So you might have noticed how after that initial burst of posts I've been silent for a few days. It isn't that I don't have something to say (I have oodles!) but that I've been trying to get my mind in order as to how to put it here.
And, indeed, whether trying to write things chronologically is even the right - best - correct - appropriate thing to do. Does it actually make more sense to talk about my early years before more recent events, or not.
My decision has been 'not'. I think. So you will in future get things as they come.
ahem.
ps. Please feel free to throw comments and questions my way!
Sunday 4 December 2011
Monday 28 November 2011
School Days
For my third school (11-18) I had to travel to the nearest large town each day. There was a school bus which picked up around the local district and took us the 12-15 miles to the different schools in the town. As it happened, the bus route started in my village so I had to be up early every day. Not only did I have to catch the bus at the start of its route but my school was the final destination, so for all those years I spent two hours a day en route and being force-fed with a daily diet of Radio 1. Tony Blackburn is forever etched in my memory.
Initially I would sit right at the front of the bus (I didn't travel well by bus then or now) but slowly moved towards the back row over the suceeding years. The real advantage of being bussed there and back though was there was no public transport option; if I missed the bus in either direction it was walk or don't travel. This meant I missed out on any after-school class detentions if they were imposed by teachers. Result!
But it also meant that I couldn't really get involved in any most after-school activities. No school groups, no visiting other pupil's homes or making friends. Instead I had to go home and sit in my room, reading or listening to the radio or playing quietly by myself.
There were a couple of other pupils at my school whom I had been at junior school with, but we'd not been close friends there either, but very slowly, I made some friends amongst my new classmates.
It is at this point I need to explain something about age. And clothes. Now I'm not saying that one caused the other - it most definitely didn't - but I can't help thinking that there is some connection there.
If you look on the street nowadays trousers are de rigeur for all ages and sexes. Even a five year old will be wearing "long trousers" for school and play. Yet in my day - the late 1960s - this wasn't the case for all, and my parents were quite old-fashioned in that respect. I was made to wear shorts. "Short trousers", as they were officially called, meant that my legs were on show to all just as much as if I'd been wearing a short skirt. Indeed I would often stretch my jumper down towards my knees to try and cover the shorts when I could.
So until well into my second year of senior school I was in these short trousers every single day, whatever the weather. And every day I was embarrassed about it. During the earliest months of my first year there two other boys were also in short trousers, but soon enough I was the only one and, no matter my protestations to my mother, she refused to let me 'grow up'.
Not surprisingly, I was ridiculed by the other children. "Only little boys wear shorts" was almost a truism, yet I was forced into them and, whilst I knew about myself I was also very aware that this wasn't something one could let on about or visibly quietly accept, indeed 'trans' wasn't a subject one could discuss as, in point of fact, it didn't "exist" back then!
I'm not sure if it was related, but it seems related to the nickname I eventually went through school with. It started with "rubber lips" as I (allegedly) had big lips and so Mick Jagger's handle got applied to me. That didn't last long though and after a few non-starters I ended up being given a nickname by the other kids.
A female name.
A name that, thankfully, is quite old-fashioned and not that common. And whilst for the first month or two it was said antagonistically (in a "you're such a sissy" tone) it soon ceased being that at all and just became the name everyone knew me by.
And I mean everyone. Though on principle I made out to hate it even some of the teachers used it.
Now I never let on to the other kids about what I knew about myself they seemed to have realised it nonetheless, and so my life for most of my seven years at that school was pretty much female-identified and was part of the group of girls who would get together to chat every lunch hour after we'd all eaten, discussing boys, clothes, going out, and life in general.
I did 'domestic science' (aka cooking) as well as the woodwork and metalwork which everyone did (girls as well as boys - I've often thought that that school was very advanced for its time in being non-gender-stereotyped about most things). When it came to the very few 'sex education' lectures we were given I went in the girl's group and the boys.
So, while I can't claim to have been physically female throughout my life I will lay claim to a certain degree of being socialised as a girl during my teenage years.
Libby
Initially I would sit right at the front of the bus (I didn't travel well by bus then or now) but slowly moved towards the back row over the suceeding years. The real advantage of being bussed there and back though was there was no public transport option; if I missed the bus in either direction it was walk or don't travel. This meant I missed out on any after-school class detentions if they were imposed by teachers. Result!
But it also meant that I couldn't really get involved in any most after-school activities. No school groups, no visiting other pupil's homes or making friends. Instead I had to go home and sit in my room, reading or listening to the radio or playing quietly by myself.
There were a couple of other pupils at my school whom I had been at junior school with, but we'd not been close friends there either, but very slowly, I made some friends amongst my new classmates.
It is at this point I need to explain something about age. And clothes. Now I'm not saying that one caused the other - it most definitely didn't - but I can't help thinking that there is some connection there.
If you look on the street nowadays trousers are de rigeur for all ages and sexes. Even a five year old will be wearing "long trousers" for school and play. Yet in my day - the late 1960s - this wasn't the case for all, and my parents were quite old-fashioned in that respect. I was made to wear shorts. "Short trousers", as they were officially called, meant that my legs were on show to all just as much as if I'd been wearing a short skirt. Indeed I would often stretch my jumper down towards my knees to try and cover the shorts when I could.
So until well into my second year of senior school I was in these short trousers every single day, whatever the weather. And every day I was embarrassed about it. During the earliest months of my first year there two other boys were also in short trousers, but soon enough I was the only one and, no matter my protestations to my mother, she refused to let me 'grow up'.
Not surprisingly, I was ridiculed by the other children. "Only little boys wear shorts" was almost a truism, yet I was forced into them and, whilst I knew about myself I was also very aware that this wasn't something one could let on about or visibly quietly accept, indeed 'trans' wasn't a subject one could discuss as, in point of fact, it didn't "exist" back then!
I'm not sure if it was related, but it seems related to the nickname I eventually went through school with. It started with "rubber lips" as I (allegedly) had big lips and so Mick Jagger's handle got applied to me. That didn't last long though and after a few non-starters I ended up being given a nickname by the other kids.
A female name.
A name that, thankfully, is quite old-fashioned and not that common. And whilst for the first month or two it was said antagonistically (in a "you're such a sissy" tone) it soon ceased being that at all and just became the name everyone knew me by.
And I mean everyone. Though on principle I made out to hate it even some of the teachers used it.
Now I never let on to the other kids about what I knew about myself they seemed to have realised it nonetheless, and so my life for most of my seven years at that school was pretty much female-identified and was part of the group of girls who would get together to chat every lunch hour after we'd all eaten, discussing boys, clothes, going out, and life in general.
I did 'domestic science' (aka cooking) as well as the woodwork and metalwork which everyone did (girls as well as boys - I've often thought that that school was very advanced for its time in being non-gender-stereotyped about most things). When it came to the very few 'sex education' lectures we were given I went in the girl's group and the boys.
So, while I can't claim to have been physically female throughout my life I will lay claim to a certain degree of being socialised as a girl during my teenage years.
Libby
In-div-id-u-al-it-y!
I mentioned in an earlier post about the film about Gwen, and I can recall seeing quite a few other movies over the years, from I want what I want to Boys Don't Cry. Many of them (like those three) have a strong biographical element to them, though there are a few where the trans-ness history of a person is almost immaterial to the storyline.
But what these go to show it that you will find that there are as many histories about girls (and boys) like me as there are people everywhere. We aren't all the same and every life stories is different.
Yes, there will have been similar events in our past - revelations, meetings, surprises, disappointments - just as they happen differently for each and every individual human being, so to say that something is "how it is for every xxx person" just isn't ever the case.
What I write here about my history may resonate with the life history of others who have been through a similar life process, but it isn't cause & effect.
But what these go to show it that you will find that there are as many histories about girls (and boys) like me as there are people everywhere. We aren't all the same and every life stories is different.
Yes, there will have been similar events in our past - revelations, meetings, surprises, disappointments - just as they happen differently for each and every individual human being, so to say that something is "how it is for every xxx person" just isn't ever the case.
What I write here about my history may resonate with the life history of others who have been through a similar life process, but it isn't cause & effect.
That word.
The Channel 4 series My Transsexual Summer - which sadly reaches its final episode this week - brought a particular word to the fore and sparked a lot of discussion and, frankly, argument on twitter and elsewhere about its use. Some argue - as in the show - to be "reclaiming" the word, much as "queer" has been.
Others, including myself, cannot forget the usage by people wanting to attack us verbally, and who were often members of minorities themselves.
That word is "Tranny".
I'm now a forty-something and sadly recall when 'tranny' was the term used for transvestites. To call someone who defined and declared themselves as transsexual was to intentionally seek to hurt them, the implication being that TVs were obviously people trying to display a fake persona as a member of the opposite gender, rather than a TS who was trying to just 'blend in' with their cis sisters or brothers.
So, for me, if I were to now get called a 'tranny' I would feel extraordinarily hurt just as much as back then, and I cannot help but feel that same hurt on behalf of other folks, and the attempt to reclaim the term, even if only used with the TS circle, feels self-derogatory and completely wrong.
"Your mileage may vary" is one of those internet phrases that we each take our own view on ideas and language, but I still can't help feeling that this is one attempt of language reclaiming that I really want to see die as quickly as possible.
Others, including myself, cannot forget the usage by people wanting to attack us verbally, and who were often members of minorities themselves.
That word is "Tranny".
I'm now a forty-something and sadly recall when 'tranny' was the term used for transvestites. To call someone who defined and declared themselves as transsexual was to intentionally seek to hurt them, the implication being that TVs were obviously people trying to display a fake persona as a member of the opposite gender, rather than a TS who was trying to just 'blend in' with their cis sisters or brothers.
So, for me, if I were to now get called a 'tranny' I would feel extraordinarily hurt just as much as back then, and I cannot help but feel that same hurt on behalf of other folks, and the attempt to reclaim the term, even if only used with the TS circle, feels self-derogatory and completely wrong.
"Your mileage may vary" is one of those internet phrases that we each take our own view on ideas and language, but I still can't help feeling that this is one attempt of language reclaiming that I really want to see die as quickly as possible.
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