Life, the Universe and Everything
But really, just living and enjoying connections
I’ve not written a post for a while, life has really been an interesting mixture of being really quite painful/heart-breaking, really quite fun, fairly dull and super interesting all at the same time and my brain has been in too many pieces to sit down and organise my thoughts in a coherent way. Sorry, not sorry, you can have a full refund if you want. Obviously I make no promise that the following is coherent but I do hope it’s at least cognizant.
Here is a picture of the phases of the moon because, well, look at her.. she’s wonderful in her glory.
Brains and Anonymity
Yeh, nothing to do with the recent passing of Halloween and Zombies, more to do with how I think now. Honestly, transition is something I don’t actually think about a lot of the time now, most of the stuff that I went through to get here has either been learnt or is no longer required, sometimes I actually can go days without being reminded of the journey that I’ve gone through for the past few years. It’s actually quite nice to NOT think about it as it gives me more time to worry about other stuff, much more… normal… stuff than flipping your perceived gender.
My emotions have calmed down, I’m only crying at flowers or sad stuff once or twice a week rather than once or twice a day and I have a handle, mostly on how I feel when running on oestrogen. There are difficult points at times but I think’s related to being an empathetic human rather than specifically related to transition. My friend (and fabulous human and piercer) Helen said “We are little more than bags of water with anxiety” and this thought hits me some days.
I feel very grateful that the places that I frequent rarely need a second thought to inhabit, nobody really cares that I’m going about my business though I do feel slightly less than anonymous a lot of the time. I have stopped largely mentally checking whether or not I can enter a space safely as a trans woman and my thoughts have changed from “am I allowed to be here? “ to “I am a woman, fuck it, I’m allowed”.
My virtual sister
talks a little about the loss of anonymity in her fabulous book. Largely you become quite memorable when you transition because, unless you have the ability to pass as cis, trans folk are few and far between in this beautiful cornucopia of humanity (around 1-2% at last count). People do tend to remember you, I went into a shop, once, after a year and the assistant remembered what I bought last time. This no longer bothers me and I think that it’s actually good to be visible for cis and trans folk alike. Interacting with cis folk on a daily basis is useful for all of us to remember that we’re not a threat to one another and we’re just trying to get through life with as little friction as possible.Largely, I hope that my presence in public places hopefully dilutes the narrative that I’m actually a daemon trying to eat the faces of children (I’m much more of a witch if we want to dive into this a little…) and people start to realise that I just want to go walking in nature, buy plants (which end up dying mysteriously), stare at the moon and drink a few cocktails with some nice food.
On that note, since transitioning I’ve had a lot more capacity to appreciate nature. I find myself staring at the sky and moon quite regularly now, the sky is much bigger than I ever remember it being in the past 40+ years. Please don’t disturb me if you see me doing this, I’m in my happy place. I don’t know if this is typical for transition but I am so much more aware of my surroundings now than I ever have been, certain cloud formations are just… STUNNING and don’t get me started on how I feel when there’s a storm…
More Paperwork
I write, almost excitedly that today is the second anniversary of changing my name by deed poll. It seems like yesterday when I nervously approached my friend asking her to witness my new name but correspondingly, it also feels like a life time away as I’ve changed so much in the past few years (emotionally, mentally and quite a bit physically). I have actually been transitioned, I guess, for nearly 3 years now but I didn’t tell most people until a year in.
This anniversary means that I can now apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate. This piece of paperwork is really the last thing that I need to do, legally, to finally discard the legal remnants of him. It doesn’t, honestly, make a huge dent in my normal life to NOT have this paperwork. I don’t need one to get a passport or a driving license, I don’t need one to go to the bathroom (despite what the raving lunatics hope or expect). It’s actually illegal for somebody to ask if you even have a GRC.
Getting a GRC just means that I get to update my birth certificate, my death certificate (not that I’ve got one yet.. I’m thinking that I might possibly die at some point in the distant future) and, if I ever meet somebody who was up for getting married, I could get married under my actual name and gender rather than what the doctors assumed I was when I emerged from the womb.
The requirements that I need in order to get this legal document are somewhat myriad and tedious
Evidence of living in your affirmed gender for 2 years
Upload copies of evidence to show that you’ve been living in your affirmed gender for the last 2 years.
Each piece of evidence should contain at least one of the following that matches up with your affirmed gender:
a name
a title, like ‘Mr’ or ‘Miss’
a gender marker, like ‘male’ or ‘female’
There are no other specific requirements for this evidence, but try to find:
evidence from different points over the 2 years, with roughly 4 pieces of evidence from each year
at least one piece of recent evidence
evidence from a variety of different sources
The evidence can come from before you were diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Medical reports from the UK
You need 2 reports written by either:
2 different medical doctors registered in the UK
a medical doctor and a clinical psychologist, both registered in the UK
I actually needed less proof to get actual top surgery than to update my birth certificate which, when you think about it, is pretty amazing.
I would hope that this is a straight forward process really, I hope that the establishment know that I’m not just fucking around with my gender here, this is who I am, who I want to be and actually who I will be until the mitochondria in my cells stop producing the energy which keep me alive, liked by some people, tolerated by most people and despised by, hopefully only a minority. At the very least, my tattoo artist will notice when this happens as she’ll have a spare, somewhat regular, slot for other humans and my daughter will have to make her own iced coffee in the mornings.
The GRC process costs £5 (really? what can you buy for £5 these days?) and can take up to 22 weeks to be signed off. Bureaucracy is such fun. There isn’t all that many of us doing this in the country. I have no idea why this is so complicated or even questioned as much given that people don’t go through this for a laugh, I mean, I spent a decent amount of money on getting a boob upgrade, for sure, that’s not something a cis guy does (well, apart from the infamous Brian Zembic).
This is hard for me to say but here goes.. I want to say thank you to Liz Truss (does a little sick in her mouth)
It’s kinda strange to see the Conservative government doing something beneficial for us… how times have changed.
One of the annoying things about the current process is that I need to post my birth certificate off to get it updated. Yes, I have to go to the post office and post a letter to the somewhat unambiguous Gender Recognition Panel.
This is largely outing me to all of the post office staff who have to type the address into their little computer. They may as well name it “The Transexual Update Panel”. Thankfully I don’t mind being seen as a trans woman but if I wanted to stealth (i.e. pretend to the world that I was a cis woman) then I would be utterly furious at this.
In parallel, I’m also going through the same thing in Ireland (recently I was granted my Irish Citizenship, which is really a potential escape route from TERF Island England if the gender-critical shit actually hits the fan). Obviously there’ll be a bidding war to marry me for the promise of an EU passport again when this is all done and I’ll be opening the application process shortly, being the highest bidder and general compatibility are both equally important, a girl has to pay for tattoos somehow.
In Ireland I now need to correct my details to be factually correct and more appropriate for my appearance and brain. It’s also a lot easier there as you basically say “I’m trans, please update my details” and they say “sure, no problems, here you go, job’s a good ‘un” <removed lazy irish stereotypical slang as I hope I’m beyond that as a human now>.
I need to, as usual, find a sufficiently qualified person to witness my signature, the list is still very archaic and includes magistrates and a justice of the peace (who is what exactly? I have never met one). The list excludes a lot of people of fine standing but again.. bureaucracy.. who knows why a solicitor is more trusted than the equivalent level working in a large multi-national.
Anyway, just a quick update.
If you’re in the US.. I’m thinking of you, good luck, in fact, I wish us all luck, US or not. It’s going to be bad for humanity if Trump gets in and probably equally bad for a little while if he doesn’t.
Please also remember that November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance, if you have the mental capacity and time, please attend a vigil near you. It means a lot to the community and it’s important to keep those of us who have been lost in our thoughts.
Love
Kat
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