For those of you into this sort of thing…

NAKED MEN

Civil Unions Demonstration

This Saturday, 2nd of February there will be a demonstration held outside the legislative assembly, in support of Same-sex Civil Unions.

We have Simon Corbell, Andrew Barr and Deb Fosky speaking.

The rally starts at 1pm, and we expect it to run for a couple of hours at least.

We hope to see you there!

Not So Guilty…

I’ve been feeling guilty for misrepresenting myself to society.

THATS FUCKED UP.

I haven’t been misrepresenting myself to society! Society assigned its own meaning to me, and I went along with the status quo, because, lets face it, we are NOT born revolutionaries. We need to unlearn the ideas pressed on us from our earliest understanding, and recreate ourselves as we are. Then, maybe then, we can have the strength to fight societies assignation, and show ourselves for who we are.

Society does not make it easy for us. Not even those that are meant to support us, make it easy.

The fear of rejection makes me silent when I wish I could scream I AM A MAN.

I want to get a hair cut.
I want to buy new clothes.
I want people to stop defaulting to ree-anne after they meet me, though they call me Ryan over the phone.

Someone asked me today whether I would like him to call me he/him or she/her, or something else altogether. I was so warmed by that respect.

At this point, well… I refer to myself using male pronouns when I remember, but I am still defeating 22 years of conditioning. I don’t expect other people to start calling me he/him/his until I am physically androgynous or starting to pass.

I worry about so much… coming out to my mother, to the Grasby’s, to people at work. (Although I know some people from work have read this blog so no doubt there is a little gossip). I worry about affording to transition. I worry about the size of my breasts. I worry about finding a psychologist. I worry about finding a GP. I worry about transitioning on the job.

This isn’t a walk in the park. One person said to me that they didn’t see why I would risk screwing up my good looks by transitioning.

My LOOKS.

I mean SHIT!

WHO CARES ABOUT MY LOOKS?

Transitioning could earn me rejection from people I love, could hurt my mother even more, could damage my career, the t-therapy is expensive, the surgery more so.

This whole thing is scary, and enormous, but it is WORTH IT.

Its not cosmetic. Its ME.

Round-Up: Trans 101

More posts!

A Trans 101 wiki, which is pretty cool.

Tips on how to respect a trans*person.

A whole article with tips for people that want to date a trans*man. (There’s a version about trans*women too)

Drakyn wrote an entire post about different trans* related definitions which I found really handy.

Feel free to link people to this round up. These articles are great.

Round-up: “You Said it!” Edition

Today I read a bunch of posts, which I have nothing to say to, no comment to make. But everyone should go read them.

Jacky wrote a post about having a female past that just makes me go YES YES YES YES!

Biodiverse Resistance is a new favourite blog. See here, and here.

And for this one by Genni at Well Dressed Recluse… read the post, and the comments, and then go to Ilyka’s blog and read what she says about it too.

So, yes. HEARTY AGREEMENT.

Early Morning Gender Role Amusement

The whole opening doors or not for women, thing. I don’t get it. Its such a contentious issue, STILL. I honestly think that people should just get over it.

Now, by this, I don’t mean that women should get over it… I mean, all those MEN that claim that women get offended and bawl them out, for opening doors for them, should get over it.
Men that refuse to open a door for me when I have my hands full, cos ‘Aren’t you a feminist or something?’ (Yeah, dead set, that did actually happen) should get over it.

This morning before work, I was at the news agency buying a bus ticket. There was a man coming in, as I went out. He tried to pull the door open, but it swings the other way, so I pulled it open my way, and held it open for him to walk past.
What ensued was a very awkward situation where he wouldn’t let go of the door until he had held it open for me… which crowded up the door frame, and meant I had to duck under his arm to get out of the shop.

Now, I didn’t get annoyed with him. He was trying to be polite… I did however find it a very amusing situation, and a case where it would have been simpler if he’d ignored the gender role, and just walked past me.

Nothing Deep

So, I changed my blog layout (again). Its a bit brighter and more cheerful now. It has however alerted me to the hideous mess that are my categories. I think I should try to sort that out.

I had a housewarming party last night, which was wonderful. My housemate and I made Fenner Punch (an evil brew we learned to make when we lived in college at Australian National University), and that went down a treat.
My friend from Burning Words was there, and we had a good ol’ gossip about the state of blogging in Australia. It’s given me a renewed desire to post regularly.
Its actually fun to chat about blogging with other people that blog. Makes me feel like I am part of the ‘free and independent press’ or something.

My biggest challenge in the near future is going to be time, or more to the point, the lack of it. Work is likely to get busier as students start to reappear, and we re-image the student labs. Also, I have the opportunity to do my B. Information Technology at UC, which means full time study at the same time as full time work, if I get into the course.
I don’t want to completely sacrifice my life to one cause (in this case ‘Career’), but at the same time, most of the subjects that I will be studying fit so neatly into what I do with my time anyway that I am hoping I wont be too worn out by it to spend time socialising, blogging, and hopefully campaigning for trans rights here in the ACT.

The biggest kill-joy of a subject I will be doing my first semester will be Discrete Mathematics, which already has me revising HSC Maths Ext 1. I came second in Maths every year until year 11 and 12, when I was simply too depressed to study anything.
So I have no doubt that I can re-learn the contents of two years worth of maths in just over a month, even if it has been 4 years. I’m not looking forward to it, but I am definitely enjoying the RIGHT/WRONG nature of maths. Its not a subjective field. No one can argue my solution, either its right, or its wrong.
Thats kind of nice when I get smashed for my opinion so regularly.

The kitty-cats are settling in surprisingly well, given how screwed up they are. I caught Maud hurting herself earlier, and cleaned out her wound, and then googled the medications that was sent with her. I think that she and I will be making a trip to the vet next week, because I am really not so sure that a human allergy medication is the best thing to have a cat that has a stereotypic behaviour disorder.
Sue is still crying, but we are starting to think its just a learned behaviour, not actual distress. She is getting a bit bolder, but still would prefer to hide under the bed.

Anyway, I should get some shut eye, or study some maths, or find the little white cat that just left its perch on my shoulder.

Gender and Sex Follow Up

I work at a university, and the other day I saw a poster in the Health, Design and Science building that intrigued me.

It was about a kind of lizard that there has been a great deal of difficulty breeding in captivity. You see, they have assumed that the lizards are biologically male, or biologically female, nice and simple. Apparently, its not nearly so simple, and that there are probably four sexes of this lizard!
The scientist said that the implication is that there may be other animals that don’t fit the biological sex-binary.

He said, like what about FISH.

I thought, like what about PEOPLE.

Male Fantasy

So, I once had a conversation with a guy who had a very large penis. He was extremely proud of this penis, because it frightened women. (This guys misogyny is so thinly veiled, I am surprised he hasn’t been lynched by a mob yet).
Anyway, we got to talking about how penises aren’t ‘all that’ and size doesn’t really matter etc etc. Of course, he was of the opinion that people just say size doesn’t matter to console themselves over their (or their boyfriends) tiny member.

I said I didn’t get this male fantasy of having a massive member. I honestly think that smaller penises are more fun. If its capable of erection it fulfills my criteria for a ‘fun time’. Big penises that just kinda hang there? POINTLESS.

I have to admit I do have penis insecurity, because, frankly, I ain’t ever going to be ‘average’ let alone ‘hung’. (I don’t plan on having phalloplasty, I think metoidioplasty is more my style, if I have bottom surgery at all… it is quite dangerous).
So anyway, I every now and then I decide that I shall never have sex with a woman ever again, cos FUCK! What if she laughs at me?
Which is silly. Cos really, none of the girls I know would ever make fun of a mans penis, unless he is an arsehole, and I don’t plan on being an arsehole.

So my paranoia is about not being *normal* where as I think that the paranoia about not being 20cm long, and able to scrub the floor with your massive dick (you know who you are, arsehole), is just plain old silly. It buys into this old fashioned form of masculinity which is nothing about being a man, and everything about hating women.

Cat blogging!

Tomorrow, I become the proud father of two pedigree Munchkin cats. They are terribly attached to each other, and so I took both instead of just one.

I have named them Sue and Maud after the women from Fingersmith. (Oh, you should totally check out this Fingersmith fan-vid)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, CAT PICTURES!!!

The white kitty is Maud, and the grey kitty is Sue. They were originally named Ollie and Socks… Ollie is the name of a man I know, and Socks is a terrible cliche, so I decided that I was going to rename them.
They arrive tomorrow afternoon, and I am very excited.