Hi to all sisters, brothers and to all those somewhere in between (me usually, but we'll get on to that).
What happens when we go home? Drawers are locked, lights turned off and the car park resonates to the chorus of a hundred well-used engines. Others hurry for trains or buses, fiddle with mopeds or simply wander away. These days I take my place in the second-hand car convoy - occupied by thoughts of meeting friends or singing along to the pop bursts between radio crackle.
Not always! And now to answer my original question.... Well when the daytime skirts and suits have left, the night world emerges in fluorescent colour. Bright whites, orange flashes, petrol stations as oases of green and red. Blue lights, strobes and sirens and people in uniforms. Corporate and council and, by and large, unseen. The meta-porters and chamber maids who clean, repair and make ready the world for us to bumble back into it at eight o'clock-ish on the morning commute.
Which has what, exactly, to do with this place? Well I was an inhabitant of the night world, once. Nocturnal prowler in a rust-choked macho coupe; living between shift work and the 24 hour supermarket. They sold lasagne! And it was there, I suppose, that she finally came back. I'd tried - by the edicts of force and reward - to push her off the controls. I had sought positive, male identity defining experiences. Haven't we all? Yet it didn't work. Because it doesn't and it can't. With no-one in charge up there I became strange, detached and directionless. How far can a plane go on autopilot? Until it runs out of fuel or ends up on a collision course with a solid object! There's some mindless action flick where precisely this happens; although I think a cackling terrorist gets involved somewhere along the way. Our hero somehow gets into the pilot's seat; grabs the control wheel and pulls up. Yay! Everyone is saved...
Hero is somewhat of a cliché. Why not a heroine? It was in my case. Where once there were oncoming mountains visible through the windscreen, now there are blue skies and white clouds. She's back, strapped in for the long-haul and getting stronger by the day. Where once she and I were at odds; she locked in a cupboard by an abusive, weakly realised cipher of a man. She couldn't, wouldn't let him endure. She didn't even have to, as puberty's hormonal sustenance dried up, he starved and weakened and died. She broke free. Now we are friends. Soon, hopefully we'll be fully aligned.
Perhaps we've all thought something similar? Or at least some of us. Whichever way the dualist models found in the earlier incarnations of Western philosophy - Locke, Butler, my interpretations and takes on Descartes - have at least helped developed some sort of deeper understanding of the situation. We can't, as far as I can tell, be tight bundles of body and mind because, without some intervention, they sit at odds. Anyway!
That's getting heavy! In the real world I've been accepting of myself for several months, have been out to family and friends for about the same length of time and have begun deeper explorations of my female self and presentation. In practice that means an amazing (to me) wardrobe, lots of visits to the Max Factor counter and far too much costume jewellery. I'm also involved, to a degree, with the trans community locally and have started on the medical path. Hopefully hormones fairly soon, electrolysis has begun and I've got to find someone locally with a laser. Who isn't a James Bond villain.
That's a very small part of the story so far; although my social transition has gone through a third stage. I was never a 'manly' male. Neither in looks nor personality; in fact my small physical size meant exclusions from various male activities. There were male sports and rituals I simply wasn't capable of completing. Therefore I've spent the last few years as androgynous. It's actually quite a fun look to style; and it helps when dealing with others. Firstly they've never viewed me as 'a man' - instead something undefinable. Not quite anything, gender-wise, so the transitory nature of the current situation is nothing too shocking!! It does for the time being, until such time as I can go full time into truly correct female presentation. Which again isn't extremely feminine, yet it just feels right!!!
Aside from all this I enjoy going out, bars, dancing, reading, jogging, study, girly days and socialising. I write poetry, and am currently working on a novel. The ideal is to make a career out of it, and perhaps even look into writing on gender or transfeminist issues. We need a hypothesis!! I know they exist - but the last one I read was based on Lenin. Before I go off on some other, fanciful meander, I'll just say Hi again!!
