A matter of sides.

My last few posts have been about feelings. Mostly negative feelings. Not feeling very positive. Not feeling very trans.

But if you're going to go large with your bullshit...

Yes, UK Supreme Court, I mean you. For effectively ruling that every trans person everywhere should be made to suffer every day lest some cis woman somewhere might some time be made to feel uncomfortable. Yes, so-called EHRC, for rushing to enforce this. Yes, all you political and media bigots, for creating the climate in which it could happen. Yes, all you political and media cowards, for allowing it to happen. Yes, all you celebrating, gloating dickwads, motivated by little more than hatred.

If you're going to make it a matter of sides...

Fuck, get away from me. You can see my trans body at the protest.

Somebody asked...

“I was wondering about your own experiences. I realise I know very little about you really.”
___________________________________________________

Ok...

I'm genderqueer and femme. Non-binary sort of. I prefer neutral pronouns but don't insist on it, except in print; I don't like to see “he” and “him” in print. Sometimes I place myself under the umbrella – given that there's no right way to be non-binary or trans – but often I don't. I'm not currently feeling very trans at all. I ran admin at Notts Trans Hub for several years but have stepped back from that now. I'm not intending to transition in any direction. Although my body has had its own ideas about that and given me mild gynaecomastia. I have been casually investigating HRT to help that along...

The DIY HRT directory

...but I probably won't do anything.

My main identification is femme. I present as femme. To that end all my clothes are off the women's racks, and I have nice earrings and such, but don't attempt to make myself look female. Probably people just think I'm gay, which is fine by me, although I think of myself more as “theoretically bisexual”. That's “theoretically” because I don't date any one, so it's all pretty much irrelevant.

Well, our gender journeys are all different, aren't they ;)
___________________________________________________

They are. And that's where I am in mine. I thought I'd post it here as a kind of milestone.

X miles to go.

Not.

Not male.

Not female.

Not binary.

Not non-binary.

Not neutrois.

Not agender.

Not bigender.

Not demigender.

Not pangender.

Not xenogender.

Not cisgender.

Not transgender.

Not butch.

Not futch.

Not not... femme.

I think that about covers it ;)

TDOR 2024

This year's Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil was hosted by Nottingham Trans Collective, with Nottingham Against Transphobia and Notts Trans Hub. It's the first time I've been on the Portland Steps (aka Djanogly Terrace). It's a sort of amphitheatre with a big screen and fountains. It feels a good space, a community space.

I hadn't gone to a TDOR vigil for a few years. (I did go to the one for Brianna Ghey in 2023.) Since it moved out of the city centre, the venues have always been inconvenient. Both Clifton and the University are the wrong side of town for me and going round the Ring Road at that time of day is a pain. But this year it felt important to attend, given the prevailing climate:

Ever increasing hate crime, propagated by a callous cum malicious mass media to further its own interests. A cowardly prime minister with TERF-adjacent cabinet set on implementing the politically motivated bullshit that was the Cass Report. An impending trans-hating Christo-fascist US government with full control of the legislature. And on. And on.

So I made the effort. It was cold but everyone dressed warm. (Me: afghan coat, chunky mohair jumper, bobble hat in trans colours.) A huge trans flag appeared on the giant screen – and disappeared to leave us in candlelight – then reappeared and disappeared, ad repetitum. We listened to and applauded speeches and poems and such. When those had finished we were invited inside for food and fellowship.

I went home.

I like social situations less and less. I don't want to talk. I avoid conversation when I can. I don't have anything to say anyway. I haven't posted here in months. All I have is unexpressed and unorganized feelings, mostly of a lugubrious nature.

But as Amelia from the Hub said beforehand: It was “a chance for us to come together, honor, and remember”. That much at least I can do.

Earrings.

So not breast cancer then. One harmless lipoma and the rest gynaecomastia. All the same, the circumstance of a non-transitioning, non-medicating, sort of mtf, sort of trans person having “woman” problems of whatever kind does have a certain piquancy. A cosmic joke from the trans goddess if you will.

But more importantly...

Earrings.

Since I had my ears done last December, I've been buying earrings.

These were the first (and most expensive)...

Neometal threadless. Swarovski crystals. They go in from behind the ear, which is tricky. My fastest time is 1:15 (both ears), but I can spend 6 minutes or more when fumbling about.

I have some standard front-loading studs too...

But mostly I'm buying drops...

All 925 sterling silver. An “affordable option”, as they say.

Now I'm thinking about hoops. 9ct gold perhaps and a proper size. Nothing discrete. Femme as fuck or fuck the fuck off.

What do you reckon? :)

Thirteen.

This blog.

Today.

I remembered this time.

On my early anniversaries I used to write about stats, so...

Total page views
As of this precise moment – 281,236

Page views per month
Since I'm not writing anything much, PVPM have dropped from an all-time high of 5389 but are still rarely below 1000. Just four occasions in thirteen years: 922, 957, 927 (all Januaries - dunno why) and 577 (September 2022). What happened that month, bots?!?

Highest offsite referrals
Google, Reddit, T-Central (thanks, Calie), Twitter (nuts to X, Musk, you bellend), YATGB (thanks, Lynn).

Most popular posts
Straight male femme
In vision (3) - male bodies, female clothes
Underdressing
Sissies, Trannies, and Jeffreys
Radical Femme
Nice to see my two longest posts in that list. Though of course it doesn't mean people actually read them all the way through. Maybe more words just means more terms to be picked up by a search engine. Regarding which...

Search keywords
Nothing too surprising: “male femme”, “genderqueer language”, “femme male”, “femme guys”, and suchlike.
Except for: “site:blogspot.com mother I'd like to fuck language:en”.
Say what?!?!
Googling that myself brings up 46,800 results. Looking at the first few, none seems to have any relevance. I guess if you've ever used the words “mother”, “like”, and “fuck” somewhere, you're going to get flagged by that search – and disappoint the searchers.
Dumping this entire blog in Word and Replacing whole word by nothing (Word then tells you how many times it's done that), I see I've used those particular words 18, 404, and 20 times respectively. 404 seems like an awful lot (error 404).
Some more searches: “femme” 704; “butch” 204; “genderqueer” 63; “transvestite” 53; “non-binary” 62; “trans” 507; “gender” 680; “sex” 194; “woman” 163; “man” 117; “the” 3608; “a” 4064, “and” 3003; “I” 3519;
“me” 578. Fascinating.

Number of posts per year
I identify four phases:
Initial enthusiasm (2011-12) – 23, 17
Consolidation (2013-16) – 14, 13, 12, 12
Fatigue (2017-20) – 9, 5, 7, 6
Barely alive (2021-24) – 3, 5, 4, 1 (so far, this one)

But I'm still here.

*waves* to anyone still following.

Sixty.

Me.

Today.

So it's official: I'm no longer middle-aged. I'm now on the last leg of my threescore years and ten. And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow. Which raises the question of what to do with them.

Dedicate myself to good works for the benefit of humanity.

Sit on the sofa watching TV with a big box of pork rinds, living life to its fullest, as per Homer J. Simpson.

Sneak the equivalent of 36 big barrels of gunpowder into the Westminster cellars and raze the edifice of corruption to the ground.

Get my ears pierced.

I might do that last one there.

Gone AWOL.

I've hardly blogged at all this year. Anywhere. Just twice here. Just twice on my chess blog. And I'm three months behind on my buying records blog. I've gone AWOL.

Meanwhile, I see Lynn still blogs every week. Or more. Since 2005. I think her 1000th post was in May. One thousand posts. Respect is due :)

In a recent one, she flagged the following online thingy:

IDR 7 Identities Test

Okay, I've just done that.

The only result I'd question there is Transgender. Hmmm. 76%. I'm not sure I feel quite so trans. But I guess it all depends how you define it.

On the other hand, my Gender Fluid and Genderqueer percentages could certainly be higher. I guess they're held back by my not being as public as I feel. I could always work on that. Try and bump up my scores a bit. Enough perhaps to get a badge or a certificate or something.

Something like this:

With the appropriate warning: “Heteronormative Actions By Holder May Cause Card To Be Revoked.”

So be careful.