Shows what I know!

Stuart Hogg doing what he does best

"Well that shows what I know" was my first thought after watching Saturday's rugby, I called both games wrong, I thought Wales would be closer to Ireland, and I thought England would be too strong for Scotland. Instead Ireland were imperious, and Scotland were simply smarter than England. England were a little disjointed and failed to capitalise on their domination of territory and possession. But, as senior players return I think they will improve throughout the tournament. I think I will stick with my overall predictions for now, possibly just reversing Wales and Scotland ~ I really want this to be Scotland's year they are just so much fun to watch. 

I know that to many some aspects of my life can be a little, erm, "odd"? I find myself in a number of minorities, as a musician, within the world of music as a orchestral instrumentalist, being self employed, and a gardener and a musician at that. but of course the major one is as a Transgender Woman. That is the minority that is most noticeable, although frankly the vast majority of people either don't notice or don't care. I have recently been revisiting an area of my life that I thought I had left behind, and I am surprised just how much it has impacted me.

I am thinking about my male past, my rugby playing dirty joke telling past, where maybe I tried just a little too hard at times to display my masculinity. I know I want to be a complete person, and I know that means coming to terms with who I was ~ not least because that person is part of what has made me who I am now. I suspect that I've said all this before, but my recent musings have lead to a bit of a crises. Not so much of dysphoria (although it too has raised it's ugly head), but almost an existential crises of who am I? and why am I?

Some of this was following my recent visits to my old rugby club, maybe a bit of it to the posting of an old photo of "Him" ~ that certainly took more out of me than I expected!

A while back I wrote about the need for role models, pioneers, people who by showing what they could be, showed us what we could be. But this doesn't need to be in the past tense, I still need my role models to understand how I will age as a trans woman, how I will cope as the little bit of glamour I retain fades. I can't survive simply on fabulousness! When I was recuperating from my surgery I purge watched, and then read "Tales of the City" and I think in Mrs Madrigal I may have found one, a woman who had no family of her own, but created one for herself around her. A woman of a certain age who although enjoying company was emotionally self sufficient. A woman who was not closed to the idea of romantic connection, but did not require it. A woman who kept a small photo of a mystery man from her past in her rooms. In case you haven't read these books or seen the excellent TV series I won't go into too much detail, but will suggest you do!

Mrs Madrigal is the inspiration behind the couple of photos I keep on display in my flat of "him" ~ not the one I shared the other day, but ones displaying slightly less testosterone! I probably won't share many others of "him" here, but as there was some speculation about just exactly which of those fine looking gentleman, is no longer a gentleman I will put you out of your misery with this one. 

Taken nearly forty years ago by a photographer from the local paper on my first team debut.