nearly back to almost normal...ish

a meandering outripping of what's been occurring lately

The last month and a half has been a strange one. I've been off work, recovering from surgery and having to take it very easy whilst I healed up...but that's by the by, that's just the reason whilst I've been away from work and home during the day.

apart from developing an unhealthy fascination with the daily soap 'Doctors' I've had the chance to rewind, relax, think and retune meself.

To keep myself from completely atrophying, I've been trying to get out and about when I can and Denise and I have made many trips to wildlife and nature reserves, animal parks and other such places. This has helped feed one of my current distractions of taking digital photographs which I've had since I got a mobile phone with a camera. Some of my lucky efforts have made it onto FickleBarf occasionally, or on to my flickr, website and all that (being http://www.flickr.com/photos/73433109@N07/ and http://synapticrefuge.net/ a slow work in progress....)

Now, maybe it's just that time of the evening or summat, but thinking about this whilst watching another chris packham nature programme on the telly it struck me how bloody lucky I've been lately.

In the last month, I've watched with wonder and delight field mice just a few feet away from me nibbling at sunflower seeds I've put out for them to eat.

I've had the pleasure of being surprised by a couple of the frogs from the pond in the garden deciding to venture into the house and explore.

.

Dunnocks, pied wagtails, goldfinches and other small and not so small birds have become regular visitors because of the food we put out for them, as well as a couple of visits from a sparrow hawk, grateful no doubt for the lunch opportunity they provided. Today, we watching the courtship ritual of a pair of crested grebes, as well as goldeneyes, wrens, coots and the rest. Later in the evening, coming across a merlin, a female kestrel and a couple of buzzards, along with boxing hares, black wild rabbits and a herd of deer including one magical looking white deer amongst them.



I can complain, can't we all eh.....my health has been a worry these last few years, a couple of very close calls, lots of pain hospitals appointments medication and the rest, and so it seems I'm no longer the fit healthy vibrant young man I once was. Ah well, so what! I'm still here. Older, not so wiser but I have a few tales to tell now. In a few days I'll be back in the harness and in the thick of it all and no doubt distracted with trivialities and nonsense which will dull my senses and blunt my compassion. So, to remind myself whilst its still fresh in my head, these word are here.....yes, work sucks, the government are trying to destroy all that is good in society, the environment we live in seems a battle and a fight and conflict between good and evil but....big but....life is bloody well here and now and good and I'm lucky to be still a part of it all cos it could be oh so different.


not so much 'if life gives you lemons, make lemonade' just......I've seen worse, which means this is better and that's gotta be a good thing and I am choosing to believe that is so.


just my tuppence worth....

are we there yet?

These thoughts just running through my head. It's hard to write them down clearly so I may not do them justice. This is about those in the gender binary though is not a denial of any others on the spectrum. I'm not a journalist, just writing what I feel....no editing or blue pencil so take it as read, if you can.

People that are trans, transgender...however you wish to say it are in a place that you could almost forget still existed in our nice clean civilised society in the 'west'.

For people that transition or have transitioned if you prefer you can be yourself. Life changed, ID changed, birth certificate changed....the picture on your passport, the gender marker on your medical records, the salutation used in official letters addressed to you. You may have no past any more, friends, family your history may no longer be there for you. People have lost wives husbands siblings children to be who they are. Others have been fortunate, understanding has prevailed, bigotry and intolerance has not gained a foothold and they have the thread of their past lives to where they are now. Money and privilege may have helped, giving financial and physical independence though not always a guarantee of an easier journey.

day by day though....

There is the talk of 'passing'. Do you 'pass'? Will people detect who you once were? This gets tied up in society's pressures of how a woman and a man look and behave....for a lot of people it's just a minor issue in comparison and usually linked more to whether people will question your sexuality ....like it's any business of theirs, I might add!  Are you gay? lesbian? too effeminate for a man? too butch for a woman?

You may be fortunate. Transition young, seem to be correct in your physical features, usually meaning 'attractive' for a female, 'manly' for a man...in short 'you pass'.    Perhaps you are older, transition later, don't have the resources for the surgical procedures, therapists and other specialist services that can help. So, you don't pass.

If you do, then you may hide your past, so you may be fearful that someone will 'out' you, discover your secret and expose you for the 'fake person' you are. 'You're just a bloke in a dress!'    'How could you lie to us?'   Your honesty questioned, integrity doubted, motives put up to the light of inspection. It can be hard to stand up and say 'yes this is me, and I used to pretend to be that person but now I am me'.

But then there is the lesson to be learned from those who don't pass. Ridicule, anger hate discrimination, violence may be your daily companion. Work colleagues, neighbours strangers in the street judging you because they don't understand, are ignorant, misinformed or bigoted through cultural or religious belief.  So better to hide? Safer to be thankful that you do pass? Are not questioned? Accepted....sort of?

For people who are trans, perception of who you are ....its deeper and more stark because it is about your gender identity, who you are and were and sadly, how you will be treated as a human being. The stereotypes of who is a woman or a man are slow to evolve and are often a cage of restrictions and masks for those not strong enough to break out of it and truly be themselves.

In every day life, what a lot of people take for granted is so different for people who are trans. Apparently, you may be 'disabled' when it comes to your choice of lavatory. Your rights to be treated with dignity and respect can be a battleground in so many ways, because to treat you differently is still seen as 'being realistic', to allow discrimination is merely 'a difference of opinion', questioning your assertion of feelings of hurt despair and anger as you 'being difficult, a troublemaker', not 'willing to make a compromise'.

In the past, people who were of Afro Caribbean origin were treated like this as a matter of course ...back of the bus with you, know your place. People who were Jewish had to change their name, deny their history for fear of hate. History has shown just how wrong it can be and how far this bigotry discrimination and hatred can go, the depths it can descend to. Apparently this kind of thinking is no longer accepted...isn't  it?

In some countries now, your right to travel on an air plane can rest on whether you seem to exhibit the correct 'look' to match the gender listed on your passport. This is decided arbitrarily by an official 'just doing his job'. In the past this may have been seeing if you had curlier hair than was to be expected, say Pretoria in the 1960's or a particular shaped nose, perhaps Berlin in the 1930's?

No escape if you are a child. Now, as I write this, a 10 year old is being told to use the disabled toilets at school to change in for gym....not because the other children have a problem with her, but for fear of what the parents may say.

Who you are is more than gender, race, sexuality, physical ability, age or origin of birth but it is clear that for some, this is all they are seen as, their existence is denied, their rights denied, their lives marred, scarred and poisoned because of institutional and individual bigotry intolerance hatred and ignorance.

Be old be physically psychologically or mentally impaired be gay lesbian genderqueer intersex trans look different look foreign it's all the same but be yourself.  

It's a hard fight and it's taking too bloody long at times it seems to me but what's the alternative?

The Olympics and Trafficking: Myths and Evidence - A London Event

The Olympics and Trafficking: Myths and Evidence
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
17.45 to 19.00
Followed by refreshments

In the lead up to the 2012 Olympic Games, concerns have been raised about the possibility of an increase in trafficking for sexual exploitation linked to the event. Similar fears have accompanied other international sports events, including the World Cup in Germany and South Africa, the Olympics in Athens and Vancouver, and the US Super Bowl. Yet once the fans go home, the media loses interest, and little is heard about the consistent lack of evidence for any rise in trafficking. Recent research demonstrates that anti-trafficking measures put into place in a range of countries have proved irrelevant, or harmful in cases where sex workers become increasingly criminalised and unable to access health and social programmes. As the 2012 Olympics come to London, this seminar will review the international evidence on trafficking, sex work and sports events, consider public health implications, and ask to what extent police and local authorities here in the UK are basing their policies on evidence. 

Speakers:
Julie Ham, Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women
Marlise Richter, International Centre for Reproductive Health, Ghent
University, and the African Centre for Migration & Society, University of Witwatersrand
Joanna Busza, Population Studies Department, LSHTM

Discussion Panel:
Nivedita Prasad, Ban Ying Counseling and Coordination Center against Trafficking, Berlin
Catherine Stephens, International Union of Sex Workers, London
Georgina Perry, Open Doors, NHS Service for Newham, Hackney & Tower Hamlets

Location:
John Snow Lecture Theatre, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Keppel Street
London WC1E 7HT
Map and directions: http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/location/

Refreshments will be made available at the end of the presentation.
Admission: Free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.
ALL WELCOME!

Contact: Joanna Busza
Email: Joanna.Busza@lshtm.ac.uk
More information: http://www.gaatw.org/publications/WhatstheCostofaRumour.11.15.2011

http://www.iusw.org/  International Union of Sex Workers