Academic Rants

The background: My old PhD supervisor invites me to teach her MA class and I agree - for the experience in the absence of payment. The class goes really well and I get lots of great feedback from the students who wonder why there is nothing about trans issues on their entire 'Gender and Sexuality' program. I present this dilemma to said supervisor who agrees that it's a shame but isn't willing to put her money where her mouth is. This is her advice to me after my suggestion to create a 'trans studies' stream within her module:


Hi Acorn,

With every semester that passes since the awarding of your PhD, prospective employers will have imagined that you’ve been actively applying for academic posts. What perhaps you don’t realize is this—there’s a kind of hidden sell-by date. Academics will recognize that there aren’t many academic jobs going round, but this is an unforgiving profession—and if you don’t start getting serious about an academic post, the difference between the date in which you apply for a job and the date of the awarding of the PhD will begin to send off alarm bells. People will notice that gap and ask (not you—but themselves in the shortlisting meetings), what’s wrong with this candidate? Of course you can explain to them what you’ve explained to me—but as I’ve said, this is a tough and unforgiving profession. No one is interested in your personal circumstances. (I could perhaps explain this better in person.) What I am trying to say is that the clock is ticking if you have real ambitions to work in a university.

You are a highly intelligent and highly motivated young academic—eventually you could land a job at a leading research institution. At the very least, you could land a job at some decent university.

No academic has the luxury of selecting where they want to live. Someone once asked me ‘how did you decide where you wanted to live’--and my response was this: university teaching possibilities made that decision for me. I would never have opted to move to Florida, where I endured years at a horrible southern baptist university, until I landed a job with the State University of New York—again, another place where I never imagined teaching...

This is about risk and drive. It may be the case that you imagine your partner will not be accommodated in places where you get these jobs, but if the university wants you badly enough, things can happen. That’s part of the negotiating process. You absolutely must stay active and start getting out articles and make sure your book is being circulated at university presses.

The best you could hope for in the local area is the odd module from time to time. There are all sorts of prejudices in academe—and I’ve always warned students that your PhD will always look slightly less sexy here than elsewhere.

The proposal you suggest in Trans Studies at the University is interesting, but...it is unlikely that anyone here will go for this in a big way. The grant ventures that you suggest would be plausible if there was an academic on staff at the university with precisely these research interests, with the time, commitment and vision to drive these forward. Most researchers are already working in their own areas.

What you need to realize is that you must start applying for each and every academic job that looks plausible anywhere in the country, but also abroad. Even if you don’t decide, for whatever reason, to take that job, you will have been through the interview process—and each interview experience is important in helping you perform better in that setting.

When I completed my PhD I applied for about 35-40 jobs—this is what you should be doing. Scouring the www.jobs.ac.uk and THES. Nothing is going to be handed to you on a plate—you’ve got to do the footwork and hustle.

Remember—you don’t actually have to take the job, but getting an offer may help you to figure out if you have other life options in how you work out the day to day arrangements for the care of your partner.

I believe that you are far too talented to let the possibility of an academic job slip through your fingers.

Prof. Oak

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And this is my reply:

Dear Prof. Oak,

I appreciate where you're coming from but I feel that I must clarify my position with all of this. It sounds like you and I have very different expectations of academia. Rather than viewing the completion of a PhD as a means of securing a foothold on the academic rung, I instead see it as a means of sharpening my skills as an independent researcher and writer. At this stage, my relationship to academia exists in conjunction with my capacity as a trainer, researcher and consultant in other realms - ie the public sector, local Government, NGOs and other Independent bodies. At the core of each involvement is a commitment to advocacy, education, equalities and the transfer of knowledge. In other words, my passion for academic research and teaching finds its equivalent in the undertaking of more 'hands on' campaign, research and consultancy work. Whilst academia will always be a part of my life, I see my involvement on a more arms-length basis - ie contributing to specific research projects, as a guest lecturer, sessional tutor etc rather than securing a tenured position.

Since finishing the PhD, I have set up as a freelance researcher, trainer and consultant and am in the process of launching my own research organisation - Inter Alia - with a good friend and colleague. We've have been working with the Equality and Diversity Office of Oak Uni. to deliver training and a resource package on trans issues, advising staff (HR, student support, academic etc) about best practice when working with trans staff and students (to be implemented next year on a trial basis). I'm also currently undertaking research for an education consultant in London, looking into practical ways of implementing the equalities schemes in SEN schools across the UK. I've recently been in contact with a private consultancy organisation about undertaking freelance work in the area of NHS consultations. Applying my research to the public sector is something I'm hoping to develop over the next few years.

I've submitted over twenty job applications since graduating - post-doc fellowships and lecturing posts in arts/humanities and the social/political sciences at both traditional and ex-polytechnic Unis; research and policy work for the EHRC, local councils, NGOs, civil service, charities etc; research and development within community-led and arts organisations etc. In the meantime, I've managed to secure casual/part-time work in the area of website design, student support research, and campaigns/social enterprise research.

I'm currently applying to undertake a post-doc fellowship at a Swedish Uni in the area of feminist/queer/trans research. I've also just submitted an application to the 'Transgender Council of Europe' to undertake human rights violations research in the area of 'Trans People and the British Criminal Justice System'. In addition, I'm in the process of finalising a research application to the ESRC in the area of 'Trans People and Ageing', looking at the experiences of and attitudes towards gender variant people in a social/residential care setting in the UK.

So, as you can see, I've been far from inactive. The path I've chosen to tread is equally as challenging as the path you've taken and I too will make sacrifices - financial wealth and academic status etc - but, my heartfelt commitment to social change drives me forwards.

Best,
Acorn

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I'm still waiting for the 'thank you' from Prof. Oak for doing one of her classes for free! Watch this space...

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Yesterday marked the 3rd vigil to take place in Manchester in remembrance of all those trans lives lost to transphobia. It was a sombre night as we paid our respects to all those violently victimised just for being who they are. Name-after-hundreth name was read giving the huge scale of stigma and hate directed at trans people world-wide (most of whom were trans women of colour) and those are just the ones we know about. After the service, it was good to dethaw and convert the anger and upset into solidarity during the afer-gathering in Taurus bar - here's a short clip to mark the occasion:

Progress...Let's Hope

In response to Goat's beautiful recent post, I've just found out that:

The Steering Committee of Transgender Europe lends its support to the
joint statement of May 28, 2008 issued by the American organizations
National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), the Transgender Law
and Policy Institute (TLPI), the Transgender Law Center (TLC) and the
Transgender Youth Family Allies (TYFA). After meeting with the APA,
these four groups reported that “[they] are confident that a fair,
unbiased review of current knowledge can result in a DSM-V that can
move society toward a more rational and humane understanding of
transgender people.” The review process will go on for several years,
and the APA welcomes suggestions from lay persons as well as mental
health professionals in this process.

Transgender Europe expressed in its press release after the Berlin
Council:

Despite much scientific controversy, forms of transgender continue to
be listed in the DSM IV of the American Psychological Association
(APA), just as homosexuality once was, and in the ICD-10 of the World
Health Organization (WHO) as psychological disorders. DSM and ICD are
guideline manuals used in healthcare to standardise the definitions of
what constitutes mental illness. Transgender Europe (TGEU) emphatically
refuses this pathologisation and will assist the next reformulation of
the DSM in a critical manner.”

We, the Steering Committee, are firmly of the conviction that the
stigmatization, which in part is grounded in the mistaken assumption
that gender variance is prima facie a medical disorder, is
discriminatory. Furthermore, we cite the Yogyakarta Principles, Article
18:

No person may be forced to undergo any form of medical or psychological
treatment, procedure, testing or be confined to a medical facility,
based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Notwithstanding any
classifications to the contrary, a person’s sexual orientation and
gender identity are not, in and of themselves, medical conditions and
are not to be treated, cured or suppressed.

A number of national governments and international bodies have passed
resolutions in support of these principles: the European Parliament,
the Council of Europe, Organization of American States.

Any revision of the DSM and the ICD must be carried out with full
compliance to the Yogyakarta Principles.

Vienna, Nov 1st 2008

the Steering Committee of Transgender Europe

Let's talk about race

Writing my thesis, I examined my racial privilege from an assumption that I was white British, simple. But now, since a number of conversations with friends of mixed heritage/race background, I'm not so sure. Up until quite recently I had just assumed that I was white British because I was born in England and had light skin - I didn't know anything about my family heritage. But now, the more I'm read as male, the more my other 'differences' show and creates a recognition from men of colour (specifically Asian or Middle Eastern men). The guy at the cornerstore, for eg, regularly gives me discounts and tries to bond with me about being mixed heritage because he sees me as similar to him - he's from Syria with an Italian ancestry. However, most of the time - and especially by white British people - I'm seen as white and, as a result, I experience racial privilege - I assimilate on account of the pervasive white-washing of 'difference'.

The reason my friend Rocky originally got in touch with me was because he saw a photo of me on the XX Boys website and recognised me as a 'brother' and felt like I was family. When we met for the first time, we had lots of conversations about the need to move away from white/of colour binary (an assumption I make in my thesis) to notice the nuances of race/ethnicity. It was him looking at a photo of my mum and saying 'she ain't white, she black' - ie despite her olive skin, she has dark features - which got me getting back in touch with my aunt and asking more questions (my aunt ignored me for a while when she found out that me - her 'niece' - wanted to be a guy). Rocky has Sicilian and Maori make-up and gets recognised as a brother by aborigini people in Australia but white-washed by white folk. I guess I'm starting to feel the same way as my experiences accumulate. But it's weird because I have no concete proof - I can only go by my mum's appearances (Italian, Middle Eastern looking), my aunt's information (yes - Eastern European Jewishness, Italian, possibly Syrian...) and finding finding fragments of old photos in an effort to piece my family ancestry and my own racial heritage together...an interesting process which is not so straight-foward.

Madness

10 years old and sitting on the back steps of the Frank-the-baker's waiting for mum to break for lunch, chatting with Emma - the new girl - about MADNESS, my favourite band! She's just promised to take me to Hyde Park to see them play. Excited, I rush through the bakery and wait patiently for mum to finish selling bacon butties and cream cakes to the ENDLESS queue of hungry workmen. I can't wait to ask her if I can go. Mistake - I get roped into washing up ENDLESS dishes. It's not all bad - there's a huge cream cake waiting for me when I'm done. And, even better, MADNESS is blasting on the radio - 'Baggy Trousers' - my favourite. It's my lucky day!!!

EELS! EELS! EEELS! EEELS!

When she came up to visit, my mum watched 'The Mighty Boosh' (British comedy show) for the first time. She particularly enjoyed watching the green hiker - a crooked cockney character of a bygone era - sing about eels:

"Eels up inside ya
findin an entrance where they can
eels up inside ya
finding an entrance where they can
Boring through your mind, through your tummy, through your anus, eels!"

Mum was so impressed that she went out and bought herself an 'eels' badge (yes, it's a badge that says 'eels') and now wears it proudly around her neighbourhood, taking impish delight in thrusting her chest into the faces of the WI women and shouting 'eels!' in their faces in her loud, brash cockney best.

As a little girl, mum would love nothing more than to play with eels in the bath. "We was poor, we had no toys, we took 'em from the cook pot when mum weren't looking". This, and the fact that mum was born and bred on Walworth Road in South London, was recently revealed to me after years of questions. Mum's guarded about her childhood. When I asked if she'd ever go back to where she was born - Elephant-and-Castle (now famous for the garish pink elephant-topped shopping centre) she replied "What's to go back to? I'd rather leave it all behind" Too many memories, better to forget.

Her chipper cockney accent could not be erased so easily. Looking for work at 14 she soon learnt that if she wanted a job in the City then she must speak proper - lose the sing-song slang of her youth and flatten the vowels. She learnt to be ashamed of being cockney. Years later and she's baffled: "All the REAL cockneys don't sound it and all posh kids want it". When speaking with strangers, mum puts on her best telephone voice. But she can't always control it - it slips out when she least expects it - effin and blindin when she's barmin (mad) or London callin when she's bawlin. In other words, it eels it when she feels it.

"I'm not an intellectual - I'm not posh!"

So my dad says to me on the phone last night. Apparently, he was called 'an intellectual' by some new 'friends' (my dad, "the hermit", doesn't have any friends...so he says...).

"But", I say, "you're a thinker".
"Maybe so, but I'm not one of THEM".
"Eh?"
"I mean, they're in a different league aren't they - I used to work for people who fitted the description of 'intellectual' when I was a lap-dog at the library. I was always aware of the difference between me and THEM. I just didn't fit into THAT atmosphere - didn't have the same opportunities, background, status, wealth etc. I always felt like a fraud, like I was gonna get found out."

When I was a kid, my dad would excitedly tell me every time he passed as 'Dr' at work - how his initials 'D.R' were misread by the 'elite', as he called them, and that, as a result, he was temporarily accorded membership to 'the old boys club' at an office meeting - offered a cigar rather than told to make tea.

My dad - quiet, gentle, polite, thoughtful, curious, inquisitive, bright etc - fits the bill. In a parallel universe - one in which he stayed on at school rather than leave at 14, got some qualifications rather than work a string of dead-end jobs, went to university rather than support his single mum....maybe in THAT life, he might have become an intellectual.

Being a proud man, my dad doesn't talk much about growing up poor - about his mum working all hours at the factory to single-handedly raise 5 kids, getting teased for having no clothes and being forced to wear his sister's hand-me-downs, having frequent colds from leaky shoes and threadbare jumper and no coat, going hungry. He still has the only Christmas present he received as a boy - a shrivelled-up orange which he keeps tucked away in his bedside drawer.

However, unlike my mum (more on her later!), my dad would never say he was working class. but neither would he say that he was aspiring middle class (whatever that means). He just notices differences.

I wanted to ask my dad whether he thought I was an intellectual. I was too embarrassed. Me - the Dr of the family, the second to go to university (my sister was the first) and the first to do a PhD. Sometimes, I feel a class gulf between me and my parents. I've had all the opportunities they never had. And yet, I also feel set apart from most academics I know - I feel ambivalent about being a Dr (how ridiculous a notion), 'mummy' and 'daddy' didn't pay for me to go to uni (I was lucky enough to get a string of means-tested scholarships) and I don't have the right connections.

On paper, I should fit and yet I don't. Like father like son, I feel like a fraud.

The Adventures Have Begun

You saw the boy inside,
wide-eyed,
cowering beneath
self-protective folds
and duty sheers.

You reached for the boy inside,
held his hand,
showed him fragments of the outdoors -
transformed twigs, stones and shells
into cherished keepsakes.

You trusted the boy inside,
gave him an atlas
filled with your secret mappings -
let his curious fingers trace
the contours of your dreams.

You touched the boy inside,
accpeted his acorn-token of love
and traded it for a thimble.
Beginning in the branch of a silver-birch,
the adventures have begun.

Mummy's Little Helper

You never forgave him
for giving consent
for years
your drug dependent
body spent.
Lead limbs
cotton wool mouth
bury the screams
forget the shouts.
Hide what can't be seen
behind paisley print
and window gleam.

You never forgave me
for joining in
with their games
against you.
Mummy's little helper
perfectly trained
as daddy's girl.
"It's ok mum, just lie here"
as the nurse came near
and together we'd again endeavour
to make your body docile
and you compliant, silent.

Lady Killer

White-tipped pincer
poised on veiny, leaf-ridged
underbelly
of green-tinted lily.
Spider with human face,
single red stripe,
amid petalled flesh folds.

With door-step salesman grip
and smirk of speed-date jerk,
one sweet gulp and gone.
A disappearing act
on silver-thread trapeze
(next leaf, next victim).

Whitte Rabbits and Red Pills

It's been two years since I made the decision to start taking testosterone. Rumaging through old diaries from the time when my head was spinning, I came across this entry written a week before my first T shot:

take a stomach-churning plunge into the bottomless pit. Follow the little white rabbit through the downward maze, a spiral of ever-increasing circles into the land of 'eat me', 'drink me', repeatedly analysing again and again unpredictable complications of an uncontrollable, shape-shifting, zone. This path I forge is my own. Submerged in watery flux I remember the beauty of change as my insides threaten to spill...out...into...the space beyond.

My First Wig

Parents mourn for their little girl as I forge ahead,
shedding old skin, no remorse for the dead.
Not yet accepted as a son,
as she lingers, malice-spun.
She clings like a wig, prised to my head.
Skin stings
Blood mixes with salty tears.
I wish her a peaceful sleep
as I make her take her last breath
("Pray the Lord my soul to keep")

Lost Boy

Silver glinted eye flick
of death-masked grim reaper.
Biked figure
with buckled wheel smile
and glass shard
switch-blade masculinity.

"What you got for me?"
Voice breathless calls behind

"What you got for me?"
Slam of bike brakes

"What you got for me?"
Back wheel blocks the way

"What you got for me?"
"Nothing"

Gnarl-handed quiver
of willow-framed boy
still sprouting.
A rootless lurch
a fumbled search
in oversized pockets.
He's playing at being a man.

Ivory Tower

A reminder from Claude Cahun (1894-1954) - Surrealist artist and activist and my research reverie:

"It still exists. It's good to know that it's ridiculous in name only. In reality it's tragic. It's a state institution: a prison for weaklings. As soon as I come out of my reverie and dream of making my entrance in the world I hear doors slam shut"

Pan not Man

Climbing rocks in chunky plastic shoes and nylon strung sleeves, this city boy ain't used to nature. I start to panic if I feel that I've climbed too high, can't see the next foothold or lose sight of my bag. I feel slightly nauseous looking over the clff edge. What if the rock was to suddenly give way? What if the wind picks up and throws me off the edge? I try to let go of the tension in my bones and take trust in the sinew of my muscles. I breathe out dirty lung fulls of expectation and self-defence and breathe in salty air. I take off my trainers and admire the clumps of unweildly hairs on my feet. A hoof is born.

Thimble-Sized

I'm excited when I imagine opening the central panel of a small French window and climbing out. For me, the 2ft by 3ft frame is door-sized, opening onto a terrace of possibility. Crawling along the ledge, I become spider-boy. Who needs to be 6ft tall when you can climb higher? Having small limbs serves the task well. My sinewy bird-like claws are my suction pads, my monkey spirit my momentum.

How To Spot a Pan in the City

1) He appears on days when the city is filled with sunless skies and the harsh stares of strangers.

2) He takes root in the cracks of cold concrete slabs - a mischevious streak of green between monotonous grey.

3) He's the smile that catches you off-guard, forces hands out of pockets, unclenches fists into a 'high-five'.

4) He's the mischevious spirit that teaches a plastic bag to fly and prevents a bird from landing.

Introducing...

This introduction coyly pokes his head around the door, tentatively places one hoof in front of the other and enters the room. Eyes peer up through matted hair to meet yours and his tail twitches in response. He likes visitors and hopes that you like tea. That would be a NICE thing to offer wouldn't it? If only he could remember where he put his glasses. You're not in a hurry are you? Good. After a little bumbling, this introduction emerges with a teapot with not enough water for two cups of tea. Also, there are no chairs so you'll have to crouch on the floor. This introduction attempts to pour out the tea but misses entirely. He can't see for squinting. More bumbling and an old rag is fetched. Now then, with the niceties out of the way, this introduction hurries out. He has a lot to do. Tending to the weeds and bugs in the garden, this introduction mumbles to himself - a list of reminders to the tune of an old forgotten Yiddish swing song.

XX Boys

A fast-paced exchange of words and images, out of tune guitars and raucous shouts accompanies the awkward poses, defiant gestures and blasé posturing of this adolescent undertaking. Pretty boys and tough-looking lads play dirty in toilet cubicles. Pink mohicans clash against graffiti-covered walls. The close-up of a testosterone-induced dick-clit, a head in a urinal, a body in transition. A playful ‘fuck you’ from the boi with the cute panda print pants. Snapshots of gripping flesh, frantic fumbling, sweaty fists, hard and lingering. Zoom in on chipped red nail polished fingers. Cut to strap-on trannyfag action in an alleyway whilst, nearby, a love-bitten guy exposes himself behind a gravestone. In another frame, a genderqueer cockily performs an interventionalist pissing, whilst a boy submerges himself in a bathtub of strawberries, creating bloody stains on virgin whites. Cut lip and a bruised eye, the scarred chest of a female-to-unknown. To describe the photographic oeuvre of female-to-male (‘FTM’) transgendered photographer Kael Block is to re-enter and prolong adolescence.

Curious? Check out the work of FTM photographer Kael Block and his 'XX Boys' project which aims to increase awareness about FTM trans people - http://xxboys.20six.fr/

Slang-glossary:A 'Dick-Clit' is a hormonally-induced clitoris, which has enlarged and taken on the form of a micro-penis under the effects of testosterone. In other words, FTM guys on 'testosterone' grow their own trans-genitals! In case you didn't already know, a ‘boi’ is a variation of ‘boy’. A ‘strap-on’ is a dildo whilst a ‘trannyfag’ refers to a ‘female-to-male’ (‘FTM’) who is sexually attracted to other boys or men. In theory, the ‘genderqueer’ seeks to challenge the gender binary system and the traditional roles, relations and constructs of man/woman and male/female. More on the everyday conseqences of these allegedly 'radical' gender transgressions later!

Breaking Down the Walls of the Ivory Tower

I've just emerged from the white-washed walls of academia. I've no regrets about doing a PhD - I got funding for it otherwise there was no way I would have even considered doing it. I viewed it as an independent research project which enabled me to grow as a human being and nothing more. I entered into it with no expectations of an academic career and emerged with even more zeel than ever to immerse myself in activist pursuits, siding myself with academia's rebellious 'little' sister - the black sheep of the family who is never mentioned at the family table and who will never get a job working with 'daddy'!

It's nice to be away from it all - the bureaucracy, the back-stabbing, the cult of the celebrity academic with an ego the size-of-a-mansion, get outta my way or I'll crush you under my designer label shoe mentality. It wasn't easy writing about a subject which I lived 24/7 - transgenderism - and it wasn't easy deciding to start physically transitioning from female-to-male - losing supposed friends and family and enduring the everyday consequences of being gender ambiguous. All the while my supervisor, a gender theorist with allegedly cutting-edge views of gender and performativity (how I hate that word now), insisted on calling me by my birth name (I had long since legally changed my name) and consistently used the wrong pronouns with an arrogant 'don't-fuck-with-me' sneer.

But, I got through and it looks like it's gonna be a while before I go back. I applied for a teaching and research post at the same institution a few weeks back but got rejected. I was an ideal candidate they said, but my research on gender variancy was too cutting edge for a project oriented towards 'queer=gay, oh and maybe lesbian, studies'! In other words, you can pretend that you are cutting edge and reap in the benefits of wearing an 'I'm an activist' badge on your academic sleeve but don't actually BE an activist. Heaven forbid, we don't want any unruly ruffians rocking 'daddy's' safe, white colonialist cruise ship now do we?

But anyway, speaking of breaking down those ivory tower walls, here's a snapshot of my thesis. If you want to read more, please leave a comment with your email and I'll send some stuff to you:

'Boyish Aesthetics: Images of the Boy from Peter Pan to Contemporary Female-to-Male Transgenderism'

Since his creation in 1902 by JM Barrie, Peter Pan, or the boy who would not grow up, has come to be regarded as the epitome of boyishness within a nostalgic Anglo-American cultural imagination. However, the alleged essence of boyhood - as a stage of becoming the man - is missing from Peter Pan’s gender development. Simultaneously a boy (on account of his eternal boyhood) and yet not a boy (on account of his refusal to occupy a normative boyhood), Peter Pan belongs to the interface between boys and girls - betwixt-and-between the realms of fairies, humans and birds. As a neither/nor, Peter Pan is a disruptive figure that blurs binary categories, traverses gender divisions (boy/girl) and refuses age developments (childhood/adulthood) in order to embody the promise of new gendered possibilities and alternative modes of boyishness.It is significant, then, that when translated to the stage women have traditionally played the part of Peter Pan. Yet, what happens when the performance of the boy is removed from the sanctity of the stage and is embraced not in the context of a staged performance of theatrical transvestitism but as an identity expression in its own right?

This research highlights the significance of the legacy of Peter Pan for those who are born female but who choose to enter the realm of boyhood upon reaching adulthood.Prising boy from the realm of male gender development, I examine adults who rework the notion of growing up and who invest in boyishness as a creative and political tool of intervention. Starting with a relatively unknown group of women artists who were known as ‘the boys’ and who were working in Edwardian England during the ‘Peter Pan epoch’, I trace the repercussions of the Peter Pan legacy in the work of contemporary female-to-male transgendered artists working in Western Europe and North American a century later. I translate Peter Pan’s refusal to grow up into a queer, feminist, and anti-racist project for challenging the patriarchal signifier of The Great White Father - a shorthand for the privileging of the white, middle class and heteronormative male subject within a dominant Anglo-American ideology.

Keywords: Peter Pan, Edy Craig (Edith Craig, 1869-1947), Chris St John (Christabel Marshall, 1873-1960), Tony Atwood (Clare Atwood, 1866-1962), Ellen Terry (1847-1928), Smallhythe Place, Carrington (Dora Carrington, 1893-1932), Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), Claude Cahun (Lucy Schwob, 1894-1954), Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe, 1892-1972), Nazi Occupation in Jersey (1940-1944), Charlie Chaplin (Charles Chaplin, 1889-1977), female-to-male (‘FTM’) transgenderism, Kael Block (1979-), XX Boys, transboy ‘phenomenon’, Tara Mateik (1975-), Simon Croft (1966-).

Growth

High-pitched squeaks turn to deep-belly growls,
my voice breaks twenty-five years of silence.
Thrust into a second puberty,
my journey to boyhood is a menopause come early.
Defunct ovaries and womb.
Monthly blood loss, now lost fertility.
Veins bulge with alleged virility.
Burst breast sacks sag,
swollen signs of my chosen sterility.
Childbearing hips slip north to my shoulders.
Soft fuzz ivy climbs my thighs,
my chest and up onto my cheeks.
Age etches itself into my pores,
marking laughter at my eyes and mouth,
mapping a journey buried deep within.
Despite shifting muscles, hair and skin,
all traces of a small frame remain.
Delicate hands and face
-biological reminders that cannot be erased.

'Now, I'm not going from a to b - rather, I'm zigzagging my way through an endless play of possibilities'

The following is taken from a diary entry I wrote nearly two years ago after just starting testosterone:

I write this after just starting hormones, watching with both fascination and awe as my skin, muscles, hair and flesh metamorphosise after each injection of testosterone. I feel excited but nervous at the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of this intense emotional, psychological and physical change. I am overwhelmed by feeling my existential reality shift and I acquire a new context for putting this phenomenological experience into perspective. Others mourn for fragments of my former self as I forge ahead, shedding old skin and attempting to fit comfortably in the new skin that grows slowly - a painful but necessary process. This present raw exposure is only made bearable by the sight of old skin peeling away. Residing in the realm of transition I am, at present, without a shell. I grapple with the new as I prise myself from all that I have known - no longer able to cling onto the safety net of my past, female, self. I remind myself of my new way of being (in the world) as my ageless boyishness is challenged. My queerness gets stronger and more playful. In becoming the white boy - my racial privilege becomes more pronounced yet it is transient, in keeping with my journey to manhood.