Happy Non-Binary Day.

(Yesterday now. Just. It was today when I started.)

Anyway, how did you celebrate?

I did random stuff.

• Arranged Pergolesi's Stabat Mater for recorder sextet in the morning.
• Played trios in the afternoon.
• And went to a noise gig at the Mist Rolling Inn in the evening.

Meanwhile I represented in typical understated fashion: pink jeans, socks and trainers, black fluffy jumper and sports bra, raspberry earrings. Not raspberry colour. Drop earrings with little raspberries.

A young woman in Nottingham shouted across the street: “I like your...”

I couldn't tell what exactly it was she liked – noise gigs tend to impair your hearing temporarily – but I smiled and said thank you. I'll just assume it was the raspberries :)

Then I drove home with the air conditioning on.

To quote Leila Berg in Little Pete Stories: That was a good day.

Trans Mission

“Posiblogging,” I said. Well, there has to be something positive to blog about first. But Trans Mission sounds like it was such a thing.

Billed as a trans-supportive version of Live Aid, Trans Mission was a one-night celebration and fundraiser for Not a Phase (“a trans-led, nationwide charity committed to uplifting and improving the lives of trans+ adults, through awareness campaigning, social projects and funding initiatives”) and the Good Law Project (“powered by people across the UK, bringing together legal action, investigations and campaigning to fight against hate and spread hope”).

Seems like it went pretty well, judging from reports in/at NME, Pink News, The Line of Best Fit, and Metro. It even has its own wikipedia page, courtesy of Funcrunch.

Did I go? No.

I'm glad that all the people who turned up turned up, that all the supporters supported, that all the performers performed, that all the speakers spoke, and that the organizers did all the work of organizing.

But looking at the flyer beforehand...

...is this really my thing? No, it isn't.

The sort of gigs I go to have 30 or 40 people in a cellar being bludgeoned by Harsh Noise Wall, not thousands whooping it up to famous pop stars at Wembley Arena.

But family represented in the form of famous relative, so that was alright. Apparently he did his Thomas More speech and eveyone loved it.

PS Vote Green.

Posiblogging.

So it's 2026 and I'm up bright and early. It's 04:53 as I start writing this post and I've been up a while already.

Two days ago Lynn Jones referenced a term which Sue Richmond coined back in March: Posiblogging.

As Sue wrote: “Showing good in the world has always been the policy of my blog and I thought it was a Pollyanna-esque approach once but it’s more a case of finding and telling the positive stories in a media arena that loves focusing on the negative.”

Googling “posiblogging” just brings up Lynn's post and this comment from Google AI Overview:

The term "posiblogging" is not a widely established or formally defined term in general usage or the blogging community, and search results do not provide a clear definition. It is most likely a misspelling of a similar term, such as:
Plogging: A global movement that originated in Sweden, which involves picking up litter while jogging, walking, or cycling.
Plog: A less common or possibly obsolete term used as an abbreviation for "photo blog," a blog primarily used to display photos.
If you were thinking of one of these terms, their definitions are well-documented. If you had a different term or concept in mind, please provide more context.

No, I shan't be doing that, Google AI. Though I do quite like the idea of plogging. Very public spirited.

But I'm definitely thinking about Posiblogging. Not as a public service, mind. More as a personal one. As a sort of CBT perhaps. “Mostly negative feelings” (from an April post) are not good for me.

So what – ignoring the state of the world for the moment – is there to say that's positive? Well...

• I still have my health. (Mostly; *blows nose at the back end of a cold.*) That's no small thing.
• Relatedly: Self-medicating (since June) with Progynova, even at low (and low-risk) dosage, is boosting my body's natural tendencies, so that I'm happier with it now. (More so if I can follow through on my usual Resolution this year.)
• Relatedly again: That also prompts me to bodygroom daily, which is a Good Thing. (Google AI does flag another usage of Dysphairia other than mine, but it was four years later, so...)
• I have work, when I can motivate myself to do it. (Posiblogging may help my attitude there.)
• I have my recorders (garklein, sopranino, descant, treble, tenor, bass, great bass) and people to play them with, not least the orchestra.
• We're doing pretty well in both my chess leagues: Notts and Sheffield. Okay, second in Notts isn't so amazing, given that we've won the league the past four years, but the possibility that we might win in Sheffield is unprecedented.

That's a few things to be going on with anyway. I'll try and think of some more for some more posiblogging at a later date. Until then...

Happy New Year :)

TDOR 2025

Last night's Nottingham TDOR vigil was on the Portland Steps again. It was cold again. I wore my big afghan coat again (and a scarf and a bobble hat). Afterwards we were invited inside again. I went home again.

All in all it seemed a quieter affair than last year's vigil. Just four speakers. And a smaller flag.

But there were quite a lot of people there all the same.

And one new thing at least: replica battery-powered candles with bulbs for flames. No one is blowing those bastards out.

I'm taking those candles as a metaphor.

No one is blowing us out either.

Nottinghamshire Pride 2025.

As with other 2025 Pride events, Notts Pride rightly banned political parties from attending.

The ongoing assault on trans rights has led to the UK falling further down the ILGA Rainbow list. This was due in large part to the Supreme Court ruling in April. But with the right wing Labour government limiting access to trans healthcare, reviving Section 28 for trans people (in its new RSHE guidance), and almost certain to accept the forthcoming trans-exclusionary EHRC “Code of Practice”, we're soon going to be dropping into Hungary or Georgia territory, if not Russia.

In such circumstances, rather than just being a party, Pride reverts to being a protest. And that's good. We're going to need a lot of protests. Not least outside Wes Streeting's house. I hope this one went well.

I didn't go. I went to Gainsborough with my mother, walked by the river, and had a Lincolnshire sausage in a riverside cafe.

Some days, no matter what, all I want to do is head off up North.

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 some time be made to feel uncomfortable. Yes, so-called EHRC, for instantly exploiting the judgment to further your own prejudicial agenda. 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 anyone, 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.

Skirts and Boots.

So I went to my niece's wedding as planned. Here we both are:

Obviously she wins in the fashion stakes there. And it's very nice to see her looking so happy :)

As for me, it didn't actually take much nerve at all. (I mean, I'm nearly 60; why the fuck am I even still thinking about this shit?!) But reactions were interesting in one (or two) respect(s)...

The women (the younger ones anyway) were all: “Ooo, fabulous skirt, where did you get it?” To answer that: from someone called Linda, who makes “gothic victorian steampunk” gear and flogs it on eBay.

The men en masse said nothing. No antipathy, no funny looks (at least that
I noticed), but no comment. Perhaps it's simply that straight men mostly aren't interested in clothes. They were all, as you'd expect, well turned out in their suits and ties. Maybe they felt quite smart wearing them. Or at least properly attired to accompany straight women in an array of spectacular frocks. But I'd guess the guys would be equally – or more – content to dress less formally.

Apart, that is, from famous relative, who wore a white jacket and trousers and fetching yellow scarf.

And who did comment – approvingly with "You've dressed up for the wedding!"

Well, yes. Yes, I have, Ian :)

I've also started using an eyebrow pencil. If anyone's noticed that, they haven't said anything. Perhaps I know too many straight men.

Boots. (2)

Four months later, I have another new pair of boots. Well, secondhand pair of boots. They were advertised on eBay as “drag queen boots”. I bid on them anyway – a last six seconds sniper's bid – and got them for £5.50 plus p&p. £10.82 all told. Sweet.

And they fit, which is by no means a given with eBay footwear purchases. Here's what they look like with my aforementioned skirt.

Frankly, this post is just an excuse to post that picture – which I like because of the way it's taken: with a small reflected sun where my face should be.

Now the question is whether I have the nerve to wear boots and skirt to my niece's wedding next month. She'll be disappointed if I don't.

Boots.

You keep saying you got something for me. Skirts, check. Tights, check. (What else with skirts?) How about footwear?

I've already mentioned my humming bird boots, once or twice. People seem to like these...

Now I have a new pair of boots. My youngest niece arranged with her multiple siblings to buy me some DMs for Christmas. She'd mentioned DMs before, and later asked my shoe size, so I was more than half expecting them. But not the colour...

Aren't they grand :)

Sod the whole of last year. 2023 is going to kick. Something or someone.

Are you ready, boots? Start walking.

Skirts. (2)

Yes, most everything is still shit. No change there. However, I've managed to resolve the skirt issue from the previous post. The one where I was “thinking all the time about wearing skirts.”

After pondering and perusing the question, considering the possibilities, weighing them up, sifting them through, looking at them from varied angles and perspectives, I finally hit upon a solution.

Wearing skirts.

Hardly anyone gives a fuck.

“I'd probably have to ask my mate first.”
— Wear what you want.
— Okay :)

Two gigs, two skirts. Two trips into town, two skirts. (I don't get out much.)

Comments/reactions:
(young woman at gig) — “Great skirt.”
(young man at gig) — “I like your skirt.”
(woman in street) — “Nice skirt.”
(woman in shop) — “Love the skirt.”
(man in street) — “Nice, nice.”
(young girl in lift) — “Ha ha ha.”

Bah. What do young girls know about anything anyway?

Skirts.

The whole world is going down the fucking toilet. Everything is just shit and it's getting increasingly worse, it seems to me, increasingly. I can't even begin. Shit, shit, every where, nor any way to avoid it. You'll be drinking it whether you will or no.

From this super happy place, I've found myself thinking a lot about...

Skirts.

For instance:

Isn't that gorgeous! Who wouldn't want to wear a skirt like that? Even if it won't look quite so good on you. Or me.

Nevertheless:

Now I just need an occasion to wear it out. My youngest niece has suggested her wedding. Maybe :)

The last time I wore a skirt out was twelve weeks ago at the NTU Gender Matters conference. Finn Mackay was the keynote speaker, so presenting femme by wearing a skirt – a long purple one, paired with a they/them/theirs t-shirt in non-binary colours – seemed the least I could do. To show solidarity with my butch sibling as it were.

Now I'm thinking about wearing skirts all the time.

That is to say: I'm thinking all the time about wearing skirts. Or even both. There's a punk gig coming up on Saturday. I could wear my new skirt to that. And there's another gig on Thursday. I'd probably have to ask my mate first. Would it bother you if I wear a skirt? Maybe.

In the words of the song: I don't have any reasons. I've left them all behind. I'm in a new skirt state of mind.

Style.

There was a piece in The Guardian a few months back: “‘I went from basic to flamboyant overnight!’ The people who transformed their style – in their 50s, 60s and 70s”.

It's subheaded: “Growing older can mean getting bolder – so why shouldn’t this be reflected in our clothes? Meet four people who refuse to blend into the background”. I don't know about “getting bolder”. I think it's more an increasing feeling of “I really couldn't give a shit”.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple.

The person with the style I most like there is Arlinda McIntosh (64, New Jersey): “The clothes I wanted to wear didn’t exist, so I started making these big celebratory skirts, some with trains, so I could bring joy to my appearance.” Right. Especially as the cross-dresser's "traditional" short skirt has never done it for me. I prefer to be covered up. And big celebratory skirts seem just the way. Skirts with a lot of material. Skirts that flounce. Skirts that swish and swirl. Mmm, yes.

Style-wise anyway. Word-wise I'm with Phil Grosset (51, York), who now identifies as non-binary: “I choose things that I think look nice and make me feel good without worrying about what gender they’re marketed at. Clothes that are marketed to women have so much more choice in their patterns, colours and fabrics – it’s made me addicted to colour.” Patterns, colours, fabrics. Mmm, yes.

Maybe I should turn this into a fashion blog.

On which note, I note that McIntosh runs her own label, Sofistafunk, where “the voluminous Skirt reins Supreme and all else is an accessory to It”. The ‘A Long Gathering’ skirts are my favourites, if a bit out of my price range. Then again, if I can spend £900 on a great bass recorder...

Eleven years.

...last Tuesday. That is, since my first post on 7th February 2011. One year I'm going to remember.

Looking back at those early posts – from the first three years, culminating
in Straight Male Femme (published here in 2018) – everything seems so earnest and important. And I suppose it was. I started this very much as a blog about cross-dressing: a big thing in my life that I needed to work through and explain, most of all to myself.

Now?

I've not exactly reached the stage that “they're not women's clothes, they're my clothes”, as Eddie Izzard once put it. (Indeed, I'm not sure Eddie is at that stage any longer.) It's still significant to me that everything I buy is off the women's racks. I've still haven't learned – or even tried – to present as femme in clothes from the other side of the store. I never even look at the other side of the store.

Perhaps that's just laziness. It's a lot easier to get stuff off the women's racks. Go out – or, more often, go online – pick up a nice fluffy jumper, or furry coat, or pink jeans, or cute trainers, or...

Um, vest check, gun check, clip one check, clip two check, I'm set.

If anybody ever asks... But they never do.

In any case, a question that concerns me more now is: will I still be around in another eleven years? And if so, where? :/