Filly's Frolic #8

Despite the cold, or maybe because of it, the crowd milled around the restaurant. Comforting warm steam and delectable aromas rose from the open kitchen in the middle. I made my way to an empty table and slid onto the chair next to a table of young asian girls. They looked young enough to be in high school, but add a few years for the "asian youth gene" and they were probably young uni students.

One of the girls glanced at me and then had a double take her eyes widening in surprise and bemusement. Her expression was the same my mum used to have when she saw overtly gay men walking down the street; I know that look well. She turned to whisper to her friend next to her, her gaze still transfixed on me. Her hand was held up to her friends ear, shielding my view of her mouth. It's like when you're teasing someone at a party and you overtly want them to know that you are "discreetly" talking about them. How that is appropriate in a public setting, I do not know.

Her friend looked at me briefly, then, with a look of nonchalant disgust that can only be pulled off by a teenage girl, looked away and whispered something back. The eyes of the first girl widened a little as she giggled and stared at me again. She whispered something else and stared and giggled again as her friend nodded.

Fortunately their meals arrived and she threw me a few more furtive glances before her attention changed to something more interesting with her friends. Who said short attention spans aren't a good thing?

I enjoyed my lunch.

At home I turned on the tv and saw an ad for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. It's purpose is to put beauty into perspective and help young girls with body image and self esteem issues.

Sometimes life can be so ironic. 

Barriers - Social Isolation

The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.  - Elbert Hubbard


I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, the anxiety rising and my throat drying out. My mind raced and ran through the words I had prepared earlier but they now seemed so inadequate, so out of place, so.... wrong. Warmth from the glowing camp fire radiated onto my already burning cheeks but I was glad for the semi-anonymity of the night setting. I tried to slow my speech down as I braced myself for the reaction after I told my friends that I was suffering from gender dysphoria and soon they would know me as a girl. I tried to prepare myself for the possibility that they might, at that very point, walk out of my life and never return.


So many times I repeated variations of the above scenario and each time I was fortunate enough to have been met with a polite response or, in one case, an enthusiastic response. Yet, most of my days are filled with an abject loneliness and the number of friends that I have remaining can be counted on just one hand. I deeply value the friends I have left and the time I able to share with them, but they have their own lives, families and other friends to be with and so I spend much of my time on my own. 


Social and support groups are helpful in making me feel that there are other people that I can be friends with and that I'm not totally isolated in this world. Immediate friendships can be struck , but deeper friendships always take time to develop and in the meantime there are emotional holes aren't being filled.


It was difficult to open myself up and share my secret with my friends and, for those that left, it hurts that they felt they could not remain my friend after knowing that much more about me. They are who they are and they are entitled to pick who they befriend, so I try not to judge them or bear any grudge. There is much to know about me and much to not like and so it leads me to be cautious in what I reveal. So maybe I'm now harming my ability to make any more friends but I do really love those that know all about me and still choose to like me.

Barriers - Acceptance

There are many barriers or hurdles faced by trans-people that can hamper or prevent a successful transition. I thought I would write about a few the issues I face since it might shed some lights on the worries that are always in the back of my mind. It might also help explain the elation and sorrow that I write about in some of my frolics or other posts.


I imagine that most, if not all, people want acceptance, which is the first barrier I shall be writing about. It may be acceptance of their work, acceptance of their friendship or acceptance by others of themselves as the unique individual that they are. It may be acceptance of their role in society as a hard worker, as a decent child or as a good parent. So the concept and struggle with acceptance isn't different to what I face. In fact, the struggle is similar to anyone who faces discrimination or prejudice on a daily basis. 


Most people are able to go about their lives in a comforting inconspicuousness, safe in the knowledge that the people they pass or the people they interact with will see them as just another person going about their daily life. Imagine if that were not the case. Going on a simple shopping trip, the heads of all the pedestrians turn and focus their attention on you the moment you step out of your car. Looks of scorn and disgust are plain on some peoples faces as they stare at you while others show bemusement or intrigue. Each step you take is an effort as you feel the glares drilling into your self confidence and you fight the desire to run back home where you can hide from everyone else. You hear the muted discussions and overhear the occasional sentence confirming their thoughts about you or maybe an insensitive bigot yells out his thoughts leaving nothing uncertain. Imagine hovering at the entrance to stores for a split second, unsure of whether the sales assistant will show a disapproving frown or ask you to come back at a time when the other customers aren't there or maybe they'll greet all the other customers and totally ignore you. So image the total bliss you feel should someone greet you with a smile and address you correctly.


Welcome to my world.


Or at least it was for a while. Once I was able to make myself look like any other female I could once again immerse myself in comforting inconspicuousness. In the ts world, this is known as passing whilst should other people be able to tell from your appearance that you are transsexual, that is known as being read or being clocked. But in the end, all I want is to be accepted as another person going about my daily life.

Death of a ladybug

This little wooden lady bug used to look quite sprightly with its white body, a bright red nose, cute grin and lovely wooden polka dot wings. Around it's neck was a spinner with red with white polka dot plastic fans that was cause it buzz in the wind with joy. It sat happily in my front garden bed but now it's happiest days have long gone. I haven't been in my front garden for a long time but it caught my attention when I went out this morning and it brought a tear to my eye.


Okay.. that's an understatement. It made me cry... and I still am.


One of the biggest challenges faced by ts people is trying to deal or cope with loss. That may be the loss of friends, the loss of jobs or the loss of our home. But those things embody the arguably more important abstract things like loss of hopes and dreams, loss of drive and inspiration and loss of relationships. The harsh thing is that we are not the only ones affected, but all those for whom we are more than just an anecdote, are also affected. For me, knowing that I caused the same pain that I am feeling to somebody else is like another sword through my soul. 


So I wasn't weeping for the ladybug even though I can be anthropomorphist. Rather it was the association of the relationship with the person who bought it. We had shared experiences in the past and we had dreams, hopes and plans for the future. There were things we thought we had but, although one should not count their chickens before they are hatched, I was in denial about the big transsexual chicken that was about to step on all the eggs. So now our hopes, plans and dreams are lying broken in the dirt, much like the ladybug. And that makes me cry.

Filly's Frolic #7

A friend told me that I would learn to recognise the different types of looks that I'd receive during my daily activities. One would be the look of a guy wanting to get in my pants, another would be a look of someone who's clocked me (I've learned these two looks are not mutually exclusive!) and the third look is the look of someone who's trying to figure it out.

For the moment, we'll ignore the look for awful fashion sense or my, what a wonderful cloak you are wearing... We'll also ignore the look of jealous disgust that girls give me when I cinch myself into a corset and wander around with perfect 38-28-38 proportions. It's a shame that the first 38 is mainly all rib cage and hardly any breast... Oh well, can't win them all!

So it was with some amusement that I encountered that third look recently. I had accompanied my aunty to dinner and we had decided to walk to the restaurant that was close by. What we were thinking, walking to a restaurant on the night of the coldest day in years, I do not know. However, my scrumptious dinner of sliced beef in udon noodle soup had warmed me thoroughly and I was totally satiated. My aunty was still feeling the cold since she was sill a little weak since being discharged from the hospital a month or so ago. I was holding her hand and giving her support as we slowly made our way home, cursing at the wind.

As we approached the intersection, I noticed a young man coming the other way. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him glance at me and then the double take! Instinctively I looked at him and he had his head cocked and a quizzical look on his face. I'm not really sure what was so odd about a girl helping her aunt walk home... and no, I was not wearing my cloak! It seemed to me like he was trying to figure me out...

I smiled slightly before looking away as we continued our journey home in the cold wind. My only thought and reaction was "I'll have to tell everyone about this". I guess I'm learning to deal with it..