mug of coffee.
It's reading a book I've already read twelve times before.
It's pulling on a pair of stretch jeans after I've just shaved my legs.
It's wearing furry coats and only ever receiving compliments.
It's a world in which no one ever calls me “sir”.
It's... comfortable.
And... a relief.
“They, them, their” pronouns from now on, please – for the time being at least. I'm not really sure whether I've changed trains, whether I'm on the same train but a different track, whether I've got off permanently at station non-binary, or am just having a little rest here.
So, it seems 2016 is starting with uncertainty – and to tell the truth, that feels perfectly okay.
