We cannot allow censorship and silencing of individuals- working men's clubs have a particular responsibility to resist this kind of bullying

There is a worrying pattern of failure to respect some of the older and greater comedians on the working men's club circuit. When Bluey Drongo ("an eff, a blind, a merry quip") appeared at the Cambridge Bittern Stuffers' club recently, a rival event took place for those folk who object to Bluey's often-stated belief that people who've retrained during their careers can never be true working men; you're born a working man, he says, and that is that; these newcomers don't know what it smells like when you've lined the pockets of the rich with the sweat of your brow, and it ain't roses, he says, let me tell ya. Strewth. Obviously, the fate of this minority isn't important or relevant to the rest of us true working men, so it is ungrateful of them to make a fuss when they could be enjoying Bluey's off-colour anecdotes instead.

It's also troubling that Bernard Waning has not been getting any bookings lately. Bernard's been touring with his one joke ("hear the one about the Englishman, the Irishman and the transsexual Scot?") for over ten years now, but what the heck, it's an important joke, and it is shameful that he should be denied the platform to tell it. Yet again. Some jokes just improve with the retelling, after all. If things carry on like this he won't even get a chance to publish his joke in the Guardian one more time, and then where will we be?

a piece on censorship in the Guardian

...and a response from Sarah Brown

rotten

naughty boy, Brendan

The Spectator thought it a squeal

To have their own potty-mouthed heel

But they couldn't afford

To get Burchill on board

So they settled for Brendan O'Neill

There was a time when I occasionally read the Spectator, though admittedly it was in the 70s and then only because it was in the school library. Still, it was quite readable. So it was a surprise yesterday to read a bit of clickbait that they'd commissioned from one Brendan O'Neill.... 

Why are trannies so touchy? So touchy that even that use of the word ‘tranny’ – which, yes, is designed to make a point – will have them reaching for their pots of green ink so that they can pen outraged missives about what a transphobic monster I am?

...it doesn't really get any more intelligent than this, sadly. So rather than respond with outrage, here's a limerick for Brendan, and a lament for another publication that's gone down the toilet.

lobstergate explained

It's hard to keep pace with events, as the Observer removes Julie Burchill's post (not a move welcomed by any trans people that I know, as it should be available so that people know what we're up against). Then the Telegraph posts it up instead. And various reactionaries talk about censorship and freedom of speech....  the orcs are gathering in the forest.

So here's the business expressed as a Venn diagram. Just to keep things in proportion.


oh, the lobster reference? -from Julie's piece, describing her meeting Suzanne Moore: 

"I’ve got an entertaining budget of £12.50!" she said proudly. "Sod that, we’re having lobster and champagne at Frederick’s, and I’m paying," I told her. Half a bottle of Bolly later, she looked at me with faraway eyes: "Ooo, I could get to like this…’ And so she did.

for whom the belle trolls

Good old Julie Burchill has weighed in on the Suzanne Moore shitstorm, I see.

If you're out of the loop, this all started when the New Statesman published Suzanne's article Seeing red: the power of female anger. Quite a good piece, but containing the problematic line

we are angry with ourselves for not being happier, not being loved properly and not having the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual. 

I winced slightly but saw her point. Others were less forgiving, and pointed out that it was an unfortunate comparison. Rather than engage with this idea, Suzanne got angry on Twitter,  finally saying

People can just fuck off really. Cut their dicks off and be more feminist than me. Good for them.

....before quitting Twitter.

Julie Bindel tweeted  Can those of us who hate bullying PLEASE do something about the trans cabal running a witch hunt everytime they get offended? 

-which misses the point of how Twitter works, and how cabals work. 

Anyway, Julie Burchill's piece in today's Observer is little more than a potty-mouthed litany of 'tranny' jibes, and is presumably intended to provoke a reaction. Though when she says

I must say that my only experience of the trans lobby thus far was hearing about the vile way they have persecuted another of my friends, the veteran women's rights and anti-domestic violence activist Julie Bindel 

...she reminds me of the time that Beatrix Campbell also lectured us on the need to give Julie a respectful hearing. "Transgender activists who seek to ban her from speaking are wrong – we need to hear Julie Bindel on gender politics", she said.

Presumably Beatrix and Julie Burchill were unaware that Julie had already been given respectful hearings, both at the BBC and at Manchester Metropolitan University, in which her woeful lack of knowledge on transsexuality was made painfully apparent (description of the MMU debate from Sarah Brown here, and Christina here . My take on it here) . Which didn't stop her from continuing to air her opinions on the subject, and characterising the increasingly exasperated response from trans people as victimisation.

What the Julies, Beatrix and Suzanne share, apart from an admirable sense of solidarity, is an apparent disdain for trans identities; it's a shame, because I'd like to think we have more in common than they apparently believe. I also think that the new wave of feminism is far more embracing; intersectionality, slightingly referred to by Suzanne, is hopefully the way forward.

No doubt there'll be another shitstorm today in the wake of Julie Burchill's inflammatory piece. That's what it's there to provoke, after all.

I won't be joining in.

Spark interview

A while ago, I was interviewed by Fiona McClymont from The Spark, Bristol's 'alternative' magazine and one that we in Bristol are very fortunate to get free, four times a year. Fiona was most concerned that we should get it right, and I am very happy with the finished article. Thanks, Fiona! The interview appears as one of their 'Changemakers' pieces. You can read it here, hopefully. I'm on P 47

Open publication - Free publishing - More activism

...I do feel ambivalent about doing this sort of thing,  because there is an inherent contradiction in appearing in a magazine precisely because I have a trans history, and the central message of the piece which is that 'there's more to me, and more to life, than being trans, so let's get on with it'. Still, as long as trans people are exoticised and treated as caricatures, then it remains a message that needs telling, and the only way of telling it is to be 'out'.

I have had quite a bit of positive response to the article. I also just found this message to me, which, as it represents a point of view very much at variance with my own, I add here.

 Hi Dru

Yesterday I had the unfortunate and unwanted task of dealing with your irresponsible article. In fact I've only just finished crying. By your and others necessity to continue to label themselves as "trans" has made my life more difficult and its only when I explain to people that I don't associate with the Trans term and that I'm a women do I get treated as a women. So thank you for that.

a place for everyone who identifies as transgendered, in whatever way

I'm in the last few months of supported Wpath NHS transition which is a wholly medical process known to those that dish it out as Transsexualism. I am a women, always was and will be. The idea that people with gender dysphoria and gender identity issues are labelled Transgender is all well and good, but I don't suffer from gender dysphoria or gender identity issues so this umbrella term no longer applies. Your use of trans as a pronoun or adjective is most unfortunate as all you are saying is that you are an "illustrator that used to have a penis". This off course is totally open for all to make unwanted associations; as you allude to. Which is why I'm upset and baffled as to why you want to continue to label yourself as such. My understanding is that you are a women, but how you want to call yourself is up to you off course, but if any body calls or labels me "a trans person" then I'm disgusted and angry as any woman would be. How dare you suggest that I'm ugly or look like a man. Unfortunately a whole swath of people that have entered the GICs in this country are now throwing the Trans word around as though they own it or define it. Those people are pushing and hurting those like myself that remain quietly going about our business. For me and many others there is no third gender. All we ever wanted was to appear as how we felt. Now even that is being spoilt by articles such as yours.

Basically you're trying to make people associate me with being a tranny, a cross-dresser, a transvestite, a drag queen or gender queer; which usually comes with a gay man somewhere in there. This is the most saddest and most destructive and dangerous part of my life. I have to avoid the associations that articles, such as yours, and practices, such as those I've -already mentioned, that can put me directly into a frightening, unwanted and dangerous situations. I am a normal women that doesn't have any interest in cross-dressing, transvestites or any such stuff. You've just put that straight into peoples head. Thanks again.

Any hows, I've had to cut out and delete most of what I originally wrote as it probably was too upsetting or strong. But really thanks for putting yet another downer on the whole affair.

Snog, Marry, Avoid

Here's something jolly from the BBC. The programme is about correcting people's fashion mistakes, apparently. In this excerpt, this dialogue takes place

P: Who are you?
R; I'm Rachel
P: Are you sure it's not Richard?
R: (laughs in surprise) Why?
P: Pod computes that with those eyebrows, eyelashes and ridiculously big hair you look like a transsexual.
R: (looks mortified)

Thanks, BBC, for adding to the constant drip, drip, drip of casual prejudice.

I was looking at some photos yesterday, on Facebook. There in the pictures were the people I once called my family, celebrating my brother's wedding. I hadn't been invited, of course. You wouldn't want someone like me at a wedding, would you?

Over on Twitter, Paris Lees started a hashtag directed to @SnogMarryAvoid, called #WhatTranssexualsLookLike. I contributed this photo. Loads of other people joined in too. Mostly to say "Here we are, just getting on with things. Get over it."

the times are a-changing

What would Sunday morning be like without a thumb through the saucy stuff in the Sunday papers? And what better than to gawp and guffaw at the tranny, looking all ill-at-ease in the grainy photograph taken outside a law court, under the headline "No nobby bobby keeps jobby", or "Sex swap ferry flirt rattles men in engine room". What larks! Thank goodness we're normal. We'd give 'em what-for if they tried that sort of thing round here.

And so it's off to the pub while the wife makes dinner, and somewhere out in make-believe land there's another ruined life that the papers intruded into, exploited, and went on their way.

Funny things have been going on lately, though. The characters in the Standard Tranny Narrative have been talking back to the newspaper writers (we can hardly call them journalists) whose exclusive domain it has formerly been. Goodness, they have even started writing their own scripts.

Helen Belcher recently  presented the Trans Media Watch submission to the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics. She detailed the sort of media coverage that trans people routinely experience; intrusiveness, inappropriate language, 'othering', inaccuracy, bias.... my own experience was included in the evidence. There have been worse things done by the press, but there; it is an ill-favoured thing, and mine own.

To hear Dominic Mohan, editor of the Sun, at the Leveson Inquiry, you might think the bad times were behind us. He accepted that the Sun's coverage of trans stories had at times 'crossed the line'. but reckoned that things had changed; "We've raised our game in terms of transgender reporting", he said.

To prove this, a week later, the Sun initiated a witch-hunt for a 'pregnant man', with a hotline for its readers to call if they knew of his whereabouts. This, at the same time as the same Sun complained, with a complete lack of any apparent sense of irony, that it was itself being subjected to a witch-hunt.

As you might expect, the Daily Mail was only too happy to goad itself into a frenzy of inconsequence over the same story. Perhaps my favourite coverage was by Bel Mooney, whose liberal credentials extend, I understand, to liking William Morris wallpaper and wearing Laura Ashley while sitting on Solsbury Hill. "I'm a liberal", she said - "but a man giving birth is freakish  and beyond the pale." No, Bel; a self-identified liberal policing other people's bodies is what is beyond the pale. Sorry if it's confusing.


The week got even more interesting when Paddy Power, an Irish betting shop outfit, produced an ad intended for TV, in which Cheltenham racegoers are invited to play hunt-the-transgender-woman, or 'tell the stallions from the mares' as they described it. What fun, as any trans person who has ever been shouted at in the streets would agree. Though this ad managed to be offensive to all women, surely.


After a storm of objections and complaints to the ASA, the ad was deemed unfit for broadcast after all. Paddy Power were ungracious about this change of mind, pointing out that the ad had been discussed with a 'leading transgender group'. This group turned out to be the Beaumont Society, one of whose members had, the week before, confirmed to the Sun the existence of the 'pregnant man', thus sparking their witch-hunt. The Beaumont Society caters chiefly to transvestites, and seems a bit out of its depth when it comes to recent media coverage. Presumably they were surprised by the storm of opprobrium that broke over them in consequence of what might kindly be decribed as naive and ill-advised responses on their part to approaches from organisations that were only too happy to exploit them. I understand that they, and the other parties involved, have now got the message that BS are emphatically not the 'go-to' organisation when it come to trans issues in the media.


Because times are a-changing. Social media have proved a terrifically good way of creating ad hoc groupings to respond to problems. Back in 2009, an ITV 'comedy' programme, Moving Wallpaper, proved the starting point for the group of individuals that coalesced into Trans Media Watch. And, in the nature of social media, anyone can have input. It's very much a case of being able to start your own revolution and cut out the middle man. 

And there are more and more articulate voices joining in. Because, while it would be nice to put all trans stuff behind us and just get on with living, it seems that there are always people determined to interfere with our lives. Which can be rather annoying, when that determination is based on nothing more than the desire to 'other' us. A desire that can unite the looser cannons of radical feminism with the self-appointed defenders of family values. Thus the Daily Mail's manufactured outrage over Zach Avery, the child who recently decided to live as a girl, and is in consequence described as a 'victim of the politically correct gender identity industry'. The same industrial process that exists in Julie Bindel's mind, too, if not in real life. 


Certainly, there's a lot of trans stuff in the papers at the mo. Especially in the Daily Mail. Maybe Daul Dacre is annoyed that the TMW submission was critical of his paper, even if the PCC, which he chairs, has exonerated it. (Historically, by the way, the Mail covers far more trans stories than any other paper.)


But more trans people are coming out into the open too. Maybe the message is getting across, that you can be trans and happy and successful and fulfilled. More so than if you suppressed it, even. It would be nice if the papers which so much want to be arbiters of their readers' thoughts, could rejoice in parents who are happy to allow their children to explore their own identities, rather than police their gender. Happy children, or messed up children? Your choice.

press intrusion: the Leveson Inquiry

Trans Media Watch has been collecting examples of press intrusion and offensiveness, to present to the Leveson Inquiry. I contributed this piece from the Daily Mail, from December 2006. 

article by Ian Drury, Daily Mail

As I said in the accompanying submission,

As requested: I declined the offer of a gagging order at my Employment Tribunal because I thought it was important to have the truth told.
Generally, reportage sensationalised the allegations made against me, and ignored or minimalised the actions perpetrated against me.
The Daily Mail phoned me, and asked me to reveal my former name. I told them that it was not relevant to the story, and that it was both wrong and bad practice to publish it. They found my former name somewhere, and again asked me to confirm it. I refused. They published it anyway.
There were other failings with the article, including an offensive headline.
I made a complaint to the PCC, on the grounds that I found the article biased, offensive and intrusive.
http://www.pcc.org.uk/news/index.html?article=NDQ4OQ%3D%3D
The PCC let the Mail off.
My abiding feeling about this episode is that the press involved in my story treated me as a figure of fun, presented for the titillation of their readers. I had spent two years pursuing a legal case, unaided, against a bullying company, and won; I felt that the press response, as exemplified by the Mail, was that that sort of thing didn’t (or shouldn’t) happen in their world, and that they resented what I had hoped would be seen as a victory for equality and fairness. I have learnt that the press are vile and not to be trusted. And that the PCC are worthless.

....the Daily Mail person also asked what title I used. "Ms", I replied. "The Daily Mail does not believe in using 'Ms'" he said. Hence the 'Miss', above. Go figure. 

Here is the PCC's decision in my case.

Commission’s decision in the case of
Marland v Daily Mail

The Commission noted the complainant had raised three concerns: first, that the article suggested she had been subjected only to ‘taunts’; second, that the disclosure of her former name against her wishes intruded into her privacy; and third, that the headline ‘would you Adam and Steve it’ was discriminatory.

The Commission noted the complainant had raised concerns that the sub-headline suggested she had only suffered ‘taunts’ and misleadingly omitted to include the threats of violence and an assault to which she had been subjected. Taking into account that the fact she had suffered taunts was not in dispute, the Commisslon considered that — in the context of the article as a whole which made clear that the complainant had won her tribunal after suffering ‘verbal and physical harassment’ — it was not necessary for the newspaper to have included every detail of her ordeal. The selection of material for publication is a matter of editorial discretion, provided of course that the Code is not otherwise breached. In this instance, the Commission was satisfied that the omission of detailed information regarding the complainant’s treatment did not rendethe article misleading in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code. 

The Commission then turned to the complainant’s concerns that the article had intruded into her privacy when it stated that it was ‘understood’ that her former name was XXXX, and that a person by that name shared her birthday and was listed as living in her flat until 2002. The Commission acknowledged that the complainant was unhappy with this disclosure, but emphasised that it could only come to a decision under the terms of Clause 3 (Privacy) of the Code. This clause makes clear that everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private life. The Commission indicated that it did not generally consider a name to be an intrinsically private detail. In this instance, the Commission was satisfied that speculating on the complainant’s former name using evidence available in the public domain did not intrude into her privacy in breach of Clause 3 (Privacy). 

Finally, the Commission addressed the complainant’s concerns that the headline of the article was discriminatory. It noted that Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Code states that the press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to (amongst other things) an individual’s gender. In this instance, the Commission was satisfied that the headline was not a pejorative reference to the complainant’s gender change. Indeed, the Commission noted that the basis for using the phrase was its adaptation from a comment the complainant claimed had been made to her by crew members. In those circumstances, the Commission did not consider the headline to establish a breach of Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Code.

That said, given that the reference had upset the complainant, the Commission welcomed the newspaper’s offer to write to her privately to apologise.

 ...and here is the letter of apology from the Daily Mail. As you see, it does not apologise for the article, but expresses regret that I found the article 'distressing'. Which I hadn't. Annoying, yes. Species of dumbfuckery, certainly. But not distressing.....

THE DAILY MAlL
7 March 2007
Dear Drusilla
I write to apologize sincerely for any distress caused, which I assure you was in no way our intention, by our article and headline on Monday December 18, 2006.
The headline was not intended to be pejorative. The article is very positive to your case and fully reported the tribunal’s findings.
Nonetheless, it is most regrettable that you were distressed by the piece and I have brought your concerns to the attention of the members of staff involved who join me in saying we are sorry we added to your concerns at a very difficult time for you.
Yours sincerely
Robin Esser
Executive Managing Editor

Here, for a bit of light relief, is a bit of dumbfuckery from the Daily Sport. 

Written by Who Ever; presumably the person who wrote it was too ashamed to put their real name. In the Daily Sport's world, I apparently enjoyed 'life wearing a dress in the engine room'. Quite. It was a Vivienne Westwood one, with a useful tool pocket on the hem. The guys was sooo jealous!

...here is some of the earlier coverage of the case. This is where third party allegations, made by the perpetrators of the harrassment, were presented by P&O's HR people as 'evidence'. They were found to be without substance.

article by Jeff Wells, Western Daily Press

And here is a press statement of the case which I made at its conclusion. Compare and contrast!

A transsexual woman, formerly employed by P&O Ferries, has been awarded £64,862 compensation by a Southampton employment tribunal after it found that she had been constructively dismissed.
Drusilla Marland, 48, of Bristol, worked as a repairperson on the Pride of Bilbao from October 2002 until October 2004. During this time, she suffered verbal and physical harassment from the engine room crew.
The tribunal heard how remarks were made to her such as "We're all men here," "If he's got balls, he's a gentleman," and "When God made man it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." She was constantly addressed incorrectly, and referred to as "He, she, it, whatever."
When a pornographic calendar was introduced to the engine control room, she was subjected to offensive comparisons with the pictures. Chief engineer Steffan Robb commented, "It's a sort of training manual for you." When she requested that the calendar be removed, she was told not to make an issue of it. Finally, in August 2003, she found written on the calendar "Dru," with an arrow pointing to a model's vulva. When the engine room crew was assembled for tea break, she took the calendar down, said that she found it unacceptably offensive, and ripped it up. Among others who shouted at her, Gary Howard, the RMT union representative, said "You are going to get done…. not if, but when". Although the incident was witnessed by both ratings and officers no action was taken against Howard. The pornographic calendar was replaced with a similar one, and Marland was sent to Coventry by several crew members.
In June 2004 Marland asked Steffan Robb to implement guidelines for appropriate behaviour with transsexual colleagues, pointing out that similar guidelines had been implemented on a ship in Dover when an officer had transitioned. Robb commented "But they are an officer," and refused the request.
In September 2004, Marland was tripped up by Ged Pollard, a motorman with a history of hostility to her. She reported the incident to her superior officer, but he took no action. Finally, after making a written report, and ten days after the assault, she was seen by the senior chief engineer, Martin Sonnen. He told her that he wanted to drop the matter in case it became "messy", and accused her of "camping it up". Shortly after, she left the ship and collapsed with what her GP diagnosed as "work related stress".
An investigation subsequently undertaken by Sandra Ray, P&O HR officer, was judged by the Tribunal to be "flawed, perfunctory and superficial":
• She interviewed only those members of the crew implicated in the grievance, and none cited as witnesses
• Her finding that Marland's treatment "was not to the standard I would have expected" was deemed "so inadequate as to amount to an insult"
• She provided no explanation or grounds for her finding that the Chief Engineers and the Senior Chief Engineer were supportive of Marland. The tribunal judged that Robb's conduct in particular was "wholly reprehensible"
• Her claim that Marland's own behaviour was inappropriate was unsupported by any evidence
The Tribunal criticised P&O's senior management, particularly in the case of Peter Ambrose, P&O's HR Manager, for their failure to put in place adequate management instructions and guidelines with regard to employees undergoing gender reassignment. Ambrose's decision to allow the Captain and Chief Engineers to deal with matters, without their having received any instruction or guidance, was judged by the Tribunal to be a serious managerial misjudgement.

The result of the printing of unfounded allegations, for the propagation of which P&O were admittedly as much to blame as the newspapers in question, was that people who didn't know anything about either me or the true facts of the case, said vile things about me on the internet. Which is not nice. Is it?

Their Transsexual Summer

So there's a new reality TV series about Teh Tranz. My Transsexual Summer started last week, and such was the interest aroused in it that I went over and watched it on the Channel 4 website to see what the hoo-ha was all about.

Last time I watched something similar was when Nadia Almada was on Big Brother in 2004; so I tuned in, for the one and only time on that show; she came across rather well, but... "Crikey!" I thought; "Trash TV or what?".

Similar format here with MTS; seven trans people are put together in a big house and get on with it, whatever 'it' is. A process that seems to involve hours of putting make-up on, and screeching at each other over bottles of white wine in the kitchen. Getting past my initial discomfort at watching a group of people whose common denominator is that they want to appear on a reality TV show, though, it (and they) managed to be quite engaging, in a way that the Big Brother people generally failed to achieve, in the one episode I watched.

There had been high hopes for this series, not least because Paris Lees, a bit of a rising star on the trans scene, consulted on the programme, which was made after C4 signed up to the Memorandum Of Understanding with Trans Media Watch, back in March. The idea being that media people should know where to find information about trans stuff, and that trans people should be involved in the process of portraying them, rather than simply being something in the specimen jar.

Were those hopes realised? We did get to tick off a whole bunch of cliches in this episode; plucky Karen goes off for her op; voiceover tells us that it will "give her the vagina she had always wanted." Fox is said to worry about "how far he has to go to become a man." Lewis "is having a wardrobe crisis". Make-up. Make-up. Talking about make-up. Make-up.

The participants' use of the term 'tranny' has caused a bit of a ruckus online; maybe we'll go into that sometime else (I write about my opinion of the word in the  soon-to-be-published META online magazine).

Participants in this sort of programme are always going to be hostages to fortune, in the shape of the programme maker who wields editorial control and the voiceover microphone. Max, who on present showing seems the most thoughtful of the participants, has already expressed his disappointment with the way the show ended up.  On the one hand, we have the standard tranny-on-the-telly tropes, and can perhaps understand why, seeing this programme, Michael Pilgrim (in the Telegraph) should think that "being convincing, of course, is the aim of the transsexual". If, at least, we were being charitable and didn't have much regard for Mr Pilgrim's intelligence in the first place.

And on the other hand, and despite the tinkering, we get to see a diverse bunch of trans-identified people getting on with stuff. And see things from their point of view. And care.

non-standard narratives

this is what a transsexual* looks like

I found a folder of photos from the Welsh walk, the other day, that I thought I'd accidentally deleted. It was nice to find them again.
Coincidentally, that very same walk across Wales, that forms the framework for Becoming Drusilla, got criticised recently in the first unfavourable review that the book's so far received (on Amazon, anyway).

'Just give me the facts', 'get on with it' were what I was thinking more and more as I read on. Finally I gave up. The camping interludes killed it for me. Camping doesn't interest me, the trans-gender story did. Ultimately the latter is bogged down by the former and I didn't make it even halfway....

...said Zeddy12.

It got me thinking. A big part of why we did the book was to break away from the notion that the'transgender story' is something pink and fluffy, or possibly angst-ridden, and involving femininity coaching and trips to shopping malls and nightclubs. Camp, as it were, doesn't interest me... The Standard Tranny Narrative. You know. The same sort of reason I started this blog in the first place; to provide me with my own voice, and to talk about stuff that I do and that interests me. And if I am indeed transsexual, or transgender, then my drawing, cycling, cooking, parenting, poetrying, fixing the car or whatever, even the occasional forays into trans activism, generally living, are all part of my own particular 'transgender story'.

I invited Zeddy to write more, about what he had hoped for or expected from the book. It would, I thought, be a potentially interesting dialogue. After all, if someone doesn't like the book to the point that they don't even finish it, then the book has failed, in that instance at least. And it is a book with a message. Which didn't get across.

Oh well. Can't win 'em all.


Now then. Richard will be in Bristol tomorrow, Thursday 20th October, for a couple of events under the aegis of 'Unputdownable', the new Bristol Festival of Literature. You will find him at Foyles, talking about Lazarus Is Dead, and later at St Mark's Easton, discussing and critiquing.





*yes, transsexual is an adjective. I was being ironic. Ironic? Yes, I think that's the word.

sic transit

Ten years on, my transition from male to female is pretty much something-I-once-did, and the main transitions on my mind these days are the ones from young to old (or (eek!) from middle-aged to old), and from occasional seafarer to illustrator. And whatever other transitions life throws at us all, of course.

There are people I know, and count as friends, who are at earlier stages of their own journeys, and with destinations uncertain. Which can be hard going, sometimes. I was just reading a blog by the wife of a MtF transitioner, which made uncomfortable reading because I recognised, in the description of the transitioning partner, some resonances with my own transition; my self-centredness, my selfishness, I suppose. I also recognised that sense of simmering resentment from the wife. I recall a friend whose partner worked hard to develop a musical career, while she supported them as best she could, paying the bills, cooking for the musos who were always around the place, trying to be positive and not feel marginalised. And after a few years, the partner said, "I've changed; I've been mixing with artistic and creative people..."

Some of us have growth spurts in our self-development. If we're lucky, anyway. If we're even luckier, our partners, if we have partners, will be developing in their own way and with a sufficient overlap of sympathies, affection, or possibly love, for the relationship to survive, or (better still) to flourish.

Some people stay together through insecurity or inertia, and put up with a large pile of personal unhappiness. Sometimes you don't recognise how unhappy you have been until it's all over, and one day you wake up and spend a while wondering what this strange feeling is that you've got, and then you recognise that you're happy. Been there.

And some people break up, and you look at them and think what a shame it was, because they seemed to be so good for each other.

No hard and fast rules. We're all on different paths, and write our own happy endings. Being trans is quite a big thing, but there are lots of other big things out there too. It's not uniquely wrong or evil to transition; it doesn't disqualify you from rights or responsibilities, any more than coming out as a musician. Say.

Good luck, everyone who's journeying or who's with someone who's journeying (which is a journey, too, of course, though possibly with someone else at the helm). I wish you well.

Summerskill, and the living is easy

Mr Summerskill finds his place in history

Upside Down In Cloud has been an occasional chronicler of the Gays In Ties phenomenon, and has watched the rise and apotheosis of Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, with the appalled fascination with which you might observe your neighbour's lurcher doing something you think it probably shouldn't and you didn't quite think possible anyway.

There was a bit of a hoo-ha two years back, when his tame organisation nominated Julie Bindel for their Journalist of the Year award, despite the rather unsavoury and somewhat partial nature of her writings about transsexual people. After all, as Ben takes pains to point out, Stonewall doesn't have anything to do with transsexual people.

Which didn't stop them, apparently, from consulting recently with government ministers on the matter of trans people, marriage, and GRCs. Fair enough, you might think. After all, I understand that they may have seen some trans people once. Standing outside the V&A in the rain, or something. So they know what they're talking about, I guess.

Latest wheeze in the 'let's piss off the trannies' game is one of this year's nominations for that prestigious Stonewall Journalist of the Year award. It's Bill Leckie, whose work has been cited by Stonewall Scotland (no relation- they embrace diversity up in Scotland, apparently) as an example of negative media portrayals. Here's an example of his work, from the Sun

EIGHT o’clock on Wednesday and an army of frighteningly ugly women are pouring into a boozer called Prism for bingo night. Or at least from a distance they LOOK like women. But then you see the poster on the door.
And you realise that this isn’t just any bingo night. It’s Drag Queen bingo night.
Now, I can’t pretend that my devotion to this column is such that I wiggled along to see how it went. Not when I got there and saw someone going in with the same frock.
However, my sources tell me it went a little bit like: “Two fat ladyboys… 88. Unlucky for some … unprotected sex. Five and two… Danny La Rue.” And someone shouted: “Really nicely-decorated house!

-hmmm. It's almost certainly a Good Thing that gay men are now far more socially acceptable than they used to be, at least in some quarters. But I sometimes get the feeling that some of them want to pull the drawbridge up after them. And in at least some cases, they remind me of the dominant pigs of Animal Farm, at the end of the story...

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Thanks to Zoe O'Connell for alerting me to this in her blog

joining in

Commenting on my post yesterday, Lucy suggested that it was a bit retrogressive going along on the Bristol Pride march. I kind of get what she means, but then perhaps there are all sorts of Prides, and each one is what you make of it. Or it is the sum of what the people who have organised it and participated in it, make of it.

The Bristol Evening Post mentioned the event on their website, and attracted some interesting comments, some of which sadly got deleted (also sadly, my own comment didn't actually make it onto the website, but hey)


I like the opinion expressed by Patrick, that

not only my LGBT friends but every other minority in this country ....have their particular views and preferences thrust in front of my face all of the time!

I think it was worth joining in Pride just for that...

It's a tricky business, balancing between acknowledging and dealing with my trans history, and just getting on with life. And I suppose there are no right answers, and possibly no particularly wrong ones either. But, reading the EP comments section, it's evident that there's still no shortage of ignorance. The sort of ignorance that can lead to bad things happening to people.

As I was looking through my old stuff yesterday, I noticed that this is what was happening in my life, on board the Pride of Bilbao seven years ago. It's good to look at it and think how far I've come since then. Seven years. Crikey!

So a notice goes up in the Engine Control Room about the Shipboard Management Meeting, where crew grievances will be addressed; we are invited to write our whinges on the adjacent paper. The usual gripes come up; Why is the food so crap? (because it is...); When are we going to get financial parity with the Deck Department? (when hell freezes over...). I add my own; When are we going to change filthy pornographic calendar in Control Room for pictures of fluffy bunnies and daffodils? ...the next day, I find that it has been laboriously scribbled over to make it entirely illegible, and FUCK OFF scrawled under it.

"Right, this is war," I think.

But, to get things in context first, I check the big book of Company Regulations. There's stuff about drugs and drink, standards of appearance and something called 'horseplay'. But there is no company policy on pornography. I take a photocopy of this month's FLUFF 'N' STUFF calendar girl hanging in the Control Room, and show it to some of the girls who work up in the passenger department. They blanch, and express their shock that it is allowed. Fortified in my resolve, I pen my amended question; What level of explicitness should be deemed appropriate for the pornography displayed in work areas? -for example:

* tits?
* tits and bums?
* tits and clits?
* blimey, you can see what she had for breakfast?

.this is what I understand is called a When Did You Stop Beating Your Wife
question, which cannot be answered without the answerer damning themself...

But I think I'd better have a word with the Chief to sound out the water. He points out that making an issue of the calendar might alienate me. He really can't see anything wrong with porny calendars. He puts it down to my hormonal changes; "In all those years at sea, you must have read pornography, surely, Dru?"

"No, Chief; I've always felt just the same about it as I do now..."

The Chief wants to keep the matter 'in house'. And so the matter rests, with a vague understanding that next year's calendar will be a little less, er, risque...

And next morning, to make up for it, Chief enters the Control Room with a brisk "Morning, ladies and gentlemen."

"I don't see any ladies," says Dave S, the electrician, a grumpy old sod from Hartlepool, a town whose inhabitants gained notoriety for hanging a monkey, thinking it was a french spy.

"Drusilla," says the Chief, gesturing royally in my direction.

"He's got balls, hasn't he? If he's got balls, he must be a gentleman."

With insight like this, one might reasonably fear for the safety of any
monkeys unfortunate enough to find themselves in Hartlepool.

I come up with the great answers to that one, later, of course. Too late. O
well.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(and this one from August 29 2003)

You may recall, and if you don't, then read the aforegoing, that the porny calendar incident was left hanging; along, indeed, with the porny calendar.

A fortnight ago finds me back in the engine room after a few weeks' absence. I find that the calendar in question has been graffitied; someone has written "DRU" in a very immature hand, and an arrow pointing to the vagina. I am outraged. I discuss it with the engineer of the watch. He gives his opinion that I should let it lie; "You've got to be broad minded at sea," he says.

I mull it over, and by the next morning think maybe he's right. Don't want to be confrontational... but then I go into the Control Room and see everyone sitting drinking their tea, and this THING hanging on the wall as though it was perfectly normal. I take it down, call for everyone's attention, point out the graffiti, and say that it is entirely unacceptable. I then rip up the calendar and bin it.

Instantly I get two men shouting at me; one tells me I'm "....going to get done in; not if, but when...." I leave the engine room, and award myself the morning off....

(a friend helpfully suggested I have a word with the Union rep. "It was the Union rep who threatened me," I replied.)

The Engine Room Trolls have a mutter, and decide to send me to Coventry. At last count, there are seven of them not speaking to me; they sort of glower sulkily as I pass, like little boys who've been caught out doing something they shouldn't.

Bristol Pride

It's been quite a Pride week in Bristol, and Saturday was the big day, with a march and a party in the park. I tagged along, and bumped into lots of friends, some of whom I'd only met online before.

There was a terrific mix of people there, some extremely flamboyant and eccentric, some looking dangerously like Normal People. All getting along very well together, and celebrating it being OK to be whatever they are. Which is sort of what Pride is about, isn't it?

This is what I wrote after we went to Bristol's Mardi Gras event in 2005. Big difference.

Well, Katie and I went down to the Bristol Mardi Gras yesterday. I'd explained what gays, lesbians and bisexuals are. As we cycled down the hill, she asked if a group of girls we'd passed were lesbians. "Impossible to say," I said.

The Canon's Marsh Amphitheatre was ringed with steel fencing for the occasion; we went in and wandered round feeling lost. Some people on stage were playing stuff from Rocky Horror. There were some drag queens. I looked at some gumph on the FFLAG (Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays) stall and was blanked by the blokes running it. We left; Katie was rather upset. "I don't think they like women very much," she said. I was feeling alienated.

I really must get out more. 'Normal' people can be nice enough, but, as I've long since discovered, they don't really want me as a friend because I'm a nice, liberal, middle-class person* trapped in a freak's body, and it's uncomfortable for nice, liberal, middle-class people to think that about me, I guess... and then I go to this event and feel entirely out of place. Maybe I'll take up group knitting...

*well, OK, not that nice, liberal, or middle class, but you get the drift

bikes and beards

We used to have a bit of an infestation of bikers, in the basement of the big house in Portsmouth I used to live in. Nice chaps, though their taste in music was a bit narrow, and they weren't all the shiniest apples in the bowl; I remember one watched an ad on TV for Shredded Wheat, which claimed that 'no-one can eat three' .

"I could," he said, and suited the action to the words.

And then there were the lads from West London whom I sailed with in the North Sea back in the 80s. They were mostly into Laverda Jotas and Kawasaki Z1000s. Nice chaps all of them, and most of them still alive too. There were always great plans being made for getting bigger, better, faster bikes (I peaked with a dinky little Laverda Alpino, personally). And bike magazines lying around everywhere.

One of the magazines had small ads in the back, which were reputed to be a sort of gay dating site. So, for a joke... some of the lads put in an ad on behalf of young K. And, lo and behold, he got a letter in reply, complete with a photograph of a middle-aged bald chap in one-piece leathers unzipped far enough to show off the winky that was protruding....

Time passes.

I met up with the chaps at a reunion last year. It was a happy occasion, and entirely free of discomfort about my transitioning. That was simply not an issue. Because we're grown-ups. You know.

Someone pointed this out to me yesterday. It's on the website for SuperBike, one of those magazines that we used to have lying around on the ship.

Finally we have good news from Yamaha in WSB. We reckon if you have the attributes (i.e. you are not a bloke/transsexual/transgender type) you're in with a shout! ...Great news if you are one of James Toseland's many stalkers or have a hankering to get up close and intimately personal with Cal Crutchlow! A press release from Yamaha confirms that – assuming your not a bloke who dresses as a lady – you could be in with a chance of wearing skimpy kit and holding a brolly. Now read on...

Well, quite. And of course all motorcyclists are heterosexual men without gender issues, too. And bikes are never used as beards. Never, you hear?

Do you get the feeling that those very manly journalists at SuperBike may be just a teensy bit insecure?

an open letter to David Walliams

David Walliams' fansite have linked to my previous post, describing it as 'horrible'. This is a quick reply.


Dear David,

I see that your fansite have linked to my parody of your Nationwide poster, where you and Matt are dressed as Emily and Florence, your transvestite characters. The wording of the poster has been changed to "We're doing the Black and White Minstrels next. How divine". Your fansite describes this as 'horrible'. I'm sorry that they should think so. I was trying to make a point.
I'd hoped that the connection was reasonably easy to make, but I realise that sometimes what I think is blindingly obvious, isn't so.

To me, the Black and White Minstrel Show was about members of the dominant culture appropriating and caricaturing the identity of members of another culture. And as I see it, that is what you are doing with your transvestite characters. The difference between the two instances is that the first one is no longer acceptable. And I believe it's only a matter of time before what you do is also more widely seen as past its sell-by date.

You might argue that no-one could relate your characters, Emily and Florence, to real people, as they are such extreme caricatures. Unfortunately, some folk apparently do just that.

I lead a quiet and pretty normal sort of life. But a few years ago, I was in the papers as a result of some nastiness that happened to me. The press coverage was pretty much as you would expect, when a transsexual woman is in the papers. And one of those papers (the Daily Star) used 'Little Britain' references to describe me. It wasn't the end of the world, but it was an annoyance. Your characters provided a model and a vocabulary for people (people who had never even met me) to treat me as a caricature. And where people treat other people as caricatures, they don't treat them as real people. And they may (and sometimes actually do) end up abusing them.

It is claimed that you've "spoken out for the trans community for years". I'm afraid I don't know what it is that you've said; and I admit that I haven't read your book. But I do know that the trans community has within it some articulate voices, more and more of which are beginning to find platforms. When I speak, it is only for myself; I do not pretend to speak for a community. But I am sincere when I say that I do wish you would give up on Emily and Florence. I think the world (my world anyway) would be a little better for it.

13 Jan 2011 - postscript: my comment on the new Walliams and Lucas vehicle, Come Fly With Me, here.


(this post has been edited, as I initially thought that the David Walliams fansite was the voice of David Walliams himself.)

what's in a name?

What names do transsexual women adopt when they transition? In some ways it is a bit of a privilege to be able to choose again, rather than go through life with a name chosen for you and which you may not be happy with. I, for instance, never liked my original name. Which is why I adopted 'Drew' in my teens. And when the time came formally to change my name, 'Drusilla' suggested itself, or rather, it was suggested by three other people, and I sometimes go by the Rule Of Threes. So I did on this occasion. As far as I'm concerned, the full version is for official purposes only, and I'm still just Dru. It might have been better to go for a more decidedly gendered name, to help people to make the mental jump from my old self to my present one; but it's a bit late to worry about that, if I were the worrying kind.

This is what TS Roadmap has to say about TS names in general, and this is what it has to say about my name, even if they can't spell it properly:

Soap-opera names: Lexie, Reena, Drucilla, the sorts of names you've probably never heard used for real people.

...well, those nice folk at TS Roadmap are American, and apparently in America everyone is called either Randy or Cindy-Lou, so sucks to them.

I did a little research. I looked at the names of 700 transsexual women, and if they cropped up more than once then they're on this list.

Alex (var, Alexandra) 7

Alice 2

Alison (var. Allyson, Alyssa) 9

Amy (var. Amelie) 7

Andrea 2

Angie 2

Anne (var. Anna) 6

Becky (var Rebecca 5) 10

Bethany 2

Brenda 2

Caitlin (var Kate 1) 3

Caroline (var Carol) 4

Catherine (var Cathy) 6

Charlotte 2

Chloe 3

Christine (var Chrissy, Kristy 3) 8

Claire (var Clarissa 1) 10

Debbie 3

Ellen 4

Emily 2

Emma 9

Erin 2

Eve 2

Fiona 4

Gemma 3

Gill 3

Helen 2

Jackie (var Jacqui 1) 3

Jane (var Jayne 2) 6

Jennifer (var Jenny 6) 12

Jessica (var Jessa, Jessy) 6

Joanne (var Johanna) 5

Judy 3

July (var Julia 3) 5

Karen (var Karina, Karine) 5

Kate (var Kathy, Katie) 13

Kin 3

Kirsty 2

Laura 2

Linda 5

Lisa 5

Louise 2

Lucy 4

Madeleine 2

Maggie 2

Marie 2

Melissa 3

Michelle 5

Natalie 7

Nicola (var. Nicky, Nikki) 7

Paula 3

Rachael 8

Rebecca 3

Rose 3

Sarah 10

Vicky 2

Zoe 2

the view from the specimen jar

After a nice weekend in deepest Oxfordshire, I'm shuffling pieces of paper around and wondering where this week will go. To start with, let's look at the state of play with the Campaign To Rescue Books With Transsexual Content From Stupid Categories In The Dewey System.

Must think of a snappier and acronym-friendly title. Hmm.

Anyway.

As mentioned earlier, it appears that biographies and autobiographies of people with a transsexual history tend to get lumped into Social Sciences: Culture and Institutions. That's if they're lucky. If they aren't, they might well find themselves among the paedophiles over at Mental Health: Personality Disorders.

Previous posts are here, here and here.

I have written to Bristol Library, whose stock officer accepted that the latter category 'is now incorrect and unacceptable', but stated that Becoming Drusilla, the book in which I have an interest, is about a change of sex, and is therefore correctly assigned to 306.768, where it can presumably be studied by students of social science. He expressed the hope that it clarified things for me.

Alas, it did not, as my reply explained.

But answer (from Bristol library) came there none. And two weeks later, Jan Morris' Conundrum is still listed in the 'incorrect and unacceptable' 616.858 category in the library catalogue.

I still await a reply from the British Library.

Thanks, though, to SteveL, who posted the link to this article, which deals with ways of ordering information, and which introduced me to the word ontology, which is a good word.

I feel rather less alone when I realise that 'othering' is an inevitable side-effect of hierarchical ordering, performed by 'experts', as in the Dewey System; here, for instance, is the category Religion

Dewey, 200: Religion
210 Natural theology
220 Bible
230 Christian theology
240 Christian moral & devotional theology
250 Christian orders & local church
260 Christian social theology
270 Christian church history
280 Christian sects & denominations
290 Other religions

...can you see what it is yet? -as Rolf Harris used to say....

As Nose In A Book commented,

I assume there is a biography section in the Dewey system? What's in there? Perhaps it's considered lazy to use it; not trying hard enough.

How come plays all get classified under 'plays'? Perhaps Hamlet should get moved to 'mental health disorders'. Most of David Hare's output could go under 'politics'...

Indeed.